successful people great people ambitious people their main enemy is not the outside world their main enemy is not doubt their main enemy is inside them it's in you right now and it is your ego gonna do something that challenges my ego here a little bit which is i'm going to try to take a book that i spent more than two years working on that i did not think could be a page shorter than like 225 pages i'm going to try to give it to you in less than five minutes that means you don't buy it
i don't care what i want is to deliver the message because that's what's important to me ultimately and what counts really i'm ryan holiday i've written now 11 or 12 books i didn't even know about stoic philosophy i've been lucky enough to speak all over the world to the nba the nfl special forces and sitting senators ego is the enemy because it prevents us from learning it holds us back it makes us overreach and so the essence of this book is how to battle with that inner force that thing that destroys great empires and great
companies and brilliant artists and tears apart relationships and partnerships and all that stuff so the first part of the book the idea is that ego manifests itself differently at different phases in our life right on the way up ego is problematic because it tells us we've already learned everything there is to know it prevents us from accepting that entry-level position doing that degrading work it gets us all caught up in what we think we deserve and how we think things should be you can't learn that which you think you already know as epictetus says so
ego is this impediment early on it doesn't put in the work it doesn't put in the hours it doesn't restrain the self it cuts off opportunities and prevents you from being successful but let's say you're so talented or so brilliant or you managed to get your ego under control up until you've achieved success great congratulations now ego's even more dangerous because you have something to lose so ego's the enemy of success because it makes you complacent because it makes you entitled because it makes you overreach it makes you think you're invincible if ego is the
enemy early on because you don't learn stuff ego is the enemy when you are successful because you still need to be learning you have to stay a student and ego doesn't want to do that because it basks in its own greatness so ego is a problem when we're successful it makes us entitle that makes us arrogant it makes us difficult to work with right it does all these destructive things that's what often leads to the third and final phase of ego which is adversity or difficulty through our own fault or no fault of our own
now we're experiencing a setback a scandal uh embarrassment a loss we made a mistake we've overreached if you were listening to ego on the way up now you're really screwed i've talked to so many mental skills coaches in baseball he goes big problem in baseball and they talk about how the hitter who's like i'm genius i'm i'm the greatest ever they think all their home runs are reflective of who they are as a person it's when they get in a slump that they get crushed because now they're listening to the booze and they're listening to
the critics and they're looking at the stats and they feel less than when really they just need to get back to the work so ego is particularly problematic when we experience setbacks and setbacks are a fact of life right the obstacles away we will experience obstacles they are inevitable they are unavoidable ego at every step of the way holds us back the antidote to ego to me is not feeling like you're worthless it's not just humility to me i think the middle ground between uh crippling self-doubt and uh insufferable ego is confidence confidence is the
opposite of ego it's based on real skills real self-awareness on doing the work on empathy on understanding on objectivity on reality and realism and that's the essence of the book that's where i am trying to get you is there some irony that this book became a bestseller and that i'm making a video about it of course but that's the point too i have to work on my ego all the time and in fact that's why i have it tattooed on my arm it's why one of the reasons i wrote the book it keeps me honest
i hope it will keep you honest i'm really proud of this book i hope you check it out but even if you don't i hope you keep your ego in check because that's the most important thing you know what i'm so proud of this book i'll give away five signed copies of ego as the enemy just uh click the link below we're gonna do a giveaway everyone who fills it out will be entered uh no purchase necessary and we'll pick five winners and we'll send them a copy of you guys the enemy
