Tag: Self Awareness

A Better Way to Debate and Argue

Posted on by jabittan
One thing I am not that great at is having meaningful discussions where I explain my thinking within a given area without bombarding my interlocutor with reasons why my point of view or conclusion is the best. I would like to be better at explaining the values that I consider important in a given area and what decisions I have made that lead me to adopt the world view that I have. What I usually end up doing, is arguing about a set of “facts” and debating at a high level something that can only be understood by examining the small details that build up to the final decision.

 

What I would like to develop is a skill that seems to be missing more and more in today’s discourse, especially around politics. While I don’t think it is anything new for people to respond to their counterparts in a debate with witty and sharp criticisms, there is a big difference between saying something snide in a face to face debate or critiquing an idea or person in a news paper and sending out tweets and posts that straw-man another person’s argument for your own audience while receiving instant feedback and applause for comments made in bad faith. This puts us in a place where we really don’t so much debate ideas, people, or politics, but we try to win arguments by putting down other people. We really don’t make any deep considerations about our thoughts, feelings, or ideas but instead grab onto what intuitively feels right (or what is counter the point of our adversary) and develop a narrative and set of facts around the thing that is convenient for us to believe.

 

Author Colin Wright is someone who also thinks this is a problem. In his book Becoming Who We Need To Be he writes, “We need to be capable of comparing the information and perspective that we have with that of other people. In order to combine the information we’ve collected in this way, we need to be capable of having valuable, productive discussions, rather than simply propagandizing at each other all the time.” It is valuable to work to cultivate a space where you can start at the bottom with your core values and beliefs and work your way up to the larger decisions that you have made. By better examining your values, you can better explain the way you think, and it is OK to express doubt or uncertainty about the exact nature of what is happening and the facts surrounding the situation while you are building your argument in this way. Being able to better share information and explain our ideas will help discourse be more meaningful and it will reduce the threat levels in our arguments and debates. There may be times for propagandizing each other, but in most of our conversations we would probably be better off if we could be more explanatory than inflammatory. A recommendation I would have when starting this process is to focus on what is in your own self-interest, and be aware of the times when the thing you believe just happens to align with what is in your own self-interest. If you find that your beliefs all match exactly with your self-interest, it may be worth being more critical of your views and asking if you are just developing beliefs to defend your self-interest, or if you truly do believe those things on merits beyond your own personal gain.

Why Do You Do What You Do?

Posted on by jabittan
A book that is on my reading list for the future is called Start With Why by Simon Sinek, you can find a great Ted Talk from him with the same title to get the idea of the book. People, businesses, and groups all need to figure out why they do what they do if they want to truly build something that lasts. Jumping into something, doing some type of work, and having goals doesn’t really matter too much if you don’t have a good understanding of why you are doing something in the first place. If you have not figured out the motivation piece, the basic core element of the why, then it will be hard to sustain motivation and hard to make sure you are always moving in the right direction.

 

Without truly understanding the why, we give a certain amount of our decision making over to our ego. The “why” behind the actions of the ego is almost always about showing off. The ego wants to impress other people, have more things than others, and feel like it is on top of the world. But chasing the goals and dreams of the ego can put us in dangerous places that don’t align with the life we want to live. In my own life, ego has pushed me to plenty of running injuries, drove me to switch my major in a haze of confusion multiple times during my undergraduate degree, and has urged me to generally try to take on more than I can handle. If I could have put my ego aside, I would have run a little slower and avoided a painful ankle injury, I could have been more comfortable with my undergraduate studies and better embraced my time as a student, and I would even today be better at engaging with things that I find interesting and important even if they are nerdy and won’t bring me lots of friends and attention.

 

In his book Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday encourages us to think deeply about why we do what we do and if we are letting our ego run the show. He writes, “So why do you do what you do? That’s the question you need to answer. Stare at it until you can. Only then will you understand what matters and what doesn’t. Only then can you say no, can you opt out of stupid races that don’t matter, or even exist. Only then is it easy to ignore “successful” people.””  Being able to answer Holiday’s question takes honest self-awareness and reflection. We have to acknowledge the motivations behind our actions, and we have to accept that very often our motivations are not as high minded as we would like everyone to believe. This is also the core idea of the book The Elephant in the Brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler. We often act more out of self-interest than we want to admit, and while we can’t turn that off completely, we can at least better understand it and shape the decisions we make in a better direction.

 

Be aware of your motivation and try to pull back on activities and things that you do simply because you want to earn more money to buy a bigger, newer, more shiny, more impressive thing. Acknowledge the ego’s desire to have something that other people don’t have, to impress other people, and to be praised and ask yourself if the sacrifices of time, attention, and health are worth it to obtain other people’s affection. Be aware of the negative externalities to yourself and others that stem from your actions, decisions, and behaviors and ask if yourself if those costs are truly worth what you seek. Over time try to shift your behaviors so that instead of purely serving your ego, they also fulfill a deeper part of who you are and produce more positive externalities than negative externalities. Accept  that you won’t completely turn off your self-interest, but do things that you believe will make a positive impact on the world, and then try to find the glory in doing those things well, even if the world doesn’t pat you on the back for them.

The Narration Inside Our Heads

Posted on by jabittan
We spend so much time inside our heads, thinking about ourselves and what we are doing, feeling, and thinking, that it is easy to imagine that everyone is watching us and thinking about us. We get so caught up in our thoughts about ourselves that we forget that other people probably aren’t paying any attention to us. Most people are probably thinking of themselves the way we are thinking about ourselves. This is a phenomenon that psychologist David Elkind refers to as the Imaginary Audience and author Ryan Holiday writes about it in his book Ego is the Enemy.

 

We constantly have a narrative about the world playing inside our head. We tell ourselves amazing things about who we are, emphasizing the positive traits we see and like in ourselves and comparing ourselves to others in a way that makes us look amazing. At the same time, however, we are likely to have a piece of ourselves that is overly self-critical, telling ourselves that we are not good enough, that we need to prove that we belong, and scaring us into believing that one mistake will reveal to the world that we are not actually as amazing as we make it look. In his book Holiday describes this phenomenon with a quote from the novelist Anne Lamott who describes this part of our ego as if it were a radio station playing in our head 24/7.

 

What is helpful from Holiday’s writing is how he breaks down what is really talking place in a tangled mess inside our mind. Describing all of these thoughts and complex emotions he writes, “Anyone-particularly the ambitious-can fall prey to this narration, good and bad. It is natural for any young, ambitious person (or simply someone whose ambition is young) to get excited and swept up by their thoughts and feelings. Especially in a world that tells us to keep and promote a “personal brand.” We’re required to tell stories in order to sell our work and our talents, and after enough time, forget where the line that separates our fictions from reality.”

 

Our ego buys into the narrative that runs in our mind without question. It loves the thoughts of greatness that we tell ourselves about who we are, but it is constantly acting in fear of losing those stories. Becoming more self-aware and learning that we do not need to constantly build our ego allows us to begin to step back and see the narration inside our heads for what it really is, an incomplete perspective and view of our place in the world. If we can recognize that the stories we tell ourselves are just stories, then we open up the possibilities for us to engage with the world on our own terms, without fear, without a need for self validation, and without the need to be someone that we think will impress everyone else. This allows us to take the small steps and actions that make us feel good and help us to actually accomplish things that matter and make a difference in the world.

Self Degrading

Posted on by jabittan
I’m writing this in the afternoon which is rare for me, but I have an extra twenty minutes and thought I would draft up another post. I’m still writing about Ryan Holiday’s book The Ego is the Enemy, and the quote that I am at is quite fitting for my day. This afternoon, as I was leaving work, I turned right onto a street as a car was approaching. In my recollection, the car was a ways back and I had plenty of space, but the driver was going a little faster than the speed limit. I didn’t pay any attention to them until I reached a red light a block away. The person had a scowl on their face and was clearly yelling at me from their vehicle. I made an apologetic face and gesture, but I’m not sure it really helped. At the time I thought about how much power she was giving me over herself to allow her emotions to be so wrought by an action that I undertook without her in mind. It made no difference to me and my life that she had chosen to be so upset, and it was a great act of self-divulgence for her to allow some random person to have such control over her emotional state.
The quote I have from Holiday’s book that fits my afternoon well is, “Those who have subdued their ego understand that it doesn’t degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them.” I don’t want to write about my afternoon and only critique this woman, after all I don’t know what else happened in her day that may have put her on edge and I don’t know if she was in a hurry to get to a seriously ill or injured loved one and didn’t want any slow drivers pulling out in front of her.
But this quote pulls me back to the reaction I had thanks to the fact that lessons from Holiday, Colin Wright, and Marcus Aurelius have resonated with me so strongly. I did not feel insulted when the lady in the other car was visibly upset and yelling at me. I felt that I could say, “I apologize, I did not intend to cut you off or drive slow in front of you and I recognize that I am not a Nascar champion and sometimes my driving is not the best of all time.” What ultimately happened in the situation this afternoon was that I was able to remain calm and collected to see a situation objectively while another person acted in a way that we would not want to see in our children.
Holiday’s message is that attacking another person, belittling them, and attempting to make them smaller or in some way inferior only reveals our own shortcomings. We never know what another person sees, experiences, and perceives, and as a result we can never truly understand them or the forces acting on them. We must give people the benefit of the doubt while standing by our principles. When we allow our ego to take control of the situation, to yell, scream, and fight for our honor, what we really do is show how insecure we are, how little we think about the world and our relation to other people in the world, and how self-centered we truly are. Recognizing our ego and our desire to lash out at the world helps us to have more civil relationships with those who would seek to do us harm or injure us, and in many situations, a more controlled and meter reaction can help the world move forward with less stress, less vitriol, and more positivity.

Learning From Others vs Being Fearful of Others

Posted on by jabittan
Ryan Holiday shares stories from leaders and masters of their craft in his book Ego is the Enemy, and the lessons he shares show us how some people have been able to put their ego aside to become truly great at what they do. One of the people Holiday uses as an example is Kirk Hammett who became the lead guitarist for Metallica when it was still an underground metal group. Hammett had a great opportunity with the band early on, and recognized that there were many areas where he needed to improve if he wanted to help the band truly reach the next level. Despite being successful and in a lead position on an up-and-coming band, Hammett reached out to another man, Joe Satriani, for lessons starting with the most basic fundamentals. The lesson that Holiday shares is a lesson in self-humility. Even when things are going our way and we are in the positions we want to be in, we can still learn a lot from those around us and from those who have also been working in the same or similar areas where we have begun to find success. In order to truly learn from those around us, we have to be open to the idea that other people can teach us something important, and we have to put aside our pride in the accomplishments we have already achieved. We have to accept that we don’t know all there is to know and that someone else (potentially someone who has not had the same level of success as us) can still show us something new.

 

Holiday writes, “We don’t like thinking that someone is better than us. Or that we have a lot left to learn. We want to be done. We want to be ready. We’re busy and overburdened. For this reason, updating your appraisal of your talents in a downward direction is one of the most difficult things to do in life–but it is almost always a component of mastery.”

 

It is always tempting to tell ourselves that we are much more smart, talented, and hard working than everyone else. It is reassuring to say to ourselves that we deserve what we have received (or that we don’t deserve to be passed over for an opportunity) and that we are going to have even more opportunities for greatness and success simply because we are awesome. What is harder to do, and what Holiday shows us is critical to truly be a master at what we do, is to seek out other leaders and other skillful individuals to learn from them. Looking around and seeing that other people are just as skilled, smart, and competent as us often feels threatening, as if they will be recognized for their greatness and we will be left behind, discarded as a fraud. Its tempting to ignore others, or to tell ourselves stories about why we somehow are more deserving or just better than the rest.

 

True greatness, however, looks at our competitors, colleagues, and other people in our space with respect. From this vantage point, there is something we can learn from others as we press forward. If we step back and take a more objective view of ourselves relative to the world, we can see that we are not always as amazing as we would like to be, and that is OK. We can reach out and learn lessons from those who we may otherwise denigrate and we can begin to prepare ourselves for our next opportunity rather than over-inflate our pride only to be terrified when the next challenge rolls around.

Improvement and Self-Awareness

Posted on by jabittan
Self-awareness is something I have been trying to practice for several years and recently I have been thinking about it a little differently as I have recognized just how hard it is to be aware of ones actions, desires, and honest thoughts. Our lives are so busy that it is hard to look objectively at who we are and where were are. It is hard to honestly ask yourself what you are doing and working toward, what is really motivating you, and what you are afraid of. But this is a key skill to learn and something that is worth constantly thinking about.

 

In his book Ego is the Enemy, author Ryan Holiday returns to the idea of self-awareness as a tool to help overcome arrogance. We become overconfident in ourselves and our abilities when we lack self-awareness and do not talk honestly about our strengths and the areas that we still need to develop. It is easy and more comforting to think of ourselves as being incredibly awesome and possessing great skills and work ethic that everyone else should recognize. I frequently find myself wanting to fall into this type of thinking and often tell myself I am the best even thought I truly have not been active enough in my life to develop skills and practice some of the work that is necessary to succeed in the areas where I want my life to move. But I know, if I truly want to grow and make a valuable impact in the world, then I will need to stop telling myself how awesome I am, and instead take steps to engage with the world and apply my skills to develop new talents. Without self-awareness, the application of talents and the development of new skills is not truly possible.

 

In his book, Holiday writes, “One might say that the ability to evaluate one’s own ability is the most important skill of all. Without it, improvement is impossible.” If we don’t practice self-awareness and make a habit of evaluating our skills and abilities without embellishment, we risk putting ourselves in places where we cannot be successful and we are less likely to pull in the people we need to help us learn, grow, and reach our goals collectively. This might not be a big deal when we are just trying to run a 5k race or crush that new personal record in the weight room, but if we are trying to help our company make smart business decisions, land a big sale, or complete a report that is going to shed insight into the operating inefficiencies of an agency, we must pull in the right people and put our ego aside as we honestly evaluate our strengths and recognize the areas where we still need to grow or the areas where we can learn from those who have skills we would like to emulate. Overconfidence will doom our work and harm the larger organizations in which we operate, whereas self-awareness will help us be more effective and make a larger impact on the world with the help of those around us.

Our Ego Creates a Story

Posted on by jabittan
An egomaniac is someone who is too overconfident in their own abilities, believes they are more worthy of praise than they actually are, and generally thinks too highly of themselves. What they believe about themselves and the reality of their skills and abilities is in a state of misalignment. The ego creates a false narrative about overcoming great hurdles, about being incredibly important in the world, and about achieving incredible successes. While everyone has undoubtedly faced many hurdles, is important in their own world, and has achieved some measure of success, the ego inflates all of these measures and creates a story that does not truly match reality.

 

“When we remove ego, we’re left with what is real,” writes Ryan Holiday in his book Ego is the Enemy. Holiday’s quote is meaningful for me because I often focus on the stories we tell ourselves and how disjointed those stories can be relative to our own reality. When we allow our ego to run uncontrolled, we start living in a world that does not exist and the decisions and choices we make are less sound. We filter the world and our experiences through the falsehoods of our story, and this can have negative impacts in our own lives and the lives of others.

 

Holiday generally takes a stoic approach to the world, following in the traditions of Marcus Aurelius and other stoic thinkers. Through self-awareness, Holiday encourages us to replace ego with humility and confidence. Looking at the stories we tell ourselves and being honest about who we are, where we are, and what we have accomplished on our own versus with the aid and assistance of others, helps us to have a more honest conversation with ourselves about how amazing we think we are. When we can get beyond these stories, we can start to recognize the advantages we that helped make us who we are. This allows us to start to see the ways in which we hype ourselves up in an attempt to ever increase our own status. By shedding our ego and the stories that go with it, we can also see other people more clearly, and hopefully be less judgmental of others and more open to connect with them and help them in the ways that other people have undoubtedly assisted us. This cannot be done if we chose to live in our ego bubble, constantly reassured of our greatness through false narratives that we create to feel good about ourselves.