Dealing with Anger, Ego and Seeking Value-Adding Conversations
What do you do when you wake up at 4 am in rage from a conversation you had 4 days ago? What is the common thread and how do you address the issue from within?
There are times when you meet someone, have a conversation with them, and all you are left is feelings of rage, anger, and disgust. Fortunately, I’ve only had to experience that a handful of times.
Though I very much enjoy challenging conventions, it’s fair to say that I’m still uncomfortable doing it. It’s also fair to say that I do not enjoy the parade of people telling me I am wrong for "this, that and those" reasons. Even if I empirically know the "crowd" is irrational, often blind, and seldom independent in thought…. It still hurts to be poked at. This act of self-invoking suffering might be a separate act worth examining but today, it’s about those times when the emotions run amok.
The more controversial my opinions and beliefs get, the more I’ve been poked at. That’s been the nature of the journey of building OMD Ventures and the quest to build systems to invest in human potential.
The amount of confused and disgusted faces I’ve encountered when I tell people I’m working on solving the problem of investing in human potential has been too many to count. The usual put-downs are “If culture is so important how do you explain IBM, Apple or Amazon?”…. ignoring the fact that investing in people is not the same is “culture”….. there are various renditions of the same feedback: “People only matter after the company is profitable.”
Most times, I try to end the conversation by unapologetically (as much as I can) telling them we disagree and let’s leave it at that. But the fact is… some just don’t want to let it go. Some just want to keep on pushing you with questions.
Misused Questions.
Questions are a valuable tool to learn more. However, some questions are merely disguised as a charade. Some are wielded by those who have no intention of learning anything new but rather to be used as tools to dig further and further until they “win”. A sport of debate.
I’m no psychologist so I don’t know why some have such a maniacal behaviour. A part of me believes it's an immense act of ego. It could be circumvented with insecurity as well. One can even argue that ego and insecurity are two sides of the same coin.
But the behaviour of using questions as an "authoritative shield" to hide behind in order to create an internal sense of superiority and dominance is a cheap and fixed-minded approach. It only ends with the questioner berating another on and on until one side gets tired. In most cases, it’s the interviewee that feels shortchanged with the questions adding no value. My experience is that good questions add value to the interviewee.
It’s on the cusp of a series of these interactions that I thought about writing this essay. In most parts, it is a form of self-therapy because I wake up at 4 am… 4 days after…. still fuming at the conversation. Needless to say, it’s an issue.
What About The Other Side?
So, I thought, what about the conversations that I loved? Those I found value in. What were those like? This may sound surprising but the memorable conversations are not the ones where someone is tooting my horn and telling me how amazing my ideas and ventures are. I think most people like to please others so that tends to be a default. As much as it feels nice in the moment, it’s not as valuable.
The conversations I have found valuable have been ones where I’ve been asked extremely helpful questions. Questions that make me go “hmmm” but my brain is firing on all cylinders to explore and get curious myself. Questions that don’t have the underlying focus of “prove to me how you are right and I am wrong” kind of confrontational attitude.
Luckily, I’ve had more valuable conversations than I can count. This led me down the train of thought of thinking about who are the kind of individuals who have been able to provide me with such value-adding conversations?
The People to Surround Myself With
What I’ve learned so far in my journey is that the best people to speak with are people who’ve led interesting lives. Lives not limited to hyper-specialization in one field like academia, large corporation, start-ups, and/or even more specialized into one type of pre-defined profession like 20 years in 'heavy oil repository mining.’
It seems simple to grasp. One could assume the one-dimensionality to result in a hyper-focus that results in a narrowed view of the world given the limitation of ‘ends in a spectrum’ to which the person may have experienced.
I say experience because too often, I’ve found individuals hide behind the band of “curiosity” to say they are empathetic or understanding when they have already set up walls around their views and their “curiosity” is merely a proxy for pointing out to others how they are mistaken. I have previously written about how I believe curiosity to be the foundational requirement to build empathy but alas, not all who are curious can empathize. Though empathy cannot exist without curiosity, curiosity without empathy is all the more common.
What I’ve experienced thus far is that the best people to speak with are those who’ve experienced working for large corporations (i.e big-tech, professional services, etc..), start-ups (<100 people + young in the age of company) and entrepreneurship (solo, bootstrapped, VC-backed).
I’m not saying that is the requirement or an absolute fact. I’m stating a mere observation. The individuals with whom I would come out of a 30-60 minute conversation with and feel joy, excitement and a feeling of receiving so much value for my time….. if I tried to generalize a thread… it would be that they’ve all had those experiences.
In one part, to be a value-adding person in society, it probably pays to experience a wide array of things in life. To be interesting. This does not mean that one shouldn't specialize in a craft. I do understand Matt Ridley’s argument for the need to specialize but that specialization will see the exponential benefit by building a foundation as an interesting person who has experienced many different facets of organizational life.
The Anger and Ego Within.
But alas, I would be remiss to not address the anger that inspired this essay.
There is the saying that if you meet an asshole then just remind yourself you met an asshole and not to let it bother you but if you met a lot of assholes in one day, then look at the mirror.
Now, I don’t think the folks that triggered this anger are assholes. Just those with lots of ego. Not saying I don’t have a lot of ego because it takes one to know one. I just know that I have much less than I had earlier in my career… when I was a steaming sack of shit of ego.
One thing I’ve learned from my battle with anger is that it’s no good to let it stew over mentally. Usually, I talk it over with the point of anger but in regards to issues of ego… it just is a losing battle. For the hardest thing to do is convince someone that they are leading with ego and they should talk it out with me.
So, the other alternative is to look within. Examining where this anger was coming from. What was triggering it, why I was feeling it so dearly and why I was having such a difficult time letting go.
Scared.
And it’s on the cusp of thousands of words of journals written over various periods that I think the anger is rooted in the fact that it’s revealed how scared I am. I’m happy to admit that I have all the confidence in the world to believe that I will succeed at anything I put my mind into.
That’s been a core belief of my adult life. I think going from fat and bad at school to the opposite may have contributed heavily to this…. exuberance. I also believe that what I’m doing with OMD Ventures will succeed. I also believe that what I do will be a major benefit to society and humanity. However, that does not mean that I’m not terrified.
As Parker Palmer said:
Fear is everywhere--in our culture, in our institutions, in our students, in ourselves--and it cuts us off from everything.
Fear is so fundamental to the human condition that all the great spiritual traditions originate in an effort to overcome its effects on our lives. With different words, they all proclaim the same core message: "Be not afraid.”
"Be not afraid" does not say that we should not have fears--and if it did, we could dismiss it as an impossible counsel of perfection. Instead, it says that we do not need to be our fears, quite a different proposition.
It’s akin to feeling imposter syndrome. What angers me with such conversations with such people is that it brings forth my fear. It makes it all the more real, like the imposter syndrome taunting me. All it does is bring the fear front and center. That’s what’s angering. The fact that a selfishly egotistic act is enough to bring forth the fear I have. Anger at my fragility and delicateness.
I think the difference with the interesting folks I’ve had value-adding conversations with and those who only deliver anger might be an experience with fear. Those who’ve experienced wide, more likely than not, have gone through their internal journey with fear and imposter syndrome. It’s only natural for those who continuously venture into foreign environments. Despite a growing knowledge of more environments, they also understand how delicate fear is.
This may be a prime difference in the conversations I have with different people. Conversations where both sides acknowledge the fear of being the ‘person in the arena’.. something one cannot hope to understand when shrouded by ego and the ignorance of specialization.
It’s what I think at the current moment in time. With life being so short, I’ll continue to seek to surround myself with folks with such interesting and empathetic experiences.
Disclaimer - I’m writing this for myself. For my past, present and future self. Much of what I write is my opinion. If it somehow ignites agreement in you then great, I’d love to hear about it. If it sparks disagreement in you, don’t reach out because I don’t care for it. There always are obvious exceptions and the flawed person in me hasn’t considered them all.