Acharya Prashant addresses a question about the struggle with unfulfilled expectations from oneself and others. He begins by noting that the two parts of the question—expectations from oneself and from friends—are actually one and the same issue, stemming from being unrealistic. He explains that we are all the "little opinion" we have of ourselves, which is the ego. The ego is not necessarily pride or vanity, but the false image we carry of ourselves. Since we do not truly know who we are, we do not know our actual capacity, and similarly, we do not know who others are, making our expectations from them equally unfounded. The speaker elaborates on the conflict between our potentiality and our reality. Our potentiality is vast and infinite, but our current reality is one of smallness and limitation. The ego makes the mistake of conflating this reality with our potentiality, leading to the belief that while remaining small, we can achieve great things. This results in a daily cycle of setting targets, failing to meet them, and experiencing humiliation and a drop in self-esteem. This becomes a vicious pattern of talking big but living low. To resolve this, Acharya Prashant advises a process of serious self-improvement. He suggests that one must admit their current pathetic state to begin the process of victory. This improvement comes through old-fashioned methods like discipline, discretion, right company, thoughtfulness, right literature, and right livelihood. He stresses that excellence requires clarity, not just effort. Once you have clarity and set the right targets, you become unstoppable and incapable of missing them because you have fallen in love with them. The first step is to have the vision and discretion to know what is truly worth pursuing in life.