Shane Parrish

And these stories aren't true.

They're just us protecting that very vulnerable part of us that is sort of, yeah, maybe it is.

There's an element of truth to all of this, which is why we can believe the stories we tell ourselves.

But at the end of the day, again, are we moving towards or further away from the outcome that we want to get?

Can we wrap our ego, instead of wrapping our ego into our self-identity,

and our territory about ourselves, can we wrap our ego into an outcome?

And if we can wrap that ego into an outcome, I think we're going to get a lot further in life.

All the time.

It's so crazy.

It happens with promotions.

It happens with dating.

It happens in every element of our life.

We tell ourselves the story.

that we're right, that we're a good person, that we did the right thing, that we thought about it right, that it just worked out that way by chance, or they didn't deserve it because they're not a nice person, but we're a nice person.

And we just unconsciously do this all the time.

And I think it's sort of like, it's self-defeating because it takes us away from, again, are we getting closer?

further away from what we want to achieve yeah you sort of talk about how complaining just is us arguing with the way the world is which is usually a losing strategy yeah i remember i think maybe the the story you're referring to is i went to my mentor i didn't get a promotion and i said well you know i justified it in a very similar way to what we're talking about right now

He's like, you're just arguing with reality.

This has happened.

This isn't a strategy.