Overview
Ryan Holiday draws on philosophy and history to show how ego is the enemy of what we want and what we have. Whether we are aspiring, succeeding, or failing, our ego undermines us at every turn by distorting reality and making us our own worst enemy.
Holiday is a former director of marketing at American Apparel turned Stoic-philosophy popularizer. Ego Is the Enemy, published in 2016, is the middle book of a loose trilogy (The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego, Stillness Is the Key) that applies Stoic ideas to modern life through historical case studies. Holiday's style is dense with examples — one chapter can cover six different historical figures.
Key Ideas
Talk less, do more
Talking about what we plan to do gives us a false sense of accomplishment that saps our drive.
Be a student always
No matter how successful you become, maintain a learner's mindset.
Manage success carefully
Success is often more dangerous than failure because it inflates our ego.
Alive time vs. dead time
Every moment is either alive time, where you are learning and growing, or dead time, where you are passive.
Who should read this
High achievers who suspect their own ambition is starting to work against them. Also useful for people who have just had a big success or are trying to survive one. Holiday writes for operators, not philosophers, and the chapters on the ego traps of early, mid, and late success are organised to match different career stages.
Who might skip it
Skip if you dislike the 'here is a Stoic idea, here are four famous people who exemplified it' format — Holiday uses it relentlessly, and critics have pointed out that the case studies are often cherry-picked. Skip also if you've read his other books; there's significant overlap.
The verdict
The middle book of Holiday's trilogy and the one that lands hardest for me. His central move — that ego is the thing that sabotages you at every step, including when you're winning — is a genuine corrective to most success-focused self-help. I reread the chapter on 'work is its own reward' every time I notice myself getting precious about credit.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
If you liked this
The Obstacle Is the Way is the first book in the set. For the original source, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations.