Your Ego Doesn’t Like To Be Wrong.
Neither does mine.

“The purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs but to evolve them.” 

Adam Grant, here, pretty pithily articulates a key element of a true growth mindset and I’ve certainly fallen into the trap of trying to prove myself right as opposed to genuinely seeking to get it right – which may mean that I was wrong.

I don’t like to be wrong.

Correction – my ego doesn’t like to be wrong.

On that note, here’s a little rethink on my answer to the following poll question:

What’s more important to an organisation’s performance? Presence or Purpose?

I went for both being equally important and doubled down on that belief by putting further thought into it and writing a blog post.

You can read that blog, here: Taking Care of Today to Take Care of Tomorrow.

The extra effort to articulate, and effectively productise a thought or belief, packaging it up into a post, can make it even more fixed and harder to unpick.

Yet, here we are.

I now believe that it’s presence. In the words of Ram Dass, the ability to simply “be here now” more of the time.

The present moment is the only actual moment that is real, whilst the past and future only exist as memories or projections in our mind.

If we’re so rarely in the here and now, we can never really awaken to our lives true purpose which is about living in harmony, rather than resistance to what is.

Without exceptional levels of presence or being, any purpose that an organisation or individual articulates is simply a product of our egos – an ego purpose – which is more about creating a separate identity that shows how we’re unique, and ultimately better than the others. 

Purpose, as understood and commoditized in business, has become a device for reinforcing separateness and making more money. 

True purpose and meaning, that comes from a place of exceptional being, is about harmony and connection – the opposite of separateness. 

Oh no.

I now feel the ego gratification of putting forth a view that probably goes against the grain in current business discussion. It might even be going against the grain of a process that our company is going through right now. That feels a bit bewildering.

Wow – that’s cool. Good to be contrary.

And now, having taken the time to articulate it as a post, I identify more with the belief, further fortifying that ego desire to be different from/better than.

Damn. It’s happening again.

Come back to the present.

Be careful, when feeling that you’ve stumbled across some truth, not to identify too much with it. It makes us more rigid, fixed and hampers our ability to grow.