Isaac Morris-Perrott's Key Ideas from Ego Is the Enemy
by Ryan Holiday

What I took from this was the realisation that my priorities were not straight because I was focussing too much on improving my so called "skills". This is not necessarily a bad thing, but while doing so I was not thinking at all about improving the traits that lead to being a person who actually can improve and grow. Having traits like Ryan mentioned (Humility, self awareness, etc...) are more important then just trying to improve in one specific area because these are traits that actually allow you to be a good learner and have the ability to grow and improve

"Talk depletes us. Talking and doing fight for the same resources. 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"

This has been (and still sometimes is) a problem of mine. I would always talk about the new cool thing that Im starting to whoever would listen. This created real problems for me because this verbalisation of what I was doing (or planned to do) felt like actual progress to my brain. This meant that I felt less motivated to work and to take action towards the goal because In my mind I had already done so by speaking about it. In contrast, now I only ever talk about what I'm working on to 1-2 people who are closest to me. Unless I'm far enough into the project where I feel it is safe to share

"The mixed martial arts pioneer and multi-title champion Frank Shamrock has a system he trains fighters in that he calls plus, minus, and equal. Each fighter, to become great, he said, needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against"

I agree with this fully. The biggest takeaway for me from this was an idea that has been drilled into me by various people and mentors. This is the idea of teaching - to learn. There was a study which proved this point where students who were asked to learn a topic with the intention to teach it to others did better on a test then those who just studied the topic normally. This is because when our intention is to teach, we aim to understand the subject fully instead of just memorising terms and ideas. This alone has allowed me to learn and actually understand, more then I could have ever hoped