Ego: most people have a negative view of the word. They think that “ego” is a synonym for arrogance or they think it means that someone with a big ego has an extreme sense of being in love with themselves. Listen, “ego” simply means “I” and there is a difference between having a healthy ego and an over-inflated delusional ego. I believe that it’s important to have a healthy ego when you venture out into the world of entertainment in the arts. So let’s differentiate between having a healthy ego and just being a douche.
You might be the type of person that has a “grand” sense of themselves, especially after a performance. Let’s say you wrapped up a show and you know you did a bang-up job. You feel good about yourself. You feel good about your accomplishment and the end result in all those hours of practice.
There’s been times when I’ve gone backstage and yelled, “holy shit, people. Your bass player is a bad ass.” Because I know I didn’t fuck up anything and I know my hands did exactly what my head wanted them to do.
There was a time I played with a drummer who went backstage after a show and said, “I just want you guys to know that you’re playing with a top notch drummer tonight because what I just pulled off was nothing short of amazing.” He said this because his click track feed was constantly dropping a signal, i.e. he was having to maintain his cool and maintain perfect time so that when the click track feed popped back into his in-ear mix he’d be on time with it and the rest of us – like maintaining a perfect phone conversation when your cellphone keeps dropping the signal. His outburst was well justified and we all had a laugh because we knew how stressful and difficult it was to do that.
Some people will resent you for having this highfalutin attitude. Most people have been led to believe that having a sense of pride in your work and accomplishments is somehow a bad thing. People have the attitude now that they don’t want to see other people on a pedestal. Most people won’t be happy until everyone around them is swinging by the neck. So you shouldn’t let these people of weak self worth dictate how you think of yourself.
There comes a time when you’ve earned your place and you have to own your talent. If someone puts you on a pedestal you shouldn’t take on this modest or humble approach and deny all the accolades coming your way. If you’re on a pedestal you should be grateful and then do what you can to help others up to where you are. Grateful for having your talent recognized and appreciated and helpful because your paying your work forward. Own your talent; own your achievements. And in no way should you let people make you downplay your own efforts and accomplishments.
Who are these people, generally? Ask yourself this.
Tell yourself that it’s not what they think, it’s what you know.
Living your accomplishments and being able to step away from the moment and enjoy what you’ve done is healthy as well as rewarding. Achieving a healthy ego is the sum result in your recognition that there was a need and a time for action; your planning, perseverance, and talent got you where you wanted to be. This is pride -a healthy ego – and your accomplishments should bring you self-respect.
The effective ego is having confidence in your preparation. Whether you are an artist, an actor, a musician, or whatever, your ability to prepare and follow through will give you entitlement to ownership. This involves standing up for yourself when you know you have the chance. By that, I mean, standing up for yourself without stepping on others. This is the core to rational self-interest. No, it isn’t doing whatever you want and everyone else can go screw themselves. It wouldn’t be rational to screw people over on your way to the top so that they, in turn, can find a way to screw you over and destroy what you’ve got. Wouldn’t it be rational and truly “selfish” to be kind and helpful to people so that they, in turn, will be kind and helpful to you?
The people that do harm in the name of individuality don’t truly understand the concept behind exhibiting rational self-interest. And when we’re talking about operating in the entertainment industry you should be able to see these people for who they are. People that hunger for stardom often study the effect but miss what causes it. They study the tricks and techniques, but their work lacks substance; their performances are hollow. When these people catch a glimpse of true achievement they resent it and try to rationalize it to themselves; they will do what they can to tear down the person who attains true achievement to make themselves feel better for getting far on the coat tails of others, by deceit, or by being weasels.
As you sharpen your skills you need to examine yourself and analyze what your goals are. Are you striving for fame or striving for excellence? What is the point of the long hours of practice?
A career in music, or any other art-form, is rare; being a star in music is even rarer. You need to sort things out in your head and examine your motivations. After you’ve taken all things into consideration you should’ve (at least I hope you should’ve) come to the realization that making music is the most satisfying of all your goals.
I’ve found that the people who have unhealthy egos and people that are resentful towards people of achievement are the ones who have a weak sense of self-worth. People have an amazing ability to rationalize their own faults and make themselves out to either be the victim of circumstance or to be the misunderstood and unappreciated “underdog.” If a person is passed over for a job then the person with the victim mentality will rationalize that they were beat out by someone just because that person was a member of a certain gender or race that gave them a certain advantage in the running. They don’t want to take responsibility that maybe they should have studied more, practiced more, or put forth more effort.
This is when we get into the whole arena of competition and if competition is a good thing.
Of course competition is a good thing! It can always be a good thing. Competition pushes people to do a better job, be a better musician, work a little harder, and to go the extra mile. Whoever says competition isn’t a good thing is the same person who can’t wait to criticize the gold medalist.
“Music shouldn’t be a competition.”
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m amazed at how some people can’t wait to shoehorn in their own hangups and skewed beliefs.
No, music is not a competition. It’s an art form.
Let’s say you’re a painter and you’re trying to think of new and innovative ways to display
your canvases. Ok, so one night you go out and you see a gallery exhibition of a guy that has completely disregarded the use of frames and only paints on unstretched canvases and displays them on the gallery as if the paintings were emerging from the walls. You should see that and think, “wow, what a great idea.” And THAT should inspire you and you should feel competitive to come up with an idea that’s even BETTER than that. You shouldn’t turn your nose up to it and disregard it on the basis of some made up elitist bullshit just to make yourself feel better for being beaten to the punch on something.
Holy shit, people. Competition can be a great thing…as long as you have a healthy ego, i.e. a strong sense of self, a grasp on logic and reason, and being able to hole non-contradictory beliefs. Competition, however, is abhorred by the victims who think everyone has an advantage over them.
I used to be friends with this one guitar player. We had grown up together, taken guitar lessons from the same teacher, and we were into the same type of music. But I got really good at the bass and he had always struggled with guitar. Well, over twenty years later he never amounted to much in music and he even ventured to rationalize to me that I had contained something in me that made me the better musician, giving me the advantage. He didn’t own up to the fact that I just put in more dedicated hours of focused practice than he did. No, I had some inborn advantage that just made me better at playing music. He just threw out effort and practice and chalked up everything to genetics or something.
That kind of belief always annoys me.
Look, having a healthy ego is a good thing. It can be a very good thing. But don’t confuse a healthy sense of “I” with the person who uses their achievements to lord over people. Any person that boasts about what they can do to make other people feel bad is just an asshole. It’s another example of someone with low self-esteem. Anyone that demonstrates this type of behavior should be recognized as a person with low self-esteem and low moral fiber. It’s not an example of a healthy ego; it’s an example of a dickhead and shouldn’t be confused with ego.
————————————–
