Ego is the Enemy

• Author: Ryan Holiday

Talk, talk, talk, talk

• Silence is a strength
• Just spending hours talking about doing something doesn’t count as doing it

To be or to do?

• Pretend to have virtues or be virtuous? Try to impress people of be truly impressive? Not actually good examples
• “to be” has compromises
• “to do” means having a purpose, there is only one way, but is hard

Become a student

• Never cease to improve
• Never think of knowing enough
• Have a lesser whom to teach, an equal to confront and a better to learn from
• “It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows” - Epictetus
• Be open to feedback

Don’t be passionate

• Be reasonable
• Don’t be passionate, have a purpose
• Passion highlights the ego e.g. I am passionate about…
• Purpose gives clear path e.g. I must do … in order to …
• Consistent system of improvement is the key, not epiphanies. It’s not as exciting though…

Follow the canvas strategy

• Make other look good as mean for self improvement
• Looking good is short-term gratification
• Be selfless
• Be the anteambulo, the person scouts the way for his patrons. But the person who walks the way first is also who shapes it

Restrain yourself

• Self-control no matter the anger, the circumstances
• Think about the bigger scheme

Get out of your own head

• Live the present clearly, don’t be deluded by the ideas in your head

The danger of early pride

• Pride and ego are best buddies, what’s new?

Work, work, work

• Having an idea is not enough! Put on work!

Always stay a student

• Maintain the mentality to be always a student and open to learn new things
• The moment we believe we know enough is also the moment we stop to learn

Don’t tell yourself a story

• Narratives comes from a sentiment of arrogance or self-defense
• Real success comes from constant attention for details

What’s important to you

• Euthymia: tranquility
  • Don’t get distracted from your path

Managing yourself

• It is not enough having great qualities, be able to manage them
• Learn to delegate things to other people
• Responsibility requires clarity and purpose

Beware the disease of me

• Innocent Climb -> Disease of Me
• Ego needs honors to be validated, confidence is able to focus and complete tasks regardless of external recognition

Meditate on the immensity

• The connection with the cosmos (sympatheia) let us realize our “smallness”
  • This will keep the ego in check
  • At the same time we shouldn’t forget our “greatness”

Maintain our sobriety

• Having goals that affect many doesn’t give us the necessity to appear in front of many

Alive time or dead time

• We choose how to use our time. A dead time can be converted to alive if we have clear goal in mind
  • The key is to stay humble, to accept the situation and act with what is our power
• It is easier to blame the circumstances

The effort is not enough

• Do the right thing
  • Don’t worry about what we cannot control, i.e. the outcome from that action. Ego expects recognition, validation
• Our worth is not determined by anyone but ourselves

Fight club moments

• Refers to when someone hits the rock bottom
• There are two ways to react to this:
  • Anger, blame, fear. That’s ego
  • Or do what is in our power and rise again

Draw the line

• When we fuck up, when is the time to stop? Stop to find excuses. Stop to try to salvage our own self-esteem
• Failure and embarrassment are only steps in life, everyone has them. Only ego thinks they are important.
• We don’t do good by avoiding failure, but overcoming it

Maintain your own scorecard

• Give yourself goals and try to meet them. What others say is irrelevant

Always love

• Streisland effect: trying to fight something only to achieve a worse result
  • From Barbra Streisland who tried to take down some personal picture from the Internet only the get more popular