Book Review: Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

A must-read for everyone in the 21st century

At the start of 2022, I came across this book. I was drawn by the title and curious to learn something new about a topic that everyone naturally feels they are knowledgeable about — ego.

From the first page, I had high hopes and gladly Ryan Holiday delivered. In this book, he discusses how ego slips into different areas of our lives and can make us sabotage valuable relationships and opportunities.

He also shared how ego almost ruined a lot of things in his life as he experienced a large level of success at a young age and was on a self-destructing path until some of his mentors had their careers and reputations ruined due to ego. This gave him a wake-up call and led to a stream of introspection that inspired him to write this book.

In the book, he draws lessons from the lives of great historical figures such as Alexandar the Great, Katharine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

It’s been over a year since I read this book, yet I’ve gone over my notes from it countless times and the lessons resound in my ears regularly. I believe this book is a must-read for people of all ages as we now live in an era that glorifies social media, reality TV, and other forms of shameless self-promotion, which are fertile grounds for one’s ego to grow.

Enjoy this short summary.

The numbing effect of ego

Ego is the force that drives us to believe we are already where we aspire to be, it fills us up with pride and satisfaction even before we embark on life-defining journeys. It’s the subtle or not-too-subtle force that makes us want to center every conversation around ourselves. That makes us want to equate ourselves with almost every individual we come across, even when such persons are miles ahead of us and we can benefit a whole world from them by being humble and positioning ourselves to maximize such relationships.

The book is structured in three parts, according to the three situations in everyone’s life where ego shows up: when we are rising to the top, when we achieve success, and when we experience failure.

On our way to the top

This part talks about the power of work over talent in ascending to the top. It elaborates on the importance of getting out of your head and getting rid of early pride. In this part of the book, the author explains that ego is the force that tricks us into believing that we are where we are not. It skips the journey of hard work and diligence and jumps to the feeling of accomplishment and pride and gives us the feeling that “we deserve a seat at the table.” It also gives us a mental finite path that once we can accomplish or achieve a certain amount of material success, recognition, and validation, we have arrived and have thus earned the right to ego. This could not be further from the truth. According to the author, “You must not fool yourself, for you are the easiest person for you to fool.”

When we achieve success

Ego is the wicked sister of success. When we achieve the goals we set out to from the beginning. We become victims of our own success. We stop learning, and we lose grasp of what matters. Open-mindedness, purpose, and organization are the things that keep us grounded and away from ego, even after great accomplishments. This part of the book advises you to always stay a student and stay true to yourself. It warns against becoming a “larger-than-life” figure and clearly outlines to ourselves how much success is enough. If we don’t set that limit we will never stop chasing more even to our own detriment.

When we experience failure

There are times in life when we will experience failure, our expectations won’t be met, we will be unappreciated, or sabotaged, or we will simply lose. Ego arises in the face of these failures and makes us bitter. The author encourages us to exchange hate for love in these circumstances. When success slips we should go back to first principles and redefine what success is to us and determine how to stay grounded. We shouldn’t let ego trick us into thinking our talents or businesses are our identity. Rather we should push through failure with strength and not ego.

Ego kills what we love, and sometimes, It kills us too.

From these three parts, here are my favorite points:

Process over passion

Ego’s destruction is a process. A carefully laid down path that is often provided by people who have gone ahead of us. It’s highly instrumental to learn from other peoples’ experiences.

One of the most effective ways to learn from others while you are on the path to success is

apprenticeship — the act of allowing oneself to be mentored by individuals who have gone far ahead of you. Apprenticeship, one of the proven routes to greatness is formed on humility and not ego. For it takes true humility to serve and submit oneself under the instructions of another. To forego one’s self-direction and pride to fully adhere to the guidance of one much wiser, experienced, or knowledgeable than you.

Although popular belief says passion is the key ingredient for success, you can fail with passion. Passion today is just a proliferation of emotions and enthusiasm that is lacking genuine purpose and an effective work ethic. (Does this ring a bell? My last book review supports this notion, check it out)

On the other hand, lies Mastery, the result of apprenticeship is a strength that we can get with the calm ease of being directed. We waste so much time passionately talking about our goals without actually doing the right work to get us to our destinations. Mastery comes with purpose which is like passion but with boundaries.

My favorite line from this section of the book is “Passion is Form Over Function. Purpose is Function Function Function!!”

The Canvas Strategy

“The person who clears the path controls its direction. Just as the canvas does for the painting.”

The canvas strategy encourages us to play a part in other people’s success without caring about who takes the credit. As the author says “Clear the path for the people above you and then you will eventually create a path for yourself.” Let others take credit while your credit with them increases and then you can withdraw from your bank account of favors as it will serve as seeds for your own success.

This strategy plays a big role in reducing your ego at a critical time in your career. The steps to this strategy are:

1. Find inefficiencies

2. Produce more than everyone else, give your ideas to those above you

3. Eliminate distractions that hinder their influence

Even after becoming successful, Ryan Holiday advises sticking to this strategy.

Restraint

According to Flannery O’Connor, “ The first product of self-knowledge is humility.”

Never let success spoil you. It creates a myopic view of life. Never lose self-control. be calm, self-possessed, and patient. You should never let your ego block you from the bigger picture. You should also never lose your temper as an escape route from despair. The world isn’t yours by right so you should avoid feeling entitled. Entitlement overstates our abilities to ourselves. It increases ridiculous expectations.

People will often treat you how they feel most times — which is awful. Although you shouldn’t let that weigh you down, you should also not feel like people owe you respect and admiration.

Restraint is a difficult skill but it’s worth it. Restraint enables us to fight pride. Pride heightens sensitivity, a persecution complex, and an ability to make everything about us. It comes in between 3 pivotal life-long activities: receiving feedback, maintaining hunger, and charting a proper course in life. We don’t protect ourselves from the validation and gratification that come our way when we show promise and potential. We must protect ourselves from things that make us feel too good if we want to avoid becoming full of ourselves.

Managing yourself:

In the words of Marcus Aurelius, “Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.”

This section admonishes us to beware of the disease of “me.” Instead of prioritizing our own gratifications and self-obsessed ambitions, we should be magnanimous, humble, and selfless. You need to be able to discern a middle ground between ambition and retreat.

In staying humble, great people don’t necessarily find failures (or gaps) in every success. They just hold themselves to a higher standard than what society generally perceives to be a success. Hence, they care more about reaching what they consider objective success or high standards.

Maintain your own Scorecard

Anyone can win but not everyone is the best version of themselves. We should measure ourselves against our standards — the absolute best we are capable of — rather than our wins, which could occur out of sheer luck.

Before and after your actions are the best times with which you can criticize and analyze your lives.

Holding your ego by a standard is how wrong behavior is checked and prevented. More people need to embrace objective evaluation of themselves. This would enable them to fulfill their standards without being attached to the outcomes.

Finally, be humble, better, poised, and selfless. These will help you in navigating the treacherous waters, Ego will play you to walk on.