Thou Shall Not Brag
The Basic Idea: Again and again, ego traps talented professionals. Leaders reach a point where their opinion matters more than your opinion. They stop listening. And that means they stop learning.
Explanation: Ego is a blinder. It stops you from processing information. It stops you from seeing the world as it is. Instead of seeing reality, you see The Me Show. You are so blinded by the beauty of your name in lights that you fail to realize the best leaders bring out the best in other people, not just themselves.
To be utterly frank and completely clear, when most of what you publish on social media is about how your book is so great and your speech is critically important and your award is so impressive… you have become a victim of your own ego.
Wouldn't it be great to learn how to turn up-and-coming talent into confident and capable professionals? My hunch is that this doesn't involve simply filling their heads with wisdom from the last 20 years of your life.
As a social media ghostwriter, I meet a lot of CEOs, and it takes about two seconds to figure out which ones are in love with themselves. They want to tell you about their house in Aspen and their trip to Davos. They complain about the cost of repairing their Bentley. They seem so tone deaf to the fact that the rest of us don't hobnob with world leaders or drive cars that cost more than our homes.
My reaction to these leaders is always the same; I listen politely, all the while thinking: what a waste of talent.
One of the hardest challenges for leaders is to remain grounded in the face of their success. When everyone defers to you, it must be tempting to start believing your own press releases. It must be easy to think: I am smarter, more charismatic, and more powerful than everyone else.
To such leaders, I offer one simple suggestion...
Ego is a trap for suckers. It is a trap everyone knows exists. It's not hidden away in the jungle, expertly camouflaged. Ego is a gigantic trap that sits right out in the open. If you fall into this trap, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Fortunately, it's just as easy to get out of this trap as it was to fall into it. All you have to do is start being more concerned about the needs and accomplishments of other people than you are with your own.
Example: I’m going to use a fictional example for this one, so that I don’t have to be critical of the many people who go over the top in bragging about themselves. Instead, let’s imagine Jack and Jill O’Leary, twin 27-year-olds who just published their new book, WE ROCK!
Jack and Jill aren’t bad people; they’re just a bit self-involved. Every post they share online is about:
How well their book is doing
How much people love them
How smart they are
How good-looking they are
How they reached #1 on some list no one ever heard of
Don’t make this mistake. No one likes to hear “Me Me Me Me Me.” No matter how well you are doing, don’t be the one to say it.