Ego

This episode is all about ego. How does 2nd guessing others' decisions help to stroke or inflate your own ego? What is the difference between ego and self love?

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Okay,

Here we go.

What?

Great way to start off the new year.

And welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter.

Laughter,

Thank you.

With your host,

Ben Barber.

And I am joined today by my special guest,

Host of Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter,

Glenn Ambrose.

Hello.

That was the worst one yet.

Yeah,

That fell apart fast.

Oh yeah.

Oh well.

Fortunately,

I'm okay with that.

We made it a year,

We did a retrospective.

It's all gravy now.

So now if anybody's wondering if we rehearse ahead of time,

They know that we don't.

We do.

Because if we were to have rehearsed that,

We would have seen it was horrible and not to do it.

I thought that was perfect.

Yeah,

That's what I meant.

So,

Anywho,

We're going to talk about the ego.

I just got flashed that we have five minutes left.

Five minutes left.

Wow,

That went by quick.

Time flies when you're having fun.

Today we're going to talk about the ego.

Ooh.

Yeah,

The ego.

Dave should definitely have been on this one.

It's basically what runs our lives.

And the way,

The aspect of it,

The ego can be,

Well,

There's a lot of things you can talk about with that subject.

Although,

You know,

It is fairly simple like everything else when you get right down to the core of it.

But today we're going to talk about something that came to surface with me watching the Super Bowl.

Well,

Actually after the Super Bowl.

I ended up commenting on it on Facebook because it was just,

It really captured my interest so much.

Was it go pets?

No,

That was the other one that I had put.

Smooth.

So,

No,

What was I talking about?

The ego?

All right,

Pull it together,

Ben.

Come on now.

Ego.

I'm good.

I got this.

Ego.

Okay.

So,

You go ego.

So.

So yeah,

What I saw after the Super Bowl ended,

Now granted I'm a Patriots fan.

So.

Go pets.

It's a little bit easier for me to be happy about the victory.

But the whole,

The announcers were going off about how the opposing coach shouldn't have called the pass play that got intercepted.

And they just kept going on and on and on about it.

And I was,

After a while I'm like,

What,

Why are they so focused on this?

You know,

It's this big football game.

Crazy stuff happens all the time.

I mean,

From a Patriots perspective,

We've been on the other side where we've lost games by amazing out of the ordinary plays.

Almost happened again?

Yeah.

Not,

Right.

And one happened right before that one and an amazing catch right at the end off somebody's leg,

You know?

I mean,

It's,

You know,

This type of stuff happens.

That's why you play the game.

That's why people don't,

You know,

Go on a computer and say,

Okay,

This team is going to win.

And then they just don't play because we already know the turnout.

Anything can happen on the field.

But they were so focused on,

I wouldn't have called that play.

Why did he call that play?

I wouldn't have called that play and they would not leave it alone.

And yeah.

So I started looking at it and I realized what it was is it was,

It was their ego attaching to it.

You know,

The ego,

What the ego likes more than anything is something that doesn't have an answer.

Like with that situation,

You can't go back in time and find out if they were to have run the ball,

If they would have won the game.

Now the odds are maybe that were probably greater than if they threw it,

But you know,

Who knows?

But even,

And then even if you did do that,

You can't climb inside of Pete Carroll's mind and,

And determine that he didn't have rational thinking in his opinion to make that call.

This guy's been coaching football most of his life and been very successful at it,

You know?

And like,

But we're going to second guess a call that he made.

It's ridiculous.

It's,

You know,

It's,

It's like second guessing anything that has already happened in life,

You know,

Second guessing it is a waste of time.

But the reason that ego loves it is because it can constantly feed off of it.

It's like,

You know,

We can come up with 62,

000 reasons why he should have done something different.

And every time we come up with another one or every time we believe one of them even more,

It makes the ego stronger,

Makes them feel better about themselves.

It's just by saying he shouldn't have made that call,

Basically what they're saying is I wouldn't have done that.

So therefore I must be better.

So therefore the ego gets a stroke.

Which is ridiculous because there's 75,

000 decisions that he had to make to get to a situation where you're the head coach of a football team in the Super Bowl.

Right.

With it's like a first or second and goal with 30 seconds left.

Like,

You know what I mean?

He is the only person qualified to make that decision because he's the only person that was capable of getting in that situation.

Right.

He worked long and hard to get himself into that position to be able to make that decision.

And he made the best one at the particular moment.

And you can argue that it wasn't a bad call,

It was just the execution of it.

Right.

Which they started doing later on.

The other side started coming in and going,

Well,

What about this?

It's like the thing that got me is these announcers were former players.

You're telling me that these announcers never made a poor decision when they're on.

.

.

Let's just assume it was a poor decision just for the sake of argument.

Okay,

It's a poor decision.

They've never made a poor decision while out on the football field?

Are you kidding me?

There were a bunch of poor decisions that happened during that game itself.

I saw blown calls by the officials.

There was all kinds of poor decisions that were made just in that one game.

But what it was is they were getting the food.

Their ego was getting the food.

Because the more they could sit back and go,

There is no way I would have made that decision.

I can't come up with a logical understanding of why that decision was made.

The more they could do that,

The more their ego got stroked and the more they felt better about themselves.

They didn't even know they were doing it.

That's the thing of the ego.

That's why I always talk about living consciously is because this is how.

.

.

It's not just the announcers.

This is how we all live.

I still catch myself doing it.

It's all about that loop.

It's like the dog chasing its tail.

Whenever we can find a situation or an argument that has no end,

That has no possibility of an ending,

Because you can talk about should he have made that call or shouldn't he have forever and you will never find out the answer.

Even if you put it into a computer and come up with six billion times to one,

You should have ran it.

Well,

There's still that 1% chance.

There's still that one possibility that that would have been a good play.

You can never,

Ever get to the end of that conversation.

That's why the ego loves to feed on it.

There's lots of different situations like that in life.

That's the other thing that is very obvious in this.

We've been discussing politics for hundreds of years and are things getting better because of our discussions?

One thing that I think the dichotomy of it is with the Democrats saying that the Republicans are doing things wrong and the Republicans saying the Democrats are doing something wrong.

As long as the ego keeps that cycle going,

Where they keep pointing the finger back and forth at each other,

The answer doesn't lie in that.

If there is an answer,

There's a better chance that the answer is within those two parties coming together,

But they're not interested in that.

They're interested in blaming the other one and that will go on forever because it's a perfect ego loop.

You can just,

Well,

Yeah,

But they shouldn't have done this.

Well,

They shouldn't have done that.

Well,

If you think like I think,

Then everything would be fine.

Well,

If you think like I think,

Then everything would be fine.

Do you think egos have gotten worse?

The ego problem has gotten worse?

That's tough to say.

That's tough to say because we live in an age of technology and the world is shrinking as far as we see things that are going on all over the place.

I feel like it's a lot easier to get your ego stroked by groupthink on the internet.

I think that there's a,

Like what you just said with politics or whatever,

You're able to make a proclamation and then see that other people agree with you and that strokes your ego even more.

There is that aspect,

But the ego has been running this world since the beginning of man and that's been the source of all of our problems.

So it's the,

I mean,

Back how many years ago?

I mean,

Thousands of years ago when societies and even more recently,

But I'm trying to make a point by going way back in time when slavery was a commonplace.

So that's a hundred percent ego.

I mean,

You can't take another human being and say that I'm better than them.

Therefore,

I get all the good stuff and they are slaves for me.

That's ego.

I mean,

So that's the type of thing that we need to keep in mind because we have a tendency to reminisce about the past and look back on it and go,

Oh,

Things were better when there was a simpler time and things have gotten so bad.

It's just manifested in different ways.

Maybe it's easier to not,

Not that it's easier to see,

But you get inundated with it.

Like as you said about the call in the Super Bowl,

Like your,

I'm sure yours was my Facebook feed just blew up with like,

Oh,

Pete Carroll,

What an idiot.

You know,

Like that the worst call ever stuff like that.

And,

You know,

But saying that,

But I guess my point about like social media and stuff maybe making it worse with group think is like,

You say something declarative like that,

Which then makes you feel like you're better than that person.

And then you have literally an audience and other people confirming.

Which strokes are you go even more.

And it's so easy for people to get food because that is a statement that most,

There's going to be a lot of people that agree that they should have run the ball.

A lot of people watching,

No matter who,

You know,

You were rooting for,

There's going to be a lot of people that would say,

And we have this need to fit in too.

So people who don't even know anything about football are going to be going,

Oh my God,

That was a stupid call,

Huh?

Why?

Because they know everybody's going to agree with them,

You know,

And they know they're not going to get picked on and they know that they're going to feel a part of.

So their ego is getting stroked in that way.

You know,

It's a very safe thing for them to put out there to feel a part of and to get an ego stroke off of.

You know,

There's just about no risk.

Right.

You know,

When you came in today,

I was watching,

I had something on,

It's gotten crazy,

Like a big thing that's noticeable recently has been in professional wrestling,

Like crowds groupthink mentality of armchair quarterback.

Yeah.

People judging other people.

So much that like the people,

It was the same result as like the people disagreeing with the call of the Superbowl so much so that like the internet community put like a hashtag cancel WWE so much so that like Time magazine and USA Today and Fox like picked it up as a news story.

Wow.

Yeah.

Which is just insane.

Like,

And it's all people looking at something else and going,

I wouldn't have done it that way.

Yeah.

Oh,

Well.

Yeah,

But you and then you're looking at all the attention that we caused.

Yeah.

We're a part of this.

We're like,

Yeah.

And I was,

But they didn't do any of the,

It wasn't their call.

Like,

So who are they to judge?

You know,

It's,

It's,

It's a story.

It's you know,

It is.

And it's all,

It's all ego stroke.

And it's the beauty of it is like I said,

Like we don't,

We're not conscious enough to understand why we get so excited about this stuff.

But you just,

You know,

Gave a wonderful example of how the excitement is,

How much excitement is around that.

How much,

How these big magazines and things are picking it up as stories because there's so much attention around it.

Why is there so much attention around it?

Because it has such good teeth.

It's got,

It's such a good ego stroke.

It's perfect because they can sit back on the outside and have nothing to do with the inner workings of anything,

Point the finger out and say,

I wouldn't have done it that way.

And this is why.

And,

And they can come up with some answer that makes sense in their head.

It doesn't matter.

It wasn't your call.

Like it's not your game.

You're not playing.

I,

And I get that.

Like if I was a,

If the Patriots had done the,

If this situation was reversed,

Cause I'm not a Seahawks fan,

Obviously I don't dislike them,

But,

Well,

You know,

I kind of,

Anyway,

I do a little bit after the,

After some of the stuff with the Superbowl.

But the,

If that happened to the Patriots,

The call happened to the Patriots and,

Which did a couple of years ago,

I think five years ago,

Six years ago,

They had the fourth and two debate with the Colts game and,

Uh,

Belichick going for it on fourth and two and them not making it.

And everybody turned on him or,

Uh,

The Grady little in 2003,

Uh,

The,

Uh,

Red Sox,

Leaving Pedro in for too long.

Like I get as a fan of the team thinking that the decision was wrong and being upset because the outcome that you wanted to see didn't happen.

Right.

I get that.

Me too.

But I also feel like there should be a healthy respect that you're not the person that should be making that decision.

Yeah.

And it's,

It's just a matter of keeping that ego in check.

I mean,

If you're,

I'm at the place where I can enjoy a football game and even root for a particular team without taking it personally.

I mean,

This,

This,

That call was not a personal attack on me.

So why would I be upset?

You know,

And,

And the,

The,

The,

The level of excitement that goes around it is,

You know,

I don't know a lot about Pete Carroll,

But I do know a little bit about him.

I know that he takes his spirituality seriously.

And I see it when,

When I see him have interviews,

The way he coaches that team and the way he,

He talks about his job and what he does.

I see his outlook being a very healthy outlook and I respect him for that.

And I think that that,

That was one of the reasons why it was more obvious to me because I'm like,

Boy,

Like I would have been,

Honestly,

I'm a Pats fan,

But I would have been happy either way because I respect Pete Carroll as a coach.

So I have a little bit of a connection with that team.

So it's like,

You know,

And I mean,

I want the Pats to win,

But I would have,

I sure as heck wouldn't have torn down,

You know,

The other team.

And it's,

It becomes so obvious when people get their good,

You know,

When people get their good food.

It's,

It's like this guy,

I just didn't think he deserved it.

And like I said,

I mean,

Really,

I think for this podcast sake,

We should probably veer away from the Super Bowl because it sounds like we're talking about a particular subject and in a way we are,

But this is all about our life outside and how things and how our ego controls us,

You know,

And how we get our ego stroke by complaining about things.

Right.

This is where I was,

This is the part that I wanted to take it with all of this is that I do not think that the problem is thinking that it was a bad call.

This is,

This is for me,

Like for any of this stuff,

The Super Bowl,

The stuff that I mentioned with the wrestling,

Like I might agree with the opinions that some of these people are posting online.

I'm,

You know,

Sure,

It might seem obvious that you would run the ball in that situation,

But maybe you don't.

Sure.

Like I wanted this guy to win this match and he didn't,

And I'm upset about that.

Sure.

I wanted,

I think maybe you should have taken Pedro Martinez out in 2003,

But I think that the difference is that when you go online,

When you use the technology,

When you complain about it to get your voice heard,

So that I think that that's where you're using it to stroke your ego.

Well,

And it's not just the social media,

It's when you attach to the statement so much to where you feel adrenaline shooting through you.

Like why?

I mean,

That's the trigger that your ego is getting a stroke.

That's the trait,

That's a red flag that something's off.

If you're sitting there going,

He shouldn't have made that call.

There's no way you shouldn't have.

Are you kidding me?

Who makes that?

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa.

How does this affect your life?

This is,

You're not on the team.

You're not affiliated with the team.

You never played football in your life.

You don't like,

And,

But they're taking it personally.

Like the statement that I shouldn't,

He shouldn't have run the ball becomes part of their identity.

I am one who would have made a better decision and this guy is obviously some sort of a moron.

Like it becomes personal in their life and that's when you can tell your ego's getting involved.

When you start taking it,

When it feels like it's personally affecting your life,

When hormones are shooting through your body because of a call that somebody else made,

You know,

A thousand miles away from you on TV,

That should not be shooting up your blood pressure like that.

It doesn't have anything to do with you,

You know?

So it's,

That's,

People are identifying with it.

And what is identifying with it?

Their ego.

Because the true selves obviously aren't identifying with some football call made.

It's their ego that's identifying with it.

And why is your ego identifying with it?

It's because it's good food for it.

It's because you can stand up and say,

It shouldn't be,

Therefore I must be better.

What about like even on a personal level,

Like let's take it to the personal level.

A friend does something that you don't agree with,

You know?

Oh,

She,

I feel like I see this a lot probably on like TV shows and stuff more as a representative of this,

But like mothers that say like something that they do that other mothers don't do and it comes off as like putting the other person down.

Yeah,

Or like,

Yeah,

Like passive aggressive.

Yeah.

I think the people use passive aggressiveness as like a way to stroke their own ego or like,

Excuse me,

Like say you bought a Prius,

Right?

Say I bought a Prius and you have a SUV.

You do have an SUV,

Right?

Okay.

And I am like,

And I'm like,

Glen bought an SUV.

Can you believe that?

He shouldn't have done that.

He should have bought a smaller car,

Save,

You know,

At least he should have bought a hybrid or something that works on,

You know what I mean?

Like if I'm judging you,

I'm judging you to stroke my own ego.

Absolutely.

You're getting something out of it because you feel more right.

It's like,

You know,

If we focused on ourselves instead of other people judging other people,

You know,

And I've said this before,

As soon as you complain,

You're stroking your ego.

It's,

You know,

As a default,

Right?

If you say,

You know,

They shouldn't have done this,

They shouldn't have done that.

By default,

You were saying I wouldn't have done it that way,

Therefore I am better.

And you're not consciously doing it.

I understand that it's not conscious,

But that is why people do it so much.

That's why we run around judging people all the time.

And it's to stroke our ego so we feel better then.

So we don't,

And most of the time,

It's the band-aid we put on ourselves to make ourselves feel better.

Well,

I'm better than them.

Okay.

You know,

At least I don't feel like crap about myself in this particular moment.

If we slow down and stop pointing the finger out at other people and look at ourselves,

You know,

Then sometimes we don't like what we see,

But the good part is,

Is we can change it.

We can become whoever we want to be,

But we have to start focusing on ourselves instead of other people.

You know,

It's that the stroking the ego is just a vicious cycle that never ends.

And whenever you,

If you notice what's occupying your mind,

The,

If things that are occupying your mind,

You stop for a second and try to see if there's a resolution that's possible,

You're going to really be able to see what's all about your ego and what's not about your ego.

You know,

Because if there's not,

If you're contemplating things in your mind and there's no resolution there,

Then that's definitely ego.

Because that's what your ego's looking for.

Something that has no resolution.

So you can just debate it and stay and flux constantly.

All right.

Well now it's time to get back to our quote section.

If you want to hear a quote on ego.

Oh,

I'd love to.

All right.

I have two possible quotes.

One is very,

Well,

All right,

I'll just give them both.

The first one,

If you're,

It's from Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Physicist,

Host of Cosmos.

Oh,

Okay.

If your ego starts out,

I am important.

I am big.

I am special.

You're in for some disappointments when you look around at what we've discovered about the universe.

No,

You're not big.

No,

You're not.

You're small in time and in space and you have this frail vessel called a human body that's limited on earth.

That really is like- That's depressing.

Yeah.

And then this one is,

That's a good slap down for anybody that's getting too big of an ego.

And then this one I think is great.

The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something,

But to be something.

Mohammed Iqbal.

To be something.

That's what your ego is.

Your ego is a whole thought up reality,

A fictional person that you are.

It takes all kinds of food and you make up an idea of who you think you're supposed to be and you feed that.

There's a healthy ego,

Right?

No.

No?

No.

There's the ego and then there's you.

So there's not a healthy aspect of the ego.

Now I mean,

Is the goal to have no ego whatsoever?

Well that's a tall order.

God knows I still have some.

And I know most people,

Even the top spiritual leaders in the world that I listen to and read,

I can see ego in some of them.

So it's,

You know,

Being completely free of it would be a really tall order.

But the more we get connected,

That's what this journey is about,

Is really finding out who you are,

Not who your mind-made fictional character is that we've created.

I heard Pete Holmes,

Who's a podcast host,

Say once that he was listening to or talking to,

I want to say it was Deepak Chopra.

Wow,

That must have been snow coming off the roof.

Wow.

Wow.

It's been snowing a lot here.

Oh man.

We just had a whole sheet of snow slide off the roof.

Wow.

So Pete Holmes was talking to Deepak Chopra,

I believe,

And he said that he was doing these speaking engagements and that he heard an announcement before a show that.

.

.

It sounds like Eckhart Tolle.

Eckhart Tolle,

Yes.

Have you also said this?

He heard an announcement before a show that he was about to go on.

Right,

The show starts in 10 minutes.

Show starts in 10 minutes and then all of a sudden he got nervous.

Yeah,

He noticed his palms were sweating.

He was like,

What the heck is this?

And he said that it was his ego.

Right,

He believed the announcement.

So he was like,

Oh no,

There's a show starting in 10 minutes.

I have to do a show.

And so he started getting nervous because a show implies,

Even subconsciously,

That you're putting on a show,

So you're doing something other than yourself.

You have to go perform,

Be somebody you're not.

And that's how his ego perceived it.

So he started getting nervous because his ego perceived that he had to go do something that wasn't himself.

So then as soon as he acknowledged it,

He went,

Oh no,

No,

No,

There's no show,

It's just me.

I'm going out there.

And he's like,

Oh,

OK,

Then his nerves just completely relaxed and he was fine,

Which is amazing that he's at the level.

And that's one of the few people on this planet that very rarely,

If ever,

Do I ever sense any ego in him.

When I'm listening to his stuff,

I just don't see it.

Most of the other people I do.

It's basically like him,

The Dalai Lama,

Me.

Well,

No.

All right.

Well,

I think that's going to do it about our ego.

I think we'll be diving into this more in the future too,

Because the ego can be pretty complex and it can be really a good thing to look at from multiple angles so we can learn to catch it in different ways.

And the only other thing I want to say was,

As far as there's not a healthy ego,

But there's healthy self-love,

There's healthy self-respect.

We confuse words.

If we feel good about ourselves,

People get the feeling that we're conceited.

It's two different things.

So you can love yourself and have tons of respect for yourself,

And that's the goal in a lot of what we're doing,

Without having it to do with your ego.

So that's about it with that.

Where can people find you?

They can find me at life-enhancement-services.

Com and on my Facebook page,

Life Enhancement Services,

And my personal Facebook page,

Glenn Ambrose,

Glenn with two N's.

And they can always find me at my place.

Well,

Not always,

But often.

Not right now.

Not right now,

I'm not there.

2076 New Snack Hill Road in Coventry,

Rhode Island,

02816.

And that's about it for today.

I'm good with that.

All right,

Bye.

All right,

Peace out.

This podcast is presented by New Shore Productions.

The producers,

Glenn Ambrose,

Benjamin Barber,

And David DeAngelis.

Reviews

Ego! Get it away from me! I don't watch sports at all, but I do understand your key points in the message. You are a wordsmith!

Didn't get all the sport stuff but sound message 💜x

I been wondering if some ego was good and I agree with his answer.

Very insightful. Didnt realize how much complaining has to do with ego!

Am I stroking your ego if I give you five stars?
E. G. O. Easing Goodness Out.

Very enlightening! Just what I needed to hear.

Spectacular thanks! At first i was not a fan of the football example and felt i needed a different perspective since i am not a sports fan. Caught myself starting to complain internally but caught that ego right in its tracks! 😅

You guys crack me up with your football analogies ...hehe But it's all great guidance to keep Ego in check and how not to create the "Others"- which we need so much right now❤️