Defensiveness in business is horrible for business — it prevents listening to great ideas, blocks others from sharing wisdom, and stops you from asking customers what they need. All of this is ego protection. Joe argues that allowing business to constantly shatter your ego — by being non-defensive, letting yourself be wrong, letting yourself be right even when others disagree — is a disintegration of ego that parallels what children do to parents.
A crucial clarification: ego isn’t “I’m the greatest and I know what decisions to make.” Ego is any way you define yourself. If you define yourself as “unclear and scared,” that’s ego too. When that identity gets annihilated, second-guessing stops and you become more capable. The obliteration goes in both directions — dissolving both grandiosity and false smallness.
“A lot of people think ego means I’m super sure and I’m the greatest. Ego is really any way that you define yourself. If you define yourself as unclear and scared and that gets annihilated, then the second guessing is gonna stop.”