Skip to content

Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Share This Post

It is important to have a teacher, this imposes a ceiling limit to your ego, you will know that you are not better than the “master” you apprentice, note if you become better than your teacher find a new one to train under.

Mixed martial arts pioneer and multi-title champion Frank Shamrock has a system he trains fighters in that he calls plus, minus, and equal. Each fighter, to become great, he said, needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against.

Obtain real and continuous feedback about what you know and what you don’t know from every angle. Feedback “purges out the ego” that puffs us up, the fear that makes us doubt ourselves, and any laziness that might make us want to coast.

A student is self-critical and self-motivated, always trying to improve his understanding so that he can move on to the next topic, the next challenge. A real student is also his own teacher and his own critic with no room for ego.

Interestingly suggests your passion may be the very thing holding you back from power or influence or accomplishment. The passion he is referring to is different from simply caring about something. Means the type of passion which is unbridled enthusiasm, being willing to pounce on what’s in front of us with the full measure of our zeal, the “bundle of energy” that our teachers and gurus have assured us is our most important asset. It is that burning, unquenchable desire to start or to achieve some vague, ambitious, and distant goal.  Although, you will have heard of some people who were passionate like this and made significant achievement you won’t have heard of many, many more people who had this passion but didn’t succeed.  Instead have purpose have direction. High achievers are often not driven solely by passion, but by reason.

Purpose is about pursuing something outside yourself as opposed to pleasuring yourself. With purpose we also need realism.

Where do we start? What do we do first? What do we do right now? How are we sure that what we’re doing is moving us forward? What are we benchmarking ourselves against? The answer – be lesser and do more.

Imagine if for every person you met, you thought of some way to help them, something you could do for them? And you looked at it in a way that entirely benefited them and not you. The cumulative effect this would have over time would be profound: You’d learn a great deal by solving diverse problems. You’d develop a reputation for being indispensable. You’d have countless new relationships. You’d have an enormous bank of favours to call upon down the road. Refers to this as ‘the canvas strategy’ which is 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. You can forget it so hard that you’re glad when others get it instead of you, you don’t want it. Let the others take their credit on credit, while you defer and earn interest on the principal.

Subscribe To My Newsletter

Sign up to my newsletter and receive 5 tips to get the most of your life!

More To Explore

small_c_popup.png

Subscribe to My newsletter

Sign up to my newsletter and receive 5 tips to get the most of your life!