Three Key Themes From Ego Is The Enemy

The stoics used the word sympatheia for this state of mind, which means “a connectedness with the cosmos.” This connection makes you ask yourself: Who am I? What am I doing and why? The book elaborates on how material success can take you away fr...

When you begin to live with purpose instead of passion your ego will begin to lessen, and you will gain the quiet confidence the philosopher Seneca referred to as Euthymia: having a sense of your own path and not getting distracted by externals.

The Greeks used the word Euthymia for this which is a sense of our own path and how we can stay on it without getting distracted. Prioritize your goals with clarity and then follow through. True confidence comes from putting in the time; it comes from discipline and mastery. One i...

The greatest leaders and wisest thinkers have all been students of life. They possessed a unique curiosity about life and had the discipline to constantly be learning. Many people get overly confident in one area and forget that they know so little about everything else. The ego tries to b...

The ego loves the imaginary audience and thrives on it, so remember the bigger picture, let go of your wandering thoughts and bring yourself into the present moment:

“Living clearly and present takes courage. Don’t live in the haze of the abstract, live with the tangible and real, e...

In short, the book says we must manage our ego or see it get the best of us.Be an eternal student, absorbing everything around you like a sponge, knowing that there is always more to learn. As well as living with purpose and remaining a student, focus on doing the work instead of seeking recognit...

“You must practice seeing yourself with a little distance, cultivating the ability to get out of your own head.”

“What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.”

“Most successful people are people you’ve never heard of. They want it that way. It keeps them sober. It helps them do their jobs.”

“You can lie to yourself, saying that you put in the time, or pretend that you’re working, but eventually someone will show up. You’ll be tested. And quite possibly, found out.”

“Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you’re the least important person in the room—until you change that with results.”

“Ego is the enemy- giving us wicked feedback, disconnected from reality. It’s defensive, precisely when we cannot afford to be defensive. It blocks us from improving by telling us that we don’t need to improve. Then we wonder why we don’t get the results we want, why others are better and why the...

“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.”

Ryan Holiday, Ego Is The Enemy, Pg. 78

Find and follow your purpose, and then do the work. The book explains that you should make it so you don’t have to fake it: “Can you imagine a doctor trying to get by with anything less? Or a quarterback? So why would you try otherwise?”

Be a lifelong student even after—especially after, yo...

“Your ego screams for people to acknowledge you. But you must do nothing. Take it. Eat it until you’re sick. Endure it. Quietly brush it off and work harder. Play the game. Ignore the noise; for the love of God, do not let it distract you.”

Everything in life has something to teach you, but ego gets in the way of opportunities you have had or will have. The ego tells you that you shouldn’t do an internship because you are overqualified for it. The ego doesn’t want to do the grunt work because it thinks it’s...

Alive time is time when you are actively using your time usefully and improving; dead time is time you spend passive. We may not always be able to choose our circumstances, but we can always choose whether we want to make our time alive time or dead time

The question the book leaves hanging...

“Instead of pretending that we are living some great story, we must remain focused on the execution—and on executing with excellence. We must shun the false crown and continue working on what got us here.”

Get to know your ego, but once you make the choice to manage your ego and pursue your purpose, be prepared for when people try to sabotage you.

Our adversities likely pale but the only thing we can be sure of when we are embarking on an endeavor is that there will be adversity and we will v...

Many factors will determine the success you will reach as you’re starting out, one of them being your willingness to listen to feedback, especially critical feedback. The book discusses an amateur as being defensive to critical feedback, but a professional as delighted in being challenged ...

Talking is easy, everyone does it, but silence is rare in today’s world. Your ego tells you that you need recognition from others, but real confidence doesn’t need to talk, it produces work. Talking destroys action. Sit quietly and work. Let go of the distractions of soci...

“So: Do we sit down, alone, and struggle with our work? Work that may or may not go anywhere, that may be discouraging or painful? Do we love work, making a living to do work, not the other way around? Do we love practice, the way great athletes do? Or do we chase short-term attention and validat...

💡 Ego is an unhealthy belief in our own importance.

💡 Ego is there undermining us on the very journey we’ve put everything into pursuing.

💡 Ego can be managed and directed.

“This is what the ego does. It crosses out what matters and replaces it with what doesn’t.”

Ryan Holiday, Ego Is The Enemy, Pg. 33

“You can’t learn if you think you already know.”

-Epictetus

Ryan Holiday, Ego Is The Enemy, Pg. 41

💡At any given time in life, we’re aspiring to something, we have achieved success, or we have failed.

💡We must cultivate humility, diligence, and self-awareness if we are to remove ego.

💡Maintain your own scorecard.

💡Don’t fake it ’til you make it—make it.

💡Always sta...

The book is structured as short essays split into three parts: Aspire, Success, and Failure. These being three phases that one invariably finds themselves in at any given moment, often alternating between them over the course of a life. As the book says, “Aspiration leads ...

“And why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice!”

-Euripides

Ryan Holiday, Ego Is The Enemy, Pg. 200

Having purpose will help you accomplish life changing work. Holiday says the first thing you need to do is ask yourself, “why do I do what I do?” If you don’t have an answer to this question, you should take some time to figure it out.

On the other hand, many harmonious and ...

Thinking too much can also lead you into living with a psychological term marked as “imaginary audience,” which is explained in the book. Many adolescents go through this and many adults hold on to it. It’s the idea that people are watching and thinking about you when they are not.