Your Business and Your Ego

Your Ego is your sense of self. According to Freud, your ego helps mediate between your Id (your inner desires) and your superego (your conscience).

If you have a business, it makes sense that your ego, your sense of yourself, your self-identity are attached to the business. When your business does well, you do well. When your business does poorly, you do poorly. And vice versa.

If you don’t have a business, your ego can be attached to your job, your career. There’s a similar dynamic happens.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it’s something important to take into consideration. If your career, your business, your work product is tied to your self-identity, how can you make rational and reasonable business decisions about those things?

It is important to be proud of your accomplishments. That comes with the territory of being a High Performer. That’s one of the biggest benefits! But there’s a danger when your pride becomes your identity, and your identity is attached to your cash flow. A cash flow you should be emotionally detached from so you can make rational business decisions.

Everyone has an ego and it is okay to have a strong sense of your self-identity. The relationship between your ego and your work product goes awry when it distorts reality.

If you have a business, ask yourself these questions on a regular basis to maintain some form of identity detachment:

1. How much would I pay for someone to replace me to do my job?
2. How much would I pay for a company that is exactly identical to mine so I can double my business?

If you are “irreplaceable” or the identical company is unaffordable, then you may have your ego distorting how you view your business.