Why You Should Be More “Selfish”

I feared people’s opinions. Until I found this book.

photo by Ben White

The book is a novel called The Fountainhead, written by Ayn Rand in 1943.

I don’t blame you if you haven’t read it. It’s a whopping 743 pages. Thank God for Audible.

You might recall the name Ayn Rand from high school or college — she wrote The Fountainhead’s more popular sibling, Atlas Shrugged, in 1957. Her philosophy has been widely criticized yet has inspired some of Silicon Valley’s most well-known entrepreneurs.

While I don’t buy into her worldview completely, The Fountainhead taught me a surprising lesson about “self-interest” that completely changed the way I think about work.

Growing up in a faith-based home, I was taught and trained to view “selfishness” as immoral, bad, and to-be-avoided at all costs. And it’s true: self-absorption, arrogance, and an over-inflated view of oneself ruin relationships. Nobody wants to be around an a**hole, right?

Then I met Howard Roark, the protagonist of The Fountainhead, and everything I believed about myself flipped upside down.

Howard Roark, an architect, refused to compromise the character of his work for the sake of winning the approval of other people. He was steadfast in his commitment to pursue his…