Comments on: Ego Is the Enemy

By: benjamin R. hood

benjamin R. hood — Sun, 13 May 2018 17:42:56 +0000

I read quite a bit and this came highly suggested …

By: Ian Mann

Ian Mann — Sun, 13 May 2018 17:14:36 +0000

your worst enemy already lives inside you Ego is never neutral. If it is too small, you give away the farm. If it is too large, you eventually lose the farm. This superb book by Ryan Holiday, focuses on the more common affliction of the talented, ambitious and confident â an ego too large.As the book sets out to prove, your worst enemy already lives inside you: your ego. Holiday saw this unfold in slow motion with the demise of Dov Charney, founder and chairman of the huge, but failing American Apparel. He saw this unfold in his own ostensibly spectacular career, and in the careers of ancient historical personalities, as well as the contemporary ones that illustrate this sobering book.The ego he is referring to is the unhealthy belief in our own importance, our arrogance, and our self-centred ambition. It is that petulant child in every person, who chooses getting his or her way over anything, or anyone else. Holiday believes that ego is âat the root of almost every conceivable problem and obstacle, from why we canât win to why we need to win all the time and at the expense of others.âThis problem is now more acute than ever. The culture of the developed world fans the flames of ego. It has never been easier to boast to millions through free social media. Motivational speakers mislead by telling us to think big, live big, be memorable and âdare greatlyâ, because that is what this great company founder, or that championship team, supposedly did.Throughout the rest of your life, if you fit into the category of the talented, ambitious and confident, you will be at one of three phases: aspiration, success, or failure. In each phase you will need to do battle with your ego, and the mistakes it can cause.Holidayâs book leads the reader though each of the phases. The first is when we aspire – and whatever one aspires to, ego is the enemy. A common ego ploy is a belief in oneself that is not dependent on actual achievement, but on intense self-absorption, and endless self-promotion.âAlmost universally, the kind of performance we give on social media is positive. Itâs more âLet me tell you how well things are going. Look how great I am.â Itâs rarely the truth: âIâm scared. Iâm struggling. I donât know,â Holiday explains.Most valuable projects we chase are painfully difficult: launching a new start-up, or mastering a new skill. Talking, on the other hand, is always easy. While research does show that goal visualization is important, after a certain point our mind begins to confuse the visualization and the talk, with actual progress. The more difficult the task and the more uncertain the outcome, the more talk costs. Great work is a struggle. Itâs draining, demoralizing, and frightening. âThe only relationship between work and chatter is that one kills the other,â Holiday claims.âFacts are better than dreams,â Winston Churchill asserted. Appearances deceive. Having authority is not the same as being an authority. Having the right and being right are not the same, and impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.The second phase kicks in when you are successful. Here the enemy of sustained success takes a different form, and requires a different response.The theory of âdisruptionâ posits that at some point every industry will be disrupted by some trend or innovation that the incumbents will be incapable of responding to. The question then is why canât the businesses change and adapt?Holiday believes that this mimics why successful people fail â they have lost the ability to learn. Learning requires true humility and this can be seen from how people observe and listen. The humble donât assume they know. As such, the remedy for avoiding the âI know it allâ ego trap in phase two, is straightforward but initially uncomfortable: âPick up a book on a topic you know next to nothing about. Put yourself in rooms where youâre the least knowledgeable person,â he recommends. This aids the development of one ego antidote â humility.Ego fragments, closes options, and mesmerizes. It clouds the mind precisely when it needs to be clear, and a second potent solution for this is sobriety. This acts as both a counterbalance, and as a prevention method.The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, both during her rise and especially during her time in power, has consistently maintained her equilibrium and clear-headedness, regardless of the immediate stressors or stimuli. When Russian president Vladimir Putin once attempted to intimidate Merkel by letting his large hunting dog barge into a meeting (Merkel is not a dog lover), she didnât flinch and later joked about it. As a result, Putin was the one who looked foolish and insecure.A German writer observed in a tribute on her 50th birthday that unpretentiousness is Merkelâs main weapon. The successful, who like Merkel, maintain their equilibrium and…

By: Camden Gaspar

Camden Gaspar — Sun, 13 May 2018 17:13:14 +0000

A modern work of practical philosophy If ego is nothing more than a Freudian concept to you, then you may not have any idea how itâs holding you back right now. But donât think that author Ryan Holiday aims to bore us with the same stale pop-psychology tropes that most books on the Self-Help shelf use to fill out their pages. What the author has provided us is actually a great work of modern practical philosophy.Those familiar with Holidayâs last book, âThe Obstacle is the Way,â will know exactly what practical philosophy means. Eschewing the commonly held view that philosophy is the province of academics in classrooms bloviating about abstract concepts, Holiday follows the Stoic tradition that puts philosophy firmly in the realm of everyday life. Itâs about learning to deal with destructive emotions, unpredictable circumstances, self-interested people, and yes, ego, without succumbing to them. Itâs philosophy as a way of achieving a better life.In âEgo is the Enemy,â Holiday moves beyond the clinical definitions of ego and places the concept firmly in the realm of the practical. To be sure, the clinical and the practical in this case have some common ground. Modern psychologists define the ego as a critical part of identity construction, and further, an egotist as someone excessively focused on himself. Holiday defines ego along those lines: âan unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambitionâ¦Itâs when the notion of ourselves and the world grows so inflated that it begins to distort the reality that surrounds us.âThe idea that becoming untethered from reality is the primary symptom of an ego out of control is the thread that unites all three sections of this book. Holiday expands this idea throughout the three sections that form a continuum – Aspire, Success, and Failure – to show how this form of ego plagues everyone from the ambitious and striving, to the wildly successful and those who have been crushed by personal and professional defeat. In our own lives, we are always somewhere on that circle of aspiration, success and failure.To this end, Holiday goes right to the sources of practical wisdom: the primary sources of great practical wisdom â Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle, and Martial to name a few – and the biographies of those who apply that wisdom to great effect or ignore it at their own peril.This is where Holidayâs other key influence, strategist and author Robert Greene, becomes apparent. Like Greene, all of Holidayâs chapters start out with a short, pithy title sets the direction of the advice contained within the chapter. From there, Holiday mines the stories of great men and women who have either applied the advice laid out in the chapter title or ignored it and shows us the consequences of both.For example, in the chapter titled, âRestrain Yourselfâ in the Aspire section of the book, Holiday launches right into the story of Jackie Robinson. As the first black player in the newly integrated MLB, Robinson faced discrimination and outright abuse at the hands of everyone from his own teammates and opponents, to hotel managers and restaurant owners and, of course, the press. At any point, Robinson could have lashed out, fighting back to defend his dignity against the injustices he faced.But Robinson knew that if he fought back even once, it would end his MLB career and set the prospect of full integration of the league back for a generation. As Holiday writes, âJackieâs path called for him to put aside both his ego and in some respects his basic sense of fairness and rights as a human being.âNow, itâs likely that few of us will face the kind of treatment Robinson did, but the lesson here is that when we have ambitions and goals, weâre likely to run into the kind of people that Robinson did. The kind who react to your striving with cold indifference. The kind who aim to weaken your will with taunts and jeers. The kind who will go out of their way to sabotage you and undo all your efforts.Holiday concludes here that ego tells us to snap back at these people and demand the respect we think we deserve. But that wonât earn it from anyone. We must ignore this impulse, no matter how badly weâre treated, and continue to work on our craft and ourselves. We must forget what we think the world owes us and focus on building our base, developing our skills and continuing to learn.The rest of the chapters follow this same model, and plumb the depths of modern and ancient history to show us how those who put their egos aside achieve great things. Think of New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick spending years doing unpaid grunt work and film study before finally getting a chance to put his knowledge into practice. Think of the great conqueror Genghis Khan seeking greater knowledge and expertise from those he defeated, rather than forcing them into silent subservience.Yet, others…