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have you ever found yourself in the
shower talking to yourself going over
some decision you made or mulling over a
bad situation you've found yourself in
only to realize you could and should
have handled them very differently have
you ever wondered why in the heat of the
moment you said or did things you now
regret taking a step back and replaying
in your mind you realize you actually
made some of the worst decisions ever
wondered who's controlling that voice in
your head talking back critiquing and
judging you even though it comes from
inside your mind is it really you that
little voice you talk to on a daily
basis there seems to help you along the
way and gives you advice isn't
necessarily your friend it can morph
into your greatest enemy it's that part
of you that in truth is holding you back
from realizing your true potential
one of guy ritchie's most underrated
movies
revolver is all about your ego it was
just so deep an intricate it probably
went over the majority of people's heads
the irony is that the film went
unnoticed under the radar just as that
voice in your head lives unnoticed and
under the radar for most of our lives
the whole movie is a metaphor for how
our ego controls us making us
second-guess in our every decision and
prevents us from doing what righteous
rather than what feels right you know
what's up elegant about this game Jake
nobody knows where the enemy is and they
don't even know he exists he's in every
one of our heads and they trust him
because they think they are him
while that's powerful that's truly
profound many of us believe that we and
our egos are one in the same but if you
look inside a little deeper you realize
this is just not true
you see our egos are actually born from
a survival instinct programmed deep
inside our brains and these programs
date back millions of years hundreds of
thousands of years ago when we were
hunter-gatherers on the plains of the
African savanna or foraging deep inside
the Amazon jungle our risk reward
profile was very different compared to
today
it was the survival of the fittest eat
or be eaten this type of risk reward
profile has been programmed to make us
hyper alert all the people who were not
like her alone for all perceived dangers
real or not would be eaten and bred out
of existence versus the super hyper
alert people who took every perceived
danger seriously real or not had a
higher chance of survival and so
proliferated over time and through
natural selection you can see why it was
beneficial to have a heightened sense or
even irrational fear increased your
chances of staying in the table the
source of our ego is the amygdala or
more commonly known as the reptilian
brain the fight-or-flight Center
and to this day it still rules over all
of our decisions however the reptilian
brain kicks in every time we find
ourselves in a situation that makes us
feel uncomfortable or stressed even
though what you want to do may be
something positive like a lose weight
your ego is fighting against it because
it sees it as uncomfortable and since
the ego lives in a very black-and-white
world but it doesn't distinguish between
trying to better yourself and hearing a
threatening growl in the woods anything
that makes you uncomfortable is
equivalent to danger from the
perspective of the ego the problem is
society has evolved much faster than our
brain survival programs and we live in a
world where your biggest threat each day
is looking both ways as you cross the
street your amygdala lives in a world it
doesn't understand and isn't really
needed 99% of the time an alien world
where it really has nothing to do have
you ever seen people raid a supermarket
and buy everything off the shelves when
some sort of crisis is announced have
you ever felt jealous when your partner
was flirting or jealous of a co-worker
that got praised by your boss or found
some sort of excuse not to go to the gym
or bought something on impulse
even though you didn't really need that
thing lying cheating laziness making
poor choices in the food we eat and how
we spend our time
that's the reptilian brain in all of its
glory
in each of these cases you had an
internal discussion trying to
rationalize your decisions and each and
every time that voice came up with the
right arguments you said to yourself
well I'm sorry to break it to
but you're not in fact you never had a
conversation with yourself that's all
you've had it with your ego and it
convinced you that what you are doing is
correct because it serves you best so
you've been told as one character in the
revolver movie puts it it's beautiful
man you have to admire the opponent's
elegance everything can be tracked back
to ego and habits that's why for so many
people it's hard to change and become
better personally and professionally
your ego just won't allow it why because
people gravitate to the path of least
resistance and change tends to come in
only one of two ways consistent effort
which takes prolonged battle with a more
mature adversary or trauma trauma has
enough of an impact to completely rewire
your brain chemistry to override your
habitual behavior however this level of
trauma comes a very high price if
someone smokes and tries to quit over
many years having a parent died from
lung cancer could be the traumatic
trigger needed to kick the habit now ask
yourself this when all is said and done
when you look back over your life would
you be proud of what you've accomplished
or would you have more regrets than you
could count because ultimately you have
a choice to make you can either pay the
price of discipline or suffer the pain
of regrets
discipline is getting up when your alarm
rings and starts today regret is hitting
the snooze button on your alarm several
times in the morning
until you realize you're going to be
late discipline is hard you have to be
consistent and apply yourself each and
every day in order to succeed at what
you want regret is equally hard harder
maybe but you don't always feel it
straightaway you feel it when you
realize you could have done more and by
that time it tends to be way too late
people tend to focus on the short-term
pleasure long term pain rather than the
short-term pain and long term pleasure
somehow our brains are wired
isometrically this way fighting this
enemy is hard and we'll be fighting
until the day we die however as another
quote from revolver puts it if you want
to get smarter play a smarter opponent
and there is no smarter opponent than
you either because it knows you inside
out it knows every thought you have
every move you'll make it knows your
strengths and your weaknesses plus it's
been here longer than you have
much longer it's been part of human
evolution since at the beginning that
means it's been around for millions of
years it's deeply encoded into our DNA
tricking us into thinking that those
emotional based decisions are actually
yours trust me they are not the very
same decisions that are taking you
further away from your desires and your
success
now unfortunately going toe-to-toe with
your ego in an all-out fight for
dominance it isn't a good idea what are
you going to use to fight all those
emotions well I wish I had a
one-size-fits-all answer but
unfortunately I don't however knowing
that your greatest enemy is within you
is the first step towards defeating as I
say it may be defeat is the wrong word
to use maybe getting it to calm down and
work with you could be the best we could
hope for who knows now you just have to
take it one day at a time one decision
at a time one piece of discipline at a
time when you want to do something
that's out of your comfort zone and you
feel the resistance coming from inside
you now you know that your ego fighting
against the change and that's why Nike
really do have one of the best tag lines
of all time just do it and instead of
having a conversation with yourself to
decide if you need to change now you
know you will never find the real answer
but just do it
watch listen and experience how the
doing and the discipline makes you feel
so you can act in accordance with what's
best for you from an objective point of
view
and basically maybe that's the end game
to be able to become the observer
someone that's a bother seasonal and
makes the best decision regardless of
what your ego is telling be it personal
or professional
don't let anything especially your ego
stand in the way of the growth success
and ultimately whatever happiness means
to you
the only question remains are you brave
enough to put in the effort and get
smarter by taking on these smartest
opponent your ego
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