How To Be Egotistical Enough To Do Great Work

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For years, I tried to be a writer. Then I started writing online. The invisible critic on my shoulder turned out to be a help instead of a hindrance.

The improvements include:

My writing has improved.

Feedback has been from interested readers instead of my disinterested family.

I’ve found a drive to do it, instead of thinking about it.

Conventional advice tells us to write as if no one is watching. However, that’s only useful for getting your first words down. If you’re trying to improve consistently, you need a forcing function. For me, knowing there’s an audience makes me want to write better.

I know this is my ego talking, but it’s effective. It leads to good reading for my audience and commitment from myself.

This is true on a macro level as well. Most cities build their boldest works of architecture around expos. Milan created their Bosco Verticale right ahead of Expo 2015:

My home city of Montreal built Habitat ahead of Expo 67:

When people are watching, we act how we want to be seen.

But ego is a messy word. It can mean both self-esteem and self-importance. Those are two very different things. So it turns out ego is 2 staggered spectrums.

Ego is good to a limiter. That limiter is mean ability (of the doers of the task, not the general populace). When it drive you to the realization that you can accomplish the mean it’s good. But if it drives your self identity to an abnormal mooring, it gets increasingly problematic

You aren’t necessarily wrong, you’re just less likely to be right.

The key is channeling enough ego empower you to do great work, but not channeling too much to become inhinged.

Failure from megalomania can often be more destructive than failure from inaction.

We all do our best work when we see someone watching.

If we’re channeling ego for the purpose of doing great work, what is the definiion of great work:

Paul Graham:

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The way ego can misfire here is miscaculating the frontier. Overshooting isn’t possible as it’ll be apparent since nothing will be left to learn. Undershooting is possible if you stop learning prematurely.

Calling Frontiers is the permanent skill here.

Morgan Housel:

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The Dunning Kruger effect can cause people to reach a ‘false frontier’ very early in their learning journey.

Sometimes being on the edge of one frontier can cause you to misjudge your edge on another. John A. Roebling was the man who designed New York’s 1st bridge, the brooklyn bridge. It’s an engineering marvel, being the longest suspension bridge in the world upon its construction. During the initial surveying work of the bridge he crushed his foot. Not a believer in modern medicine, he tried water therapy (continually pouring water over the wound). What would’ve been a survivable tetanus infection ended up killing him. Another genius became a victim of Mount Stupid.

Pg disagrees with me. Formality & Affectation are synonymous with Ego.

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