010: Your Ego is Your Reality & Being a Slave to Your Ego

Episode Notes:
Pondered for years by many of the most brilliant minds, the human ego is difficult to understand and define. From Sigmund Freud’s description of the ego as a synthesized, selective conscious to modern neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran’s simplification of the ego as an elaborate illusion created by the brain, the ego’s influence on the human condition has been a hot topic for a long time.

In this episode, you’ll learn about the human ego – the good, the bad, how its formed, how I have been a slave to my ego my entire life, and how you can begin to confront your ego by asking yourself three simple questions.

Topics:
[2:59] Understanding the ego: Jung, Freud, and others
[5:30] Self-loss and ego dissolution
[6:58] “I am not who you think I am”
[8:17] Envy, Insecurity, and Fragility
[9:52] Self-Manifestation: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Dwayne Wade
[12:48] My whole life, I was a slave to my ego
[18:16] Three questions to ask yourself today

Thank you all for joining me on this journey to lifelong health, happiness, and higher performance. And remember, always be grateful, love yourself, and serve others.

Teaser
In this episode… Recall that our egos are selectively constructed to compensate for weaknesses, create defense mechanisms, and enable us to interact with our environment, which includes social situations. Because our ego is cultivated to adapt to the world around us, it is heavily influenced by external factors. Perhaps most notably, it is the opinion and judgment of others.

Episode Intro
Learn II Perform: Practical lessons so that you can immediately learn to optimize your health, happiness, and performance.

Gratitude
For today’s episode, my gratitude shoutout is going to one of my best friends, Jake Erickson. As roommates in college sharing a small dorm room for two years, we had many deep conversations about everything in life – ranging from hockey and engineering to spirituality and the meaning of life. I am not sure if I have ever met someone so genuine and authentic in their pursuit of happiness and search for understanding. For someone so smart and successful, a true superstar and gifted leader, he is as humble, down-to-earth, and egoless as anyone. He’s a far better man than me, and is the type of man that I would want my future daughter to marry. Over our few years of friendship, Jake has inspired and influenced me in many ways, and in writing this episode, he came to mind a lot. So a big thank you to Jake, his beautiful wife Maria, and all his family for being an inspiration.

Topic Introduction
Alright, we’re going to talk about the human ego. This is something that I have always found to be such a difficult concept to wrap my head around. Attempting to understand human consciousness is a slippery slope, as you can quickly go from ego to simulation theory to quantum physics. To help me introduce the concept of the human ego, I’m going to call upon the work of Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson [1].

In his book, 12 Rules For Life, Peterson references the story of Adam and Eve from Genesis of the Old Testament. Immediately after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened [2]. Peterson comments that the first thing they saw were their faults; they became completely vulnerable. To compensate, he notes that they immediately covered up “their fragile bodies – to protect their egos” [1]. Further, he proposes that nakedness is symbolic of being vulnerable to judgement. It is the judgement of others, their opinions, words, thoughts, their eyes starting at you, that consume our attention. As we become aware and fixated on these judgements, human consciousness becomes consumed by ego.

So What’s the Bottom Line
Ego is a necessary aspect of the human condition, however, left uncontrolled, it can become a destructive and limiting force in the pursuit of optimized health, happiness, and performance. We are going to explore three key aspects of ego:

  1. The ego is manufactured and malleable
  2. The destructive side of ego: Insecurity, Envy, and Fragility
  3. The productive side of ego: Motivation, Sociality and Self-Manifestation

1. The ego is manufactured and malleable
To properly understand the ego, we need to better define what it is. Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist, proposed a concept of “Self,” the overarching psyche that constitutes a person’s being [3]. This included both the conscious and unconscious psyches. To Jung, the ego is our selective consciousness, which carefully selects relevant information from the environment to create our experience and identity [4]. Another revolutionary figure, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, described in 1933 that the contents of the ego are synthesized [5, 6]. Further, he argued that the ego is also a change agent, actively influencing action and behavior.

So we have established that the ego forms our conscious self and interacts with the environment to generate our unique life experience. Marie-Louise von Franz, a swiss psychologist who worked closely with Jung, suggests that the ego development begins once a child reaches school age and is forced to adapt to the real world [3]. Experiences and external influences then direct the development of the ego consciousness, a duplicate psychic nucleus created to overcome inner and outer difficulties. Similarly, Anna Freud, the youngest daughter of Sigmund Freud, would focus her research into a similar concept of ego. Tom Butler-Bowdon summarizes Freud’s primary argument from her work, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, stating “We do just about anything to avoid pain and preserve a sense of self, and this compulsion often results in us creating psychological defense” [7].

World-leading neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran offers a modern outlook on ego. Exploring the complex functionality of the brain, he concludes that the brain is actively working to preserve a sense of self [7]. This sense of self, he suggests, is merely an elaborate illusion created within our brain, but one that enables us to be spiritual and philosophical beings. Referencing the neuroscience discussed in episode four and Norman Doidge’s work, evidence already exists that the brain is malleable, as it can “change its structure and function through thought and activity” [8].

Since our thoughts influence our brain, and our brain creates our ego, logically you would conclude that you can actively manipulate your ego with your thoughts. This brings us back to the 2,000 year old stoic concept that our lives, experiences, and egos are merely formed from our own opinions, rather than the true nature of the world. Therefore, what we constantly think and perceive becomes our reality.

This puts us in the driver’s seat. When we learn to control our thoughts, we can begin to transform our perception of life, take control of our ego, and begin to unlock our human potential through health, happiness, and performance.

But before  we move onto the dangers and benefits of the human ego, I want to briefly make a note that there is evidence that self-consciousness can be temporarily disrupted through meditation and psychedelics. Although “self-loss” experiences, often referred to as ego dissolution, are temporary and variable, high doses of psychedelics and meditation performed by experienced practitioners may result in the inhibition of self-related thoughts, loss of body ownership, and loss of access to autobiographical information [9]. It appears that both methods disrupt neuronal pathways, altering what Ramachandran referred to as the brain’s elaborate illusion of self.

Now, although psychedelics are a super interesting topic, I am not going to explore them in this episode. But for anyone interested, I highly recommend How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan [10]. I bought this audiobook after a recommendation and listened to it in less than a week. Pollan’s exploration of the history, science, and anecdotal experiences with psychedelics, including his own experimentation, is incredibly fascinating and certainly worth reading.

2. The destructive side of ego: Insecurity, Envy, and Fragility
Ego often comes with negative connotations, and rightfully so. Recall that our egos are selectively constructed to compensate for weaknesses, create defense mechanisms, and enable us to interact with our environment, which includes social situations. Because our ego is cultivated to adapt to the world around us, it is heavily influenced by external factors. Perhaps most notably, is the opinion and judgment of others.

This concept of ego is brilliantly summarized in a quote by sociologist Charles Cooley, which I discovered through former monk Jay Shetty on an episode of Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu [11]. The quote, by goes like this:

“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am” [12].

Let me repeat this because it’s a bit of a mind bender: “I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am.”

In essence, our self-identity is constructed through what we believe other people’s opinions of us are. We are ultimately being governed by the thought that someone else perceives us in a certain way. This drives our behavior – we act to please, impress, and surpass others. In Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday states that “Ego needs honors in order to be validated” [13]. Basically, our self-worth is dependent on external recognition.

This fundamental driver of human behavior was summarized by Alfred Adler, an Austrian doctor known for proposing the concept of the ‘inferiority complex,’ when he wrote that “It is the feeling of inferiority, inadequacy and insecurity that determines the goal of an individual’s existence” [7].

In Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene asserts another aspect of our ego-driven nature is susceptibility to envy. Closely linked with jealously, this inferiority to other people’s possessions, attention, and respect can have dangerous consequences [14]. These include resentment, anger, and contempt that may lead to aggressive behaviors, career or relationship sabotage, or subtle criticisms – the classic idea of putting someone else down to make yourself feel superior. Intuitively, we all know that envy and jealously are harmful, but there was actually a 2018 study that directly linked envy to lower long-term mental health [15].

So driven by insecurity and envy, we create our ego, a false self to compensate for our shortcomings. But this is dangerous, because the ego is fragile. One fatal mistake or one misstep is all it takes for our true weaknesses to be exposed to the world; for the world to see us frauds. When your entire identity has been built upon our ego – the personas, images, and lies we present to please and impress others – we are left with nothing if it falls. This can lead to a very dark place of low self-esteem. From Think Like a Monk, Jay Shetty warns that “You can only keep up the myth of your own importance for so long. If you don’t break your ego, life will break it for you” [16].

Let’s close this section off with just a few examples: Everyone knows the stories of Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong. How about Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal? In all these stories, the ideal image presented was drastically different from the reality, but once exposed, it is a very quick fall from grace.

3. The productive side of ego: Motivation, Sociality, and Self-Manifestation
There are clearly many criticisms and pitfalls with succumbing to your ego. However, the ego can also be one of the most powerful tools to unlock unprecedented levels of success. To begin to understand the power of ego, and why many of the greatest achievers in the history of the world were ego-driven, I want to talk about Tim Grover’s book Relentless.

Tim Grover is a world-famous trainer known for working with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade and other superstar basketball players. He eludes to the power of the human ego when referencing the ‘the dark side.’ [17]. In helping his athletes unlock the relentless drive to achieve greatness, he digs deep into their soul to discover their dark side – their deepest desires. For some people, this may be fame, money, sex… it could be anything. I mean, hey, if people are motivated to drive Lamborghini’s and make it a rain at a strip club, all the power to them.

But what matters most to Grover is the psychological aspect of desire. Why do you want that? What is fueling that deep craving for pleasure? Very often, this desire stems from the insecurity, inadequacy, and inferiority that Adler referenced. Most often, the fame, money, and pleasures are desired to compensate for insecurities; they form the ego of success and dominance that opposes their true weaknesses. When aware of your insecurities and presented with a vision to compensate with success, people are willing to work very hard.

Rather than condemning the dark side, Grover recognizes that it is part of human nature, and rather than suppressing it, he chooses to bring it to life to fuel unprecedented levels of work ethic necessary to achieve greatness. This idea was also presented by Adler in his 1927 work, Understanding Human Nature, when he stated that “a thousand talents and capabilities arise from our feelings of inadequacy” [7].

It must be cautioned though, as addressed in episode three about Stoicism, that greatness and achievement do not necessarily correlate with happiness or fulfilment. However, the point remains that the ego can be leveraged to achieve success.

Perhaps one of the benefits of having a conscious ego separate from the unconscious aspect of our self is the practicality and efficiency. Dr. Ramachandran notes that it would be overwhelming to manage all tasks and processes consciously, and that by cultivating an ego, we are able to actively take charge of our identity and interactions with the environment. This is necessary to survive, be social, and mate [7]. Through the constructs of society, establishing an ego that is adapted to various external factors, such as culture, societal rules and regulations, and social standards enable us to function collectively as a species, rather than succumbing to complete individualistic behavior.

Finally, we must also realize that due to the malleability of the brain, our consciousness, and our egos, we are capable of manifesting our “self.” This gives us the power to align our ego with our true values, passions, and interests. We can actively choose to break free from the opinions of others and insecurities imposed by society, cultivating a fulfilling and complete life, custom-built to our own needs. Through consciousness, you can dictate your life’s experience.

Personal Experience
Alright, so we covered a lot of ground, and now I want to share my personal experience with ego, because this is something that has really affected my life.

If there was ever one underlying element of my lifelong pursuit of greatness, it would be ego. As I eluded to in episode one, discussing my journey to this point, my entire life was fueled by ego. It took me a while to realize it, but even after internalizing this a few years ago, I continued to allow my ego to run my entire life.

Since being cut from every rep hockey team for five straight years, my motivation to make the NHL was more about proving those coaches wrong and finally obtaining respect and recognition, more so than the love of the game. Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved the sport, but early morning and late night workouts weren’t fueled by the visualization of getting to do what I loved every day as a pro hockey player; they were fueled by the image of being praised and admired. And honestly, that’s kind of sad.

This also applied to school. I was determined to be Valedictorian because that would finally give me the satisfaction of being recognized for being intelligent, impressive, and worthy of admiration. It wasn’t about the pride in the accomplishment or the potential career opportunities it would provide. I tortured myself with relentless effort out of a crippling fear of losing my 4.0 GPA, especially in my last two years, because I thought that if I lost my 4.0, my entire identity would be crushed. I would no longer be worthy of admiration.

This is also why I chose to become president of the engineering honor society, vice-president of the mechanical engineering honor society, founder and president of a consulting club and member of the investment club all while competing in a NASA competition, being captain of the defending national champions, beginning my pro hockey career and applying for jobs with the most prestigious firms in the world. On that note too, I was under the impression that if I wasn’t hired by one of the world’s top firms – think Google, Apple, Tesla, McKinsey & Company, etc. – that I would have been a failure.

My dark side was a raw, untamed instinct to be admired. I craved external recognition and validation. Therefore, to retain my status amongst my peers – my reputation aka my identity – I had to work relentlessly.

But the key here is that everything I did was based on other people’s opinions of me. Most of whom, if not all of whom, did not even care, and still don’t. So who was I doing this for?

Everything I have done in my life; I have done it to compensate for my insecurities and satisfy my ego. And let me tell you, despite all the success I’ve had, no accomplishment was ever fulfilling. I wouldn’t say I have ever been depressed, but I can honestly say that I have never really been happy with my life. Always yearning for more, constant striving for more, the inability to find contentment, it made me a slave to my ego. As Tom Butler-Bowdon described perfectly: “The pysche’s attempt to banish a sense of inferiority will often shape someone’s whole life” [7].

It has been difficult for me to admit this. Not just to others, but most importantly, to myself.

As I have shifted my perspective and purpose in life, I have actively been working to override the attention-seeking ego with one that is authentically aligned with my true values. Here are some questions I frequently ask myself:

  • What are my true values?
  • Why am I working so hard
  • What are the outcomes that I really care about?
  • Do I really care what others think of me?
  • Does it really matter what other people think of me?
  • What is more important to me, cultivating an experience or trying to be genuine with my intentions

With each day, I try to remind myself what my purpose is. What makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning? I try to be grateful for everything in my life, exactly how it is. To find joy and happiness in every little moment throughout the day. To seek stillness and clarity of thought. To focus on teaching, inspiring, and helping others. To see value in the work I do and satisfaction in my personal growth. Those are the elements of success that I am now chasing and I can honestly say that I really enjoy it.

I’m no longer a pro athlete and I am not working at a massive fortune 500 firm. I don’t live in a New York City penthouse or have an expensive car. Instead, I moved back into my parents basement, picked up a minimum wage job in retail, and have dedicated my time into my happiness and not my ego. If I knew this would happen a few years ago, I would have been terrified, doing anything I could to prevent the failure and shame. But in reality, I am as happy as I’ve ever been. It has been a complete shift in my mindset.

So What Can You Do
As we learned, the ego is a necessary part of functioning within society, but losing control over your ego can have destructive consequences. Luckily, we also discovered that its malleability allows for us to take control of our egos, rather than be controlled by them.

Now, establishing an alternative mindset can be a daunting task. One of my role models, Jay Shetty, the former monk who I have eluded to a lot, offers some great advice. From Think Like a Monk, he offers a few suggestions [16].

First, practice humility. Take ownership for your weaknesses and faults. Take a step back and make sure that you are not putting yourself on a pedestal.

Second, detach from your ego. Attempt to remove your self-bias and look as yourself as you truly are. Not the identity you portray or the identity you wish to become. Who are you right now?

And finally, practice gratitude. One of the most powerful tools for overcoming insecurities that fuel the ego is to be grateful for everything that you have. Take time to write in a journal about everything you are grateful for, or even just stop to think about everything great in your life.

In a future episode, I will explore a gratitude practice in more detail.

Now, in addition to Shetty’s advice, I have devised three questions to help guide you in your search for true purpose and meaning, independent of your ego. These are three questions that I deeply pondered over a long period of time to help me identify my true purpose. If you don’t immediately have answers, that’s okay.

  1. What is my definition of happiness?
  2. What is my definition of virtuous? Thought of differently, this could also be asked: What are my core values?
  3. What motivates my behavior?

I’ll give you my answers as an example.

  1. What is my definition of happiness? My definition of happiness follows the philosophy of Aristotle from his famed work, Nichomachean Ethics [18]. My interpretation of Aristotle’s work that has guided my life is that happiness is achieved from a virtuous pursuit of excellence. In my experience, aspiring to fulfil my human potential, while acting in accordance with my personal values, provides me the greatest satisfaction and fulfilment. Not external validation.

  2. What is my definition of virtuous? To me, being virtuous means to live in accordance with my guiding values. My guiding values are Gratitude, Self-Care, and Service. I spent a lot of time reflecting on my values and created a personal document outlining my core values and life purpose statement. I think this is an excellent exercise to undertake.

  3. What motivates my behavior? Previously, my motivation was the preservation of my ego. But now, my primary motivation is to serve others. My intention is to use the knowledge, experiences, and resources that I have been blessed with to serve, teach, and help other people. Nothing is more exciting to me than the possibility of making someone else’s life better.

And that’s it. I hope you guys get a chance to go through those questions and think deeply about your life, your ego, and what’s most important to you. I hope you all found this episode to be valuable, and perhaps it even sparked some introspection. I strongly encourage you all to ask yourself these questions and try to implement a gratitude practice – you can never be too grateful.

As Epictetus was attributed to saying, “Envy is the antagonist of the fortunate” [19].

Episode Outro
To discover more, the full transcript of this episode with all citations is available on the website and you can also contact me on social media with any questions or comments. If you found this episode useful or think that it may help someone else, I encourage you to pass it along.

Thank you all for joining me on this journey to lifelong health, happiness, and higher performance. And remember, always be grateful, love yourself, and serve others.

References
[1] Peterson, J., Doidge, N. & Sciver, E. (2018). 12 rules for life: An antidote to chaos. Toronto: Random House Canada.

[2] King James Bible. (2017). King James Bible Online. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org (original work published 1769).

[3] Jung, C., Franz., Henderson, J., Jaffé, A. & Jacobi, J. (1964). Man and his symbols. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday.

[4] The Jungian Model of the Psyche. (2018). Journal Psyche. Retrieved October 26, 2020, from http://journalpsyche.org/jungian-model-psyche/

[5] Freud S. (1933). New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, Standard Edn, Vol. XXII. London: Hogarth.

[6] Boag, S. (2014). Ego, drives, and the dynamics of internal objects. Frontiers In Psychology, 5. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666

[7] Bowdon, T. (2017). 50 psychology classics : your shortcut to the most important ideas on the mind, personality, and human nature. London England Boston, Massachusetts: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

[8] Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself : stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science. New York: Viking.

[9] Millière, R., Carhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Trautwein, F. M., & Berkovich-Ohana, A. (2018). Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 1475. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01475

[10] Pollan, M. (2018). How to change your mind : what the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression, and transcendence. New York: Penguin Press. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735224153?tag=randohouseinc7986-20

[11] Tom Bilyeu. (2018, February 20). How to Find Your Purpose | Jay Shetty on Impact Theory [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXoErccq0vw

[12] Quotable Quotes. (2020). Goodreads, Inc. Retrieved October 26, 2020, from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/112837-i-am-not-who-you-think-i-am-i-am

[13] Holiday, R. (2016). Ego is the enemy. New York, New York: Portfolio, Penguin.

[14] Greene, R. (2018). The laws of human nature. New York: Viking.

[15] Mujcic, R., & Oswald, A. J. (2018). Is envy harmful to a society’s psychological health and wellbeing? A longitudinal study of 18,000 adults. Social science & medicine (1982), 198, 103–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.030

[16] Shetty, J. (2020). Think like a monk : train your mind for peace and purpose every day. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[17] Grover, T. S. (2014). Relentess: From good to great to unstoppable. New York, NY: Relentless Publishing, LLC.

[18] Aristotle., Thomson, J., Tredennick, H. & Barnes, J. (2004). The Nicomachean ethics. London New York: Penguin Books.

[19] Epictetus. (2004). Enchiridion. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.