“Ego is a distraction of self-importance.” — Nick Saban

"Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice." — Ecclesiastes 4:13 (ESV) 

Henry Ford revolutionized the world with the Model T. He was the undisputed king of the automotive world for over a decade.

Ford became so enamored with his own creation that he refused to iterate. As the market shifted and customers began wanting different colors, comfort features, and better engines, Ford famously said, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black."

His competitors were listening to the market—people wanted variety. Ford’s ego made him believe he had already knew what people wanted in an automobile.

His pride lead to his downfall. Ford went from owning 60% of the market to nearly being bankrupt by the late 1920s. He had to shut down his factories for six months just to re-engineer a new model to catch up. 

Ford didn't lose market share because he was stupid; he lost it because he was protecting his identity rather than his business. You might not be building cars, but if you are protecting your 'way of doing things' despite what the data says, you are building your own Model T trap.

Truth is greater than ego.

What is Truth and Ego?

Let’s make sure we’re on the same page:

TRUTH is the objective reality about your systems, business, customers, and your personal leadership. Truth is not a personal attack or a judgment on your character. Instead, it is the diagnostic feedback that prioritizes evidence over emotion. Truth is resilient and requires no defense, only discovery.

EGO is the subjective reality that protects your identity from the discomfort of being wrong. Ego is not pride in a job well done (we need to recognize our strengths and celebrate our wins). Instead, it is a survival mechanism that prioritizes perception over performance. Ego is fragile and requires constant maintenance and “proof” of your superiority.

The Internal Dialogue 

Before we look at the costs, we have to look at the scripts running in your head.

Ego feeds excuses:

• “I don’t have enough time.”
• “I don’t have the right team.”
• “The market just isn’t ready yet.”
• “I’ll fix the systems later—right now we’re in growth mode.”

Excuses lead to stagnation.

Truth feeds perspective:

• “No one can save me from my excuses.”
• “When I control the right things, I don’t need to control everything.”
• “My chaos is no longer noble—it’s expensive.”
• “I either rule my systems or I serve them.”

Perspective leads to radical responsibility.

Ego → Excuses → Stagnation 
Truth → Perspective → Responsibility

Why This Matters

We often think Ego is just a personality flaw—arrogance or bravado. But in business, Ego is an economic factor. It is a hidden tax on every decision you make. 

When you choose to protect your Ego over discovering the Truth, you introduce specific, measurable drains on your business: 

1. Ego creates "liar loops"

Ego punishes bad news and turns feedback loops into “liar loops.” If you (or your team) view negative data as a personal failure, you will subconsciously hide it. This creates a "latency gap"—the time between a problem happening and you finally admitting it exists. By the time the Truth arrives, the damage is compounded, and the fix is more expensive.

• The Rationalization: You ignore a failed launch for weeks, blaming the "algorithm" or the "economy" rather than admitting that the offer isn’t converting. You pay for this in weeks of lost revenue.
• The Filter: Your team knows you shoot the messenger, so they hide the fact that a project is over budget until the day before the deadline. You pay for this in emergency rush fees and lost trust.

2. Ego Caps Your Capacity

If you need to be the "smartest person in the room" to feel valid, you have effectively capped your company's growth at the limit of your personal stamina. Ego refuses to standardize genius because it believes "no one can do it like I do." This turns high-potential systems into manual labor camps where you are the warden. 

• The Trap: You refuse to use templates or automation because "it feels impersonal." Instead of serving 50 clients, you burn out serving 5.
• The bottleneck: You hire great people but require them to run every decision by you. You turn "Owners" into "Helpers," and the business stops moving whenever you stop working. 

3. Ego Funds Failure 

Truth cuts losses immediately because it knows that resources are finite. Ego refuses to hit the eject button because admitting a mistake feels like a death to your identity. Consequently, Ego will keep writing checks—of time, money, and energy—to a dying project just to save face.

• The Zombie Project: You spent six months building a course nobody bought. Instead of pivoting, you spend another six months "polishing" it to prove you were right. 

I personally fell for this trap. When I started, I built custom client portals for my first 10 clients. I spent dozens of hours designing the interface to look professional. The result? Zero clients used them.

My Ego wanted to record "training videos" to force them to log in so my work wasn't wasted. Truth reminded me that if the user doesn't use it, it's trash. I deleted the portals and went back to email.

• The Toxic Hire: You hired a friend or a "star" player who is destroying the culture. You refuse to fire them because doing so would admit you made a bad hire.

4. Ego Chooses Vanity over Sanity

Ego craves applause; Truth craves viability. When Ego runs the dashboard, you optimize for metrics that look good on social media but don't pay the bills. This leads to a business that looks successful on the outside but is hemorrhaging cash and energy on the inside.

• The Viral Broke: You obsess over "Likes" and "Views" (Vanity) while ignoring the fact that your email list hasn't grown and your profit margin is zero (Sanity).
• The Revenue Illusion: You celebrate hitting a massive top-line revenue goal, ignoring the fact that you destroyed your team's morale and profit margin to get there.

5. Ego Fragility Requires Constant Maintenance

Truth is like a steel beam—it supports weight without needing attention. Ego is like a porcelain vase—it is fragile and requires constant protection. When you lead with Ego, a massive percentage of your mental energy is spent "managing your state" or defending your image, rather than solving problems.

• The Spiral: A single refund request or critical comment ruins your entire week, halting all production while you nurse the wound.
• The Defense: You spend the first 20 minutes of a meeting explaining why a mistake "wasn't really your fault," wasting collective brainpower on defense rather than solution.

How to Ignore Ego and Discover the Truth 

Choosing Truth isn’t a feeling; it’s a tactical decision to treat your business like a piece of engineered machinery rather than an extension of your personality. Here are seven ways to operationalize Truth in your daily leadership: 

1. Audit Systems, Not People

When a mistake happens, Ego naturally hunts for a villain so it can feel superior. To break this, stop asking "Who messed this up?" and start asking "What part of the system allowed this error to occur?" This simple shift stops you from acting like a judge and turns you into an engineer, ensuring you fix the broken process so the error becomes structurally impossible to repeat.

2. Define "Kill-Criteria" Before You Start  

Ego is the king of "Sunk Cost" and will happily burn resources to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong. You can bypass this by writing down specific Kill-Criteria before you launch any new initiative (e.g., "If we don't hit X revenue by Date Y, we shut it down"). This forces you to outsource the decision to your past, rational self, removing Ego’s ability to negotiate with reality when the pressure is on.

3. Build a "Sanity Dashboard" 

You cannot engineer a breakthrough if you are lying to yourself about the data. Identify three "Sanity Metrics"—the boring, ugly numbers like profit margin, churn rate, or hours spent on hustle—and track them relentlessly. When the dashboard is blinking red based on raw math, your Ego loses the ability to hide behind a false narrative of success.

4. Practice "Strategic Dissent" 

Ego surrounds itself with validation, but Sovereignty requires friction to thrive. Why? Because friction reveals the blind spots that comfort hides. Internally, you must engineer a culture where your team can disagree without fear. But you must also look beyond your payroll. Even the most honest employee has a conflict of interest—they rely on you for their livelihood. You need an outside voice with no agenda other than your clarity—someone safe enough to hear your fears, but strong enough to ask the questions you are actively avoiding.

The Test: If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. Find a room where someone is willing to tell you that your math is wrong.

5. Standardize the "Systemic Post-Mortem" 

Most leaders treat failure like a funeral—they want to bury it quickly—but Truth treats failure like an autopsy. After every project or launch, regardless of the outcome, conduct a review to identify the exact gap between what you predicted and what actually happened. This discipline strips the emotional sting away from failure and transforms "bad news" into valuable data for the next iteration.

6. The "Identity Load" Check 

You need to recognize when you are over-identifying with your work, which usually manifests as a sharp "sting" when someone (or the data) criticizes a process you built. When you feel that defensiveness rise, pause and ask: "Am I defending the mission, or am I defending my image?" This question creates the necessary distance for you to step back, lower your defenses, and let the Truth breathe.

7. Delegate Authority, Not Just Tasks

Ego wants to be the "Expert" who saves the day, but Truth acknowledges that relying on your brain makes you the bottleneck. When a decision is required—whether from a team member or your own to-do list—don't just answer it; consult or build the system that answers it for you. 

Before We Move On

Operating without Ego isn't about having low self-esteem; it's about having high standards that are based on truth. When you remove your identity from the equation, you stop protecting the past and start engineering the future.

Once you accept the truth, you are ready to build systems that serve your mission.