The Hidden Cost of Ego | Gregory Vetter on Leadership, Success & Self-Awareness

Sometimes the biggest obstacle standing between you and success isn't a lack of talent, resources, or opportunity.

It's your ego.

In this episode, Greg reflects on the lessons that only come from building something, losing something, and being forced to confront reality head-on. Through stories from the Tessemae's journey, difficult negotiations, leadership, and entrepreneurship, he explores how ego quietly influences our decisions, our relationships, and our ability to grow.

The conversation isn't about thinking less of yourself.

It's about thinking more clearly.

Together, Greg and Moe explore:

• Why ego often disguises itself as confidence
• How success can create dangerous blind spots
• Why humility is one of the greatest competitive advantages in business
• The difference between winning an argument and solving a problem
• Why understanding people's motivations makes you a better leader and negotiator
• What failure teaches that success never can
• And how removing your ego allows you to make better decisions.

One of the most powerful moments comes as Greg reflects on the lessons learned after the Tessemae's journey—not with bitterness, but with perspective. What once felt like defeat became one of the greatest leadership educations of his life. 

Because at the end of the day...

Your ego doesn't care if you grow.

It only cares if it wins.

🎯 Full episode available now on The Gregory Vetter Podcast.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People don't like ego when people talk a big game and can't back it up. If you can back it up, is that ego? Part of ego, it's necessary. If you have gifts, you need that type of self-talk. But there is a Greg Vetter Podcast. Topic today is ego. Right?

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Yes. Yes. Ego can be good. And then too much ego can be bad, but too much ego could be good. I get I guess that's also not a something you can say that's either good or bad, but sometimes you can see good and bad.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

I think it comes down to awareness. You know, I think I was hyper aware of ego during the Tessie Mays journey. In yourself or in myself, because I didn't want the brand to become me.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Yeah, that's what I was ready to say. You you thought that was a reflection of you? I wanted it to be its own thing. Okay, so you wanted it to be your own thing, but did you see people were kind of like looking at you as Tessie Mays, like, and that's probably why you held on it too long? Because, well, if this fails, that automatically means I'm a failure.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

No, that was that's just pure competition and not and not wanting to fail. But you know, ego, a lot has been said in a negative light about ego, which I think in some instances is correct. Um, Ryan Holiday wrote an entire book called Ego is the enemy. I like the book. He came up with I like that book too. He came up with great examples, and I think being hyper-aware of ego is important, but I also think a part of ego is it's necessary. You you need the awareness around it, and then you also need to be aware of your gifts. And I think too often with ego specifically, we almost want to beat the gifts out of people and keep the ego down so much and keep people so humble, and we value people that are so humble, and we go after people that are not humble, and we try and make it such a toxic thing. And in again, some instances, it's right. Some people are toxic, and their ego is too much to handle, and it's like, shut the fuck up. But there is a balance where if you have gifts and you need to utilize those gifts in specific moments, you need that type of self-talk and boosting of yourself, which in a sense is ego, to get things done the way you need to get them done. It's like self-confidence. Oh. It is a, you know, I guess it's a thin line. It is a thin line. Um, and again, I it brings me back to awareness. It's about awareness. You know, you don't want to be, you want to be hyper-aware of what you're actually capable of. And I think this all of this ego discussion comes back to a lack of awareness. Because the times where people don't like ego is when people talk a big game and can't back it up. If you can back it up, is that ego?

unknown 3:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Or is that just who you are? I'm just telling you what I'm gonna do, babe. This is what I'm gonna do. Well, and and it's interesting because everybody wants the the perfect leader who's unbelievably hyper-aware, unbelievably confident, but unbelievably humble, but very intelligent, but very down-to-earth, but very balanced, but very nurturing, but very this and very that. And at the end of the day, it's unrealistic. And I was talking to my performance coach when we first got together. It was like our second session or something. And I was talking about the Tessie Mays journey and all that went right and all that went wrong, and my view of the world, and pushing up people, which is, you know, a great book that I love, and making sure everybody has their own platform and that I don't suck all the air out of the room. Because again, so much in executive coaching and CEO coaching and guidance is, you know, you got two ears and one mouth for a reason, and and all of that is true. But at the same time, if you need to lead properly and you need to give the answer in the time in which it's time to give it, I think we need to stop creating this toxic environment around confidence in your gifts. If you're gifted in something, and the easiest way to point to it's athletes in when they're mic'd up hearing their self-talk in in the middle of a game. Yeah, I love that shit, man. Now that's ego. You're the man, you're the best ever. You were built for this. This is your moment. Controlled aggression, attack, God put you on this planet for this, you know, that, and then they they make it happen. And before the Olympics and sprinting, you know, you get these guys and they're having their conversations, and then they go and break a world record, and we all love it and we all celebrate. They're not saying, Well, I really hope to the guy next to me has the best race of all time. And it would be really wonderful if I could perhaps potentially maybe do a good job today. And I think for me, I'm naturally extroverted and loud and aggressive, and that comes off as ego. Now, I will not make a bet for something that I don't think I can win. That's stupidity. Right? And I usually don't talk on topics that I'm uneducated on. And so this fine line between who you actually are and what people are comfortable listening to or being around isn't so much about you. It's really about the room you're in and who you're surrounded by. Because when you're in really great elite rooms with elite athletes and musicians and executives and leaders, yes, everybody, it's not everybody at a high level. And there's no reason to puff up the chest and try and one-up anybody because they don't need to do it. Right. But at the same time, you're having very frank, bold conversations on the reality of the world. And if somebody's not used to that, they'll go, that guy's an egomaniac. Or, oh my God, that's that's toxic masculinity. Or uh I can't believe it's this level of fill-in-the-blank. Life's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And there has to be some level of confidence. Now, when you get into the psychological aspects of self-one and self-two and the ego and, you know, the pain body, which is really the ego trying, you know, you can get into some deep and dark stuff. You're getting deep. And a lot of it is really interesting stuff. You know, A New Earth by Eckert Toll. He wrote a pat The Power of Now, and then he wrote A New Earth. And the New Earth was actually my first deep dive into a very balanced, wonderful explanation of ego and the decisions that I was making day to day that maybe weren't the decisions I should have been making, but were made purely out of ego. And that gave me my first polarizing, crystal clear view of that made you think different? It made me think different. And a great example of this was all tied to material possessions. What watch was I wearing? What shoes was I wearing? What car was I driving? Where was my house? How much money did I make? Did that now granted I'm in my early 20s, and so I hadn't embarked on anything real. There was no real adversity. I'm trying to figure out the world. And I read a new earth and I go, holy shit, I've made 10 decisions, major decisions, in the past six months to a year, purely based on ego, purely based on wanting to one-up somebody else for the pure and simple fact of one-upping them to prove that I'm somehow bigger or better or smarter or wealthier or whatever. And so, as a reminder to myself, I took off my expensive watch, I put it in my drawer, I went out, I bought a digital Timex at the time, and I said, I'm never gonna wear an expensive watch ever again. I'm never gonna buy one, I'm never gonna wear one, and that is gonna be my reminder of I don't need to participate in that game unless I really, really, really have thought it through and want it for the right reasons. Because there's nothing wrong with wanting cool shit. Yeah. If you actually want cool shit versus wanting something to look like something, to look like something to somebody else. Correct. And I think that's the big thing that it's so hard to be able to explain to a young person or someone that's keeping up with the Joneses unnecessarily for the pure and simple fact that they their ego will get hurt if they they can't flex their watch. You know? Right. So that's why I wear a digital watch. Now it, you know, this is a very nice digital watch, but I don't wear expensive watches on purpose.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Right. Unless you want to go out and you might have one that you wear with suits. I I don't like to wear my eye watch when I'm really dressed up. Yeah. I've been searching for a nice gold band, you know, little old school watch, something, you know, something to look nice with the suit.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

What I got Genevieve, which I thought was really cool, that if this I wear this with suits, but if I weren't going to wear it with a suit for whatever reason, I got her this super, super vintage 1950s Rolex. And it it wasn't that expensive, but it's got like a green face and an alligator band, and it's from the 50s, and it's cool, and you can't even really tell that it's a Rolex, but it's like this really old, cool piece of vintage, I'm super vintage. Um, but I don't that that's my thing. I don't do that. I've there's been moments where I've started getting into the research of that stuff because I love vintage shit in general. I love old cars, yeah, I love old trucks, I love old watches, I love old vintage coats. You know, I got like 10 vintage farm coats I found on eBay from like the late 70s and early 80s. I love shit like that. Yeah, but see, that's something, and then you research it.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

I do a lot of research. Yeah. So um back to back to ego, but now I want to still talk about ego. But could a person be too humble? Is it a thing about being too humble? Yeah. Have you seen that? And and what over time, what does that do to a person when they're too humble?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

They miss their moment because they don't speak up, they don't speak up. And sometimes it's a detriment to a team. And we talked about this on the podcast before the Mr. Beast games. It's the final. Yeah, someone needs to do a dead hang. This dude's a rock climber, he's too humble about it. I'm a rock climber, I think I could do it. And this random dude, all ego. I just had a vision. This is my moment. I got it. And everyone's like, Have you ever done done a dead hang before? He's like, nah, man, but I got this. We're gonna move to the next round. We need to switch those egos. We got to switch those egos because then the dude watched him drop in 25 seconds, and that whole team got kicked off, and they lost their opportunity for five million bucks. And I think that's a great example of dude, what are you doing? Why are you being so humble? You're a freaking rock climber.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah, he should have done they should have just pushed him in it, but maybe that'd have messed him up too if they pushed him. Maybe he wasn't already, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

But there are these moments, and there was a great book. I think it was It's Your Ship or something, and they were choosing executives for this um new program, or no, I think it was the Rare Recordings of Napoleon Hill, and they brought everybody in, I think it was GM or it was Ford at the time, and they needed 20 guys to start a new management program, and everybody got brought in and they go, We want you to do this, it's gonna be more hours. Initially, it's gonna be the same pay, but after it gets set up, it's gonna be exponentially better. Half the people, yes, I'm in now. Half the people, I need to think about it. They were all qualified, right? They were all selected because of their ability. Yeah. And the people that said yes in that moment because they were unbelievably confident in their abilities, moved on to be unbelievably successful. And the people that said no, I need to go back and think about it, ended up being nothing, and they were not successful. So, in those moments where there's this little voice in your head, which is probably your ego, saying, You got it, you're the man, take advantage of this moment. In that instance, I think ego is very good. But if you're out buying $25,000 watches, so somebody that you don't know or care about sees that you're wearing a $25,000 watch, I don't know if that's it.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Right. That's just you're just in the wrong place. But if you just, you know, you're buying it because that's your thing. It could be your thing. I'll go out and buy a $25,000 camera.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Well, that's a tool. That's like us saying, you know, we went and spent $150,000 on a F 450 portable toilet truck. Like that ain't a flex. You know, you need that for work. Yeah, right. Like that's not. And it's funny because you look up the prices of a Porsche, you know, or a used Ferrari or whatever, and all my kids, oh my God, you know, dad, how much is this car? And I go, let's look it up. And they'll look it up and they'll see the prices and they'll go, okay, well, how much is that? How much is the you know, Tushy's truck? I'm like, more than that. So if I really wanted to buy a Lambo, we could.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

And then that completely changes their perspective of, okay, someone made a conscious decision to spend money on this thing instead of a tool.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah. So I guess all of my decisions, and sometimes I go on my wife because she likes purses.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

I'm like, what do you need this purse for? Right. This purse is $2,500. Why? Why do you need that? We can buy a camera and in a week or a month or so, I can make $4,000 off this $25,000. Well, you're but she likes intelligent.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

My wife's intelligent. I'm not saying she's not. I'm saying your mindset has put your family in a position where that's a conversation that you can easily have.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Yeah. But that's what she likes, though. I mean, probably things I would I would spend money on. That I don't know. I just spend money on stuff that usually normally I guess that's a good thing about me is what I like can make money if I so purchase it.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

So if you and you choose to use it.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Yeah, and if I choose to use it. I mean, outside of me buying video games, that might be my only thing where I uh don't get or spend money on stuff that won't bring money in, probably video games.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yeah. And and again, it it's just And that's okay. That is okay. Yeah. And we work hard. We work hard, and you can spend your money on whatever you want. It comes back to why? What is the reason the video games? Well, and it's like, well, what's the reason you're spending the money? Is it because you want to show somebody else that you have it, or is it something that you truly enjoy?

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Yeah, I truly enjoy video. Well, then if you truly enjoy it, there you go. So back to being being humble. I feel sometimes, I don't know if I ever missed out on anything, but sometimes I feel I've talked to myself about that. Sometimes I feel like I'm too humble at times. Sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I think you used to be too humble, and I think now you've done so much that you're you can easily have a factual conversation with somebody and you're not humble because you're you're telling people what time it is. For example, someone comes to you, hey, I want to make a video, or whatever, you're not gonna sit there and tell somebody their video that they've made is good when it sucks. And you're not gonna tell somebody what they're doing is right when it's wrong. And then you're also gonna give them insights in a way that's confident but not condescending. But some could interpret it as man, Mo really has a big ego, he's really got an opinion on everything that I'm doing, and who the fuck is he? When I see you have those conversations and I see the videos that someone brings to you, and it's absolute dog shit, and you're having a normal educational conversation, you have grown into being able to give really good critical feedback. Whereas before, I don't even know if you would have given the critical feedback in your early years.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

You'd be like, Man, that's just you, baby. If you like it, you like it, baby. Hey, baby gone, baby. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, and but now you're like video sucks.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

I go back and try to fix it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Well, and didn't you say some intern or somebody showed you a video? You go, man, what the fuck is that? I don't know if I was everot.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

I probably said, Oh, okay. All right. You know what I would do? That that's usually how you know I come off with you know, uh, criticism or constructive criticism, sure. So I say. I always start with, all right, I see where you're going at with it. What I Would do if I was you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be. So I like to work on it like that. But yeah, sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

But sometimes people don't hear. And I think that's the part that gets frustrating is when you can really help somebody and you're trying to be too humble in your approach. Yeah, when you just say, look, I know what the fuck I'm doing. Well, and I've had to have I've had to have that conversation a couple times where I'm trying to lead the horse to water to get the horse to drink. Right. And they're just not getting it. And I've had to say, listen, I know what I'm doing. I am a fucking expert. Right. You don't know what you're doing. Please, for the love of everything holy. Please do this. Stop doing what you're doing and start doing this. Now with my kids, I ask them a series of questions. Which is do I care about you? Yes. What is my job to protect me? Am I an expert in this field? Yes. And I'll go through, I'm like, so why aren't you listening? Why do you think at 10 years old or 12 or 14 or 15 or whatever that you somehow know more about strength and conditioning or lacrosse or social situations or designing a product? Why do you think that you know more than I do? I guess I guess I don't. And you're just like, please let me let me help you. Please.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Yeah. And you gotta, you gotta be open to help, open to receive help. I think that's one of my strengths, too. I'm very, I'm a very coachable person. You are a very coachable person.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

You know what I'm saying? I am also surprisingly very coachable, which people do not think.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

I think you you'll be very coachable, but you'll tell the coach exactly what you want. Yeah. Teach me this. I don't need to know that. Really, not trying to do that. I want to know how to do this the best I can do it. Right. This right here. Just this. And and I am open and willing to do anything. Now, if I need that to get me here, then I'll learn that. But please. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

I remember what I need to do to do this. I was taking golf lessons. And that's what I was thinking about when you told me. In my early 20s. I'm not a big golfer. Me either. But I'm hitting this ball and it's just fucking going right. I'm slicing this bitch so hard. And this guy's going, great job. Great job. And I look at him, I go, the ball's supposed to be going straight, correct? He's like, Yeah. Why are you telling me good job when the ball is going over here? He goes, I go, I need to know exactly what I'm doing wrong so that I can fix it. You telling me good job when I'm doing things incorrectly is not helping me. He goes, Well, no one wants to hear that. I go, I do. Yeah. I was ready to say that. I do want to know.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

The main people who he's probably been coaching, or you know, that they just want that. They're not trying to get better. No. They just want somebody to stroke their ego back at it. You see that?

SPEAKER_00 25:49

And stroke golf, pun intended.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

That should be the end of the episode right there.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

This was a shorty but goody.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Yeah, but um I can see that where you just want people. And when you get to, have you ever had that when you reach, I guess, in your entrepreneurial uh journey and building up your company, people that are around you that really didn't uh question your decisions or or things like that, or as they say, yes men? Have you ever seen that?

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Or did you notice that? I was hyper aware to not have anybody around me that was a yes man.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

So, how do you go about uh doing that? And does that um have anything to do with ego of you or ego of the other person or them just trying to stay in your good graces to become something or to I guess was that sucking up?

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Yeah, well, I never had anybody around me that did that. I always wanted one, I love debate, and I love a good, a good debate, like a good, well-spirited argument. I enjoy that. I think it's fun. I love debate class in high school. So I always wanted people that had very strong opinions with a very different perspective of mine, and I wanted us to go head to head to figure out the best answer and the best strategy moving forward. And I needed people that were strong enough and confident enough to push back every step of the way to get the right answer. And I think for the most part, I had that. I mean, when you look back on the people in our leadership teams over the course of time, I mean, we got in some very heated arguments. Very heated. We had some good people, right? We had people turning red, flicking each other off, telling people to go fuck themselves, getting up, walking out, arguing, but we always argued and debated to the place where the answer felt right at the end. And I do think I would always say, listen, I don't need to be right. I just want the right fucking answer. So let's sit here with a whiteboard and think through every possible solution for this. Make your case as to why you think this is the best course of action. And we did that a bunch of times because I'm not sure what a yes ban does. Now, have you seen those in your course of work and line of work, or you can see I've seen them, I've seen them in environments I've gone into. Yeah, that's what I'm that's what I'm talking about. It's it's weird. Yeah, like I I would say the most polarizing moment was when we went up to Savore magazine and did a tasting in New York City of all of our products, and it was something out of the Devil Wears Prada, man. Love that film. I walked I haven't seen the second one yet, but the first one Kristen's in the test kitchen, she's cooking, no one's talking to her. We come up after. We walk by, she goes, This is a tough room, man. No one's even acknowledged that I'm here. And I'm like, Really? So we do this big tasting, we give our pitch, this is our dressing, this is our buffalo sauce, this is our barbecue sauce, we've sweetened it with dates, here's this, here's that. No one says a fucking word. Everyone's tasting, no reaction, no response until the editor tastes the buffalo sauce with a little spoon. Looks at us. It's magnificent. And then everybody goes, That's what I was thinking too. It's absolutely magnificent. And then everybody just talked because this person gave it the stamp of approval, then everybody in the room, regardless of whether or not they liked it or didn't like it, was in complete lockstep with this per this person's opinion. It was one of the weirder things I've ever seen in my life. Like he was a king or she or a queen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Like she was a queen.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

And we, you know, we left there, and Kristen was like, that was the craziest shit I've ever seen. She's like, the last time I saw something like that was Martha Stewart.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Because she worked on so I guess everybody in there was just walking on as they say, yeah, walking on eggshells. They don't want to say anything to upset. That goes back to your book Backbone.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Right? Well, but that's where we're at. And for the most part, everybody's walking around trying to not offend other people, trying to not have an opinion that gets them canceled, trying to not say something that offends somebody. And at the end of the day, it's is there anything more important than freedom of speech?

SPEAKER_02 31:23

And I think that's what a lot of people are talking about now, just just in social media, uh just in general, is the freedom of speech. When is a freedom of speech just disrespectful, though? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Well, and guess what? It doesn't matter. That's the beauty of freedom of speech.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Yeah, but the disrespectful freedom of speech gets you hit in the mouth.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Well, that's well, that's a different conversation. That goes back to people not getting hit in the mouth no more. Well, exactly. That goes back to these keyboard cowboys being able to say whatever they want without any consequences at all. And so this massive rise in um disrespectful conversations to people, no one's getting punched in the mouth anymore. I mean, to think that I could walk up to you in high school and just look at your fill-in-the-blank outfit, haircut, whatever it is, and go, wow, you look like a worthless piece of shit. And that there weren't gonna be consequences to that statement. That's immediate consequences.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

That is especially if they don't know you now, you know, sometimes you know, compadres and brothers.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Well, I'm not talking about friendly banter and shit talking in a locker room. Yeah. You just talk about out the blue. I'm talking, well, that's what people do now in the comment section.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Boom.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Right. In the comment section, people just go, you know, I hope you fucking kill yourself, you ugly piece of shit. You're the most worthless human being I've ever seen in my life. There's no consequences.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah, because we can't find you because you're typing it. Exactly. Yeah, you wouldn't say that to my face, though. Say it to my face. Right. Say it to my face. Say it to my face, man. Don't touch me. I ain't touch you, don't touch me. Let's go outside. Say it to my face. But yeah, so um.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, well, freedom of speech. I don't think there's anything more important.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

I don't but you know, when you use that freedom of speech and however you choose to use it, be ready to maybe possibly get hit in the mouth or not get hit in the mouth. Well, again, there are consequences to your actions. Yep, that is that's it.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Everything consequences for every action, there is a reaction. And that's what I was trying to get to. And we all just have to be prepared for that. And that's the same with you know, you could give somebody a compliment that they find offensive. So I I d I don't think there's any limitation on free speech outside of I guess the legal limitation is uh a call for violence against another person, which that that makes sense.

unknown 34:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

But outside of you having an opinion that you don't think this is offensive or you like this type of music, or you like this person or politician, or that's personal. That's your God-given right to have that opinion. And I don't care what it is, and I don't have to agree with it.

unknown 34:53

Right?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

You love LeBron James.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

I mean, that was an insult to you. I've been watching him. I'm not a huge basketball fan in general. You know, I'm more I'm old school. You know who we like. We like Michael Jordan. MJ. MJ, baby. My guy. Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson. I like them both. Yeah. Uh, we just went and saw that movie. Oh, you saw it. Yeah. I seen it too. I wasn't going to ask you until you saw it, but now that I know. What did you think? Oh, yes. Very nostalgic. It really brought me back when he was in the toy store section. I thought that was nice. Um, you could really see where he, when he was at the table talking to his mom, and she said he needed to make friends. And he said, I can't make friends because they all just look at me. They all just want to take pictures with me. Yeah. And I kind of felt like, ugh. Because you know, back in the day, you know, when you're young, you do want to be famous. Let's just say that. Everybody. Yeah, everybody wants to be famous. Well, you think you do. You think you do. Right. And then when I seen that at a young age, well, him at a young age, and he said, he was like, I can't make friends. He's like, all they want to do is just like take take pictures with me. And I thought that was like, I was like, oh, that probably kind of kind of hit me like, dang. Because then he just started making friends with the animals. I know. And I was like, mm. I mean, but I mean, it's nothing wrong with with loving animals. But yeah. But I thought I thought they did, I thought it did a good job. I thought it was very nostalgic. I thought the storyline was lacking. Because they, I think, because they, and then I thought it had an erupt ending. Yeah. It was like it didn't go too deep.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

It stopped like it was like his story continues. You're like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

Okay. They kind of they didn't get to real controversial stuff in it.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Well, his, but you kind of his nephew, man. That was unbelievable. He did a good job. He's like his clone.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Yeah, he did a good job. He sounded just like him, too. It was unbelievable. Yeah, he did a good job. But overall, I think, man, I enjoyed it. My daughter, me, yeah, I took my kids. Yeah. She's a Michael Jack. I put her on Michael Jackson. I remember when I first showed her the movie Moonwalking. And I said, girl, you know about Michael Jackson? She had to be like Forrest. Like, who Michael Jackson? I was like the greatest artist in the world.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

You know who loves moonwalking? Forrest. Forrest? Dude. I love Moonwork.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

He just moonwalks around our house. I used to love the moonwalk. Me and my friend, his name was Eric Brown. He could do the best moonwalk in elementary.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

But I used to love the moonwalking.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

You don't have the correct footwear. That is not happening. But yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was good. I liked it. Um I want to see the second one.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

You know what's interesting that we're talking about is ego. And the one part about that movie that I really liked was all of his self-talk and what he did from an ego reinforcement perspective to do what he did. You know, all the little sticky notes he had around his house saying, like, you're the best, you're chosen, this is your moment.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

I seen one sticker on the little sticky note on a thing that it was from something. Either you said or some book that we read, and he had it sticky. I cannot. If I go back, I know I'll see it. Yeah. It was it was a good one. But yes, I seen, yeah, I seen that. I mean, and he, I mean, he did it. Yeah, he did do it at a at an elite level. Very elite.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

And I also love the part of him sitting in the pool just looking up at the sky, and his and his brothers were like, What are you doing, man? He goes, I'm waiting for God to connect to me or the creator to connect to me and give me what I need. Because if I'm not open to the creator giving it to me, he's gonna give it to Prince.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Yeah. Yes. When they said that in the movie, I lied. I had heard it on someone's podcast or interview. Oh, really? When they yeah, he said it. He said it may have been, I think either Lionel Richie might have said it. Yeah. He was like, oh yeah, because he was like in the studio. It was like a studio session. It was like three something in the morning. He woke up out of sleep and he was like, he called the people up. He's like, hey, I just had a song.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

We need to go to the studio and record it right now. It was like, Mike, it's it's three in the morning. Yes, we got we gotta go right now. We gotta record it right now. Yes, because if we don't record it right now, then he's gonna give it to Prince. I love it. So I was like, dang. But I mean, again, that was his obsession. Obsessional desire. Yep. That was his obsession. He was obsessed with that. So you could see how he could wake up anytime or any, even if he was in the middle of the club partying.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Well, and it's a I'm out of here. Ryan Kerrigan said it too, which is to become that elite, you have to go to a dark place. And it's a place that most people are not gonna understand. And I again, let's tie it back into the ego side. If you're around the wrong people and you're doing all this weird, crazy shit, trying to be open to the creator to give you the next great song, and there's sticky notes all around your house saying that you are the greatest that has ever lived, and this is your moment, and this is your time. Someone's gonna come in and go, dude, you you're a fucking egomaniac. Or you're weird. You're weird. What are you doing? You're weird until it works, and then you're a genius. Then you're all right, you're an artistic genius. You're the you're a once-in-a-generation gift. And so finding the balance of confidence and doing things for the right reasons, and come completely committing to your journey or receiving the gifts that you've been given and being unapologetic about it, I think is this interesting balance of what people know as ego today versus being humble or being overly humble. Because, you know, you look at what he was able to accomplish, very controversial and twisted life he lived. Was it worth it? I don't know. You'd have to ask him. I would say the millions of fans that loved his music and how he redefined music videos, dancing, yes, pop hits.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

I mean, he I don't think we've seen anybody, or we'll probably in my lifetime. I don't know, maybe at the very end, I don't think we will ever see anyone.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Not that also included dance. Right. Because not only was he an unbelievable singer and writer and musician, but then his fucking dance moves were insane. Because like you can think about, all right, well, this dude's written this many hits, those were amazing. He didn't invent the moonwalk.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

I don't know if he invented the moonwalk, he made his shit famous to me. He perfected it. He perfected it. He perfected it. So you know somebody else who they talk about who has ego, and you always hear about him having Kanye West.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

I was just gonna bring up Kanye. Yeah, because he doesn't have the dance side. He doesn't. But going back to this dedication.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

But you can hear his oh, I'm sorry, but yeah, but you can not hear, but he always says, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that. I'm the blap, blah, blah. I'm I'm I'm I and I love Kanye West. That's like one of my top five rapper musicians.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

He's I think he's my top. I mean, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

I mean, Lil Wayne is love little Wayne. Yeah, but little Wayne's right there. Yeah, he's my number one.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Is he? Yes. Love him, it's phenomenal. But to get to that place, no one else can get you there because you are breathing such rare air and you are creating. Shit that has never been created before. There is nobody that can help guide you to that place. They can simply assist you, provide you water when you're thirsty, but it's not like you're just churning out standard pop hits that follow these five notes that we're targeting for the summer, or we're doing a Christmas album or whatever. They're creating shit that no one has ever heard before. And that's artistic genius at work. And you've got to be a different breed of human, and your brain has to work in such a weird way that we shouldn't be having discussions about ego with those dudes. Right, because that's just their natural way of life. They're like goalies in lacrosse, man. It's like, dude, if you save the ball, you can be as weird as you fucking want. Like we had a goalie talk about ego. This dude would wash every lacrosse ball before practice, sitting ass naked in the locker room shower. So you'd walk in, he's sitting there naked, washing every lacrosse ball. Then he would just walk around the locker room naked talking to you. And you're like, dude, come on, man. You know, like it's one thing if you're changing, you can put your shit on, like you're having a conversation. It's a completely different thing to just be like you got that homework. Yeah, man. You were at the biology fucking exam yesterday, and you're like, the moment you stop saving these balls is the moment we stop having naked conversations, my guy. But at the same time, who wants to He was good at his job, huh? Who wants to go into a goal with no pads on and get hit basically with a rock at a hundred miles an hour all day, every day? Azure job. There's no pads, they wear no pads. They have a thin chest protector, a cup, gloves, no arm pads, no leg pads, and a helmet. Just wearing shots at a hundred. Like it's nothing. That's a different breed of dude. They're not normal. And it's just like, leave them be. And they need whatever they need to say to themselves, whatever ego they need to have, they get to have it. Because how else are you gonna get in that fucking goal?

SPEAKER_02 46:57

And that's just based off, you know, as you were saying, self-talk. It's self-talk. Self-talk. And who are we? I think everybody should do self-talk.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

Well, and who are we to humble them?

SPEAKER_02 47:08

That's how you feel. My dad used to always tell me, and I think I said it before on the podcast, he said, you the man and don't let nobody else tell you different. Right? He used to tell me that all the time. And then we do our little fist bump.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

The world needs more of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

You the man and don't let nobody else.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Because the world's gonna beat you down. It's going to humble you. Trust me on that one. And, you know, we need a little bit more self-talk, positive self-talk. And we need a little bit more people thinking they can change the world. Now, you better have the skills to back it up, because just like that naked goalie, the moment you aren't saving the ball anymore, or you're not producing what you need to be producing, you don't get to be weird. Many just rare. Then we're gonna have a we're gonna have a conversation about ego at that moment. If you can't back that shit up. Alright, baby. All right. Well, Greg Vetter Podcast on Ego, uh, here with GoGo Mo. Thanks for coming, and we will see you next time.