Ego vs. openness and who actually lasts in this field

Spent a week shooting alongside someone whose work I'd admired for years. Expected intensity, maybe a bit of gatekeeping. Instead they asked me what I was seeing in the light that morning. Genuinely asked. No posturing, no hierarchy.

It got me thinking about how the people who seem to sustain long careers in photography, the ones still curious after decades, tend to carry themselves with this quietness. Not performative humility, just an actual openness. Meanwhile the loud, territorial types seem to burn out or burn bridges.

I've caught myself going the other way at times. Guarding my spots, my techniques, my edit process. Treating it like scarcity. And honestly that mode makes the work worse. The best images I've made came when I was relaxed enough to listen to someone else's suggestion, or patient enough to just stand in the rain and see what happened.

Do you find that openness feeds your work, or does some part of you still default to protecting it? Curious how others navigate that tension.