Ego Is the Enemy

Ryan Holiday

📚 GENRE: Personal Development

📃 PAGES: 256

✅ COMPLETED: October 28, 2024

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Ego and hubris have led to the demise of some of the most formidable men and women in history. How can you prevent it from doing the same to you? In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday explores the dangers of an unchecked ego and explains how to tame it before it spirals out of control. 

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ You’re Not Better Than Others — Ego is an unrealistic, overinflated view of yourself. When it’s out of control, one of its central beliefs is that you are somehow “better” than other people. In reality, we are all equal. Always remember: you are not “above” anyone else, no matter what you’ve accomplished. This doesn’t mean you can’t be confident in yourself and your abilities; it just means that you shouldn’t go around treating others like they are beneath you. Confidence is having a realistic understanding of your strengths and believing in those gifts, while ego is just a straight-up incorrect, unrealistic view of yourself.

2️⃣ Effort > Results — Try to become the best possible version of yourself. You do this by committing to learning and personal growth. You do this by trying to get 1% better every day. There’s a lot of value in this approach. When you have this mindset, you can always live with the results you get, good or bad. When you live like this, you can look yourself in the mirror and be proud of what you see, knowing you’re giving it everything you’ve got. It’s about the effort, not the results. An added bonus — when you hold yourself to a high standard and are constantly working hard to be better, you tend to not care what other people think of you. You know you’re giving maximum effort, while most people aren’t. 

3️⃣ Maintain Perspective — Again, having an ego means you have a completely unrealistic view of yourself and the world. One of the ways you can always silence your ego is by maintaining the right perspective. The truth is, all of us are specks of dust in the grand scheme of life. Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, and the planet has sustained various life forms for 3.8 billion years. Modern humans (Homo Sapiens) arrived only about 150,000 years ago. If we’re lucky, we’ll be here for 80-90 years, and the ride could be over at literally any second. Bottom line: life is a lot bigger than you. Don’t allow your ego to convince you otherwise. Work hard and be a good person.

Favorite Quote

“This is characteristic of how great people think. It's not that they find failure in every success. They just hold themselves to a standard that exceeds what society might consider to be objective success. Because of that, they don't much care what other people think; they care whether they meet their own standards. And these standards are much, much higher than everyone else's.”

Introduction

  • About the Book — This book is about the ego. There’s a fine line between confidence and ego, and this book seeks to help readers understand the differences between the two. 
  • About the Author — Ryan Holiday is a renowned author with several New York Times bestsellers to his name. He has sold more than six million books over his career, led by The Obstacle Is the Way. 
  • What Is Ego? — What’s the difference between confidence and ego? We’re always told to “have confidence in yourself,” but doesn’t that require us to have an ego? Although the two seem similar, ego is more like confidence on steroids. It’s an overinflated view of yourself that is outside the realm of reality. It’s an unhealthy belief in your own importance. It’s a belief that you are somehow better than people. The best way to understand the difference between confidence and ego is this: confidence is having a realistic understanding of your strengths and believing in those gifts, while ego is just a straight up incorrect, unrealistic view of yourself. Your ego tells you that you’re better than you really are in reality. 
    • Quote (P. 2): “The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambition. . . It’s that petulant child inside every person, the one that chooses getting his or her way over anything or anyone else. The need to be better than, more than, recognized for, far past any reasonable utility — that’s ego. It’s the sense of superiority and certainty that exceeds the bounds of confidence and talent. It’s when the notion of ourselves and the world grows so inflated that it begins to distort the reality that surrounds us.”

Ch. 1: Aspire

  • Realistic Evaluation — Having an ego means you have an unrealistic view of your abilities or past accomplishments. The key to suppressing your ego is to base your opinion of yourself on what you’ve actually done, versus making things up in your head. Detach a bit and observe yourself from a distance. Put together a realistic evaluation. 
    • Quote (P. 20): “One must ask: if your belief in yourself is not dependent on actual achievement, then what is it dependent on? The answer, too often when we are just setting out, is nothing. Ego.”
    • Quote (P. 21): “In this phase, you must practice seeing yourself with a little distance, cultivating the ability to get out of your own head. Detachment is a sort of natural ego antidote.”
  • Don’t Assume You Know It All — People with an ego assume they know everything there is to know. They don’t push themselves to learn and grow; instead, they talk themselves up and pretend they are better than they really are. Humility is being able to look yourself in the mirror and give an honest self-assessment about where you can be better. It’s understanding that there is always more to learn. It’s living with a curious mind and always looking for ways to learn, grow, and improve. Be a lifelong learner. 
    • Quote (P. 39): “The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better. Studious self-assessment is the antidote.”
    • Quote (P. 40): “A true student is like a sponge. Absorbing what goes on around him, filtering it, latching on to what he can hold. A student is self-critical and self-motivated, always trying to improve his understanding so that he can move on to the next topic, the next challenge.”
  • Be Present — Your ego is at work when you feel like every little thing you do is being watched and criticized by people around you. The fact is, everybody is caught up in their own world. Nobody is paying close attention to you; they’re thinking about their own issues, challenges, and plans. This idea that every move you make is being monitored by everyone around you is just your ego making you feel more important than you really are. This often manifests itself as social anxiety. When you have this condition, you feel like everything you say and do is in the spotlight. In reality, most people are caught up thinking about themselves. And if somebody is watching and making fun of you, that’s not a person you want to be associated with anyway. The way to avoid this kind of thinking is to get out of your head by focusing on the present moment. You should also stop caring what people think of you; if you’re working hard and doing the right things, it doesn’t matter what people think. 
  • Monitor Your Pride — When you start to experience some success in life, you will inevitably start to experience feelings of pride. Do not allow your feelings of pride to change who you are and lead you to believe that you are better than other people. It’s important to celebrate successes, but always try to come back to who you are. Don’t allow success to turn you into an entitled jerk. Stay humble. Embrace and accept feedback (i.e. don’t act like you are “above” feedback). Keep working hard, as if you still need to prove yourself. Overindulging in pride leads to arrogance and a big ego. Always remember: you are not “above” anyone else. This doesn’t mean you can’t be confident in your abilities; it just means that you shouldn’t go around treating others like they are beneath you. 

Ch. 2: Success

  • Lifelong Learning — As you rise through the ranks, your ego will try to tell you that you know everything. Don’t listen — this attitude is the beginning of complacency. Lifelong learning is a major key to success. Always look to learn more about your field. Try to learn about the world around you. Learn and grow. Try to get 1% better every day. Never get complacent.
    • Quote (P. 104): “No matter what you’ve done up to this point, you better still be a student. If you’re not still learning, you’re already dying.”
    • Quote (P. 104): “It is not enough only to be a student at the beginning. It is a position that one has to assume for life. Learn from everyone and everything.”
  • Maximize Your Potential — Try to maximize your potential. You do this by growing and learning every day. You do this by evaluating your weaknesses and taking measures to improve them. You do this by challenging your comfort zone. You do this by paying attention to the details and going the extra mile every day. You do this by living with intention and purpose, trying to get something out of every routine interaction, meeting, and activity. You do this by staying focused on yourself and avoiding irrelevant distractions. As you push yourself to become more, understand that it’s not you vs. other people; it’s you vs. you. You should strive to be a better version of yourself than you were the day before. In the process, you set the bar high and force others to compete with you. Competing with others in your mind is an ego move and can lead to unproductive comparisons and animosity. 
    • Quote (P. 117): “In other words, it’s not about beating the other guy. It’s not about having more than the others. It’s about being what you are, and being as good as possible at it, without succumbing to all the things that draw you away from it. It’s about going where you set out to go. About accomplishing the most that you’re capable of in what you choose. That’s it. No more and no less.”
  • Leadership Tip: Set the Vision, Trust Your People — As you move up the ranks, your role will gradually transition from doer to decision-maker. As this transition unfolds, you will need to trust your people to do their jobs. Micromanagers have a big ego; they crave control. As a leader, your job is to set the vision and the direction, then trust your people to get the job done. If people aren’t getting the job done, you need to hold them accountable. Whatever you do, don’t be a micromanager who doesn’t show any trust. Not only does this make your people resent you, but it also slows everything down. Encourage risk-taking and trust your people. 
    • Quote (P. 130): “As you become successful in your own field, your responsibilities may begin to change. Days become less and less about doing and more and more about making decisions. Such is the nature of leadership. This transition requires reevaluating and updating your identity. It requires a certain humility to put aside some of the more enjoyable or satisfying parts of your previous job. It means accepting that others might be more qualified or specialized in areas in which you considered yourself competent — or at least their time is better spent on them than yours.”
    • Quote (P. 131): “Micromanagers are egotists who can’t manage others, and they quickly get overloaded.”
  • The “Disease of Me” — NBA Hall of Fame coach Pat Riley coined this “Disease of Me” phrase. Throughout his years of coaching, Riley found that teams with low expectations handled success a lot better than teams that had high expectations coming into the season. Players on teams with low expectations are often more selfless and exhibit better chemistry with their teammates than players on teams that know they are good and expect to win a lot. When a team is good, some, not all, players want to “get theirs” while also winning games. They want to shine individually — this is the “Disease of Me.” Players on teams that aren’t expected to win initially only care about winning, no matter how it happens. 
  • Don’t Care About the Credit — Caring about getting the credit and glory for something is an ego move. That’s your ego talking to you. Try to avoid falling into this trap. Be generous with how you give credit to others (many people really like to be praised publicly), but don’t become obsessed with getting credit for yourself. Keep your head down and let your work speak for itself. 
  • Maintain Perspective — As you go through your day-to-day grind and hustle, your ego will try to convince you that you are the center of the universe. This could not be further from the truth. In reality, we are a speck of dust in the grand scheme of life. Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, and the planet has sustained various life forms for 3.8 billion years. Modern humans (Homo Sapiens) arrived only about 150,000 years ago. If we’re lucky, we’ll be here for 80-90 years, and the ride could be over at literally any second. Bottom line: life is a lot bigger than you. Don’t allow your ego to convince you otherwise. There’s more to life than work. Be a good person. When you keep this big-picture perspective top of mind, you effectively silence your ego. 
    • Quote (P. 142): “Remind yourself how pointless it is to rage and fight and try to one-up those around you. Go and put yourself in touch with the infinite, and end your conscious separation from the world. Reconcile yourself a bit better with the realities of life. Realize how much came before you, and how only wisps of it remain. Let the feeling carry you as long as you can. Then when you start to feel better or bigger than others, go and do it again.”

Ch. 3: Failure

  • Expectations = Disappointment — You should never do anything with the expectation that other people will give you a certain response back. Doing so is just setting yourself up for disappointment. You can’t control other people’s thoughts and actions. Even if you do the nicest, most thoughtful thing for somebody, there is no guarantee that they will give the response you feel is appropriate. This goes for your production at work as well; just because you go as hard as possible does not mean you’re going to get a raise or a promotion. The takeaway here is that you should always do things because YOU want to do them. No expectations attached. If you want to do something nice for somebody, that’s great — but don’t expect them to respond a certain way. Do it because it’s what YOU wanted to do. If you want to work really hard at work, do it because it’s what YOU want to do and it’s the standard YOU have set for yourself in all areas of life. Don’t do it because you feel like you will be “owed” a promotion. When it comes to others, try not to have expectations. 
  • Give Maximum Effort, No Matter What — Building on the point above, you should always hold yourself to the highest standard possible and give maximum effort in all areas of your life. You only get one life — try to become the best possible version of yourself. When you approach life like this, you can live with the results, good or bad. When you live like this, you can look yourself in the mirror and be proud of what you see, whether you succeeded triumphantly or failed miserably. It’s about the effort, not the results. An added bonus — when you hold yourself to a high standard and are constantly working hard to be better, you simply don’t care what other people think of you. You know that you’re giving maximum effort, while most people aren’t. Give everything you have. Leave it all out there. Push yourself to be better. Hold yourself to a high standard. There’s no other way to live.
    • Quote (P. 178): “It’s far better when doing good work is sufficient. In other words, the less attached we are to outcomes the better. When fulfilling our own standards is what fills us with pride and self-respect. When the effort — not the results, good or bad — is enough.”
    • Quote (P. 180): “John Wooden’s advice to his players says it: Change the definition of success. ‘Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.’”
    • Quote (P. 180): “Do your work. Do it well. Then ‘let go and let God’. That’s all there needs to be.”
    • Quote (P. 196): “This is characteristic of how great people think. It’s not that they find failure in every success. They just hold themselves to a standard that exceeds what society might consider to be objective success. Because of that, they don’t much care what other people think; they care whether they meet their own standards. And these standards are much, much higher than everyone else’s.”
  • Failure Is Just a Result— Failing or coming up short in a certain situation — whether you bombed a speech or didn’t pass an exam — does not mean you are a failure. Our ego and inner critic like to tell us that we are complete failures when we mess up or embarrass ourselves, but it’s simply not the case. Failure is an isolated result that can provide a lot of great learning lessons, not a sign of what you are as a human being. In fact, many successful people have talked about how valuable failure is. Thomas Watson once said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.” Reading too much into failure, and dwelling on it, is an ego move. Understand that failure is simply a result and nothing more. Even better, study it and learn from it.
    • Quote (P. 192): “Only ego thinks embarrassment or failure are more than what they are.”
    • Quote (P. 193): “At any given time in the circle of life, we may be aspiring, succeeding, or failing — though right now we’re failing. With wisdom, we understand that these positions are transitory, not statements about your value as a human being.”
  • Hate Is Unproductive — There’s no reason to hate on somebody, even if they deserve it. Talking sh*t about someone — whether to others or in your own mind — simply is not productive. It doesn’t move you forward, and getting better is all you should be focused on. If you have a problem with somebody, think of a productive solution. As Jason Selk writes in 10-Minute Toughness, “put a solution on the board.” For example — somebody at work isn’t pulling their weight on a project. They’re being a terrible teammate. Rather than stewing and resenting the person for it, call a meeting with them and talk through your feelings and a possible solution. If that doesn’t work, talk to your boss and explain the situation. Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Nobody wants to hear it. And don’t talk crap about people. Imagine how that would make you feel? Instead, focus on solutions.Â