Pride, even in real accomplishments, is a distraction and a delusion.

What’s intriguing about the human character is its desire to defend its past accomplishments, as though that was the pinnacle of an individual’s achievements — leaving complacency and fear to seep in thereafter. If we take the time to witness the actions of those around us, whether a public figure or one we know, we are likely to find this display with growing frequency. Someone has closed a massive sales deal, created a piece of art that gained early success, published their first book that was far better received than expected. But with the comfort and acknowledgement of these accolades, whether self prescribed or gifted, it appears the original hurdle one faced to pursue the achievement has increased to an untenable level. As time progresses, we found comfort within the confines of our inner dialogue that might echo, “Well, we’ve made it. If we try again and we fail, people will know we are a failure and that it was luck that caused our success, not us. Better to play it safe and quit while we are on top.”

And so time goes on and we’ve anchored ourself to the past forever defending our glory that was. But as the world moves on, we haven’t. Fear has overcome us. We feel we have more to lose now than we did when we were unknown and unaccomplished. Early success has done more to hold us back than project us forward.

In a world where we are told to create a personal brand to stand out from the crowd, ensure we are seen and heard; our pride takes control. Pride takes a minor accomplishment and makes it a major one. Pride smiles at our genius as though what we’ve exhibited is merely a glimpse of what is to come. It slowly corrodes our perception of reality, masking what something is and what something is not.

With pride at the helm, we tell ourselves falsities ignorant of the truth, “We’re going to win because we’re currently in the lead. We’re going to be the next big author because we’ve written a book. We’re a great salesperson because we closed a big deal. We’re special because we were chosen. We’re important because we think we should be”.

What is all of this? Fraud. If we are putting in the work we won’t need to cheat and be a fraud.

“What a pitiful thing it is when a man let’s a little temporary success ruin him, warp his judgement and alter his perception on reality” Rockefeller.

We see recent and distant history provide us with a multitude of examples where one’s pride has gotten the better of them. Greek mythology gifts us with many tales and morals, such as the infamous story of Icarus. Who gifted constructed wings from his craftsman father and told to fly neither too high or too low, so the sea’s dampness would not clog his wings and the sun’s heat would not melt them. Ignoring his father’s heed, Icarus flew much too close to the sun where his wings melted and he fell into the sea and drowned, sparking the idiom “don’t fly too close to the sun”.

Phaethon, son of the solar deity Helios, challenged by his friends, sought validation from his father that he was the sun god Helios. He asked his father for proof and his father promised to grant him any request. Boastfully, Phaethon insisted on owning the reins of the sun chariot for the day. Helios attempted to persuade his son from such as request, telling him that even Zeus was not strong enough to steer these horses. Reluctantly, he kept his word. Phaethon, in charge of the chariot, realised his prideful folly swiftly, he was unable to control the god-like horses. According to some accounts, the earth froze for the day when the horses climbed too high, and when the chariot then scorched the earth by flying too close, Zeus, to prevent further disaster, struck Phaethon down with a thunderbolt where he fell to the earth and died.

We need only go back a few years to find the epic of Lance Armstrong. Dominating the professional cycling scene for nearly a decade. Lance announces his initial retirement in 2005 with seven Tour de France successes under his belt. During that year Lance is cleared of doping allegations stemming from 1999. Gifted with the temporary sense of security that he was free and clear, but blinded by his sense of invincibility, he tests his ability to fly close to the sun and finds himself on top of yet another race podium, with another first place finish to his name but with the world’s attention spotlighted on him. From here on out, his world slowly begins to unravel, desperately grasping with all he has to protect all he’s earned. Over the course of the next few years, Lance’s world crumbles through his pertinacious grip and everything he’s worked for is stripped from him: all seven Tour de France titles, banned from cycling for life and shame to his name.

Even the tallest mountain, have animals, that when standing on it, are taller than the mountain.

If we have started our journey, let us be kind to ourselves, as some never get started because they cannot humble themselves to fail, learn and grow. Upon starting though, we can’t afford pride to cloud our judgement. Thus, to counteract pride, to prevent making the path we have chosen harder than it needs to be, we should seek humility and abandon boasting. Acknowledging we are not a special individual and success has been gifted to us and can just as easily be taken away. Investigate what a more humble person than ourself might see that we can’t. Search for the demons we might be running from with our blunder and bravado. Question our need to boast to others if we knew what we achieved was a result of work ethic and character. Why then would we need superficial external validation? To combat pride isn’t to say don’t boast about things that haven’t happened yet but simply, don’t boast!

Forego glory seeking. Discard the ‘overnight success story’ where one devises a plan and executes it in a single decisive move and finds themselves on top. Rather, embody the reality of hard work, acknowledging the power of doing small important things consistently — building a deep underlying worth ethic and humility that exceeds far beyond the success or failure of any one plan or accomplishment.