Life begins where ego ends. In this episode, host
Elizabeth Barry, talks about the idea of going beyond the ego. Referencing Dr. Seuss’ book called
On Beyond Zebra!, she shares how she was inspired to create her podcast,
BeyondEgo, and deliver some wonderful insights to the world. She also shares some concepts on flexibility from her book,
The Kind Communicator, and talks about how it helps in conquering the ego. Learn more about the concepts of flexibility and ego as Elizabeth brightens us up with her drive to helps us become who we want to be.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Life Begins Where Ego Ends
I’m pleased to be back to develop this show and to share my spirit and soul with you. The underlying idea here is that life begins where the ego ends. I want to tap back into what the idea of going beyond ego means. Where did I get this idea for the show? Where did I get the name from? I’m going to remind you that I developed BeyondEgo when I read the book from Dr. Seuss. He wrote a book called
On Beyond Zebra!. In that book, he tells us that there are many letters and words that you can create beyond the letter Z. I thought to myself, “I can create that for adults and teach adults how to communicate effectively to how to live a better second half of their lives, how to treat themselves in kinder ways, and how to speak to others in the best ways that they know-how.” That is by going beyond ego.
I took the platform of
On Beyond Zebra! by Dr. Seuss and I created BeyondEgo for adults because life does begin where the ego ends. Until we recognize that, it is then that we are able to open our hearts, open our souls, and all of this spirit talk, soul searching, quality of life, and all of those ideas that people are talking about with health and wellness. It’s not something that can be found on a yoga mat or found in a meditation class. I feel like going beyond ego can be translated into our lives, into our conversations and into our communication from our career to our love, to our relationships with our families, to our friends and to our organizations that we’re all linked with throughout the entire world.
Let’s take the idea of BeyondEgo and break it down a little bit. We can start with what ego is. I’m sure that you, as an adult, have heard the word, ego, many times. People throw the memes around on social media. They throw quotes around on social media, but I’m not a big fan of that. I feel like when people share quotes on social when you talk about ego, vulnerability, communication, truth or your highest self. I feel like there are many layers to that and sure, it’s 100% positive to watch a quote or look at a quote, but all of those words are deep. They go into personal and professional development in such a deep way that’s why I’m doing this with you. Understanding the value of the ego, the value of going deep within who you are and what the ego provides, gives you an opportunity to look to yourself in the present moment to say, “Am I living in my highest self? Am I speaking in my lowest self?” which is the ego.
What is the ego? How does it affect us? The ego is built up upon cultural, societal, organizational, in a business, how we were brought up, religious views, all of it. This creates the ego and the mask. This creates what I call in my books and in my coaching practice of who we think we ought to be to the world rather than my, “Beyond ego.” It is who we can be authentically in our natural state, who we wish to show up as in the world. The ego comes in because of the way we were brought up, the way that we are living in our work environment, pressed for deadlines or in a relationship that we’re not happy with. The ego shows up with a mask, as a bully, as a false pretense with a costume on saying, “This is who I think I need to be in this moment.”
I think that it’s time for us to start to settle down, to calm the mind and to be a better you. I’m sure that you all want to be a better you. That’s why we’re here together. I’d like to give you some practical tips and advice to use to understand what your ego means. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I feel like a lot of us, we like to use the words and throw around quotes on social media. When we dive deep into what I call the muck into the embarrassment, the shame, the guilt, all of the yucky things that we can look at within ourselves, that’s when we can understand where our ego is. We can separate that from whom we wish to be in the world.
The first thing that I want to do is talk about flexibility. I think that the ego makes us want to be rigid and to be certain. I always tell people the beauty of feeling when someone tells me that they’re stuck. I tell them, “Let’s change that. Let’s change those words around. Let’s not make the word stuck because it’s icky, yucky, and mucky.” To me, I like to use the word uncertain. If you use it as an analogy, if you can close your eyes, let your mind wander, and think of the vast, endless ocean that’s infinite beyond measure with the horizon line. Infinite horizons, that’s uncertainty and that is the beauty. It’s knowing that there is a destination out there. Because you don’t know what that is and you don’t know how you’re going to get there doesn’t mean that you are stuck. It only means that there’s a beautiful moment in your life where you feel uncertain, so make sure you change those words around.
Going Beyond The Ego: The ego is built upon cultural, societal, and organizational elements.
When ego tells us that we have to be certain, that’s when we feel like we’re being stuck. Certainty, rigidity, it’s an opportunity for us to say “No ego, I’m going to be the one that’s in charge.” I want to see yourselves as the word, flexible. Flexibility is such a beautiful term for all of us adults, and it’s a piece of tactical advice I want you to take home with you. When something goes wrong, if you’re not flexible, that’s when the ego comes out. You point, you blame, you judge, you make false claims, you assume, and you might project your feelings on someone else. With flexibility, when you go beyond ego and you become flexible in your personality, in your life, your lens on life, your perspective, you can see that there is uncertainty and possibility purpose available in every single chance and change in life.
We have to learn to ebb and to flow here. An example of someone who is not flexible, let’s say at work. The inflexibility in the career environment or a work environment is when someone can’t see eye to eye. They only have to see it their way. They get mad. They get angry. They might storm out. They might send you a mean email. They might go head to head with you in an argument. I think flexibility is direly needed in the career atmosphere where we can say, “I understand your point of view. I don’t agree with you, but let’s come to the next point where we can see some way out of this.”
That type of flexibility doesn’t come with a mindset. It comes with the words attached to it. You see how I offered the chance for us to say, “I don’t see your point of view. I don’t agree with you, but let’s see what we can do here.” That very choice of words is valuable and imperial to a work environment because it lightens the load. It lightens the weight in any argument or in any case where you’re stuck in the middle with someone and no one wants to see eye to eye. Flexibility in work environments, it’s direly needed. Remember, when you’re not being flexible and you want to be right, you can step out of that by choosing words wisely and asking someone, “I don’t see your point here. Let’s try to move forward.”
It takes the weight off. It’s changing things up. The ability to change can make you feel healthier and happier as an adult. In loving relationships, flexibility can be important, especially when your partner doesn’t. Let’s say your partner and you have plans for something and then all of a sudden, they changed their mind. Something might’ve come up. They don’t feel well. Something didn’t happen the way they wanted to and they don’t want to go or they don’t want to do the same thing. Most of the time, we get mad at our partner. We point, we blame and we judge them for changing their minds. We all have a chance to be flexible in life and changing the mind is something that happens.
It’s natural. We are human beings so getting mad at someone is not the answer, especially in a loving relationship. Flexibility comes into play because you can’t function right when you’re always telling someone they’re wrong. If they choose to do something, choose to say, “I see your point there and maybe we can do it another way.” Even if you have to breathe heavily in the next room or go out by yourself or go into a steam shower and say to yourself, “I’m angry.” You have a right to be angry, but not at someone else if they changed their mind. Flexibility is a wonderful human habit to try to get into as you go beyond the ego, especially in loving relationships and in career environments. The point here is to remember that with ego, it’s trying to control. It’s a shadow that follows you, as your identity until you become more aware of it, until you contain it, until you learn to tap into your truest self.
It is then that you won’t be guided or controlled or prodded with chains and latches from that ego. You can become the more flexible human being that you are inside. I know you are. The point here is that it’s not about winning, losing or being right or wrong. It’s about the flexibility of being okay with things either way, and that’s the idea of going beyond ego. It’s that happy, healthy realm. It’s being more spiritual and calmer, more focused and kinder. Climb that highest nature of who you are. Going beyond ego is living in your highest self. I know it sounds a little bit of yoga. It sounds a little bit meditative, but our CEOs and entrepreneurs, for business professionals who are reading, what does this mean in a tactical, practical sense for you? Is that going beyond ego is how you act, how you show up in life, the tone of your voice, how you acknowledge people or your lack thereof?
Going Beyond The Ego: Flexibility is a wonderful human habit to try to get into as you go beyond the ego.
Are you a jealous person? Do you act out on your jealousy? Are you mean to people? Do you experience guilt? Do you carry around fear? Do you feel the fear on your shoulders? These are the things that I want you to start questioning as you go beyond ego with me, in this show and feel the idea that I can be flexible. Going beyond ego is tapping into that divine spirit of who you can be. Remember, the ego wants you to think about who you think you ought to be to the world. Beyond it lives a realm of communication that enhances your relationships and relationships become nurtured because of it. We all want that in our lives. If you have a dream, go after it. If you have a goal, go after it.
Don’t let ego stand in the doorway with its folded arms because you know better than that. You can control your destiny unless you allow it to control you. The ego is there, with its folded arms at the doorway and you have a chance to push it aside. Your capacity for creation, your capacity as an adult is vast beyond belief for the creation of anything that you wish to change. Going beyond ego has to start with being more flexible and that starts with becoming less embarrassed about the changes that you need to make. Becoming less embarrassed about the mistakes, becoming less embarrassed about the fear or the in trepidation that you might have had once in your life or maybe you have it and you want to change it. This is the platform that houses my books, that houses my coaching programs, and I ask all of you to choose.
You have the choice to choose, the choice to change, to live in love or to live in fear. When you go beyond ego, you have the presence. Do you want the present or do you want to live in the past? Do you want the present or do you want to focus on and be fearful of the future or what can happen? Disconnect versus connection, multiply or divide? I always tell everyone to try to multiply all of the great things in your life because the division is a separation. It’s a connection. Those who are consistent life learners, the pupils of life are the ones who are going beyond ego with me. Everyone who thinks that they know it all and they need to point, judge and blame and be the one who wins all the time.
They’re the ones that are living with an ego and those are where the greatest changes occur. When you know that that’s you and you know that you’re the one controlling yourself, and you’re letting the ego control you. You understand that you have a choice at the moment, I call it in real-time and nowness. This is the chance and your choice to make the change. Going back to Dr. Seuss, he says, “The alphabet stops at Z, but not me. Your life begins where your ego ends.” I’m going to read a little bit to you as we end from one of my books, it’s called
The Kind Communicator. Here’s a chapter called From Barrier and Possibility. “Take risks and smile more, understand life in permanence and become inspired with the wisdom that everything changes, including you. Work through pain and instead of running from it, understand yourself and others better because of it. This is the feeling of traveling from barrier to possibility.”
I hope you will use this daily practice over and over again until you embrace it as the art of letting go, as it becomes your way of being and living. I’m going to read another chapter for you. “It’s sage within us all that comes to life when we take a risk.” The risk here is being more flexible. Learning about your ego and tapping into that muck. When we encounter great possibility, we realize that in pain or fear, the act of being, doing and believing is far worth the burden than not having done so at all. If you start to tap into your fear and your ego, I’m proud of you because not doing it at all is being stagnant and idle. That’s exactly where your ego wants to keep you.
“The grand vision of connectedness between people is vast and endless like the yearning that we all have for the great relationships in our lives. These connections grow because what’s in our backpack or imaginary backpack,” as I like to say is all the muck, all the fear, the guilt, the challenge, the woes and the change that we place on ourselves. “Not only do we have to end them, but we have to share them with ourselves to understand who we are and who we think we ought to be tapping into who we think we want to be, who we wish to be in this world. When you leave behind the ego, you choose to leave it in your past, you take a rest, you look inside, you discover yourself. The reward is feeling lighter and more comfortable with who you are, and ultimately with what you have to say and how you say it.” That my friends are the idea of coming alive and becoming your kind communicator. I’m pleased to be bringing my BeyondEgo platform to you in this digital form. I’m pleased to share with you my spirit and my soul. I wish you a beautiful beyond who you think you ought to be tapping into your highest self and your authenticity, which is the nature of you. Thank you.
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