Self-assessment of your ego and your idol.
The word ego is used in multiple contexts. Eckhart Tolle, a spiritual teacher and self-help author describes it as the ‘unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present as the witnessing consciousness’. Ryan Holiday, a best-selling author and modern stoic, wrote a book titled ‘Ego is the Enemy’. He refers to the more casual definition of ego, “…an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centred ambition…The need to be better than, more than, recognized for, far past any reasonable utility…Self confidence becomes arrogance, assertiveness becomes obstinacy, and self-assurance becomes reckless abandon”
When does ego become your enemy?
With your ego unchecked you become consciously separated from everything – it impacts your ability to work with other people, to develop an understanding of ourselves and the world around us. You become incapable of receiving criticism, constructive or otherwise. As Ryan Holiday says, “Without an accurate accounting of our own abilities compared to others, what we have is not confidence but delusion.”
Self-awareness of ego is something that we teach our children from an early age, so that they can be humble in their aspirations, gracious in their success and resilient in their failures
Ahead of his sports day, I reminded my son that people won’t take kindly to him being too bullish ahead of the event or if he gloats after winning – and that if he lost, he should do so graciously and congratulate the winner. Needless-to-say he was full of confidence, expected victory, lost by the smallest margin and proceeded to have a sense of humour failure. Tough life lesson there!
So why the interest in ego?
I co-founded Focus Group in 2003 and it’s now one of the largest independent ICT providers in the UK. In 2020 I led the business through a private equity funding round, culminating in the sale of a minority stake to private equity firm Bowmark Capital. With an EV of £225m we set a new benchmark for valuation multiples within our sector. The business now has annual revenues approaching £150m, employs over 750 staff across 9 offices, and supports almost 30,000 businesses.
I was just 24 when I co-founded the business, my business partner even younger at 22. For the first seventeen years we grew the business without any external investment. Only in 2018 did we begin to develop an M&A strategy, with growth prior to that being almost exclusively organic.
In early 2021, after nearly twenty years of running the business, I decided to hire a new CEO. For me, growing a business had meant making sacrifices, and undoubtedly one of those had been my mental health. The successful sale of a minority stake in the business to private equity was the culmination of years of work, and from 2017 to 2020 it was all consuming! Our deal completed on 6th March 2020. Two weeks later COVID-19 came knocking, and the UK went into lockdown. I rolled up my sleeves, rallied the troops and once again gave it everything…
…as the dust settled and the world went back to some sense of normality, something felt different.
I was exhausted - physically & mentally exhausted. I simply didn’t have the energy to go again – at least not at the same intensity that I’d been working at in recent years.
Furthermore, the business now had the foundations to deliver explosive growth, and I wasn’t sure that I was the best person to deliver that, after all I had no experience of leading what was fast becoming a large enterprise, and where I had made up for experience with passion and determination, I felt that the business needed more if it was to realise its full potential.
Evaluating one’s own ability is the most important skill of all. Without it, improvement is impossible. It’s here where ego would have been my enemy, making it difficult every step of the way. Ryan Holiday points out that “Arrogance and self-absorption inhibit growth. So does fantasy and vision”.
Barney Taylor joined as CEO in October 2021, and my title changed to Co-Founder and Director. (At the time of writing Barney has been with the business for almost a year and it has been a great success – he is a dynamic leader, focused on growth, but with an unwavering commitment to maintaining the ethos and culture that has made the business successful)
A couple of months after he joined, we held a two-day off-site strategy session with the senior leadership team. At the end of the second day Barney asked that I deliver a synopsis to the team. My overwhelming emotion was one of pride. Pride at how wonderfully the team had performed. They had delivered their presentations faultlessly, debated productively, embraced challenge openly and shown Barney the strength in depth of ‘my’ team. I said as much, praising them, but also reflecting that this was a watershed moment for us as co-founders and that it represented the beginning of a new era for the business. Barney then asked that each of them give their own reflections in turn.
As the team began giving their thoughts, I noticed a voice in my head – let’s call it ‘ego’ – saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if someone made a point of thanking me for the last 20 years…for leading the business, supporting their development, delivering a great investment outcome for all the shareholders…etc.”
I chuckled to myself. I was intrigued that I had developed a level of 50:50 awareness that allowed me to be present in the room, engaged in the meeting, but also have enough self-awareness to notice that inner voice.
I know what you’re thinking. Did anyone thank me? Well, not publicly. I put it down to people not wanting to seem sycophantic. Maybe that’s my ego protecting itself!?
Fast forward 6 months…I’m listening to an episode of the Rich Roll podcast. His guest was author Arthur C Brooks and the title of the episode was ‘Cracking the Code to Happiness’. There were two key takeaways for me. The first was his assertion that “the secret to happiness is not having more, it’s wanting less”. The second was the concept of the 4 idols: Money, Power, Pleasure & Fame. These are the things that distract you from happiness.
If you’ve read my article titled ‘Where does your ladder lead?’, you’ll know that my idol is not money or power. Pleasure…I like pleasure…who doesn’t, but am I driven by it? No.
Turns out my idol is Fame, but more nuanced than that I want admiration, recognition, acknowledgement, appreciation and a good old pat on the back.
…I’m sure it’ll be a topic for another blog, but I put this down to the very sudden loss of my father when I was just 20 – a psychologist would have a field day about me seeking praise from my elders!
So how does this fit together with ‘ego’? It seems that my ego, or the identity that I have constructed for myself, lacks self-confidence. Rather than having an inflated ego, I have the opposite issue, a lack of self-belief.
Out of the blue and at the ripe old age of 42 I had stumbled upon my ‘why’.
What’s your idol: Money, Power, Pleasure or Fame?
A journey of self-discovery can be surprising, but hugely rewarding. The pretence of knowledge can be dangerous. Being too conceited or self-assured to ask questions will prevent you from finding the answers. Becoming a student of oneself is the antidote to ego. As Epictetus says, “It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows”, so show some humility, invest in self-assessment and while you strive towards your financial/career/material goals, know that it is no less impressive an accomplishment to be a better, happier, balanced and humble person.
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