Ego Is The Enemy

Ego Is The Enemy reveals why a tendency that’s hardwired into our brains — the belief that the world revolves around us and us alone — keeps holding us back from living the very life it dreams up for us, including what we can do to overcome our ego, be kinder to others and ourselves, and achieve true greatness.

How could we not start the summary of a book about stoicism with a quote from one of the all-time greats?

I’m proud of my attitudes and habits towards life. I’m disciplined, spend very little of the money I’m earning, live a frugal life – I just know I’m going to win in life thanks to these. However, that sometimes leaves me thinking: “There’s not much left I can learn here, I won’t change any of these for a long time.” Every time that thought crosses my mind, I call bullshit.

It might be true that these basic principles won’t change much, but there’s a huge load of things for me left to learn when it comes to making money, writing, selling, relationships, other people. It’s a never-ending process.

Ryan suggests you think of yourself like many of the ancient Stoics did: an eternal student of life, dedicated to learning as long as you live. This keeps you humble and encourages you to learn from the best in your field.

However, it pays to look both up and down the chain: take some time to mentor and teach others. Going back to beginners and helping them exposes you to the full spectrum of skill levels and is another way to restrain your ego.

Have you ever held on to an incredibly dull task, just because you thought no one else can do it better than you? I do this all the time, especially for repetitive to-dos. This not just inflates your own ego, it’s also a huge missed opportunity to build trust with the people you work with.

Trust increases the speed of everything in a business, the more employees trust one another, the faster things get done. Delegating some of your work to others forces you to do two things:

Respect other people’s work. Trust that they can get a job done.

These aren’t just ways to win against your ego, but can also be the difference between a thriving company and one that goes bust.

For example, legendary American car manufacturer DeLorean may always be remembered for creating the car from Back To The Future, but due to its CEO’s stubborn attitude of having to check every single detail it went bankrupt after just seven years – with less than 10,000 cars sold.