Sorry, I couldn’t resist the title.
This “strange secret” is something I’ve recently rediscovered. It’s funny how often and quickly we forget the lessons that are most important to us. I digress.
This secret is subtle. It’s elusive. And it disguises itself as the truth. But once you become conscious of how it manifests in your life you will immediately see how it poisons every relationship and endeavor you undertake.
The secret that’s sabotaging your success: an unrestrained ego.
I’d like to think that I’m very qualified to speak on the subject of egoism because for all of my life I’ve vacillated between having no self-worth and feeling like I’m far superior to the “peasant sheep” around me. Now I can see just how much of an asshole I’ve been. I can also see how many opportunities and relationships were ruined as a result of this egomania.
But why is an overly large ego bad? Because the gurus say it is? That’s a nonsensical argument. The true danger in letting your ego grow out of control is that it blinds you to the truth. It blinds you to reality. It blinds you to good ideas. It blinds you to valid criticisms.
The best recent example of how much damage an unchecked ego can wreak can be seen in the conduct of the second Iraq war by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld has been described by those who served under him as an egomaniac who couldn’t handle dissenting opinions and had no tolerance for criticism.
Rumsfeld ignored predictions that Iraq would need at least twice as many boots on the ground in order to have a stable post war transition by Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki.
In 2002 Rumsfeld, irritated by Shinseki’s insistence that American troops were stretched too thin around the world, had made Shinseki a lame-duck Army chief of staff by announcing his successor while Shinseki had more than a year left to serve.
In the spring of 2003 Shinseki chose, however, not to engage in a protracted war of words with Rumsfeld. Instead, he stuck to his position on what was needed in Iraq and waited until his Pentagon retirement ceremony in June 2003 to make his case that in the wake of 9/11, America needed more boots on the ground to meet its global responsibilities.
“Beware the 12-division strategy for a 10-division Army,” Shinseki told his Pentagon audience and then went on to compare America’s war in Iraq with the war he knew as a junior officer in Vietnam. “The lessons I learned in Vietnam are always with me,” Shinseki stressed, “lessons about loyalty, about taking care of the people who sacrifice the most.”
Both President Bush and Rumsfeld made a point of not attending Shinseki’s retirement ceremony, and the New York Times buried its account of Shinseki’s retirement speech on page 32 of the news section. – Source
The arrogance and ego of Donald Rumsfeld lead to a mistake that cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. All because Rumpsfeld thought he was smarter than his generals. Because he heard what he wanted to hear and ignored every valid criticism.
We as humans have a tendency to find fault and ignore the advice of others on subjects which we consider ourselves “experts.” My biggest ego flaw comes in the arena of nutrition and exercise. I’ve found that rather than seeing what I could learn from other trainers I instead immediately go into critique mode. I’ll try to find every little fault I can in their training methodology and then pat myself on the back. I tell myself, “see, look at all these things he’d doing wrong. I’m much more knowledgeable.”
This makes my ego very happy. But it can also make me an unbearable asshole. It keeps me from picking up new ideas and new knowledge. I firmly believe that there is at least one thing we can learn from each person we encounter. So by letting our egos run wild we are missing daily opportunities to learn and to expand.
