For years, I believed my identity was a ledger.
If the numbers went up—revenue, publications, promotions—I felt worthy. If the numbers stalled, I felt threatened. And if the numbers dropped, I didn’t just think I had a problem. I thought I was the problem.
That mindset is common among business leaders. We call it “drive,” “ambition,” or “high standards.” But beneath the surface, it often reveals a fragile self-image that needs constant proof.
In my experience as a scientist and founder, the default setting for most of us is to confuse identity with performance. We live as if “who I am” equals “what I do,” “what I own,” or “how I’m perceived.” That default is what I call ego. It’s the inner story that turns your life into a permanent audition.
Your Identity Is Not Your Résumé
In Western culture, especially, independence and achievement are rewarded early. That is not wrong. The problem begins when achievement becomes identity.
When leaders run on that operating system, everything turns personal. Feedback sounds like a threat, disagreement feels like disrespect, and uncertainty becomes intolerable. As I shared in a previous article, ego makes you chase control because control protects the story. It says, “I must win, or I might not be enough.”
Think of the ego as a photo album filled with snapshots of your life. Its moments, stories, and interpretations replay on a loop. As I shared in my book, From Burnout to Bliss, “The ego is always working to reinforce a sense of identity, even if that identity is rooted in outdated or imagined realities.”
Ego Creates Problems, Then Sells You Painkillers
Once your identity is fused with your image, you will try to solve discomfort with more thinking, more tactics, and more striving. That is why so much leadership advice sounds like a painkiller and seems like a set of quick frameworks for short-term relief.
Now, I’m not anti-framework. I’ve benefited from structure, strategy, and systems, but here is the paradox I learned the hard way: if the underlying driver is ego, you will keep solving problems with the same mindset that created them. You might get temporary relief, then the same pattern returns with a new face.
Many leaders drive their careers with a map based on strategy, experience, and advice from others. A map is helpful, but it can’t adapt to the traffic, weather, and unexpected turns. What you really need is a GPS that is guided by awareness. One that doesn’t remove challenges, but offers a real-time perspective so ego stops guessing and starts listening.
A Practical Shift
I’m not interested in “destroying” the ego, and in fact, trying to fight the ego usually strengthens it. Instead, I am interested in repositioning it.
Here is the micro-practice you can try. Instead of asking, “Who am I?” (which ego answers with labels), ask, “What am I aware of right now?”
As you do, you will notice the tightness in your chest before you send the sharp email. You notice the urge to interrupt before you do it. You notice the fear behind your need to control, and you don’t label it as good or bad; you simply see it.
Then you do something simple, you pause and delay your reaction by one breath. That single breath is where leadership lives. It gives you the space to respond with clarity rather than react out of a need to protect your image.
Try this strategy today in one moment that matters. Before a meeting, before a hard conversation, before you hit “send.” When you can observe your inner state without judging it, you discover a quieter identity underneath performance—awareness itself.
You can still build and lead from ambition, but you no longer need achievement to prove you deserve to exist. And from that place, decision-making becomes clearer, not because you learned another trick, but because a fragile story is no longer deciding for you.