The biggest factor that contributes to a vulnerable identity is “all-or-nothing” thinking: I’m either competent or incompetent, good or evil, worthy of love or not.

The primary peril of all-or-nothing thinking is that it leaves our identity extremely unstable, making us hypersensitive to feedback. When faced with negative information about ourselves, all-or-nothing thinking gives us only two choices for how to manage that information, both of which cause serious problems. Either we try to deny the information that is consistent with our self-image, or we do the opposite: we take in the information in a way that exaggerates its importance to a crippling degree.

For even the best and worst among us, all-or-nothing identities oversimplify the world. “I’m always there for my children.” “When it comes to dating, I just have bad judgment.” “I’m always a good listener.” No one is always anything. We each exhibit a constellation of qualities, positive and negative, and constantly grapple with how to respond to the complicated situations life presents. And we don’t always respond as completely or compassionately as we’d like.

What, then, is the bottom line on Ben? The bottom line is that there is no bottom line. Ben can feel good about many of his actions and choices, and ambivalent or regretful about others. Life is too complex for any reasonable person to feel otherwise. Indeed, a self-image that allows for complexity is healthy and robust; it provides a sturdy foundation on which to stand.

Difficult conversations operate at the core of our being — where the people and the principles we care about most intersect with our self-image and self-esteem.

The identity conversation: This is the conversation we each have with ourselves about what this situation means to us. We conduct an internal debate over whether this means we are competent or incompetent, a good person or bad, worthy of love or unlovable. What impact might it have on our self-image and self-esteem, our future and our well-being? Our answers to these questions determine in large part whether we feel “balanced” during the conversation, or whether we feel off-center and anxious.

But for people with ambitions, talents, drives, and potential to fulfill, ego comes with the territory. Precisely what makes us so promising as thinkers, doers, creatives, and entrepreneurs, what drives us to the top of those fields, makes us vulnerable to this darker side of the psyche.

The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Self-centered ambition. That’s the definition this book will use. It’s that petulant child inside every person, the one that chooses getting his or her way over anything or anyone else. The need to be better than, more than, recognized for, far past any reasonable utility — that’s ego. It’s the sense of superiority and certainty that exceeds the bounds of confidence and talent.

It’s when the notion of ourselves and the world grows so inflated that it begins to distort the reality that surrounds us. When self-confidence becomes arrogance, assertiveness becomes obstinacy, and self-assurance becomes reckless abandon.

In this way, ego is the enemy of what you want and of what you have: Of mastering a craft. Of real creative insight. Of working well with others. Of building loyalty and support. Of longevity. Of repeating and retaining your success. It repulses advantages and opportunities. It’s a magnet for enemies and errors.

Whereas ego is artificial, this type of confidence can hold weight. Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned.

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. The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better. Studious self-assessment is the antidote.

When you are just starting out, we can be sure of a few fundamental realities: 1) You’re not nearly as good or as important as you think you are; 2) You have an attitude that needs to be readjusted; 3) Most of what you think you know or most of what you learned in books or in school is out of date or wrong.

It’s easy to be bitter. To hate even the thought of subservience. To despite those who have more means, more experience, or more status than you. To tell yourself that every second not spent doing your work, or working on yourself, is a waste of your gift. To insist, I will not be demeaned like this.

Out of the right speaker in your inner ear will come the endless stream of self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one’s specialness, of how much more open and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and humble one is. Out of the left speaker will be the rap songs of self-loathing, the lists of all the things one doesn’t do well, of all the mistakes one has made today and over an entire lifetime, the doubt, the assertion that everything that one touches turns to shit, that one doesn’t do relationship well, that one is in every way a fraud, incapable of selfless love, that one had no talent or insight, and on and on and on.

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising. The first thing, Kurnos, which gods bestow on one they would annihilate, is pride.

Craziness can pass for audaciousness. Delusions can pass for confidence, ignorance for courage. But it’s just kicking the costs down the road.

Once you win, everyone is gunning for you. It’s during your moment at the top that you can afford ego the least — because the stakes are so much higher, the margins for error are so much smaller.

After a team starts to win and media attention begins, the simple bonds that joined the individuals together begin to fray. Players calculate their own importance. Chests swell. Frustrations emerge. Egos appear.

We cannot be humble except by enduring humiliations. How much better it would be to spare ourselves these experiences, but sometimes it’s the only way the blind can be made to see.

Psychologists often say that threatened egotism is one of the most dangerous forces on earth. The gang member whose “honor” is impugned. The narcissist who is rejected. The bully who is made to feel shame. The impostor who is exposed. The plagiarist or the embellisher whose story stops adding up.

I wanted to find out how intelligent people end up believing crazy things. The answer I found was that, if we’re psychologically healthy, our brain makes us feel as if we’re the moral heroes at the center of the unfolding plots of our lives. Any “facts” it comes across tend to be subordinate to that story. If these “facts” flatter our heroic sense of ourselves, we’re likely to credulously accept them, no matter how smart we think we are. If they don’t, our minds will tend to find some crafty way or rejecting them.

Was he the man his old friend perceived: self-interested, delusional, desperate for approval and attention? Or was he the person his own hero-making brain told him he was: brave, generous and selfless?

But spending beyond a pretty low level of materialism is mostly a reflection of ego approaching income, a way to spend money to show people that you have (or had) money.

Think of it like this, and one of the most powerful ways to increase your savings isn’t to raise your income. It’s to raise your humility.

When you define savings as the gap between your ego and your income you realize why many people with decent incomes save so little.

The great corrupter of public men is the ego — corrupter because distracter. Wealth, sensuality, power cannot hold a candle to it. Looking in the mirror distracts one’s attention from the problem.

Suffering and death — all that dark and destructive side of nature for which Shiva stands — are therefore problematic for the ego rather than the organism. The organism accepts them through ecstasy, but the ego is rigid and unyielding and finds them problematic because they affront its pride. The ego is the social image or role with which the mind is shamed into identifying itself, since we are taught to act the part which society wants us to play — the part of a reliable and predictable center of action which resists spontaneous change. Death and agony are therefore dreaded as loss of status, and their struggles are desperate attempts to maintain the assumed patterns of action and feeling.

The answer was clear. It was arrogance, “egos so tall that the eyes and ears can shut out whatever one prefers not to see or hear.” Kennedy, the final decider, desperately wanted to avoid being called “chicken.” Everyone around him thought he had the Midas touch and could not lose.

Our “ego” or self-conception could be pictured as a leaking balloon, forever requiring the helium of external love to remain inflated, and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect.

Ego refers to a person’s sense of self, self-identity, or self-image. It is the part of an individual’s psyche that is responsible for their self-esteem, self-importance, and self-perception. The concept of ego has different interpretations across various psychological theories, but it is commonly associated with the following aspects:

  1. Self-Awareness: The ego is responsible for a person’s awareness of their own existence, distinguishing themselves from others and recognizing their unique characteristics, thoughts, and emotions.

  2. Self-Esteem: The ego plays a role in shaping an individual’s self-esteem or self-worth. It influences how a person views themselves, their abilities, and their value in relation to others.

  3. Identity Formation: The ego is involved in the formation and maintenance of an individual’s identity. It incorporates their beliefs, values, personality traits, and experiences, shaping their sense of who they are as a person.

  4. Defense Mechanisms: The ego employs defense mechanisms to protect the individual from anxiety, stress, or threats to their self-image. Examples of defense mechanisms include denial, projection, rationalization, and repression.

  5. Self-Preservation: The ego is concerned with self-preservation and fulfilling personal needs and desires. It drives individuals to seek pleasure, avoid pain, satisfy basic needs, and pursue goals that are important to them.

  6. Perception of Others: The ego influences how individuals perceive and interact with others. It can affect their attitudes, judgments, and behavior towards others, including feelings of competition, superiority, or inferiority.

  7. Reality Testing: The ego helps individuals navigate and interpret the external world. It assesses and interprets reality, distinguishing between external reality and internal thoughts or fantasies.

  8. Balance with Other Aspects: In some psychological theories, the ego is seen as one part of a person’s overall psychological structure, alongside the id and superego. It acts as a mediator between the instinctual desires of the id and the moral or societal constraints of the superego.

It is important to note that while the ego plays a significant role in shaping an individual’s self-perception and behavior, an excessive or overly inflated ego can lead to negative outcomes such as arrogance, self-centeredness, and a lack of empathy. Achieving a healthy balance between a positive sense of self and consideration for others is essential for personal growth, interpersonal relationships, and overall well-being.

The hard thing is seeing the truth. To see the truth, you have to get your ego out of the way because your ego doesn’t want to face the truth. The smaller you can make your ego, the less conditioned you can make your reactions, the less desires you can have about the outcome you want, the easier it will be to see reality.

After more than a decade of more or less constant profits to yourself and your customers, you get to think you’re pretty good. You’re on top of it. You can make money, and that’s that. This break exposed a weakness. It subjected one to a certain loss of self-confidence, from which one was not likely to recover quickly.

The worst disease that afflicts executives is egotism.

Our egos are constructed in our formative years — our first two decades. They get constructed by our environment, our parents, society. The, we spend the rest of our life trying to make our ego happy. We interpret anything new through our ego: “How do I change the external world to make it more how I would like it to be?”

In the individual, pride gives added vigor in the competition of life; in the state, nationalism gives added force in diplomacy and war.