The silent killer.
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“Deployment? Dude, we have a date set to start your paperwork to kick you out of the Army. We definitely aren’t taking you on deployment.”
More on that conversation later.
I have seen ego take many forms in my career so far. Personally, my battle with my own ego has been something that ended up being maybe my most useful teacher. I started my career with this large ego that was, at times, a superpower. In other ways, it quite literally almost destroyed my career.
In EOD school, I had this immense confidence that I would get through school unscathed. Up until the Grenades test, that was true. Then I tasted that sweet failure for the first time. I double-tapped. Straight to jail. My ego went crazy. I very much had main character energy, and how the hell could the main character fail out? Bad Ego. After talking my way back into class, I focused harder and got back on the right track. That failure didn’t bog me down too much. I didn’t become terrified of future tests, and I didn’t begin to doubt myself. I wasn’t really all that bothered that I just got kicked out of class for failing because I KNEW I would pass. A guy like me doesn’t fail at something he gives 100% to. Good Ego.
I would repeat this process one more time in the Air division (D&Ps test). This time, I had to go to a real review board to try to get back in. I KNEW I could convince these senior military leaders that I was the man for the job and deserved to be back in training. Bad Ego.
After my 3rd or 4th time interrupting the Senior Army EOD tech in the schoolhouse, He stopped me and gave me my first REAL ego check of my career.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP. There's your problem. You think you know everything I am going to say before I even finish. For some reason, you think you deserve to be here. We don’t need guys like you in this community. I would rather work with a monkey.” – CSM
I have never done ayahuasca. I have never had any sort of hallucinogenic trip before. But I have talked to people who have. They usually describe a god-like entity giving them this incredible vision of what their entire life has been up until this point. The good, the bad, and how to make life more meaningful in the future.
I had that experience in that brief moment with that Sergeant Major. Except, it wasn’t my life that he showed me. It was my ego. He laid it out for me and showed me not only how ugly it was, but how other people perceived it.
I left that room knowing that the gamble I took in joining the Army to become an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician had just gone bust. Now I was going to be a cook or something.
Someone in that room saved me. I don’t know which instructor it was, but someone stuck up for me and convinced the others to vote me back in. I made a change.
Later in my career, I learned that you can't just kill your ego completely. Sometimes it's good to believe that you are the baddest dude around. For no other reason than you just believe it. It can help when you are about to walk down on an IED or when you are about to brief a room full of colonels when you definitely aren’t prepared to do so. The trick lies in finding when that ego needs to be turned up to 11 and when that ego needs to be locked away. I am still figuring that out, but I am sure of one thing. Don’t bring that ego to any sort of review board.
I am aware that not everyone has this issue with ego or overconfidence. Some people’s baseline is that they don’t have enough confidence. I can't use my own personal experience to help those with low confidence, but I hope that this semi-embarrassing look into my early career can help a younger guy identify any potential issues with ego. Maybe even find a way to harness it and become an asset.
I guess you want to hear about that getting kicked out of the army thing now.
Very early in my first unit, my bad ego came back. I had always been an athlete and never scored amazingly on a PT test, but I could always pass without an issue. I was allowed to PT on my own, and I let my disdain for certain leaders diminish my motivation for doing the job. Well, on PT test day, I learned that I wasn’t quite the young buck I had once been. Failed the run by a couple of seconds. Now my unit had an excuse to get rid of that egotistical asshole team member that was rubbing everyone the wrong way. On top of that, we just found out our unit was slotted for an Afghanistan deployment. Our unit was at like 175% manned, and that meant our team leaders got to pick which team members they were bringing. I made their decision that much easier. Bad ego.
All is well that ends well, though. I turned it around quickly. I killed my ego and became an asset ( I think). I ended up going on that deployment and gained experience that helped me later in my career. I am forever thankful to the two team leaders that saw potential in that egotistical asshole.
-T