Ego is a warm cozy bed in January.
Last night, I delivered my first interactive workshop (of hopefully many) on the topic of leadership and professional development as a real adult professional— no longer a student.
The workshop didn’t really go exactly as I had pictured in my head. Not that it went poorly, per se, but it didn’t leave me with the elated excited-for-future-possibilities feeling that I often get after leading a group through a number of creative “thought experiments” and ideation. Or at least not right away…
You know, a couple people cancelled last minute, a couple showed up late, it took a while to get everyone seated and attentive etc. And I expected a bit of this — I even planned a little “brainteaser” for the first 15 minutes of the session so on-time participants would have something meaningful to do while we waited for late participants. But in reality, that 15 minutes was an optimistic buffer.
So although I wish everyone had been punctual, giving me more time to go through material, I choose to regard this logistical constraint the same way I do adding another few more pounds to the squat rack: it’ll only make me better. Challenging? Yes. Good for me? Also yes.
Instead of wondering “how can I get participants to arrive on time?” (something largely outside of my control) I will work to answer the question “how can I deliver an engaging, high-value workshop in spite of time constraints?” Even better, I will challenge myself to figure out “how does having less time create an opportunity to deliver more value in comparison to similar workshops?”
Originally when I sat down to write this reflection I was feeling a bit flat and unfulfilled. But after about 90 minutes, my inner monologue got real with me: this was the very first one, you idiot.
Of course this first workshop wasn’t going to live up to my fantasy. To even allow myself to think my first workshop would a) go off without a hitch and b) facilitate mind-altering levels of creativity and innovation is, frankly, embarrassing to admit. This is especially because the objective of the VERY FIRST message and activity I delivered in the workshop was to create an “ego-free zone”. Oh the irony….
I do, truly, believe that ego is the enemy and that vulnerability can be a competitive advantage. I also truly believe I have made a lot of personal and professional progress in this area since my first career change. In fact I KNOW I have.
But it’s really, really tough. We are physiologically wired and socially conditioned to develop an ego. It is a state of mind and of being that reflects comfort and security. When we’re young, with no real value to offer — waiting to see what we will become— our ego is fragile. And then time passes and we start to learn stuff and accomplish things. We receive social and (sometimes) financial reward for these accomplishments and that feels good! How could you not indulge in that a little bit?
Your ego is kinda like your warm, cozy bed when you wake up at dark-o-clock in mid-January: it doesn’t feel good to part from it.
Here’s the funny part (and really the whole point of this piece): your ego doesn’t ONLY close you off from the negative stuff like criticism. Just like your warm bed, holding onto your safe psychological position also keeps you from potentially discovering some good stuff about yourself. And that’s what happened to me last night.
I began writing this piece with the intention of “practicing what I preached” to attendees last night about “shelving our egos” and embracing vulnerability. I had planed to do this by sharing pictures of the constructive criticism I was sure I would find in the anonymous feedback I collected at the end of the workshop. I actually wrote…
“There are a number of cue cards pilled on my bed with feedback on them from tonight’s attendees. I haven’t looked at them yet…but I’m going to post pictures of the most critical feedback here. Here we go…”
Hilariously, when I opened up all the feedback I found very little criticism (see pictures below). In general, participants enjoyed the session. Even more amazing was that the most common piece of feedback was related to STAYING ON TIME! These participants, like me, were just as bothered by the fact that we couldn’t get through everything as I was!
Wow.
The lesson I learned was that ego doesn’t just keep us from the hard-to-swallow stuff, it also shields us from the stuff that can generate feelings of hope, optimism and courage.
Waking up this morning, I still know I have lots of work to do on this particular project. But after some reflection last night, a good sleep and a little physical activity this morning, I genuinely feel EXCITED to put in that work and develop a workshop that is both memorable and meaningful for future participants.
(Thank you to last night’s participants for your feedback — positive and negative. It might’ve only taken you a minute, but — as you can probably tell-it meant so much to me.)
