Thankful For Humility
Ego Is The Enemy
This Thanksgiving there’s a lot to be thankful for but if there’s anything that particularly stands out, then it’s the humility of those around me. Humility is a modest or low view of one’s own importance - humbleness. The state of being humble is an exhibition of wisdom and I couldn’t have better teachers than my teammates and family. They’ve shown me to learn from failures and to choose the hard right over the easy wrong.
Where there’s humility there’s also ego. Ego is our greatest opponent and is a powerful concept that has existed for centuries and can prevent us from doing our best work. Ego weakens and harms our wellbeing.
Although I’m fully aware that ego is prevalent and widespread in the startup community I am hopeful for the future. By doing a Google Trend search this morning it’s good to see that humility is trending up and to the right this holiday season. The world can never have enough of it.
“When we remove ego, we’re left with what is real. What replaces ego is humility, yes — but rock-hard humility and confidence. Whereas ego is artificial, this type of confidence can hold weight. Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned. Ego is self-anointed, its swagger is artifice. One is girding yourself, the other gaslighting. It’s the difference between potent and poisonous.” — Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent
Ego is the enemy of what you want and of what you have. Be gracious in your success and resilient in your failures. Be humble.
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