mindset | The Caleb Barney Collection

Ego – is it good or bad?

The unhealthy ego can be such a detriment to our lives. Everybody thinks that they’re better at “x” than those around them. For example, if you ask 100 people if they are above average, average, or below average at nearly any task they complete regularly (like driving a car), the majority of them will say they are above average.

The problem with an unhealthy ego is that it makes you inclined to place judgment on others. When you think you’re better than others, you tend to treat them differently. You are more likely to point out the window, casting blame, instead of looking in the mirror first. “It’s their fault…I didn’t do anything wrong.”

When you judge, it can help you temporarily feel better. But really, it separates you from others. It isolates you and makes you feel lonely. If the person who made the mistake is on your team, it can erode your team chemistry. And if they are someone you’re dealing with in a transaction, it can suddenly make the situation much more combative than it needs to be. Judging others (even if you don’t realize you’re doing it) is a short-term “fix” that does not serve you in the long run.

The ego is not all bad though. If you are without an ego, you may not have the confidence to branch out and try something new. You may not believe in yourself or your ability to complete a difficult task. You need to have an ego, but just don’t let it get out of control.

Try to have a healthy ego. A healthy ego should allow you to have belief in yourself – that you’re a capable, responsible, honest person who does things with integrity. Once your ego grows too large, you may notice that you believe that everything you do or say is right and that nobody should ever question you. No matter how much success you experience in life, make sure you keep others around you who will challenge your thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Do not be upset with them when they do this, otherwise you are subconsciously training them to not provide any feedback that doesn’t praise you.

Rethinking the past

You can’t change the past, but you can change how you feel about the it. Do you look back at an event that happened in your life and feel bad? Do you feel like you were the victim in that situation? Or, do you reflect on that event and say that you needed that to happen? That because of that event, you are who you are today. You overcame something and are a better person for it.

You probably didn’t realize how good you have it today, and even though it was difficult previously, so many people still have it so much worse than we do. Not only that, but so many people before us had it worse than us, yet they were able to overcome it and do great things.

Don’t let the past limit what you can do in the future. Use those events as steppingstones to get you to where you want to go.

How do you view failure?

How do you view failure? Are you afraid of it? Is it something to be avoided at all costs?

I used to think about failure that way. It was my biggest fear. I didn’t want to look dumb by not knowing something, or by trying to do something and being inadequate at it. That was a nightmarish scenario in my mind.

But the more I read, the more I realized that life’s greatest entrepreneurs, the most innovative thinkers, and the people we often think of as the most outwardly successful all had one thing in common. All of them took chances and they all failed along the road to success.

Many of them “failed fast.” And that’s actually a strategy for a lot of successful people. Why take a year to fail at something when you can get the same lessons by failing within a couple of weeks? Fail quickly, make corrections, then try again. If you fail again, make more corrections and repeat.

You are more likely to see quicker progress (and, ultimately achieve your goal) if you fail quickly as opposed to slowly. There are many reasons for that, but I believe the two most important reasons are this:

1. You’re taking action. If you want to achieve something, take massive action. Most of us set too long of a timeframe to achieve our goals. We can accomplish them much quicker if we just take bigger, more frequent steps to get us towards our goals. You need to build momentum.

2. You feel more accomplished. It’s a little counterintuitive that you feel more accomplished after failing quickly, but hear me out. You’re taking action, moving (mostly) in the right direction over a short period of time. That feels way better than slowly doing something because you can see a tangible difference in where you are today versus where you were a week or two ago. Not only that, but say you move slowly and then realize after a year that whatever project you were working on wasn’t going to work. How unmotivating is that? You just “wasted” a year trying to do something when, if you would have taken massive action, you could have figured out in months? That’s rough.

Failure is a good thing as long as it doesn’t kill you (or your business) and you learn from it. Get back up after you’ve been knocked down. Try something new and you will be one step closer to your goal. One of my favorite quotes is from Denis Waitley. He said, “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” So go be somebody. Go do something. You’re only a failure if you either don’t try in the first place or if you quit.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

“Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.” — Robert J. Sawyer

Admit it, sometimes you get worked up over things that actually don’t matter. You get mad at the driver who was texting instead of paying attention that the light turned green a full TWO seconds ago! Or that someone performed a task that was not up to your standards. Or that maybe you didn’t live up to to someone else’s standards…

Regardless of the scenario, I think we tend to make things out to be bigger than they actually are. That’s society today. Even the news, which people used to turn to for “unbiased” facts have become opinion shows that catastrophize every little story to make it more exciting or to make it seem like the sky is falling. That’s how they get more views, better ratings, and more advertisement dollars, after all.

But what if we decided to take a different approach. Instead of paying attention to the trivial stuff – the stuff that doesn’t matter – what if we just left it alone? If we learn to either ignore those things altogether OR we reframe them and see them for what they actually are (non-important events that won’t affect our lives), we will find much more inner peace.

Follow this simple rule…if you won’t remember this specific event in five years, don’t waste five minutes of your time thinking about it. In the grand scheme of life, we need to focus on what is essential to us. What brings us the most joy? Who matters most in our lives? Spend time doing those things and being with those people. Don’t waste your time getting into social media arguments. Let the little things go.

Random thoughts

A few simple tips to live by…

Be kind, but don’t be a pushover.

Be content, but never stop striving to be better.

Be humble in winning, but gracious in losing.

Be confident, but not arrogant.

Be a good listener, but don’t be afraid to speak up.

Forgive, but don’t forget.

Find a way to positively contribute to others every single day.

Lastly, don’t pay attention to how others think or feel about you. That’s their issue. This is not to confuse being mean or rude to others. Do what you believe to be right, which includes treating others with respect and being nice. But don’t change who you are or how you act because you think people will respond better to it. Most people will like you more for being genuine, which means you’ll make mistakes sometimes, but at least you’re not a robot. At least you’ll be real. And if you do make a mistake or realize you’ve wronged someone, own up to it. Apologize.