Lockdown Read : Ego Is The Enemy - Ryan Holiday

Lockdown Read : Ego Is The Enemy ..

This book by Ryan Holiday is  full of anecdotes loosely tied together in three sections: Aspire, Success, and Failure. If you are looking for inspiration to get you through a pit of despair, and can't stand empty platitudes, this book is for you. I completed it today and this  will go on my shelf to re-read also for sure. 

Ego actively prevents us from getting better. We know about unknown-unknowns, we know about known unknowns, we know about known-knowns. What people often leave out, are the unknown-knowns. These are our assumptions. Our stereotypes. Our biases. This is our most dangerous vice. The ego completely ignores this. How will we turn anything upside down, if we cannot question our assumptions?

Holiday describes the dangers of passion. There is a survival bias present in the world of passion, where we see all the successes that come from it, but not the order of magnitude of failures that lie behind each success. They are invisible. It doesn't surface when someone takes a loan in their house, maxes our their credit cards and uses all their SO's savings to chase an idea. It surfaces when that succeeds, but never when it fails. This is the other side of the medal of passion. The ego loves passion, because it's a blindfolding tool it can use.

The book also touches on the issue of money: by default, we will always want more. If we don't set ourselves a target, getting more is the easiest path forward. But money comes with significant downsides. You may accumulate habits on the hedonic treadmill that causes you to not rely on this money. This means you may have to say yes to things in the future that you don't actually want to do. You need targets and metrics, not constant accumulation of money, which usually follows from increasing accumulation of expectations from other people. At this point, you've said yes to money over your own freedom. Find poise, not pose.

I observe too many people around me drift by life wondering if there's any purpose to life. We are all delusional in a sense that we literally think the world should revolve around us. There a voice in our minds that scream out loud; "you deserve better!". We expect our bosses to pay us more, our spouses to love us more, our friends to be more generous to us, without us putting in the time and effort that is needed to build these kind of relationships.

We change our jobs, our lovers, our friends as if we'll find the 'right' one. The next time round. We'll always be disappointed by the harsh reality. Reading Ryan's book help me deal with the existentialist crisis that I think I may be facing. In this book, I learnt 3 lessons that are the crystallised wisdoms from the stoics .

We often think that successful people are like Aston Kutcher in the Movie, "Jobs", they are egoist manics that want to take control of everything. They are geniuses that have flashes of inspiration then work throughout the night, writing long stream-of-consciousness emails and putting pictures together as if they are making something. In reality, these people fail. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple for his erratic management style. The real people who are making things happen are people like Angela Merkel. She is plain, humble, polite to everybody (even to Putin). She makes Germany look good because she places her country's interest before her own.

Success is defined very differently from the normal world in this book. It's not about the amount of money in your bank account, its not the clothes you wear, or the women that you have. Success is the peace of mind, knowing that you have given your best in advancing your purpose. Don't let the trappings of the commercial world get to you. When you achieve small progress, society lavishes praise and money on you, making you feel special. That is Ego taking control. Redefine success in your manner. You have a choice to do the right thing and should do the right thing even when you can get away not doing it. That is what true success looks like.

It's often not enough to be passionate about something. Do you remember a time when you were extremely passionate about something, then losing interest in the end? That is what passion looks like. It is steam blowing out of a kettle. It blunts our ability to objectively assess things. Replace the hot and steamy passion with solid cold purpose. Like a cold stab of marble, we slowly carve it into what we want to be, revealing the beauty within. In life, we are often told that we have two choices, to be somebody or to do something. To do something means that you will often not get recognised. You will fail a lot of times and feel like giving up. That moment is when true character is formed. It's not about what you can get away with, but what you should and shouldn't do. These moments are training our character, and as what martial artist, Daniele Bolelli said, " training is like sweeping the floor...Everyday the dust comes back. Everyday we must sweep." When our character is formed then we can use it to sculpt the cold hard marble block into a beautiful statue.

The message of book is simple - Commit to a greater purpose and lose the Ego. Hold yourself to a higher standard of character and performance. The obstacle will reveal the way.