Thoughts from the book "Great Mental Models" by Shane Parrish 1B: The second barrier to seeing what is vs. what we think is ego. When my best friend was killed on 06 AUG, 2011 I was tapped to make notification to the family. After I made notification, I had to return home to get a surgery and the rest of the notification team set up the funeral. Upon my return, I was angry to see that my role in the funeral was to handle the distinguished guests - a role that I felt was not representative of who I was in his life. As I slammed the spreadsheet down and went over my angry words to the rest of the team, it dawned on me that I had lost perspective. Our role was to honor the family and honor JT. My own ego had clouded my judgement to a point where I almost made myself the center of attention instead of what the real task was - honoring JT and his family. I am happy to report that I shut my mouth and did my job. Ego is the second of the three flaws that prevents us from seeing reality.
