Ego Is The Enemy

By Ryan Holiday

Maybe you’re in your mid-thirties and rocking it with your career. Maybe you’re in your fifties and still struggling to get by. Maybe you made your first million at age 24 when the technology company you co-founded with a college roommate was bought by Oracle. Maybe you just got promoted. Or just got fired. Maybe you finally hit rock bottom.

Regardless of where you are in your career, your worst enemy lives inside you. The one thing we all have in common is this: we all have an ego.

“Not me,” you might think. “I’m a fair and balanced person. No one would ever call me an egomaniac.” Well, that may be true. But according to the accomplished business strategist and author Ryan Holiday, for anyone with even a modicum of ambition, talent and potential, ego comes with the territory. Precisely what makes us so promising as entrepreneurs and leaders also makes us incredibly vulnerable to seduction by the

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darker side of our psyche.

Ryan Holiday would know. He has experienced the damaging effects of ego at each of its three stages in his still relatively young life. He experienced it at the Aspiration stage, when he became the youngest executive at a Beverly Hills talent management agency, and helped sign a number of up-and-coming rock bands that would later go on to great commercial success. He experienced it at the Success stage where, by the ripe old age of twenty-five, Holiday had already published his first bestselling book. And by the time he turned thirty, he experienced ego in a very profound way at the Failure stage, when the wheels started coming off the bus.

Looking back, Holiday realizes now that the crash was inevitable. Sure, he’d accomplished a lot of really cool things at a young age. But he was also completely stressed-out and overworked.

In fact, Holiday was wound-up so tight that the slightest disruption – like the free Wi-Fi at his local coffee shop going down – would send him into an inconsolable rage. Holiday’s creative work, which had always come easily to him, became labored. He found it hard to concentrate. Then, one fateful night, the author experienced what could best be described as a nervous breakdown, landing him in the hospital. He says he felt like a complete failure.

Fortunately for Ryan Holiday, this traumatic experience sparked a period of profound introspection and reflection. He realized that something needed to change. He came to understand that the same inner drive and compulsion that had made him so successful early in life had come with a terrible price: he’d sacrificed the things that mattered most to him in life – his friends, family and even his health – in order to feed his insatiable ego by chasing after

professional achievements and accolades.

A few months after emerging from the hospital, and feeling more relaxed than he’d felt in years, Holiday had the phrase “EGO IS THE ENEMY” tattooed on his right forearm. Exactly where the inspiration for those words came from Holiday can’t quite remember, but they immediately became a source of comfort and direction for him. And now, through the publication of his new book by the same name, Holiday hopes that his “Ego is the Enemy” mantra may also serve as a useful guidepost for others like him.

“I wrote Ego is the Enemy not because I have attained some eternal wisdom I now feel qualified to preach, but because it’s the book I wish existed at critical turning points in my own life,” shares Holiday in the opening pages of his book.

Holiday’s own experiences also led him to go searching for historical examples of successful

businesspeople, politicians and other leaders who’ve consciously fought a battle with their egos and emerged victorious. We often don’t think of important historical figures as being humble and self-effacing, but as Holiday discovered, most of the truly great ones were. “The history books are filled with tales of obsessive, visionary geniuses who remade the world in their image with sheer force of will,” writes Holiday. “But if you go looking, you’ll find that history was really 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.” Engaging with and retelling these stories has been Holiday›s method of learning and absorbing them, and he hopes this will be the case for his readers as well.

Ego DefinedEgo is the Enemy is not a book about ego in

a clinical sense. The legendary psychologist Sigmund Freud was fond of explaining the concept of “ego” by way of clever analogy – i.e. our ego was “the rider on a horse,” with our unconscious drives representing the animal while the ego tried to control them. Modern psychologists, on the other hand, usually use the word “egotistical” to refer to someone who is dangerously focused on him or herself with little regard for others. Both of these definitions are true enough in the clinical sense of the word, but Holiday prefers a more practical definition. For him, ego is about having “an unhealthy belief in one’s own importance,” manifesting itself as arrogance and relentless ambition. It’s about having a sense of self-confidence that far exceeds the bounds of one’s actual skill and talent. It’s when the esteem in which we hold ourselves grows so inflated that it begins to distort the reality that surrounds us. It’s when we allow ourselves to think and act as

though the world really does revolve around us, losing sight of other people’s needs and feelings. That’s our ego talking.

In this way, “ego is the enemy” both of the things we already have and hold dear (such as our relationships with friends and coworkers), and of the things we hope to achieve in the future (such as mastering a craft, leading a team, or achieving deep creative insight). And ultimately, if it goes unchecked, ego can also be the enemy of our mental and physical health, as we read about earlier with the author’s personal experience.

Ego Was Always There. But Now It’s Emboldened.

In many ways, there’s nothing new about ego – it’s been there throughout human history. But Holiday argues that ego has become more of an issue today. “Now more than ever, our digital culture fans the flames of ego,” writes Holiday. “With the

growth of social media, it has never been easier to brag, boast and puff ourselves up.” Modesty is falling by the wayside.

Now, you might rightfully wonder if this is really a problem. For example, Steve Jobs had a big ego, and that likely played a role in him becoming one of the greatest entrepreneurs of his generation. So, sure, ego can work for some people. Indeed, many of history’s most famous figures were notoriously egotistical. But so were many of its greatest failures. We tend to oversell the benefits, and underestimate the costs associated with ego.

To demonstrate that point, Holiday gives his readers an up-close look at a number of highly accomplished men and women like Benjamin Franklin, Eleanor Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller, General George Marshall, guitar guru Kirk Hammett, and world champion football coaches Bill Walsh and Bill Belichick to show that humility

– as opposed to ego – is a more rewarding and sustainable path to success, both in business and in life.

Holiday asks: “Could these great leaders have accomplished what they did – saving faltering companies, creating a whole new genre of music, revolutionizing football offenses, and standing up to global tyranny – if they’d let their egos get in the way?” What we’ll learn in the remainder of the summary is that none of these men and women was wholly without ego. But they knew how to suppress it, or even channel it, at the moments when it counted most. This is the lesson that Ryan Holiday hopes to impart to his readers, framed around three key life stages – Aspiration, Success and Failure.

These life stages are fluid, explains Holiday. “We’re aspiring until we succeed, and we’re succeeding until we fail. And after we fail we

can begin to aspire again.” Ego can be a big problem at every step along the way, he says. It’s the enemy of building, of maintaining and of recovering. Let’s read on to find out why.

1. AspirationIn April of 1982, a talented young musician named Kirk Hammett became the new lead guitarist for an up-and-coming metal band called Metallica. Metallica had just fired their lead guitarist, and Hammett successfully auditioned to replace him.

Thrown right into a new life, Hammett performed his first show with the band a few days later. “This was the moment Kirk Hammett had been waiting for his whole life,” writes Holiday. Though only known in cult circles at the time, Metallica was destined to go places. Their music had already begun to push the boundaries of a new genre of music called “thrash metal,” and very soon Metallica would become one of the biggest bands

in the world.

From a very young age, Hammett had aspired to become a great musician and performer. But wisely, he knew that if he was going to realize his goal he’d need to remain open to learning at every stage of the journey. So Hammett actively sought out instructors who would challenge him, and push his boundaries in ways that sometimes made him uncomfortable. He continued to do this even after he’d already reached a level of mastery that few guitar players in the world will ever hope to attain.

Joe Satriani, the man Hammett chose as his instructor after he’d already signed on with Metallica, would himself go on to become known as one of the best guitar players of all time, selling more than 10 million records of his unique, virtuosic music. Some would say that Satriani’s playing style made him an odd choice for Hammett. But that was the whole point, explains

Holiday. Hammett wanted to remain open and humble, and Satriani was a man who could help him achieve that. Think about what Hammett could have done – what most of us would have done – were we to suddenly be invited to join one of the most successful heavy metal bands of all time. The temptation would be to think: “Yay, I’ve made it!” and then rest on our laurels while the fame and fortune rolls in.

Had Kirk Hammett done that, Metallica may have faded away a long time ago. Instead, 30+ years later they’re still going strong, in no small measure because their uber-talented lead guitarist managed to keep his ego in check along the way.

Follow The Canvas StrategyDuring the aspirational stage, it’s also important to worry more about making others around you look good – especially your boss – than it is to worry about yourself.

When a young person gets his first real job, they’re often given this advice: “Make other people look good and you will do well.” But naturally, this isn’t what the hot-shot Harvard grad who was chosen over all the other kids for the position wants to hear. Fortunately, Holiday has come up with a better way to get this point across to young people so it doesn’t seem quite as demeaning. It’s not about kissing ass, he says. It’s about providing the support so that others can be good. He calls this: “The Canvas Strategy.”

As a young professional, your job is to find canvases for other people to paint on, explains Holiday. Clear the path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself. For example, Bill Belichick, the four-time Super Bowl-winning head coach of the New England Patriots, made his way up the ranks of the NFL by mastering a key part of the job that many coaches dislike – analyzing film. “Bill thrived on what was

considered grunt work. He asked for that kind of work, and strove to become the best at precisely what others thought they were too good for,” one of his former bosses said. “You gave him an assignment and he disappeared into a room and you didn’t see him again until it was done.”

If Bill Belichick had been overly worried at that stage of his career about status or personal recognition, he never would have patiently sat through thousands of hours of film while the other coaches got to do the more high-profile jobs, like speaking to the media. But he understood that he could help himself in the long run by helping others in the short run – in this case, helping the head coach to look good by winning football games because Belichick did such a good job of pouring over the game tape and feeding information to his bosses.

Additionally, Belichick’s father, himself an assistant

football coach for Navy, taught him a critical lesson in locker-room politics: that if Bill wanted to give the head coach feedback or question a decision, he needed to do it in private so as not to offend his superior. With that advice in mind, Bill learned how to be a rising star without threatening or alienating anyone. That’s what the canvas strategy is about – shining the spotlight on other people. Whereas everyone else wants to get credit and be “respected,” you will forego credit - at least for a period of time - in order to surround yourself with people who can help your career.

2. SuccessWith time, hard work and a bit of good fortune, we may achieve some notable success. At this point we face new temptations and problems, says Holiday. We’re liable to “start believing our own bullshit,” and we become blind to emerging trends, competitive threats, and other things in

our environment that could derail us. At this stage of the game, we need to work even harder to implement strategies and tactics that will balance out our ego and keep us on an even keel.

Benjamin Franklin learned this lesson early on in his career. At the age of eighteen, the already accomplished business man returned to his home town of Boston full of pride and self-satisfaction. Franklin had on a new suit, a new watch, and carried a pocketful of coins that he showed to nearly everyone he ran into, including a man named Cotton Mather, who was one of the town’s most respected figures. As the story goes, Franklin promptly illustrated to Mather just how ridiculously inflated his young ego had already become. As they walked together down a narrow hallway to Mather’s office, the older man suddenly yelled: “Stoop!” Too caught-up in his performance, Franklin walked right into a low ceiling beam and bonked his head. Mather’s response made a

lasting impression on young Ben Franklin: “Let this be a caution to you to not hold your head so high,” said Mather wisely. “Stoop, young man, as you go through this world and you’ll miss many hard thumps.”

Pride is at its most seductive point just as we begin to achieve that first taste of success in our lives, explains Holiday. Pride can take a relatively minor accomplishment – such as a promotion to middle management – and make it feel like a major one. It leaves us with a false sense of inevitability about our future success, which can later come back to bite us.

As a young businessman, John D. Rockefeller was remarkably aware of the dangers of early success and how it might become a slippery slope to pride. As such, he practiced a nightly conversation with himself. “Because you have got a good start,” he’d write in his diary, “you think you’re quite a

merchant. But do not become too satisfied with yourself.”

According to Holiday, a good question to ask when you feel pride starting to well up inside you is this: “What am I missing right now that a more humble person might see?”

Don’t Believe The HypePraise comes with success. But “don’t believe the hype,” warns Holiday, because it may lead you to veer away from the things that made you successful in the first place. Things like hard work, persistence and attention to detail.

In 1979, Bill Walsh took the San Francisco 49ers from being the worst team in professional football to a Super Bowl victory, in just three years. It would have been tempting, as he hoisted the Lombardi Trophy over his head, to believe what the fans and media were already starting to say about him – i.e. he was a “football genius.” Yet

Bill Walsh refused to indulge in those fantasies. The truth of the matter was, the system he’d implemented worked, but the system itself couldn’t have been simpler.

Walsh called it the “Standards of Performance.” These standards focused on seemingly trivial details: Players couldn’t sit down on the practice field. Coaches had to wear a tie and tuck their shirts in. The locker room must be neat and clean. There would be no smoking, no fighting, no profanity. Practices were scheduled, scored and graded. And so on and so forth.

Bill Walsh understood that it was all the seemingly minor changes he’d made around the clubhouse that were responsible for his team’s remarkable transformation and victory. But that’s too boring for newspaper headlines. So he simply ignored the local journalists and others when they called him “The Genius.” It was a false crown that Walsh

refused to wear.

Play For The Team, Not For Yourself“There were all the great generals of World War II – Patton, Bradley, Rommel, Montgomery, Eisenhower – and then there was one above them all: George C. Marshall,” writes Holiday.

Although each of these men fought bravely, Marshall stands apart because of his remarkable selflessness and commitment to the army.

After serving with distinction throughout his career, the job that Marshall had trained his whole life for was suddenly up for grabs: command of the Allied troops on D-Day, by far the largest coordinated naval, air and land invasion the world had ever seen. President Roosevelt let it be known that it was Marshall’s job if he wanted it. But as we all know, that assignment – and all the glory associated with it – eventually went to Eisenhower. This was because, in Marshall’s view, Eisenhower

was actually the most qualified man for that particular job. According to observers as high up as President Truman, what separated Marshall from nearly everyone else in the military and politics is that “never did General Marshall think about himself.” Instead, he always put the team first.

Now, while Marshall never sought to be famous, the fact remains that history has remembered him well. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be recognized for your accomplishments, says Holiday. But there’s a balance in terms of doing what’s best for the team. Or, as the great soccer coach Tony Adams once said, “Play for the name on the front of the jersey, and they’ll remember the name on the back.”

3. Failure“No one is permanently successful,” writes Holiday, “and not everyone finds success on the

first attempt. Ego not only leaves us woefully unprepared for these circumstances, it often contributed to their occurrence in the first place.” The only way to get through a period of failure, so we can one day rise again, is to keep our egos in check.

Malcolm X learned this lesson the hard way. When he first started out, he wasn’t going by the name Malcolm X. At the time, they called him “Detroit Red.” Detroit Red was a criminal opportunist who did a little bit of everything. He ran numbers. He sold drugs. Then he moved up to armed robbery. That netted him a 10 year prison sentence at the age of 21.

“When your actions justifiably land you a lengthy prison sentence, something has gone terribly wrong,” writes Holiday. “You’ve failed not only yourself but society as well.”

So there was Malcolm in prison. And he was

facing what Robert Greene – a man who sixty years later would find his popular books banned in many federal prisons – calls an “Alive Time or Dead Time” scenario. According to Greene, Dead Time is when people are passive and waiting for circumstances around them to change, and Alive Time, is when people are learning and growing and utilizing every possible opportunity to change themselves.

Fortunately for the future of the U.S. civil rights movement, Malcolm X chose Alive Time. He learned from the mistakes he’d made. He explored religion. He taught himself to read. “Most people know what Malcolm X did after he got out of prison,” writes Holiday, “but they don’t realize how prison made that possible. How an acceptance of humility powered his remarkable personal transformation.”

When we experience set-backs in life, it typically

feels better in the moment to be angry or aggrieved. When a real or perceived injustice is inflicted upon us, the normal reaction is to yell, complain and fight back. But if we’re not careful, we can end up wasting an incredible amount of time nursing our bruised egos, being angry at the world and not moving forward.

That is the great paradox of hate and bitterness. It accomplishes almost exactly the opposite of what we want. A far better response is humility and acceptance. Acceptance for the group that rejected you. Acceptance for the critic who attacked you. Acceptance for the former business partner who stole your business idea. Acceptance for all the things in life we can’t change.

Of course, not everyone chooses to respond that way. Remember Kirk Hammett, who suddenly became the lead guitarist in Metallica? The

man they kicked out to make room for him, Dave Mustaine, went on to form another hugely successful band: Megadeth. But despite his own remarkable success, Mustaine was eaten up with rage and hatred for many years of his life over the blow he’d suffered to his ego from having been ejected from Metallica. It drove him to drug and alcohol addiction and nearly killed him. In reality, the man had gone on to sell millions of records while living the privileged life of a rock star. But he couldn’t find a way to accept that rejection.

The point here is, when failure comes – and it inevitably does for all of us at one time or another – we can respond like Dave Mustaine, or we can respond like Malcolm X and use it as an impetus to make changes in our life; to become a better version of ourselves.

ConclusionSo here you are, at the end of this summary, having hopefully learned a few things about the problems of ego from some other people’s perspectives, including some of the greatest leaders, entrepreneurs and artists of our time. The question now is: what’s next for you?

“At the end of the day,” writes Ryan Holiday, “some people will choose to embrace humility. And some will choose ego.” One, more so than the other, is a better path forward.