EGO is the Enemy is another interesting book by Ryan Holiday. It gives us another perspective that shows us that our ego is actually our own enemy.
Many people believe that the external world is the main obstacle to success in life. This is wrong because the ego of each person is the most common enemy of success. Early in our careers, our ego can also get in the way of learning and practicing our abilities. In terms of success, it can also blind us to our mistakes and cause problems in the future. Even when a person fails, their ego can magnify each failure, making it more complicated. And at every stage of life, our ego can hold us back from growing.
Ryan Holiday is an American marketer and motivational author. He is also a media strategist and former marketing director for American Apparel. Holiday presents many stories and examples in his book, “ Ego is the Enemy. ” From literature to philosophy to history, he explains how reaching your highest levels of power and success is possible by overcoming your own ego.
“Winning is never enough. Everyone can win, but many are not their best.”Ryan Holiday
Your ego is the enemy of what you want to be.
Desire is about having a goal, a calling, a new beginning, or going out and doing something. But you can be motivated by believing that you can achieve your goals. Your self-belief is not dependent on your success or achievements, it is about how independent, self-motivated, and principled you are. Many people believe that they have everything they want when they have a certain ability.
But this is not true. You have to assess your abilities because this creates room for self-improvement. A person’s ego can manifest itself in many ways. One of them is when a person talks too much instead of working. When we face a challenge, such as starting a business, producing a film, or making progress on an important issue, it is better to think about it. Working quietly and ignoring the urge to seek attention through talking. There is nothing wrong with being excited and nervous every time you start doing something. Therefore, we tend to comfort ourselves externally instead of internally. This external comfort is very much related to talking.
“If you want to overcome your ego, you have to detach yourself from your emotions and work hard on self-improvement.”
It’s better to have ambition – the desire to develop your expertise – than to be controlled by ego. Discover how ego can sabotage your success, and how to turn your ego into ambition instead.
“No one knows everything. This should push you to learn from others and build relationships.”
With humility, you can overcome the assumption that you know everything. You can only learn when you realize that you don’t know everything, and the day you stop learning is the day you die. When you constantly remind yourself that you are not the best in the world, you can manage your ego.
“There are always people who are better than you. Some of them you can learn from.”
Take Kirk Hammett for example. He passed on the opportunity to join the famous rock band Metallica, but he knew he needed to learn, so he found himself a mentor – the famous guitarist Joe Satriani. By learning from Satriani, Hammett gained new skills and became better as a guitarist. Being a mentor can help you keep your ego in check.
Many people focus on passion without purpose. Passion makes you try the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. But purpose, like passion, has no boundaries. To achieve great things, you must choose to live with purpose.
“One of the obstacles in the wheel of purposeful living is pride.”
Pride keeps you stuck in the past. Truly successful people know they can never stop learning. They push harder and always try to beat their latest triumph. If Steve Jobs had let his success with the Apple computer get to his head, we would certainly not have the iPhone and iPad today.
“Pride not only prevents you from improving, it also prevents you from improving.”
Benjamin Franklin once banged his head on a low door frame while visiting his hometown of Boston. The painful experience would have been avoidable if he had not been so proud. Cotton Mather, one of the most respected men in the city, saw the low door frame and warned Franklin, but he would not listen or obey. Franklin thought he knew better, and his pride had injured him.
To overcome arrogance, ask yourself how humble people would handle the situation and follow their example. Also, learn to create new impactful work instead of dwelling on your past successes. You can have supportive friends who are accountable for new things.
“Did you know? Sometimes people resort to more aggressive methods to maintain a false sense of self?”
Productivity increases when people with different strengths work together.
Most of the great people in world history, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, started by serving other successful people. This is called “apprenticeship.” When you’re just starting out, learning from someone can be beneficial to your growth. There are some basic facts you need to remember:
• You are not as good or important as you think you are.
• You have an attitude that needs to be adjusted. Much of what you think you know or most of what you learned in books or in school is outdated or wrong.
A great way to work with these realities is to associate yourself with people and organizations that are already successful. This will help strengthen your identity as you move forward together.
“Many successful organizations and individuals understand how important it is to help others gain insights.”
So they took on apprentices and took on the role of mentors. This concept is similar to “Anteambulo” which originated in the Roman art system. It meant clearing the way to find out where someone was going and helping them focus on their strengths. Successful businessmen and politicians paid writers, thinkers, and artists to produce or display their artwork in exchange for protection, food, gifts, etc.
In addition to helping others discover their own strengths, delegating also helps others overcome their ego. You will gain new perspectives on many issues when you delegate. But ego makes people do what they should be asked to do. There is a feeling that you are the only one who can do the right thing. This perspective is not good. By learning to delegate, you allow others to learn and use their time wisely. Failure to delegate can damage your business and prevent you from having fun in your life.
“Delegate also allows you to focus on new tasks that will be equally rewarding.”
You are only as strong as your humility and self-control.
When one steps over obstacles, one often feels like Clark Kent, a superhero who saves the world with no one else to help him. The truth is, even superheroes have sidekicks. Clark Kent has Lois Lane and many others who help him become Superman.
When we remove the ego, we are left with what is real. What replaces the ego is humility, yes, but it is humility and confidence that is hard to fathom. While the ego is a fake, this kind of confidence can carry weight. The ego is stolen, the confidence is gained, the ego is anointed with itself. Its vanity is a trick. One is girded with a loincloth, the other is a gaslight. It is the difference between power and poison.
Humility can’t hurt your career. It’s good to appreciate your colleagues, teachers and coaches. True, some careers require individual intelligence. However, it’s best if you respect your fans and well-wishers by expressing your deepest gratitude for their support. Those who voted for you to buy your first training kit, provided you with coffee while you were busy working or fed your cat when you were out of town are all part of your success story. You need to be humble enough to see them and appreciate their efforts.
When you work with others to achieve success, you must also learn the art of self-control.
What we desire or want to achieve depends on what we are willing to endure. Anger, emotion, or loss of inhibition is a recipe for failure. No matter how smart, rich, or connected you are, you must overcome your ego by not fighting back. This will preserve your relationships with others and help you succeed.
“One failure can be the beginning of an exciting period if you let it go.”
Rejection can hurt your ego. Feeling entitled to a reward you don’t deserve can make you frustrated when you don’t get what you asked for. Sometimes things go the way you want them to in this world. Instead of letting the disappointment get you down, turn that emotion into a reflection of what you could have done better. This is possible if you start by acknowledging that the only thing you can control is your effort, not the outcome.
You need to make an accurate assessment of your performance.
It’s easier to hate failure and diversity, to hate blame and make others pay for your mistakes. But love is always right. Be open, be unselfish, be positive and constructive. Difficulties are part of the human experience. We must feel failure in one way or another. Many learn from failure, but rarely from success.
We all exist in a continuum:
• Ambition leads to success and misery.
• Success creates misery and hope for new ambition. Misery leads to more success.
The thing to avoid is ego. It makes every step difficult. All great men and women have gone through hardships to get to where they are, and they have made mistakes. No one is infallible. Try to be better than your best, and your chances of success in future endeavors will greatly increase.
When things don’t go the way you want, it’s important to investigate the cause of the failure.
Ego is often the enemy of any success you plan to achieve, but poise can help you do so.
You will start to feel better when you detach yourself from situations and people’s opinions. Ego makes you think you are invincible and have unlimited power, but composure is your own command and you should accept it. Don’t be fooled by your perception or the amount of money in your bank account.
Greatness comes from humble beginnings. It comes from working in a slump, meaning you are the least important person in the room until you change with results.
Maintaining composure requires battling the forces that surround the ego. The ego dominates the mind, but composure prevents this from happening. Composure balances our success when things start to go well. For what usually follows, the ego is the enemy. This entails finding a balance or middle ground between the ego and our desire to achieve.
Behind every goal is the drive to be happy and fulfilled. But when selfishness takes over, you quickly lose track of your goals.
Growing up and organizing yourself is a great way to maintain sobriety. You need to be able to manage yourself and others. Beware of the so-called “I” disease. It starts with thinking that you are better or special, and that your problems and experiences are different from other people’s problems and experiences, so they don’t understand you. This attitude is selfish and prevents you from learning.
Conclusion
The ego is a part of every person that develops unconsciously. We must make a conscious effort to control it. When you start to achieve success in something, you should start to be aware of the possibility that your ego will start to grow. If you neglect it, the growing ego can lead you to disaster in life, such as being the enemy of ambition, success and failure. Each person must be resolutely aware of the manifestation of the ego in their life and try to eliminate it. When you let the ego fester for too long, it can prevent you from reaching your potential and living a true, happy and loving life.
As much as you want to be successful, your success needs to be filled with meaning. Knowing that you are part of something bigger than yourself gives your success meaning. When you lose connection with your higher purpose, success can feel empty, as if part of your soul is missing. This is why relationships are important. You work with people who push you toward your dreams.
No matter what you do, you are a lifelong student. You must continue to learn from everyone and everything. Stories, craftsmanship, human motivation, past events, and details that are not there. When you think of quick success, you give yourself premature credit for powers you cannot control. Instead of stories, face the facts and listen to the feedback that can help you improve and grow.
Your life is the sum of all the decisions you make. Deciding that ego is the enemy, you are making the right decision. You are choosing humility, knowledge and self-control, and these are the foundations for your journey to success.
Try this: Delegate tasks you are good at to others and see what you can learn from their work. Also, pick an area of interest and practice it to develop skills and remove ego from your life.
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