Ego Is the Enemy
Ryan Holiday on the ways self-importance wrecks aspiring, succeeding and failing
Ryan Holiday splits this short book into three parts, for the person aspiring, the person succeeding and the person recovering from failure, each illustrated with historical cases. The Stoic-flavored argument is that ego distorts feedback and makes both success and failure harder to handle. People report going back to it at transitions.
People on record
Sorted by strength of stance
Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- Michael PhelpsRecommends
Olympic swimmer · Most decorated Olympian in history
Says he goes back to Ryan Holiday's book a lot. He listens to most books as audio and pulls out small pieces that echo how he broke swimming down to its simplest parts.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #494: Michael Phelps and Grant Hackett, transcript - Ryan HolidayRecommends
Writer · The Daily Stoic
The second book in his Stoic series, on how ego threatens you whether you are chasing something, succeeding at it or picking yourself up afterwards. He opens on Cyril Connolly's line that ego sucks us down like the law of gravity.
Source: RyanHoliday.net: Books and Courses
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Book entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.