Ego Is the Enemy

by Ryan Holiday

Those who have subdued their ego understand that it doesn’t degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them.

you’re not able to change the system until after you’ve made it.

“Whom the gods wish to destroy,” Cyril Connolly famously said, “they first call promising.”

Pride blunts the very instrument we need to own in order to succeed: our mind. Our ability to learn, to adapt, to be flexible, to build relationships, all of this is dulled by pride.

It’s worth saying: just because you are quiet doesn’t mean that you are without pride. Privately thinking you’re better than others is still pride. It’s still dangerous.

To be both a craftsman and an artist. To cultivate a product of labor and industry instead of just a product of the mind.

“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do,” was how Henry Ford put it.

Our ego wants the ideas and the fact that we aspire to do something about them to be enough. Wants the hours we spend planning and attending conferences or chatting with impressed friends to count toward the tally that success seems to require. It wants to be paid well for its time and it wants to do the fun stuff—the stuff that gets attention, credit, or glory.

Every time you sit down to work, remind yourself: I am delaying gratification by doing this. I am passing the marshmallow test. I am earning what my ambition burns for. I am making an investment in myself instead of in my ego. Give yourself a little credit for this choice, but not so much, because you’ve got to get back to the task at hand: practicing, working, improving.

no one ever said, reflecting on the whole of someone’s life, “Man, that monstrous ego sure was worth it.”

what is truly ambitious is to face life and proceed with quiet confidence in spite of the distractions.