Ego Is the Enemy

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The ego […]: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambition.

If ego is the voice that tells us we’re better than we really are, we can say ego inhibits true success by preventing a direct and honest connection to the world around us.

As Irving Berlin put it, “Talent is only the starting point.” The question is: Will you be able to make the most of it? Or will you be your own worst enemy? Will you snuff out the flame that is just getting going?

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

Because we will be action and education focused, and forgo validation and status, our ambition will not be grandiose but iterative — one foot in front of the other, learning and growing and putting in the time.

In actuality, silence is strength — particularly early on in any journey.

Talking and doing fight for the same resources.

The power of being a student is not just that it is an extended period of instruction, it also places the ego and ambition in someone else’s hands.

Think about what Hammett [, a guitarist who replaced Dave Mustaine in Metallica,] could have done — what we might have done in his position were we to suddenly find ourselves a rock star, or a soon-to-be-rock star in our chosen field. The temptation is to think: I’ve made it. I’ve arrived. They tossed the other guy because he’s not as good as I am.

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

We not only need to take this harsh feedback, but actively solicit it, labor to seek out the negative precisely when our friends and family and brain are telling us that we’re doing great. The ego avoids such feedback at all costs, however.

Purpose is about pursuing something outside yourself as opposed to pleasuring yourself.

Passion is form over function. Purpose is function, function, function.

You can see how easily entitlement and a sense of superiority (the trappings of ego) would have made the accomplishments […] impossible. Franklin would never have been published if he’d prioritized credit over creative expression […]

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.

That’s what the canvas strategy is about — helping yourself by helping others. Making a concerted effort to trade your short-term gratification for a longer-term payoff. Whereas everyone else wants to get credit and be “respected,” you can forget credit.

[…] the person who clears the path ultimately controls its direction.

What we cultivate less is how to protect ourselves against the validation and gratification that will quickly come our way if we show promise.

What am I missing right now that a more humble person might see?

It’s worth saying: 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.

Make it so you don’t have to fake it — that’s the key.

Ego leads to envy and it rots the bones of people big and small.

The farther you travel down that path of accomplishment, […] the more often you meet other successful people who make you feel insignificant. It doesn’t matter how well you’re doing; your ego and their accomplishments make you feel like nothing — just as others make them feel the same way. It’s a cycle that goes on ad infinitum… while our brief time on earth — or the small window of opportunity we have here — does not.

Far too often, we look at other people and make their approval the standard we feel compelled to meet, and as a result, squander our very potential and purpose.

Confidence […] is able to wait and focus on the task at hand regardless of external recognition.

Play for the name on the front of the jersey, he says, and they’ll remember the name on the back.

Ego tells us that meaning comes from activity, that being the center of attention is the only way to matter.

When we lack a connection to anything larger or bigger than us, it’s like a piece of our soul is gone.

Why do you think that great leaders and thinkers throughout history have “gone out into the wilderness” and come back with inspiration, with a plan, with an experience that puts them on a course that changes the world? It’s because in doing so they found perspective, they understood the larger picture in a way that wasn’t possible in the bustle of everyday life. Silencing the noise around them, they could finally hear the quiet voice they needed to listen to.

[…] protecting our sobriety, eschewing greed and paranoia, staying humble, retaining our sense of purpose, connecting to the larger world around us.

“What matters to an active man is to do the right thing; whether the right thing comes to pass should not bother him” — Goethe

Doing the right thing was enough. […] doing his duty faithfully was all that mattered […] any rewards were considered extra.

We have only minimal control over the rewards for our work and effort — other people’s validation, recognition, rewards. So what are we going to do? Not be kind, not work hard, not produce, because there is a chance it wouldn’t be reciprocated? C’mon.

Maybe the audience won’t clap. But we have to be able to push through.

How do you carry on then? How do you take pride in yourself and your work? […] Change the definition of success. “Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

“Ambition,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, “means tying your well-being to what other people say or do . . . Sanity means tying it to your own actions.”

When we get our identity tied up in our work, we worry that any kind of failure will then say something bad about us as a person.

Only ego thinks embarrassment or failure are more than what they are.

When you take ego out of the equation, other people’s opinions and external markers won’t matter as much.

This “indifferent spectator” is a sort of guide with which we can judge our behavior, as opposed to the groundless applause that society so often gives out.

A person who can think long term doesn’t pity herself during short-term setbacks.

Not to aspire or seek out of ego. To have success without ego. To push through failure with strength, not ego.

No less impressive an accomplishment: being better people, being happier people, being balanced people, being content people, being humble and selfless people. Or better yet, all of these traits together. And what is most obvious but most ignored is that perfecting the personal regularly leads to success as a professional, but rarely the other way around.