Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings. -Stephen King.

Ego’s the feeling you had when your mama made you mad and you vowed never to eat her food again. It’s the feeling you had when you vowed never to talk to your best friend anymore. And is the same feeling you have every now and then when you get into an argument only to discover everybody was saying the same thing and all you needed to do was agree.

Ego is an effort to preserve our value proposition. We know we’re smart, we even believe we’re somehow smarter than everyone in the room.

Ego makes you want to jump right in and complete people’s words or say something when someone’s trying to say something that makes your opinion useless.

An Ego Free Designer; John😄.

Mark: Let’s put the navigation below the screen. I think it’ll be better overall.

John: Let’s just leave it up where I put it. You just code it that way.

Mark: But according to Luke Wroblewski, the top of the screen is harder to reach with one hand than the bottom.

John: Okay, who’s Luke W. Let me see a link to that.

Mark: 

John: wow. I never thought of stuff that way. I’ll go back to my artboard to make it more easy for thumb reach.

That’s an ego-free designer.

😈Fighting Ego.

At the startup where I worked previously, a lot of things were done wrong. But I’m forever happy that my Ego was one of the things I got rid of.

I remember after a series of arguments that weren’t really necessary, my colleague and I came to two conclusions.

Anytime we enter into an argument in the office, it’s either

1. Nobody’s informed enough to educate everyone or

2. Someone is egoistic and isn’t willing to listen.

After this findings, we worked on ourselves. We made sure before any design meeting, we were educated on the topic at hand. We had enough information to answer any arguments swiftly and keep our ego in check. That was it.

Of course, there were other smart ass bitches. But when they see you aren’t playing the respect game, they’ll become more aware of the importance of keeping their ego in check.

So anytime you get into an argument at the office, at home with the nanny or your paranoid 3rd wife, just remember; someone’s ego isn’t letting them listen.

If you have the ability to shut up your smart mouth and listen, you’ll have enough mental energy to think faster, ask smarter questions and do great work.

Creativity cannot go with ego. Thanks for your time 😄 😄 😄.