As you scale the heights of your greatest creativity and productivity, as you get more traction around your ambitions, as more people follow you, as people fall in love with your magic, as you raise your game, here’s what’s going to happen. There is a brainwashing process and a heart-washing process and a great human seduction that happens to almost every creative person and every leader. You fall in love with yourself. You actually believe your own media releases. And it happens to so many people and they lose their humility. And it’s so profound. One of my favorite stories is there was a Roman slave in the ancient days, named an Auriga and his job was simply this, to stand behind the military commander called the dux and whisper into the ear of the military commander, “Memento homo, memento homo, memento homo,” which means: remember you’re just a man. In other words, remember you’re only human. It is such a great pull, when you start to move to higher grades of victory, to stop doing the very things that made you successful. To stop learning, to stop going to art galleries, to stop having a mentor, to stop getting up early, to stop taking care of your health set, to stop polishing your beliefs. It is so easy to fall in love with success. And that’s why being successful is actually very dangerous because you might stop doing the very things that brought your magic to the world.
