Use Your Ego to Drive Yourself to Achieve, Not to Destroy Someone Else

Ego gets a bad rap, but it’s not just for evil villains. Personal ego can be a catalyst for personal success. As long as you’re not using it to trample everyone else along the way.

As founder and CEO of snack company KIND, Daniel Lubetzky, explains, ego has a natural inclination to drive us to achieve more. At first, you might work hard simply because you need to eat, but ego can drive you to take pride in your work beyond the basics. It can make you reach further than you might otherwise. This is healthy. The problem with ego occurs when it gets hurt by the success of others:

“All of us have insecurities. All of us have periods where we may be threatened by this or by that... It’s very natural and very normal that, as you are attracting people, sometimes when someone is excellent or great, you compete with them... But sometimes our egos get in the way.”

While there’s a fine line between good and bad ego, you can use how much harm your ego causes as a gauge to determine which side of the line you’re on. Does your ego motivate you to do the best work you can? That’s good! Does it motivate you to crush your enemies’ bones into dust and blow that dust away in the wind? Maybe that’s going to hurt you more than it will help.

Having an Ego Is Healthy. Letting It Get Between You and Your Co-Workers Is Not. | Entrepreneur

Photo by Bexx Brown-Spinelli.

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