We are sometimes put in situations where we get so much attention and praise that we tend to become overly confident in ourselves. April Shprintz is here to discuss the importance of checking your ego, or else you will never find success.
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If You Can’t Do This, You Won’t Succeed
Hi there. I am so glad you’re here. A couple of weeks ago, I was at a really big speaking event, and the day before we were doing a quick run-through practicing walkout music, all that great stuff. This event was well put on. As I go to do my walkout, the gentleman who’s running the music has a theater and a big performance background. He said, “We’ve got to work on your walkout.”
As someone who has done public speaking and spoken to audiences of up to 75 million people, whether it was on TV or thousands and thousands of people in person, I got a little bit of that ego feeling that you get where you get hot and it rolls all down your back and your stomach feels a little weird, but at the same time, I thought, “This guy’s a performer, he knows what he’s doing. I’ve got to listen to him.”
What I did at that moment was check my ego at the door. If you want to be truly successful, you’ve got to be willing to check that ego, humble yourself, be coachable, and learn from people because it will make you better. In that particular instance, I realized, as he was coaching me, that a lot of what I was doing when I came up on stage was based on the time I’d been in television, which is much smaller movements, don’t make a big ruckus, and it just doesn’t play as well on stage.
If you want to be truly successful, you have to check your ego, humble yourself, and be coachable. Share on XThe things that he helped me with within five short minutes helped me better connect with an audience than I have in 20 years because I was willing to take that feedback. Again, this was from the guy who was running music. I could have for lots of reasons let my ego chirp in my ear and tell me all sorts of BS and say, “This is why you are qualified to do this and you don’t need to listen to him.” Or, “This information isn’t necessary for you to be better.”
You know how your ego works. It’s always telling you how you don’t need feedback but the thing is this, feedback is a gift that keeps on giving. If you can check your ego, you can get information that will make you so much better. Same thing with employees. How many times have we thought about getting feedback from our employees, whether it’s a 360 review or it’s, “What do you think about these changes we’re making in the company?” Or even from our clients.
“How do you like the way that we’re providing this service?” Our ego tells us that we don’t want to know. We don’t want to hear what they have to say. We want to get defensive or we’re worried about it. The thing is, that information is what’s going to make us better. First when we know what could be better and then when we take action to make it better.
The thing is, your ego is often going to tell you things like, “You should know that.” “Don’t act like you don’t know those things.” Nobody knows everything. Nobody learns at the same pace. You could be doing something for years and years and it does not occur to you that there is a different or better way that you could do things. I am always exceptionally grateful for the people who are willing to give me that information and allow me to constantly learn and uplevel and get better.
Again, same speaking event, a speaker who’s been doing this for 40 years, who was fantastic. She was not only an energizing and exciting speaker, but she was a performer. She knew what she was doing. She gave me a tiny little tip because we were sitting down and doing a panel of interviews after we spoke. She said, “April when you go to the chair, don’t turn your back on the audience.
Again, the ego could have come up and been like, “I know these things. I’ve done this. I’ve done that,” but all I thought was, “I’m so glad she said that. I would not have wanted to turn my back on all those people.” The difference between being so glad someone gave you that feedback and being able to implement it immediately and up-level who you are and how you’re doing whatever your job is and telling yourself, “I don’t need to listen to them. I’ve got this, I’m fine, it’s not a big deal.” Even worse, bullying yourself and saying, “I can’t believe I didn’t know that. I should have already known that. Why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I already know that it’s the way to interact with an audience?” It’s huge because when you very quickly allow yourself to take that feedback and make those changes, you can get better. You can serve people better. You can enjoy it more.
What are the ways that you can find over the next week to get your ego out of the way? Stop listening to that inner voice that gives you such a tough time and start listening to the folks who are genuinely giving you feedback to help you improve who you are, how you show up, and the way that you live life. Here’s to your success.
