Use your EGO for Good | The Mindset Mentor Podcast

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. Today we're going to be talking about how to use your ego for good. Now, when we hear the word ego in the way that I've always thought of it, I've always had a bad connotation around ego because we hear things about how ego can be destructive. You know, oh, that's his ego is just too big, or, oh, that was her ego taking over, or that's. That was just through ego talking, or that's his egoic side. And the ego seems like a negative and destructive psychological thing that we have inside of us. But go on a journey with me here. Is it possible that we could use our ego for good? Is it possible that we could use it, instead of being negative and destructive, to use it to be positive and constructive? I think that we can. And I'm actually going to give you some examples of how you can use your ego. Is it also possible that maybe our ego will never go away? You know, let's say you live to 100 years old, hopefully. Let's hope I live to 100 years old. I'm 37 right now, so that means I got, what, 63 more years. Is it possible that I could, over the next 63 years, learn how to work with my ego and learn how to have an ego that comes in and comes out and all that stuff, but it never actually goes away? I think that it is part of us, and I think that it's a part of us that was built into basically our operating system as a child. And to get rid of it, I don't know if it's gonna ever happen. And so if I'm never gonna get rid of it, I might as well learn how to work with it, right? I think it's a possibility that it will never go away. It's actually part of your psychological makeup. When you read psychology books, they talk about how the ego is a part of your psychological makeup. And if we can't get rid of our ego, what we can do is we can accept it and then start to use it for good. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. And the way that I really started to understand this is over the past few months. So as I was writing my book, we went through, like, seven rounds of edits, like, so many different. I spent countless hours editing the book and changing it and making it better and adding to it and subtracting from it and changing words around to make a sentence more rich. And I was just putting so much effort over and over and over again, you know, while I'm still doing this podcast, while I'm running my business with over 30 people that work for me. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm just trying to create the best book that I can. Like, I really, truly want to create the best book that I can, because I know that the better that the book is, the more likely it is to impact someone's life. And the more that it impacts their life, the more likely they are to recommend it to somebody. Right? And when they recommend it to somebody, then somebody else will buy it and it's likely to change their life as well. And so all of this is true. But as I was thinking this, I took a step back and I started to play devil's advocate, as I like to do is try to see if I can see both sides. So it's like I'm trying to see both sides of the coin. And so I noticed that as I was playing devil's advocate, I was thinking about my ego in here. And I was thinking to myself, yeah, you do want to help people. You do want to help change the world. You do want it to be recommended to people, but you also just want to sell a lot of books. Like you. You also do want to be a New York Times best selling author, and you do want a lot of people to buy it. Yes. And if a lot of people do buy it, you'll make more money off of it. I thought to myself, shit, all of that is true as well. So is there anything wrong with those? Like, is there anything wrong with wanting to make money off it? Is there anything wrong with wanting to be a New York Times bestseller? Is there anything wrong with wanting to sell a lot of copies? No, there's nothing wrong with it. But is there a case that both of those sides are true? And I was like, yeah, they are. Like, I do really want to impact the world and shit. Like, it would be nice to make money off this thing, right? And then I started thinking to myself, interesting. Is it possible that my ego is actually helping me create a better book? My egoic side, my selfish side that wants to have a New York Times best selling book and to make a lot of money? My selfish side, that egoic side of me, is it helping me create a better book? And if I create a better book because of my ego as well, I will help more people. So is my ego this thing that's supposed to be so bad, actually helping me help more people? And I was like, oh, damn, it actually is. And I realized that my ego can actually be used for good, but it's gotta be directed correctly. It can't just run wild. It's like the way I like to think of, like an ego is like a bull, right? A bull is just an animal, it's just there. And a wild bull could be absolutely dangerous if you're in a small room with it, right? But a bull that maybe was birthed on a farm in a village, that's been raised around humans and has been trained to do certain jobs, like it can pull a plow and it can go through an entire garden and plow the land so that therefore they can garden, they can create more food. That bull that's trained to be able to pull a plow can help create more food for a village to eat. Same animal, different scenarios of how it might be used. One is used intentionally and the other one, it's just dangerously running around. Same thing for your ego. Your ego. And mine up until recently has been running wild. And your ego can run wild and it could be dangerously running wild like that bull can. Or if used correctly, it can be used intentionally. So then that really brings the question, and how do you use your ego for good? Well, when I say your ego or your egoic side, what's the first thing that pops into your head? Like, what is the first thing that pops into your head about yourself? Is it your selfishness? Is it your jealousy, your judgmental side, your arrogance, your insecurities, the fact that sometimes you're self centered, your defensiveness, your attachment to certain things, your resistance to change, your perfectionism? Like, what's the thing that when I say your ego, you're like, that's the first thing that pops up. That's the first thing I want you to think of is what is the side of you that is kind of like, hey, I'm right here, this is the thing, we should work on this one first, right? What is that thing that pops up into your head? Okay, now that's what we're going to work through. The first thing that you need to do, in my opinion, with this egoic side of you is to accept that it is part of you. Just like my arm. Like, if you're looking at the video, this is my arm. I have to accept that this is my arm. You know, you might have a hairy arm, you might have a freckle on your arm, but you don't go and cut off your arm because it's not quote unquote, Perfect, right? You accept it, it is there and it may be there forever. Hopefully you have your arm forever. So what we need to do, the first step of all of this, is to say, yes, I do have ego, I do have egoic sides. I do have some selfishness or some self centeredness or some judgmental side, or I do have some defensiveness. I do have all of these aspects of me. And just as I, you know, might be outgoing, or I might be shy, or I might be happy, or I might be joyful, I might be peaceful, or it might be calm, all of those are aspects of myself. The same way that all of the ego sides of me are also aspects of myself. So the first thing I think that we need to do collectively is accept, hey, you know what? I do have an ego. It's there. It's been there for. Since something happened to me when I was younger. I don't even know what it was. Could have been three years old, four years old, five years old, and I started to develop this side of me. And at this point in time, that that side of me is very mature. So getting rid of it probably won't happen. So what I can do is I can take a step back and say, you know what, I'm just going to accept that it's there. And a lot of times when you accept that it's there, it has a whole lot less control over you and then you can start to use it for good. So that selfish side of my ego that I described earlier, the selfishness that I was talking about when I was talking about writing the book, is just a part of Rob. That's just the way that I see it. I have accepted it and I've accepted that it may be here forever. And if, you know, you cannot teach the ego to be anything other than egotistic. So if that's the case, I'm just gonna try to use it to help me create more amazing things. Okay? So that's the first thing is we need to accept it. What's the second thing we need to do? The second thing we need to do is we need to change our relationship with it. I was teaching this a few days ago to a bunch of people. I said, it's kind of like marrying somebody and you get the in laws and you might not get along with your mother in law or your father in law, but they're there. Like, you just have to accept that they're there. And so if they're not going to be going anywhere, you need to change your relationship. With them. It's kind of how the ego is too. You need to be able to change your relationship with it. You need to find the good in there. You need to find the good that's inside of that ego. Like I was talking about, the selfishness that I was describing earlier helped me write a better book. And that better book will eventually change some people's lives. It might change millions, it might change 400, I don't know. But I'm accepting that it is there and it helped me write a better book. And if it's going to be there, how can you change your relationship with it? So instead of being in constant battle with it, can I change my relationship with it? And you know, I can see that although there has been some bad that has come from that egoic side of me, also a lot of good has come from it as well. So the question I have for you is, can you find the good that has come from your ego? Can you find, like take a step back, you know, press pause if you need to on this, close your eyes and just think like, what good has come from my defensiveness or my selfishness or my self centeredness or whatever it is. All of those different things you could have possibly. I described all of them earlier. I can't remember off the top of my head, right? What good has come from it? You need to pause this episode and close your eyes and ask yourself, like, what good has come from it? See if you can find it. Or if you have a pen and paper. Even better, you can journal the question like, what good I has come? What good has my ego created in me or in the world? And it might be hard to find at first. I usually find that when you're, you're trying to change your perception on something, like something that you viewed as a negative aspect of yourself, and now you're gonna try to look through a positive lens. It can be very hard. It might be hard to find, but I promise you that it's there and it's hard to find. Because I'm asking you to look through a completely different lens than you've looked at it in your entire life. But when it comes down to it, there is good there. And so what you have to do, change your relationship around it, right? Find the good that is in that thing. Same way with the in laws. There might be some negative things at the in laws, but I guarantee there's still some positive things. Can you start focusing more on the positive things? So that's the second thing. And then the third Thing to do is as you've actually started to accept it, change your relationship with it, is actually start to use it for good. Use it now to create something better in this world. The way that I like to think about is like a tool in a toolbox, right? I can pull my ego out when I want to create better content and go, well, I want to create better content so people like me more. I want to create better content so that more people listen to my podcast. Or I want to create better content so I make more money or become more famous, whatever the fuck you want, right? I can look at it that way, but I can also say, but it is also helping me create more content that is better. And if it's better than what I could have done, it will also be impacting more people. So it's just like a tool in a toolbox. How can you use it for good whenever you need to? Like when you need to put a nail into a wall and you're trying to hang something, what is the absolute best tool that you can reach for? You're going to reach for your hammer, right? You want to reach for your hammer to hammer in a nail, but you don't use the hammer. If you're trying to screw something into a board, what do you use for that now? Could you use it? Yeah, I guess you could use it. But really what it comes down to is you're gonna try to find a screwdriver for that. And so really what it comes down to is your ego and different aspects of your egos. Your ego can be used depending on when it is needed. So how can you start to see it as like a tool in your toolbox and you can just pull it out whenever you need it? It's not running wild and it's not always working. You're not always running around smacking things with hammers. But when you need that hammer, when you have a nail is when you're going to go to it, when you have a screw and you need to screw it in, you're going to find a screwdriver. So it's the same thing for your ego. It's a tool that's in your tool belt ready to be used intentionally. That's the key word. You have to be able to use it intentionally when you need to use it. And the point is that you use it, not it uses you. Because for most of our lives, the ego inside of us has been using us. The real question is, how can we learn to use that tool in our toolbox when we use it versus it actually using us. And then what we do is we realize that we could go through this and there might be, you know, one aspect of your ego that you don't really like, or with all the things that I said earlier, there might be many aspects of your ego that you don't like. You might look at that. And if I go back to the, to the list, you know, you could go, yeah, I do have a few of them. Like there is selfishness, there's jealousy, there's judgmental, there's some arrogance, there's some insecurity, there is some self centeredness, defensiveness, attachment, resistance to change, there is some perfectionism. All of those things exist. How can I use each of those to be better? How can I start to use them for good? And there might be one aspect you ego you want to change. There might be multiple aspects of the ego that you want to change, but you have to kind of go through the three step process. And first thing is to just accept that it is there, it is an aspect of you and it probably will be an aspect of you forever. That's the first thing. And if it is an aspect of you forever, you need to change your relationship with it and start to actually find some good that can come from it. And then third thing is you need to use it for good. And so if you go through this process, what you'll start to realize is that it becomes really easy to let go and start stop judging yourself for so much of the ego that you might have and start seeing that it does have a use. It can be used for good. And if I use it correctly, it can also help me create a better life for myself and those people around me as well. And that, my friends, is how you befriend your ego and use it for good. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a favor right now, help us grow this podcast. Subscribe. Take a screenshot of you listening to it or to the episode that you're listening to and, or a picture or a video of where you are and just share it on your Instagram stories and just tag me in it. Robdial Jr R O B D I A L J R I mean, we probably have three to 400 of you guys that share every single day. So I greatly, greatly appreciate you guys sharing, which is why we always get more and more listeners every single month. So I appreciate you guys for doing that. So if you would do that for me, I'D appreciate it. Once again, it is Robdial Jr R O B d I a l j r and I'm going to leave the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.