Why You Need to Kill Your Ego

Do you know that your ego is often the main culprit behind your lack of fulfilment and happiness in life?

Ego makes us proud. It impedes learning at the early stages of our careers.

Ego makes us blind to our faults when we’re successful. It dulls our senses. It weakens our discernment.

That’s not all. When failure arrives – as it inevitably does regardless of your stage of life – ego amplifies its impact. It makes the bitter pill of defeat much more difficult to swallow.

What should we then do with our egos? The answer lies in the wonderful book Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday.

By managing our egos, we can be:

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

Let us now look at the life lessons (mostly drawn from stoicism) that we can apply here.

#1 Aspire: Manage Your Ego En Route to Success

“To whatever you aspire, ego is the enemy…” — Ryan Holiday

When you start to gain some success early in your career, do not let it go to your head. Instead, practice the art of detachment. Arrogance and self-absorption will surely stymie your growth.

Consider the following disciplines and practices:

Eschew Empty Chatter: Avoid spending your time and energy on fruitless talk. Work quietly in the corner, and face the struggle head on.

To Be or To Do? Focus on Doing: “A man is worked upon by what he works on,” said Frederick Douglass. Ask yourself “What is it that I want to accomplish in life?”

Become a Student: The moment you fail to learn is the moment you’ll fail. Find teachers everywhere.

Purpose Over Passion: Passion is overrated. Purpose is what you should focus on. I must do _____. I was put here to accomplish ______. I am willing to endure _______ for the sake of this.

Clear the Path for Others: Be one who helps others to succeed by serving them as an apprentice. This is the canvas strategy—help yourself by helping others.

Practice Restraint: In life, you’ll be yelled at, kicked at, demeaned, and teased. Do not retaliate — pursue self-restraint and change the system after you’ve made it.

Get Out of Your Own Head: Self-obsession can be fatal to success. Don’t keep thinking of yourself. Live clearly in the present, even if its uncomfortable.

Beware of Early Pride: Pride blunts the very instrument we need to win: our mind. Stay away from the pitfalls of beginner’s conceit—when success comes early. Don’t boast.

Work, work, work: Do not just work until you get your big break, or work until you make a name for yourself. Just work, work, work, forever and ever. Delay gratification.

#2 Success: Manage Your Ego at Your Peak

“To whatever success you have achieved, ego is the enemy…” — Ryan Holiday

Being successful doesn’t mean that you’re out of the egotistical woods. On the contrary, success can certainly lead to swell-headedness.

Success is intoxicating, but to sustain it, you need to be sober. To manage it, consider these precepts from the book:

Continue Being a Student: Like famed Mongol warrior and ruler Genghis Khan, you should absorb knowledge from everyone and everything you encounter.

Avoid Spinning Your Own Story: Avoid mythologising your route to success. Writing your own narrative leads to arrogance. Focus on executing with excellence.

Revisit What’s Important: Embrace euthymia: know your own path and how to stay on it without getting distracted by others who intersect it. Sit down and think about what’s truly important, and forego the rest.

Beware Entitlement, Control and Paranoia: Don’t allow hubris and entitlement to overcome you. You do not need to have absolute control. Also, be careful of the empty fears of illusory enemies.

Manage Yourself: When you assume leadership roles, have the humility to put aside some of the more enjoyable or satisfying parts of your former job. Manage yourself and others — don’t be trapped by the details.

Don’t Let “Me” Dominate: Temper your success with “a sense of humility and selflessness.” Be magnanimous to fight the “Disease of Me”.

Connect With a Higher Purpose: The Stoics have a term called sympatheia—a connection with the cosmos. Widen your perspective. Be mindful of your place with God and the universe.

Stay Sober: Maintain your sobriety even when you’ve achieved the halcyon heights of success. Sobriety means focusing on living like the rest of us. Live normal private lives.

#3 Failure: Don’t Let Ego Tear You Apart

“To whatever failure and challenges you will face, ego is the enemy…” — Ryan Holiday

Ego isn’t just a liability in success — often, an inflated sense of self makes you ill-prepared for setbacks.

If success is ego intoxication, then failure can be a devastating blow to the ego. It turns slip-ups into catastrophes, and mistakes into maelstroms.

Alive Time or Dead Time: Each time you’re stuck and forced to wait, turn that “dead time” into “alive time”— time where you are learning, acting and utilising every second.

Effort is Enough: Doing the work itself is enough. Do not let the externals determine whether something was worth it or not. It’s all on us.

Fight Club Moments: What happens when you’re forced into a corner? Also called moments of truth, when these rock-bottom periods happen, you should face the symptoms, cure the disease, and “firebomb your own apartment to finally break through.”

It isn’t You. It’s Your Work: Don’t mess up your identity with your work. Sh*t happens. What’s more important is to keep to your principles when you screw up, and revert to first principles and best practices.

Keep Your Own Score: Ego makes us endlessly pursue more and more. We compare upwards with others in an endlessly vicious cycle. Rather than do that, adopt the stance of an “indifference spectator” and set your own standards.

Always Love: Hate and bitterness will never result in a sweet ending. On the contrary, they will consume you, turning “a minor inconvenience into a massive sore.” Instead, turn your hate into love — egoless, open, positive, peaceful, and productive.

Conclusion

Ego is an inescapable part of life. We all have some element of self-aggrandisement, pride and swagger.

However, as Ryan Holiday has pointed out, ego can turn us into lesser versions of ourselves. By working to eliminate it, we’re able to lead happier, more fulfilling lives.

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

PS — Access lots of free bonus materials from the website here.

Walter is the founder and editor of?Cooler Insights—a critically thinking content marketing, social media marketing and brand storytelling agency. Fuel your business with the latest insights in?digital and content marketing.