Welcome visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the Passion Struck podcast.

Hi, I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach, multi industry CEO, maybe veteran, and entrepreneur on a mission to make passion go viral from millions worldwide.

In each week I do so by sharing with you an inspirational message and interviewing high achievers from all walks of life who unlock their secrets and lessons to become an passion scrub.

The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener by giving you tips, tasks, and activities you can use to achieve peak performance and work too.

Passion-driven life and have always wanted to have and help.

Let's become passion-struck. Welcome to momentum Friday, an episode 49 of the Passion Struck podcast, and we are in our continuing series of episodes where I am covering topics related to humility and diplomacy.

And today I'm going to start out with a quote from Steve Stone, my former boss at Lowe's Home Improvement, who said,

we cross the line into ego when we can't or won't understand perceptions. Understanding our perception is different than agreeing.

I may disagree, but if I can understand where you're coming from, at least we can have a dialogue.

When our knee jerk reaction is to dismiss, without seeking to learn, it is a clear sign that ego is getting in the way. And I remember, like it was yesterday, my time working with Steve, when I was a vice president at Lowe's Home Improvement, when I started that position, I was part of what I believed was one of the highest performing teams I have ever been around.

We worked five vice presidents on a mission to change the world of retail. And our group of five reported into Steve Stone, who was the chief information officer for Lowe's at the time.

And we worked together fairly well, most of the time very well, maintaining a culture of professional competition.

At times, there was tension between us, but we believed that it was a healthy tension, which drove our performance and led to many successes over time.

However, one day, I remember Steve coming in for a staff meeting with a bunch of reprimands. He told us we had a huge issue, an issue that was holding us back, both collectively and individually.

He informed us that that problem boiled down to three letters, e, g, and o. Our egos were holding us back.

Not only were we letting this healthy competition allow us to work against one another, but we were also impeding potential progress and success, not only for the company, but more importantly,

for those customers. We just didn't have the outside perspective at that time to see the ramifications of our team dynamics.

The Human Resources Department brought in a third party to evaluate the team, which ultimately led through a restructuring and our team size growing from five to 12. We did not know that through this culture of ego and competition, we would be limiting our own opportunities for advancement.

And that is exactly what happened.

So this begs the question, how can a big ego hold you back? There is such a fine line between confidence and ego.

You can have faith in your capabilities and be a forceful leader without ego.

However, it only takes a small step to allow the ego to take over. I remember those times at lows. And how many times my point of view was challenged by that team on my good days, I would be reflective and try to understand where the other person or persons were coming from.

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