I was once told that I was arrogant. It came from someone I had a lot of respect for and at the time, it was hard for me to hear. As hard as it was for me to hear, it was even harder to come to the conclusion that he was right.
Who wants to admit they are flawed? Who wants to admit they have work to do on themselves? It’s an uncomfortable and challenging process.
Looking back, if this mentor hadn’t set me straight, I would not be the person I am today.
He said to me, “Danny, confidence without humility is arrogance. You have a lot of confidence but you lack humility. Arrogant is not something you want to be.”
For me it was and always will be ego that I must manage. Balancing a healthy self confidence with humility and openness to change is very challenging.
It’s something that has to be trained like a muscle. If left unchecked for too long, ego creeps back and shows itself in an ugly way.
I write this during the most strange and divisive time I have ever lived through.
A global pandemic is upon us, an election is months away that has polarized our country and many of us have no idea what will happen with our children and their school next year.
How is one to focus, think clearly and make decisions based on logic with so much conflicting information, opinions and something to distract you everywhere you turn.
We must look inward and focus on principles. We must maintain discipline, listen but not get distracted. We must understand the process we need to follow to continue towards the life we really want for ourselves and our families.
Lack of emotional control is a byproduct of an unchecked ego. Emotional control cannot be learned from a book or by watching a Youtube video. It must be gained and sharpened via practice. What a golden opportunity we have to cultivate level headedness, emotional control and taming our own egos.
If you can maintain emotional control during a pandemic while quarantined at home with kids and so much uncertainty, normal day to day life will seem easy!
We must embrace the discomfort for what it is, practice. Deliberate practice that will make us better going forward…if you chose to use it.
Also, keep this in mind. If we screw up (which we will), yell at someone, send an angry tweet or lash out in some other way, it’s ok. The goal is to work on making this less and less common.
First, you must be aware, then you must practice. Tomorrow is a new day with a new opportunity to control our ego, control our emotions and take another baby step towards something we will never actually achieve…mastery of ourselves.
Just remember, the fear never goes away, the self doubt never leaves and ego is always lurking. We just have the opportunity to become better at dealing with these.
