The Resilient Founder

14Toward Building a Healthy Ego

Modern psychology should be just as concerned about our strengths … as our weaknesses. It should help build the best things in life while repairing the worst. And focus on making the lives of normal people fulfilling, nurturing high talent while relieving misery. The skills required to decrease misery and the skills required to build a positive psychology are different. With positive psychology, our life is filled with pleasure, with engagement, and with a higher purpose.

– Dr. Martin Seligman, former president of American Psychological Association, who developed tenets of positive psychology while working with “extremely miserable people”

WHAT IS A HEALTHY EGO?

Entrepreneurs do not have normal egos. If they did, they would not choose such a life riddled with risks, uncertainties, and madness. Yet what is the scale of abnormal ego? Is it a wild horse, unbridled and gone berserk, trampling others while amassing power or wealth; is it someone who is socially inept and immersed in self-absorption. Or is it a person who is mild, mellow, and soft, who might operate in self-defense, caution and protectiveness, creating a safe cocoon for herself, never being able to shake up the world.

Unfortunately, no text alert, notification, alarm bell, or “check engine” light comes on when our egos start to go out of balance. The only way to know is to do a brutally honest self-analysis.

The healthy ego diagnostic is broken down along the following four areas: ...