I had been at my first developer gig for about 6 months when we hired a new team lead. He was a good leader and a talented developer. I wanted to learn as much

I had been at my first developer gig for about 6 months when we hired a new team lead. He was a good leader and a talented developer. I wanted to learn as much from him as I could. In my first 1:1 with him, I asked him to be as brutally honest with me as he felt I could handle, in his feedback, be it code reviews or whatever. There were many moments in the next year that I regretted asking that. But those were the moments of weakness, moments when my ego was taking a beating and I didn't think I could handle one more PR comment. If I had deferred to my ego, if I had intimated that I couldn't handle that standard, that would have been a mistake. Hubris is great in the binary. This thing is going to happen. Or like you say, "I'm going to win." It may be less helpful in the gradient. Feedback may not be painful for everyone, but it is for me. And it takes reigning in my ego to be as receptive to feedback as I should be.