The 3 ways to silence your ego: EGO IS THE ENEMY by Ryan Holiday

I recently read the book ego is the Enemy by Ryan holiday Ryan's achieved some pretty extraordinary success early on in his life he became the director of marketing for American Apparel at age 21 and he is now a best-selling author of four books at the age of 29 with all the success he's got to experience and be witness to the destruction of unchecked ego Ryan sees ego as such a threat to his long-term success that he's put a constant reminder on his arm a tattoo that reads ego is the enemy so what exactly is ego and why is it such a bad thing Ryan defines ego as an unhealthy belief in our own importance ego takes a concern of self-image and turns it into an obsession it takes confidence and turns it into arrogance Hall of Fame basketball coach Pat Riley calls it the disease of me but why does Eagle have to be the enemy and how is it bad enough for Ryan to get a tattoo on his arm to remind himself each day Ryan says that ego is the enemy because it sabotages our long-term goals and it distracts us from achieving Mastery in our craft here are three ways you can notice ego working against you first ego shows up when you aspire to do something great ego gets busy seeking out constant approval from others around us it's always asking what are people thinking about me it prefers talking about what you're going to do rather than actually doing it in the book Ryan details a story of author Emily Gould's battle with the ego as she tried to write her book she found herself constantly updating her social media pages and her blog she says I tumbled I tweeted and I scrolled this didn't earn me any money but it felt like work she did everything but focus on the work the thought of going silent and doing the work that she would later be proud of was scary for an entire year she made little to no progress on her book as her ego stayed overly concerned of what her Twitter followers might be thinking the second way ego shows up in our lives is when we experience noteworthy success after achieving something great that impresses people like launching a successful business or winning a sports championship our ego leads us to believe that all future endeavors are likely to be a success instead of remaining focused and building upon our previous success we have the tendency to become overconfident in our abilities and take on too much in the book Ryan details the story of Howard Hughes at age 18 Howard Hughes made a bold decision and decided to buy out his relatives and Own 100% of his family's oil drill bit company the Hughes tool company it turned out to be a brilliant move a huge success the company Grew From a $1 million business into a billion dooll business Ryan says it was a bold move for a young man with essentially zero experience in business and it was with similar boldness that over his career he would create one of the most embarrassing wasteful and dishonor honest business track records in history that huge initial success LED Hughes to believe that he could succeed in almost any business he went into Aviation film and stock trading although Howard Hughes would be known as an early Pioneer he ultimately squandered most of his wealth over a lifetime and near the end of his life a biographer would depict a scene of Hughes sitting naked in his favorite white chair unwashed unkempt working around the clock to battle lawyers investigations and investors in an attempt to save his Empire and to hide his shameful Secrets his ego fueled by early success led to the waste of his time talent and money the Third Way ego shows up in our lives is when we experience failure or setback at this point ego shows up just in time to save face and Dodge responsibility in an effort to defend our ego we lose sight of what we've worked for and erode the progress we've made to this point Ryan illustrates this by telling the story of American car founder Dove Charney Ryan says after losses of some $300 million and numerous scandals the company offered him a choice step aside as CEO and guide the company as a creative consultant for a large salary or be fired he rejected both options and pick something much worse instead of helping his company find better leadership and bring the company back to Greatness he decided to create an internal War he sued the company and brought the company to the edge of bankruptcy from which it may never never recover instead of letting his ego take the hit and recognizing saving the company was more important than Saving Face he let his ego turned failure into hostility destroying the company that he had worked so hard to build ultimately leading him to be broke and sleeping on a friend's coach in all three phases ego distracts you from focusing on doing the work and producing something that you can be proud of so if ego is the enemy how do we defeat it well one way is to use the plus minus equal method coined by the great UFC fighter Frank Shamrock Frank says for each fighter to be great they need to have someone better they can learn from someone lesser they can teach and someone equal they can challenge themselves against for the first form of ego that shows up when we're aspiring to do something great we need to find an equal in order to defeat it an equal is an ambitious person or peer group that is at your current skill level an equal can also be a competitor that pushes you to improve your equal should constantly challenge your abilities and force you to grow to remain equal when you have an equal you have no time to obsess over public opinion because doing so would be wasting your time and you would risk falling behind for example if you aspire to be a great writer surround yourself with other writers and share your goals read each other's Publications and push one another to constantly improve the second form of ego that shows up whenever we succeed needs a plus to be defeated when ego starts generating stories of our greatness we quickly need a dose of humility in order to remain focused on our ultimate goal humility comes from remembering that there is always someone better than us and always something bigger than us your plus could be a mentor who has achieved much much more than you have someone whose accomplishments make your success seem rather small another way to experience a plus in your life is to reflect on the immensity of the world around you this could mean going for a drive in the mountains or walking along the ocean Shoreline to realize how small you really are reflecting on something or someone bigger than yourself is necessary to quiet the ego and avoid getting caught up in your personal story of greatness preventing you from taking on too much and being careless with your time and resources to combat the third form of ego that shows up when we fail we need a minus a minus requires that you teach what you have learned having a minus forces you to look objectively at your f failur and gather Lessons Learned to pass down when you have the responsibility to teach others you spend less time complaining and more time looking for ways to improve to find your minus you could start mentoring someone younger or writing a book of lessons to pass down to your children or writing a daily blog so if you're in search of excellence and want to do work that you'll be proud of one day then ego is your enemy and to fight back that ego day after day you need a plus minus equal that was the core message that I gathered from Ryan's great book he has many more stories to illustrate the threat of ego and several more ways that you can combat it if you would like a onepage PDF summary of the insights that I gathered from this book just click the link below and I'd be happy to email it to you if you already subscribe to the free productivity game newsletter this PDF is already in your inbox thanks for watching

Channel: Productivity Game

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Keywords: Ego is the Enemy PDF, Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday PDF, Ego is the Enemy Summary PDF, Ego is the Enemy Ryan Holiday Review, Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday Book Summary, Productivity Game, Nathan Lozeron, Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday Animated Core Message, Ego is the Enemy Animated book summary, Animated Book Review, Animated Book Summary, Ryan Holiday Books

Id: B9xpKY7eWfU

Length: 7min 53sec (473 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 01 2016