You Should Check Your Ego at the Door 
Check to make sure it’s fully inflated, that is.
After I got my first promotion to “big kid” status in my publishing career, I felt uncharacteristically unmoored. I’d had my old job for four years and could do it in my sleep, whereas the new gig came with a lot more autonomy and responsibility. I would finally have the chance to be difficult on my own behalf, and that was exciting, but also nerve-wracking.
What if I was a poser? What if my confidence in myself was misplaced? What if, it turned out, I couldn’t cut it once I was called up from the minors to the Big Show?
That fall of 2005, I was twenty-six years old and trying to impress my new bosses, who had plucked a rather young editor to join the staff and gin up a new line of books. I was hiring an assistant for the first time (one not much younger than me), which made me feel sort of fraudulent, like Who am I to command underlings? And after only a few weeks, I’d already had a couple of run-ins with a new colleague who was, charitably speaking, a real piece of work.
In fact, I would say that out of the top five most infuriating things anyone has said to me in my life, this person was responsible for two of them—one of which forms the basis of this chapter, so THANKS, [NAME REDACTED]!*
High fives all around
A month or so into my tenure, we editors had to do our first big formal presentation since I’d joined the company. I’d spent a lot of time writing and rehearsing my little spiels for each book I was responsible for. I knew I was blessed with a talent for good delivery (the Knight family has a motto, and that motto is “Perform or go to bed”), so of all the shit I was stressing about at that time, this had actually been relatively low on my list.
After the meeting—which had indeed gone well—I was in my office, exhaling and going over my notes. (Pertinent detail: My office was approximately the size of a U-Haul storage unit that Dexter might use to chop up some bodies, so whenever someone came and stood in my doorway I automatically felt trapped, and when [NAME REDACTED] appeared, my Spidey sense became extra-tingly.)
On this day, [NAME REDACTED] loomed over my petite threshold and casually asked how my pitch to the sales department had gone.
“Oh,” I said, taken off guard by this display of mundane collegiality. “It was great, thanks! Public speaking is kind of my thing, though, so I wasn’t too worried about it. How did yours go?”
At which point [NAME REDACTED] made a face as though I had just declared time to be a flat circle, said, “Well, I wouldn’t congratulate myself,” then turned abruptly and stalked off down the hall.
I wouldn’t congratulate myself? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Alone again in my office/storage unit, I spent the rest of the afternoon questioning whether I had been out of line, or too loudly tooted my own horn. Had I? Shit, it wasn’t as though I’d leapt up from my swivel chair and shadowboxed around my office shouting “I’m not the greatest; I’m the double greatest! Not only do I knock ‘em out, I pick the round!”
(Though in retrospect, that would have been awesome.)
In fact, the way I answered [NAME REDACTED]’s question had been calculated, or so I thought, to be less self-congratulatory. Just, you know, lucky me, I won the genetic lottery when it comes to shooting the shit for ten minutes in front of a small audience of book nerds. Nothing to see here, nothing to jump down my throat about, you mercurial shrew.
The more I thought about it, the more riled up I got. Because in reality, my successful performance was more than just luck. It took planning, preparation, skill, and yes, confidence. So if you’re going to ask me how it went, why shouldn’t I be candid about nailing it?
Why should anyone feel BAD about being confident?
Leggo my ego
Like “selfish” and “negative,” the word “ego” carries unfavorable connotations, and we both know that saying someone has a big one is never a compliment. It’s always meant as an accusation of overconfidence, whether or not that confidence is entirely justified.
So—and assuming that you are not the blustering, incompetent commander-in-chief of the world’s most fearsome army, dangling your diminutive trigger finger over the nuclear codes—I’d like to use the final words of the final chapter of You Do You to disabuse you of the idea that having a small or medium-sized ego is a badge of honor.
It isn’t.
A healthy sense of self-esteem is not a flaw, and confidence is the greatest strength you can cultivate. Your ego is where your confidence lies; ideally, it would be as capacious as an Olympic swimming pool and its contents as robust as the forearms on a Swedish lumberjack.
If someone doesn’t like it, well, they are welcome to permanently park their opinion in the long-term lot located out behind their inferiority complex.
Unfortunately, and true to form, that place doesn’t validate.
That thorough stroking I promised
Well, champ, by now I hope you’ve internalized the importance of self-acceptance and picked up a few reliable strategies for achieving it. I hope you’ve seen the benefits of acting with confidence and learned how to muster it even under difficult circumstances.
And I hope you’re ready to go out there and do you like Debbie did Dallas. You know what I mean.
But before we finish on the aforementioned zippy epilogue, I want to give you five more reasons to feel good about yourself and to pursue everything you want, need, and deserve out of life. Because you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, if people don’t like or understand you—that’s their problem, not yours.