Ego Is the Enemy

by Ryan Holiday

history is also made by individuals who fought their egos at every turn, who eschewed the spotlight, and who put their higher goals above their desire for recognition.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, your worst enemy already lives inside you: your ego.

The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in

“sick man ignorant of the cause of his malady.”

“If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.”

Your ego is not some power you’re forced to satiate at every turn. It can be managed. It can be directed.

Among men who rise to fame and leadership two types are recognizable—those who are born with a belief in themselves and those in whom it is a slow growth dependent on actual achievement. To the men of the last type their own success is a constant surprise, and its fruits the more delicious, yet to be tested cautiously with a haunting sense of doubt whether it is not all a dream.

if your belief in yourself is not dependent on actual achievement, then what is it dependent on?

came from nothing and accomplished great things,

ego is our enemy on that journey, so that when we do achieve our success, it will not sink us but make us stronger.

At the beginning of any path, we’re excited and nervous. So we seek to comfort ourselves externally instead of inwardly.

In other words, she did what a lot of us do when we’re scared or overwhelmed by a project: she did everything but focus on it.

So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong.

“A man’s best treasure is a thrifty tongue.”

The only relationship between work and chatter is that one kills the other.

Whatever we seek to do in life, reality soon intrudes on our youthful idealism. This reality comes in many names and forms: incentives, commitments, recognition, and politics. In every case, they can quickly redirect us from doing to being. From earning to pretending.

If your purpose is something larger than you—to accomplish something, to prove something to yourself—then suddenly everything becomes both easier and more difficult. Easier in the sense that you know now what it is you need to do and what is important to you. The other “choices” wash away, as they aren’t really choices at all. They’re distractions. It’s about the doing, not the recognition. Easier in the sense that you don’t need to compromise. Harder because each opportunity—no matter how gratifying or rewarding—must be evaluated along strict guidelines: Does this help me do what I have set out to do? Does this allow me to do what I need to do? Am I being selfish or selfless?

“What is it that I want to accomplish in life?”

The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better. Studious self-assessment is the antidote.