Is your ego holding you back? Your ego may be getting in your way, even if you don’t realize it. Today, April Shprintz talks about ego and how it can sometimes limit us from learning or doing anything. Tune in as April reminds us not to let our egos steal our thunder.
Reach out to April Shprintz:
Email: april@drivenoutcomes.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilshprintz/
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Your Ego Is Stealing Your Thunder
I am so glad you are here. I have a question for you. Do you think your ego gets in your way? When I say ego, I mean your fear. When we talk about fixed mindset, that part of you who says, “I don’t want to look dumb. I want people to think I’m already there. I don’t want feedback that I didn’t do a good job.” It’s that type of ego. Do you think it’s holding you back?
I’m going to guess that if you didn’t say, “Yes, it is,” that it is. I will tell you, if someone asked me that, I’d say, “Absolutely,” because I know that my ego slows me down because there are things that I don’t want to do. After all, I’m afraid. Your ego is fear and it keeps you from the things that are sometimes most important to you.
Your ego is fear, and it keeps you from the things that are sometimes most important to you. Share on XHowever, I will tell you that before I was aware of my ego, it held me back so much more. I saw an illustration of that because I hired someone to help me accelerate the growth in an area of my business who does something very similar to me but she has been doing it in far less time. She’s twenty years younger than me. I’m so excited to hire her because I have seen the work that she’s done, and I think it’s phenomenal. I’m very impressed with her, and I know she knows stuff I don’t.
I can tell by her marketing and talking to her that there’s much for me to learn there. Interestingly, when I shared with other people that I hired someone to help me with this and explained who she was and what she did, I could tell when their egos came up because many of them were like, “You have done this for so much longer.” “April, you have so much experience,” and so on.
Here’s the thing. We can always learn something from anyone. Just because someone has not spent as much time in a certain industry or not been working as long, they are younger than you, or they are new to something, it does not mean that they can’t school you on a way better way to do things. Especially if they have a different experience than you, different amounts of experience, they are from a different generation, different country, or different industry.
It’s because those people are the ones who are going to have different ideas than you do. Usually, when you are trying to speed something up in your life or your business, you need to reframe the way that you are looking at it. There’s no one better to do that than someone who is not like you in a lot of ways for whatever reason.
Ego: Usually, when you’re trying to speed something up in your life or business, you need to reframe the way you’re looking at it. There’s no one better to do that than someone who is not like you in a lot of ways.
Having folks give me feedback like this made me think. The ego is so limiting and I can think back in my life to things that I didn’t do or didn’t go for because my ego wouldn’t let me. In case this doesn’t resonate with you, I’m going to give you examples and tell on myself because it might make it easier to understand where your ego could be limiting you.
One place that my ego limited me was I wouldn’t do anything that I wasn’t immediately good at. It means that if I tried a sport, language, hobby, dance, or anything that I didn’t immediately show proficiency for, and that learning curve was going to be quick and easy, I didn’t want any part of it. I used to think, “I only do things I’m good at,” and that was a great thing.
Ego: One place that your ego may be limiting you is when you won’t do anything that you’re not immediately really good at.
There are a lot of things that I probably wasn’t great at in the very beginning that would have brought me a lot of joy, a lot of success, and a lot of great things that I dropped because my ego couldn’t handle being bad at it. Think about a baby, a toddler that’s first starting to walk, and the way that they go about learning to walk. They fall on their face, they get up, and they do it again. Would any of us be walking if we had that ego mindset of, “I have got to be good at this right away?” No.
Think about that and the fact that a child, a baby has a beginner mindset. They are open to learning. They want to experience new things and enjoy the process, and they don’t let their ego get in the way. Don’t be like I was and don’t let your ego get in the way. Something else that my ego got in my way with is I started my company later than I wanted to because I was afraid of what people would think. I was afraid, “What if I fail and everybody sees it and they judge me? What if I don’t know as much about business and sales and things as I think I do and I’m terrible at it?”
All of these what-if type fears kept me from going after it much earlier in my life and I’m super fortunate and glad that I went into the corporate world. However, if I’m candid with you, I didn’t go into the corporate world because I had some deep desire to work there. I went into the corporate world because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to hack it as an entrepreneur.
Ego: We all have “what-if” fears that keep us from going after things much earlier in our lives.
Think about the things that you have delayed on because you weren’t sure if you could do it. Think about the things you may have missed out on because you didn’t like the idea that you had to admit you might know a little less than it might look good to know. Also, think of the things that you never experienced because, like me, you didn’t want to look stupid out there learning something in front of people who already knew it better than you. Your ego is stealing your thunder. It’s stealing your experiences and the incredible things that are out there for you. The great news is all you have to do is feel that fear and do it anyway to get all of that thunder back. That is something I am 100% committed to.
In the example I gave you, I’m going to hire someone who is younger than me and has been doing this less amount of time because I think they are doing amazing at it, and I know that they have things that they can teach me. My ego, if it wants to say something, I am going to shove a banana or a sandwich in its mouth so that I can’t hear what it’s saying. I hope that you are willing to do the same. Here’s to your success.
