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Welcome to the Shed and Shine podcast. I am Gino Wickman. This is where Rob Dube and I help driven entrepreneurs shed their shit, free their True Selves, unlock true entrepreneurial freedom and shine. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us and we hope to make a huge impact on you. Hello and welcome back. This episode I call, What is the Ego? So as I pondered this a little bit, I have been trying to figure this darn thing out for 27 years. I thought back to what age I was when I really started to hear the word ego for the first time and become aware of the word ego. And so 27 years later, at 57, I feel like I can describe it the best ever, but I also feel like I've got it about half right.
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And so all that said, I want to remind you of the visual that I share in the three discoveries and discovery number two. And it's just this understanding that picturing this cocoon that is wrapped around our True Self or our soul. And this dark cocoon and the True Self is trapped in there. And that cocoon is the ego that we're talking about. That cocoon is the mind, the powerful mind, and its ability to make shit up. Its ability to protect you from everything that happened to you in your life. It's hanging onto all of it in most cases and it never wants you to feel that pain again. And so it's always thinking 20 steps ahead so you never feel that pain again. And so unfortunately you are not free. And the idea is to start to understand the ego, understand the dynamic, understand all the stories it has made up, understand how it's protecting you. See that, and then start to shed that.
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On that, I want to read to you a list of words. And so from the book Shine, I want to share a list to get your gears turning and understand when your ego is showing up. So play along and you have a copy of Shine nearby, it's pages 76 and 77. But ego activity, as Danny Brooks describes it in her book, The Extraordinary Ordinary You, when your ego is showing up, these are the words, these are the emotions, these are the feelings. And so fear, dread, uncertainty, anxiety, anger, frustration, stress, difficulty, guilt, shame, judgment, lack, self-doubt, worry, apathy, resignation, cynicism. Whenever those things are showing up for you, that's your ego. That's the cocoon. That's the opportunity to raise the red flag and say, "Uh-oh, ego's kicking in."
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Now I'd like to share some soul words, when it's coming from your True Self, when it's coming from your intuition, when you're truly free from the cocoon and living from your True Self. Things like unconditional love and safety and certainty and inner knowing and intuition and calm and ease, peace, acceptance, freedom, joy, inflow, open, wisdom, openness. So then there's a saying I heard three years ago that I've now heard a 100 times and it finally clicked. And I might've shared it in a previous episode, it seems like I have, but it's this saying to see life as it is. And when I heard it the first time and the fifth time and the 10th time, I just couldn't comprehend it. I didn't get it. I didn't know what it meant. And it's now so clear to me that when we dissolve our ego, get our ego to take the back seat... Again, you never want to fight the ego, that will never end well.
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But the idea is when your ego dissolves, you will then see life as it is. And it gets really scary. And some things aren't so pretty and some things are very scary. And when you see it, you can't unsee it. And so see life as it is. And I'm just going to keep riffing and hopefully this gets clearer and clearer and clearer. The next thing that comes to mind is plant medicine. And this is one where right now my ego is going, "You're not going to talk about that. You're not going to talk about that." So I've touched on it. So it's no secret that I've done plant medicine. It's been very helpful for me in dissolving my ego. It wasn't plant medicine that was the biggest contributor to me understanding my ego and beginning the journey of dissolving it. I would say there were four things, and I would say meditation being one of them was probably the most profound. Number two, as I said, is plant medicine. Number three is two very powerful books, Untethered Soul and Letting Go. And then the fourth is a great therapist.
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And so plant medicine was just one of four things that were very profound, in addition to 100 other things that I've done, but those are the big four for me. But the reason I want to bring up plant medicine and the reason that this came to me is what plant medicine did for me is it turned off my ego. So what various forms of medicine journeys do is they just turn off your ego for two to four hours and give you this beautiful opportunity to see life without an ego. Now, the disclaimers there are really important because first of all, it is not for everyone. The medicine journey world out there is an absolute shit show and so many driven entrepreneurs are running to that as the end-all be-all salvation, and it's not for everyone.
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That's the first disclaimer. And I would just urge you to please listen to your gut, listen to your intuition. Is it calling you to do that? Is that the way that you need to start to dissolve your ego? For me, I needed to sledgehammer to the head because my ego is so strong. But remember, meditation, great books, a therapist and we list 30 other things in the book Shine. There are many great ways to dissolve your ego. If you choose to do it, I would urge you to consider a couple things. First of all, in most cases when people do plant medicine, the studies are showing that net-neutral. They get that beautiful opportunity for two to four hours to see life without their ego and then within months they're right back to being the same old person that they was. And within a few months, they go right back to being who they were and the ego takes over again.
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A couple other things I always like to share is if you're going to do it, make sure you do it in a clinical setting, not a recreational setting. And a clinical setting, again, is more clinical, professional. They have integration and it's all about integrating what happened, not just having this wonderful two to four hour recreational experience. With that said, again, my ego is freaking out about sharing this, but I've always been so afraid to share it in the last couple years and then something just shifted for me that I just don't care. And this is from a guy, I've never done a drug in my life. I do drink, however. So I almost felt embarrassed to share that I did that and now I'm just so comfortable. It was very helpful for me and I don't care what anybody thinks. And what a great feeling that is.
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So make your own choice there. The reason I bring that up is that point about figure out what works best for you to figure out how to turn your ego off and just have that experience. And I would suggest meditation is a great way to do that. It's these wonderful little opportunities where you have this moment of being ego-free. And then as you go forward and stay aware, you keep having more and more and more moments. And so in terms of a deep dive, I'm four or five years into this deep dive. Again, got pinged with it 27 years ago, but the last five years is where I've really dug deep. And I hope in this conversation it will shed some light for you.
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So with that said, the next thing I want to share with you is a quote from Rumi that I share often. And that quote is, "Your task is not to seek for love, but to merely seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." You are already pure love. You are already pure inspiration. Your soul knows exactly what to do. And unfortunately you just need to seek to find all the barriers preventing you from fully getting in touch with that and letting your soul lead. And that is the cocoon and that is what Rumi is trying to teach us going back, I think, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 years ago. I don't know exactly on that. What it makes me think of is fear. And certainly anytime you're feeling fear, it is coming from your ego. And it makes me think of what on Earth are you afraid of? And as I've gone through the mental exercise myself personally, as well as taking many people through the mental exercise of what are you really afraid of?
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And so it could be as simple as there's something you want to tell your significant other and you're just afraid to tell them. Or you want to say something to an employee, but you're afraid to say it to them. But if you chase it down, it's a fascinating exercise. I'm not going to go into great detail on this, but if you chase it all the way down, you're afraid you're going to die. But it always goes back to you becoming destitute and dead. And the reality in playing that fear all the way out, which I urge you to do, you get to this place where you will survive, you will survive it. And that builds courage and it gets your ego to subside.
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But again, if nothing else, it's just awareness as to what on Earth are we afraid of when it's all said and done? Because let's pretend death is the end game that you fear the most. I don't think it's all that bad. Now, again, this is just me and humble 2 cents, but I am so peaceful with death. I hope to be here another good 40 years. But nonetheless, if I go tomorrow, it was a damn good life. And it also at least helps me realize that I need to live every day like it was my last.
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So then that leads me to the reason or the prompt for why I am doing this riff on ego. And it's something I recently heard Michael Singer say, "The ego takes everything and relates it to itself." When I heard that, I said, "Wow." It was on his podcast, I hit pause, I wrote it down, I didn't want to forget it. And so for me, what that means to me is it's like the perfect way of describing what happens. And a really simple example is somebody driving slow in front of you. Somehow we make that about us when that person just in their own world, doing their own thing. And what you will realize is everything outside of you has nothing to do with you. We aren't that important.
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Because then where that takes me, and I shared this in a previous episode, something I call the judgment triple whammy, and it's just a litmus test to watch and observe our egos because I suffered from the judgment triple whammy in an extreme way most of my life and I now see it subsiding. And so the judgment triple whammy is three forms of judgment in our lives. The first form is where we judge others. The second is where we judge ourselves. And then the third is where we worry about the judgment of others about us.
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And all three have been extreme for me. And so just taking them one at a time, I became very aware of how I judged others. And it's so gross when you really see this. And it was all my ego somehow doing comparison, competition, whatever it was. It just simply starts with awareness and just catching yourself. And number two is judging ourselves. I spent years beating the hell out of myself. Every mistake, every this, every that, I would just beat the heck out of myself, judge myself. It's so poisonous, it's so dangerous, it's so dark, it's not healthy. But again, when you become aware, you then get to observe, why am I beating myself up? Why am I calling myself that name?
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And then number three is worrying about how other people judge us. And again, I spent my whole life worrying about what people think. As I've shared in previous episodes, I just don't care as much anymore. I can't tell you if I'm 100% there, but it's so different and it's so freeing. And so just check yourself on the judgment triple whammy. It's a great way to observe and understand your ego because, again, what I hope by the end of this conversation, you go, "Ah, I now know what the ego is and I can become aware of it and I can start to dissolve it." And the last two things I want to share is this point about fearing that you're going to say something stupid because, again, you've had your ego subside or had to take the back seat so it's no longer protecting you, oh no, don't say that because this will happen, and your soul is leading. All of a sudden you're completely free and stuff comes out.
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Well, I will tell you, odds are, probably going to say something stupid. But here's the beauty. When you say something stupid, when you screw up, when you really let go, what I've learned is those are all just simply learning experiences. They're opportunities. And this is how we grow and learn. We are not perfect. We are human. We make mistakes. So I urge you to let go, let your freak flag fly and know that you're going to say some stupid things, but just treat them as learning experiences. Apologize if you hurt someone. And then the last thing I want to share is about triggering and reactivity. So this came to me because this is one of the greatest examples of your ego being in charge, you being trapped in the cocoon. And that is when you get triggered or when you are being reactive.
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And so it's all about awareness, as we keep talking about, but just now as you go forward, pay attention to when you get triggered. And again, that's just when your central nervous system gets so amped that you react, whatever it is. And the idea is to become aware of why you got triggered, what triggered you, why you reacted like that, dig into why, you're going to chase that down to some pain somewhere, a layer that you need to shed. And if you will continue to do that, all of a sudden you will not get triggered very often. And ultimately get to a place where anything anyone says or does simply passes right through you. And I promise you, you can get there.
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And so with all of that said, hopefully it was clear. Hopefully it made sense. Hopefully you better understand what the ego is. And I urge you to keep having these conversations with people that love you enough, that trust you enough, that you feel safe around, that you're able to have these conversations. Because for me, as I do, it just keeps getting better and better and better, clearer and clearer and clearer. My energy keeps going higher and higher and higher. I keep feeling more peace, more creative, more inspired. And my intuition is doing a lot more leading these days than what it was in my 20s, 30s and 40s. Thanks for listening.
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Thank you for listening in today. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us. And please tune in for the next episode. Until then, if you'd like to see where you are on your True Self journey, go to shedandshinepodcast.com to take the True Self Assessment and receive personalized guidance. If you're all ready to begin your inner world journey with Rob and myself, please join us for the next round of The 10 Disciplines Group Coaching program. We wish you all the best in freeing your True Self, stay focused and much love.
