Ego Is the Enemy

by Ryan Holiday

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. —RICHARD FEYNMAN

The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambition.

“abhor flatterers as you would deceivers; for both, if trusted, injure those who trust them.”

It’s sad to think that generations of young boys learned about Pickett’s glorious cavalry charge, a Confederate charge that failed, but the model of Sherman as a quiet, unglamorous realist is forgotten, or worse, vilified.

Research shows that while goal visualization is important, after a certain point our mind begins to confuse it with actual progress. The same goes for verbalization.

An education can’t be “hacked”; there are no shortcuts besides hacking it every single day.

Because we only seem to hear about the passion of successful people, we forget that failures shared the same trait.

Passion typically masks a weakness. Its breathlessness and impetuousness and franticness are poor substitutes for discipline, for mastery, for strength and purpose and perseverance. You need to be able to spot this in others and in yourself, because while the origins of passion may be earnest and good, its effects are comical and then monstrous.

When someone gets his first job or joins a new organization, he’s often given this advice: Make other people look good and you will do well. Keep your head down, they say, and serve your boss. Naturally, this is not what the kid who was chosen over all the other kids for the position wants to hear. It’s not what a Harvard grad expects—after all, they got that degree precisely to avoid this supposed indignity.

Clear the path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself.

We want so desperately to believe that those who have great empires set out to build one. Why? So we can indulge in the pleasurable planning of ours.

“Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done—except by liars.”

The Innocent Climb, Pat Riley says, is almost always followed by the “Disease of Me.”

It’s Shaq and Kobe, unable to play together. It’s Jordan punching Steve Kerr, Horace Grant, and Will Perdue—his own team members. He punched people on his own team!

For us, it’s beginning to think that we’re better, that we’re special, that our problems and experiences are so incredibly different from everyone else’s that no one could possibly understand.

There is a balance. Soccer coach Tony Adams expresses it well. Play for the name on the front of the jersey, he says, and they’ll remember the name on the back.

The crowd roots for the underdog, and roots against the winners.