Picking Nuggets Reflections
Become Limitless. Live fully.
After hearing from multiple renown figures from diverse backgrounds, such as William Ackman, Paul Hilal or Naval Ravikant (from investing and business), or PhD psychologist Carol Dweck... And having thought about the issue for some time I have come to the realization that anything that fulfills the 2 conditions:
1) It is seen as good and attractive in Society
2) It is not fully under a person's control (there are external factors that might influence)
(One example: To be considered very smart because you have a superb academic track record)
...Will plant the seed for a big problem for any human, which is likely being overlooked.
What happens is that this thing (which meets the 2 conditions) builds up one's ego. And this ego creates an image of who we are (based on these things), and because we are genetically wired to fall victims of the Human Consistency and Confirmation Bias, we will try to be consistent with this image as much as we can. We will try to never contradict our ego.
Why is this too bad? Well, because the deeper the self-image the more limited you are. You will stop making decisions from a place of objectivity and a risk/reward basis, and start making them from a place of self-image consistency. You become risk averse.
"Every self-image is a limitation" - Kapil Gupta
Ultimately, the quality of your decision-making decreases from the fear of contradicting your image/ego. You stop growing, and you start to avoid risks that are worth taking.
The relationship between Ego and Personal Growth...
The more Ego ---> The more limited you are --> The less you Grow
Is there any solution?
There are 2 things that I try to practice so that my ego doesn't build this self-image:
• I try to focus my energy only on the things that are fully under my control. These are internal things such as my effort, motivation, and character.
• I try to not take the compliments of other people too seriously. I will just see it as an opinion, just as any other opinion. I try to not get attached to that (or anything, since attachment implies inner slavery..).
2 EXAMPLES:
* EXAMPLE 1:
In the case of having a superb academic track record with multiple awards and recognitions, you will likely think of yourself as someone that has success in every work project. And because you will try to be consistent with this self-image, you might not take the big projects where the odds of failing are predominant.
But why is this a problem?
If you just take projects that you know in advance that you will likely succeed, then you will never know of what you can achieve. You will never develop your full potential. You won’t take the big risky projects because you will be too afraid as it would likely break your ego into pieces when you fail. If you take that big risky project, you will likely be seen as a failure in front of “everybody”, and that it's just too much for someone who wins every time. As we see, there is a clear risk aversion, which leads to suboptimal outcomes.
* EXAMPLE 2:
This same happens if when you were young everyone told you that you were really pretty. Really physically attractive. You will build this image that you are actually really pretty, and you will over-obsess with not looking ugly.
Thanks for reading :)