Ego is the Enemy

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Summary

Reflective guide to understanding how your ego can get in the way of everything and how to tamp it down.

Notes and Quotes

Prologue

Goal of the book is to think less of yourself - deflate your ego.

Introduction

Definition of ego used by this book:

"An unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambition."

"It's the sense of superiority and certainty that exceeds the bounds of confidence and talent."

Why is this a problem? It prevents us from seeing true reality which could lead us to making bad decisions, interpreting things incorrectly, not take or receive good feedback. - I notice this most in myself when answering questions - I am quick to react, and don't often take time to really see what's going on during the first pass. This leads to some backtracking and correcting. My ego thinks I'm right and the answer is easy.

Our life is broken up into a cycle of aspiring to succeed, succeeding until we fail, then aspiring to succeed again. This is how the book will be organized: - Aspire - Goal: suppress ego before bad habits take hold. - Success - Goal: replace ego with humility and discipline. - Failure - Goal: cultivate strength and fortitude, don't get wrecked by failure.

Humble in our aspirations. Gracious in our success. Resilient in our failures.

These goals are similar to Your Head Is a Houseboat - "Stop believing everything you think" - your brain is constantly lying to you.

Ego can provide short bursts of motivation and confidence - but this is gamble, because it can also wreck your life. More often times people lose when gambling with the ego (maybe they "appear" successful, but they have a host of other problems). Kanye West is mentioned as an example - when this book was written, his craziness probably wasn't as publicly shown. - More relevant today than ever. He made amazing music, he had a huge ego that helped make that music, but now it's clear he has a host of other mental problems destroying his life.

Howard Hughes is an interesting example - the painting on the 4th floor of Trees captures him in his later years and his mental decline.

Part 1 - Aspire

If you are motivated to start something but then never reach it/finish it, ego is likely the culprit.

General Sherman built his reputation slow and gradually. He took on roles when he felt he was ready (instead of ego wanting to rank up), and due to this he had immense success and is remembered favorably in the history books.

Sherman had to balance talent and ambition and intensity, especially when he was young. His victory in this struggle was largely why he was able to manage the life-altering success that eventually came his way.

We should be self-motivated, driven by internal principles, but society trains us to be dependent on validation and be ruled by our emotions.

Most powerful ability is to evaluate one's own ability - don't let ego have you focus on what you are already good at. See what you are bad it, and then work on improving that. This requires focusing on the long term.

I have seen people at PGR who focus on accomplishments of projects to build up their rank, but ultimately I know they are shallow and not skilled, and I don't have respect for them. They are forced to jump careers every couple of years so no one sees the trail of destruction/false accomplishments they've created.

We may share vision for greatness with many others, but our paths there are very different. We need to ignore our ego on that journey to focus on our faults in order to be long-term successful.

Talk, Talk, Talk

Anyone can talk about the great work they will do or how great they are. The true talent is silence - keeping yourself out of conversation and not talking in order to get validation.

Spouting about your future achievements is a waste of time and takes away from the real focus - doing the work.

Reminds me of Jerzy Gregorek Olympic Weight Lifter quote:

Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.

The more difficult the task, the more uncertain the outcome, hte more costly talk will be and the farther we run from actual accountability."

You are either working, or you are talking. You can't do both. Pick one.

To Be Or To Do?

Do you want to be someone who appears to be someone, or someone who actually does the things?

This is what "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield is about - professionals do the work, they don't pretend to be an author.

If your purpose is something larger than you - to accomplish something, to prove something to yourself- then suddenly everything becomes both easier and more difficult. Easier in the sense that you know now what it is you need to do and what is important to you. The other "choices" wash away, as they aren't really choices at all. They're distractions. It's about the doing, not the recognition.

Don't focus on who you want to be. Think about what you need to do to get there. Don't make the goal "I want to be an author". Make the goal "I want to write 1000 words every day."

Become A Student

You must always be learning. Identify where you fall short, and build a plan to improve yourself in those areas over time. You can't let your ego let you think you know everything there is to know.

It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows - Epictetus

Must accept feedback and learn from it. This is not easy because it can hurt the ego.

Don't Be Passionate

Don't be so passionate that you develop tunnel vision and can't accept feedback from other sources.

Don't be driven solely by emotion - take a look at the actual facts and faults, then make an action plan for that.

Follow the Canvas Strategy

Make other people look good. Provide support so others can look good. Clear the paths for those above you, and eventually this will create a path for yourself.

Find canvases for other people to paint on.

Forget feelings that you are important - you don't know anything, especially when new to something. Attach yourself to someone great and be OK with helping them - you will learn and eventually become great.

Do the grunt work, this teaches you how things work, then you become the expert and make your own path to success. You start as the least important person in the room, until you change that with results. Things to do: 1. Come up with ideas to hand to boss 2. Introduce thinkers and up-and-comers to each other 3. Find what no one else wants to do and do it 4. Find inefficiencies, waste, and redundancies. 5. Produce more than everyone else and give your ideas away.

In other words, discover opportunities to promote their creativity, find outlets and people for collaboration, and eliminate distractions that hinder their progress and focus.

The person who clears the path ultimately controls its direction, just as the canvas shapes the painting.

Restrain Yourself

You need to be the bigger person in all situations. Show restraint to achieve the larger goal. Jackie Robinson received tons of abuse in his career, but he never broke out in anger, leaving a legacy that changed the game. Once he established himself as a star, he could set boundaries and be treated fairly.

You're not able to change the system until after you've made it.

Get Out Of Your Own Head

Don't live in a fake reality. You can't day dream all day. You have to take action and do things to achieve those dreams.

If you only ever dream about being a rock star, and don't practice the craft of making music, you'll never achieve that dream. Worse, your ego may make you think you are amazing and you'll end up looking like a fool.

We're required to tell stories in order to sell our work and our talents, and after enough time, forget where the line is that separates our fictions from reality.

This division eventually paralyzes you and it can be impossible for you to do your job (although the solution is straightforward - just get started).

There's no one to perform for. There is just work to be done and lessons to be learned, in all that is around us.

The Danger of Early Pride

Pride blunts the very instrument we need to own in order to succeed: our mind. Our ability ot learn, to adapt, to be flexible, to build relationships, all of this is dulled by pride.

If you're doing the work and putting in the time, you won't need to cheat, you won't need to overcompensate.

Pride will blind you. Keep your eyes open.

When you feel pride, ask "What would a more humble person see right now that I am missing?"

Work, Work, Work

Ideas are cheap. Doing the work to create something is the hard thing.

The work is a slog. There is no glory. You don't do it because of the end goal - you do it because you have to love it. It's the only way.

This reminds me of Stephen Pressfield - creative people aren't geniuses and their work magically happens. They are diligent and do the work every day, even when they don't feel like it.

You know a workman by the chips they leave. It's true. TO judge your progress properly, just take a look at the floor.

For Everything That Comes Next, Ego is the Enemy

Everyone wonders if they need to do bad things (cheat) to give them an edge, because "everyone else is doing it." What is truly ambitious is to face these things and proceed with quiet confidence.

Part II - Success

Howard Hughes was driven by ego. His father's company kept him afloat, allowing him to make mistake after mistake (most business failures due to ego fail and are never seen again).

Always Stay a Student

Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Genghis Khan was as successful as he was in part because he learned from all of the cultures he conquested. He never invented anything himself, but he was smart enough to always keep learning.

If you aren't learning, you are dying.

Once we are an expert, our ego doesn't want us to expose us to where we no nothing. This ultimately ends poorly for us - you must always be learning.

An amateur is defensive. The professional finds learning (and even, occasionally, being shown up) to be enjoyable; they like being challenged and humbled, and engage in education as an ongoing and endless process.

Don't Tell Yourself a Story

Hard work and focusing on doing the details right is what creates success. Bill Walsh created the "Standard of Performance" for the SF 49ers. He turned that team around. Expectations where high and followed to every minute details.

The small details matter. Focus on executing the work, not on the glory of the ambitious ideas/goals. You have to do the work.

What's Important to You

You need to figure out your own goals and follow those, rather than compete and try to be better than others (at what might be their goals!).

Be yourself, be as good as possible at it, and don't succumb to the things that draw you away from it.

If you follow someone else's goals, success won't be pleasurable.

Entitlement, Control, and Paranoia

The more you succeed, the more you can become disillusioned and overestimate your own power.

When you are at the bottom, you have fears and everyone is telling you you can't do things. Once you succeed, it's easy to think you are better than you are. You must stay humble.

Managing Yourself

...[When] moving up the ladder in life, the system and work habits that got us where we are won't necessarily keep us there. When we're aspiring or small time, we can be idiosyncratic, we can compensate for disorganization with hard work and a little luck. That's not going to cut it in the majors. in fact, it'll sink you if you can't grow up and organize

If you can't manage yourself, you'll have no chance of managing others.

As you become successful in your own field, your responsibilities may begin to change. Days become less and less about doing and more and more about making decisions. Such is the nature of leadership

As you move up in leadership, you must focus on prioritizing and making the big decisions, while delegating the fun details and work to those below you. You have to think big picture.

Draw the Line

Ego kills what we love. Sometimes, it comes close to killing us too.

It's important to quit before you lead yourself to complete ruin. American Apparel founder didn't do that. Steve jobs had to get fired, ruined, then relearn through Pixar before coming back to Apple.

When "Shit happens" and you fail in public - are you going to make it worse (and spiral out of control via your ego), or emrege with your dignity and character intact? Will you live to fight another day?

Most trouble is temporary ... unless you make that not so.

Only ego thinks embarrassment or failure are more than what they are. History is full of people who suffered abject humiliations yet recovered to have long and impressive careers.

According to this book, we go in a circle of Aspiring, Succeeding, or Failing. These are temporary, and you must remember you must work yourself back to the aspirational phase.

The only real failure is abandoning your principles.

Maintain your own scorecard

Hold yourself to a higher standard. Not every tiny victory requires a participation trophy.

Your potential, the absolute best you're capable of - that's the metric to measure yourself against...Winning is not enough. People can get lucky and win. People can be assholes and win. Anyone can win. But not everyone is the best possible version of themselves.

A person who can think long term doesn't pity herself during short-term setbacks.

Reflecting on what went well or how amazing we are doesn't get us anywhere, except maybe to where we are right now. But we want to go further, we want more, we want to continue to improve.

Always love

The best response to an attack or something you don't like is love. Or at least shaking your head, laughing, and letting it go. Hate is fueled by your ego and will get you every time.

Instead of feeling hate, feel pity or empathy instead.

Feelings of hatred never don't help you accomplish things. They just make you stew. The people that annoyed us - their actions are short sighted and probably lead to their downfall. Just let it go. Is it worth being miserable just because other people are?

For everything that comes next, ego is the enemy

Ego makes everything hard. Avoid it at all costs. Failures suck too, but they are short lived. Keep doing what you are doing, and eventually you'll get past the failure. - This is what Sanjay said in his talk about BMTs! Might not get the right answer at first (failure), but if keep doing the right things, eventually one of them will succeed. Makes me think of Thomas Edison and the thousands of failed attempts to make a commercial worthy light bulb.

Our mantra:

Not to aspire or seek out of ego. To have success without ego. To push through failure with strength, not ego.

Epilogue

Training is like sweeping a floor. You do it once, but dust and dirt will come back. You must train regularly. Same applies to taming the ego.

This book failed 4 times before it succeeded.

Any fool can learn from experience. The trick is to learn from other people's experience.

Last paragraphs:

Every day for the rest of your life you will find yourself at one of three phrases: aspiration, success, failure. You will battle the ego in eac hof them. You will make mistakes in each of them. You must sweep the floor every minute of everyday. And then sweep again.