The Art of Manliness - #212： Ego is the Enemy

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So in the quest

00:00:18.620 to become the men we want to be, we're often our own worst enemies, especially when it comes to

00:00:23.540 our egos. Egos is what prevents us from being humble and teachable when we're first starting

00:00:27.940 out in an endeavor. It blinds us to our own weaknesses during success and it can cause us

00:00:32.720 to wallow in self-pity when we fail. My guest today is Ryan Holiday and in his latest book,

00:00:38.320 Ego is the Enemy, he discusses how ego can thwart our personal progress and success as men.

00:00:44.700 Today on the show, we look at examples from history of great men whose hubris caused their

00:00:48.780 downfall and other men who were able to successfully harness their ego to attain greatness. Along the

00:00:54.340 way, provide actionable steps that you can do to prevent ego becoming your enemy. After the

00:01:00.740 podcast is over, make sure you check out the show notes at aom.is slash ego, where you can find links

00:01:06.020 to resources mentioned throughout the show. As without further ado, Ryan Holiday and Ego is the

00:01:11.200 Enemy. Ryan Holiday, welcome back to the show.

00:01:19.260 Yeah, it's good to be here. I think the last time we talked, you were recording this from

00:01:22.300 your closet and I could see you on the thing. Yeah, well, I'm still recording from my closet.

00:01:27.080 All right. Okay, very cool. You just can't see me. Still going old school here. So you got a new

00:01:34.200 book out, Ego is the Enemy. Before we talk about the details of the book, let's start off talking

00:01:40.100 about what do you mean by ego exactly? Are we talking Freudian ego? What is it?

00:01:44.840 Yeah, so definitely not Freudian ego, not even psychologist ego. I think I'm referring to it,

00:01:51.700 well, I know I'm referring to it. I'm referring to it in the colloquial sense, the sort of know it

00:01:56.940 when you see it ego. You know, what Bill Walsh would say is when self-confidence becomes arrogance,

00:02:04.860 you know, when I'm using it as an umbrella term to define sort of all of the characteristics

00:02:11.640 in which sort of the normal confidence, normal self-assurance, normal sort of goal-seeking

00:02:20.520 behavior bleeds over into the sort of toxic self-absorption and toxic selfishness and

00:02:29.800 compulsion that leads to negative outcomes. So I'm referring to not, oh, is that guy literally

00:02:41.340 an egomaniac, but much more, you know, what are these traits that make us our own worst enemy

00:02:48.320 that put us at odds with the things that we say that we're trying to achieve?

00:02:54.340 Okay. All right. And I think what you're talking about is a timeless idea. I mean, it seems like

00:02:58.180 a lot of the major religions or philosophies have talked about how ego can get in the way

00:03:04.340 of yourself.

00:03:06.100 Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think at the root of every Greek tragedy, for instance, is hubris. And

00:03:11.620 hubris would be a form of ego, you know, even if that word didn't necessarily exist. The idea of,

00:03:19.300 you know, what happens when our sense of realism is replaced with delusions of grandeur? What do we do?

00:03:26.240 What happens when we overestimate our own importance? You know, it's a thing that essentially

00:03:32.900 every religion and every philosophy ever has warned against. It just happens that today,

00:03:39.240 I think we, you know, instead of warning against a lot of these things, we actually hold them up as,

00:03:43.880 as, you know, positive attributes. This is what every motivational speaker is out there

00:03:49.940 encouraging is, is sort of ego in one form or another, sadly.

00:03:53.720 Yeah. I mean, it seems like our culture today promotes this unhealthy, exaggerated ego. And you just

00:03:59.040 talked about like the motivational speakers and the, but like a lot of the books about business

00:04:03.280 and entrepreneurship, it's all about being self-promoting, like, you know, name it and take

00:04:08.460 it and it's yours and all this other stuff.

00:04:12.120 Yeah. And I mean, just think of what social media is. It's your, it's not supposed to reflect your

00:04:17.240 actual life. It's supposed to reflect your idealized life. And the, you know, I think a lot of it is

00:04:22.740 rooted in what you're just saying, this idea of sort of faking it until you make it. That, that's a

00:04:26.800 very, that, that's, that's a seductive egotistical idea that, you know, in my opinion, or in my

00:04:32.880 experience doesn't, doesn't normally work out well for people, but you know, you're supposed to dare

00:04:37.760 greatly and, and have these grand visions of success and ambition and, and, you know, pursue your passion

00:04:45.880 and your calling. We, we say a lot of these things, but they're not tempered with any sort of real

00:04:51.420 purpose or any real understanding, or in a lot of cases, we're encouraging them without any hard

00:04:58.000 work either. Right. And so it, it, it creates a, it creates a scenario in which our, our grandiose

00:05:05.280 impulses are encouraged and excited. And then the things that are supposed to temper and balance that

00:05:13.200 out are left by the wayside. Gotcha. And we'll get into more of those things into detail, but for you,

00:05:19.200 like, what inspired you to write this book, Ego is the Enemy? Was it events in your own life,

00:05:24.640 just observations from culture, or is it in some way a continuation of your work you started in

00:05:30.500 The Obstacle is the Way? It's a, it's a little bit of both, I think. So Obstacle is the Way was about

00:05:37.220 external obstacles and how people can be sort of rational and creative and strategic about dealing

00:05:46.500 with those obstacles and, and sort of using the, the stoic mindset in which to do so. And so I was

00:05:52.060 sort of thinking about what comes next after that. I was really thinking, okay, what makes doing that

00:05:57.480 so hard for people? And what is the biggest obstacle that most people face? And, you know,

00:06:05.440 in my own experience and a lot of the people that I get emails from and my client work and the sort of

00:06:11.620 powerful, important people I've worked for, I, what I kept sort of sensing was that the enemy for most

00:06:18.580 of us is ourselves. It's not, you know, we, you know, DJ Khaled likes to talk about the they that

00:06:25.020 are, you know, they don't want you to have this. They don't, in reality, most people don't like,

00:06:29.500 you know, the, the, the world is indifferent to you. What prevents people from achieving what they want

00:06:34.280 to achieve is, is oftentimes their own bad habits, their own bad impulses. It's, it's, you know,

00:06:40.360 their own ego that's getting in their way. And, and ego is what prevents, you know, looking at a

00:06:47.140 situation rationally, not taking it personally. It's what prevents, you know, persistence and

00:06:53.620 perseverance, because we feel like we shouldn't have to do these things. So it was sort of a coalescing

00:06:59.720 of these two different, you know, trains of thought that I had that, that, you know, ego prevents the

00:07:07.560 hard work of, of overcoming obstacles. And ironically, ego tends to be its own enormous

00:07:13.700 obstacle. And so that's, that's sort of where I was coming from the book. And originally the book was

00:07:19.140 going to be about humility, which I know you guys have written a lot about. And I, I mean, you can

00:07:24.320 tell me if, if you think I'm off base here, but I found that sort of talking about humility, one,

00:07:29.280 it's a difficult thing to talk about because the first question is like, are you humble? Right?

00:07:33.480 So it's like a different thing. It's a difficult thing to talk about, but also humility doesn't tend

00:07:38.360 to be very inspirational to people. Right? So it's, it's difficult. I found that almost all the stories

00:07:46.000 of humility sound more or less the same. They're not, they're not super action oriented. And so when I

00:07:52.720 was thinking about writing about humility, I was trying to think of what is a way to come at it that

00:07:57.560 would captivate people's attention and, and sort of actually be of practical use. And I realized that,

00:08:04.560 you know, in many ways, ego is the opposite of humility. And so I decided to focus on ego as being

00:08:11.020 this, you know, this impediment to the humility that we want and that we need. And so that's where

00:08:19.000 the book came from. Right. So you inverted, right? Instead of focusing on humility, you focused on the

00:08:23.640 opposite of it, but by doing that, you were able to talk about humility.

00:08:28.520 Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I think one talk about humility in a way that is actionable and

00:08:33.180 interesting to people, but two, I mean, it's a little bit of the, the, the message of the book

00:08:38.020 itself in that, you know, you sit down and you think you have one idea for a book. This is what

00:08:42.780 you think you're going to do. And I mean, I had a contract to write a book about this topic.

00:08:47.420 And then I, as I was going through the material and, and mostly as I was doing my research and writing

00:08:52.580 my notes and starting to sketch out this book, I realized that my, my vision or my plan was flawed

00:09:00.020 and it wasn't going to work as I originally planned it. And so I think, you know, when people ask, you

00:09:06.240 know, why does humility matter? Why does, you know, why is ego bad? In the most practical sense,

00:09:11.960 any sort of creative pursuit or entrepreneurial venture, you start out with a sort of a gut instinct

00:09:17.640 or an idea. But if you're not going to be open to feedback from the world, if you're, if you're

00:09:23.040 going to be so certain that you're instinctually right, um, you're not going to be able to adapt

00:09:28.680 and change when it turns out that things were more complicated than you thought, or that maybe you

00:09:33.580 hadn't, you didn't have the experience or you hadn't considered something yet. And so it's only an

00:09:38.200 actually doing the thing and then being open to learning from it, that you're able to, to,

00:09:45.140 to grow and improve. And, and, you know, this book wouldn't have been possible had I been convinced

00:09:51.000 that I was immediately in, uh, you know, unassailably correct with, with my original plan.

00:09:58.740 Right. So you had to, you had to overcome the ego to write your book about overcoming the ego.

00:10:03.280 Yeah. I mean, you know, you write a book proposal and the publisher says, we don't like it. You can

00:10:07.180 say, Hey, screw you. I'm going to self-publish or screw you. I'm going to sell it to someone else. Or you 1.00

00:10:11.200 can say, well, maybe I don't agree with why you don't like it, but something is clearly not right.

00:10:19.000 And so why do I, I need to go back to the drawing board and, you know, do another pass at this and

00:10:23.660 then another pass. And then actually making the book is, or making any project is, I think craft

00:10:31.340 is inherently ego killing because every day you're struggling against some problem or, you know,

00:10:38.400 you're falling short in the pursuit of perfection.

00:10:42.520 Yeah. So, um, let's talk, the way you organize the book is interesting. You, you break it up into

00:10:47.600 three sections and they correlate to three phases that you say people constantly find themselves in.

00:10:54.060 Yeah. So, so, I mean, this might be getting a little too insider for people, but I believe that

00:10:59.240 every book should have a three part structure. And this came to me from Sean Coyne, who is Steven

00:11:04.000 Pressfield's editor, who's done a, you know, amazing books like the war of art and, and gates

00:11:09.200 of fire. Um, but you know, all of, you know, going back to Greek literature, you've got your,

00:11:14.120 your, in Aristotle, you've got your, your three part structure. Um, and so I was trying to think,

00:11:18.420 you know, what is the three part structure? My last book was perception, action, and will,

00:11:22.160 um, the three part structure of, of ego I felt was that we're, when we're starting out,

00:11:30.320 ego is destructive because it, it prevents us from learning. It makes us think we're better than

00:11:35.120 we are. You know, it, it, it, uh, makes us want to move too quickly, you know, a number of destructive,

00:11:41.560 um, uh, destructive traits. And then after we aspire, you know, if we've conquered our ego there,

00:11:47.720 then we achieve success, uh, in some way. Um, so, you know, we've, we've gotten a great job,

00:11:53.740 you know, we've signed our first deal, we've been, you know, chosen in the draft, whatever it is,

00:11:59.160 we're, we're achieving some measure of success. Well, now ego manifests itself in another number

00:12:04.360 of ways, right? It's feeling like you've suddenly arrived, that you're better than everyone else,

00:12:08.840 uh, that it's going to be amazing from here on out, you know, now maybe you've got people working

00:12:14.660 under you. And so power is, is, uh, you know, the, the, the, the corruptive nature of, of power is,

00:12:21.820 is warping on onto your ego. Um, maybe you feel like you've learned everything that there is to

00:12:26.980 learn. Um, the, these are the effects of ego and the success phase of our life. And then,

00:12:31.960 you know, as we know, successful people either aspire to some new level of success. So they're

00:12:38.020 essentially going back to the next step or they, they fail in some way, or they, they find out that

00:12:43.920 success is, uh, has, it's, has a new set of difficulties, right? Now, all of a sudden they're in a,

00:12:49.520 uh, they're attacked by a media outlet or, you know, the, the market shifts or, uh, someone,

00:12:55.420 a competitor comes after them. So now they're dealing with adversity or difficulty or failure.

00:13:01.500 And so ego here manifests itself in a number of other ways that are also destructive. Um,

00:13:07.580 you know, it's taking this thing personally, believing that you've been screwed over and

00:13:12.100 giving into resentment or hatred, or it's, uh, it's, you know, you, maybe you, maybe you're,

00:13:20.020 you found yourself in a, in a state of difficulty because you screwed up, you did something wrong.

00:13:24.680 Well, can you admit that you did something wrong and can you, can you learn from this? Or do you

00:13:29.840 decide, Hey, uh, I'm doubling down on the, on the problems that got me here. So whether you're,

00:13:36.040 you're aspiring, you're succeeding, or you're dealing with some form of adversity, ego is really,

00:13:41.040 uh, the least helpful variable that you could introduce into any of those phases of your life.

00:13:47.820 And I feel like we're in sort of a, a constant, uh, fluid transition along that spectrum over the

00:13:56.020 course of our, in our entire lives.

00:13:58.780 I imagine it's possible to be in those three phases, the same time in different fat, like

00:14:04.440 different phases at the same time in different facets of your life. So maybe you're totally

00:14:08.600 right. Aspiring with your career, but you succeeded in some other, you know, I don't know,

00:14:13.840 you're, you've run a marathon or something like that and you did well. You're that.

00:14:17.400 Yeah, absolutely. Or to your, you know, you're successful on the one hand and then you've started

00:14:22.840 this other venture on the other. And so, you know, if, if you're bringing your ego of success,

00:14:29.120 like, you know, um, you know, someone is a, someone's a, uh, a rapper that they decide to

00:14:35.840 become an actor, right? You're, you can be egotistical in your, in your musical profession.

00:14:42.020 And maybe you're getting away with it because you're so successful, even though it's, it's

00:14:46.240 causing problems for you. But if you bring that ego to this new thing that you're starting

00:14:50.520 and you're, you're convinced that that ego is, is, uh, is transferable, you're going to

00:14:55.760 be rudely surprised when you're not nearly as good at that thing as you maybe think that

00:14:59.780 you are. And you're not going to be able to, to improve and take, you know, feedback and,

00:15:03.560 and work well with others and, and, you know, sort of hustle and build the relationships

00:15:07.860 that you need to succeed in that other field. And so, um, that that's, that's where ego is

00:15:15.000 such a tricky thing is that, you know, we never, we're never permanently in any of these phases

00:15:20.340 where we're always doing and trying new things. And, and, uh, you know, maybe a project is partially

00:15:26.140 successful and partially not successful. And our ego is, is what's going to sort of determine

00:15:31.300 that balance, I think. So like you did in obstacles of the way, uh, you went to history

00:15:36.780 to find examples of individuals who, uh, were good models of these different, of, of ego,

00:15:43.620 either getting in the way or, or them overcoming ego in these different phases of life. And the

00:15:47.880 aspire phase, you talk about the civil war general Sherman, uh, who is, you know, controversial,

00:15:53.760 uh, figure. Um, but what can Sherman teach about managing our ego in the aspire phase?

00:16:01.300 Yeah. I mean, I, I do think it is, it's interesting that he's a controversial figure. I don't totally

00:16:06.420 understand the, the controversy 150 years removed from the event, but what I think so fascinating

00:16:13.140 about Sherman is that, uh, he was unlike a typical, you know, our sort of stereotype of a great general,

00:16:22.120 maybe it's a MacArthur or a McClellan or, um, you know, a Napoleon who sort of believe themselves

00:16:30.340 to be marked for greatness from like the day that they were born. Sherman never really had any of

00:16:35.620 that. In fact, you know, he was, he was, uh, he was basically orphaned as a young boy. He grew up,

00:16:40.980 he was adopted. He, he got into West Point, but he did not, uh, it was not particularly distinguished

00:16:46.420 there. He had a series of, of sort of backwater postings. He was like, he was a figure during the

00:16:52.700 gold rush and that, uh, you know, he, he actually held the original gold nugget that was discovered

00:16:58.620 that set off the gold, gold rush, but he made no fortune in the, in the gold rush. And, um, even in

00:17:05.340 the, in the, the early days of the civil war, he was sort of like a mediocre general. Um, but what

00:17:11.340 people didn't understand is that he was learning this entire time that he was, um, B.H. Liddell

00:17:16.760 Hart, who wrote this amazing biography of, of Sherman, which I used in the book is talking

00:17:22.500 about, you know, for the person who thinks that they're destined for greatness, um, they never

00:17:27.960 really accomplish enough and they never really enjoy what they're experiencing because they are,

00:17:33.320 they are, they felt entitled to it. Whereas someone like Sherman is sort of slow, gradual rise

00:17:38.920 was a much sweeter process in that it's the accumulation of actual confidence and the accumulation

00:17:45.840 of actual accomplishments. And so, um, I think what, what, what Sherman managed to do was focus

00:17:53.320 on what he was trying to accomplish more than his sort of personal vanity or goal. So, you

00:18:00.240 know, um, at, at the battle of Vicksburg, for instance, uh, Sherman tech, uh, no, sorry,

00:18:05.960 Donaldson, the battle Donaldson for Donaldson, Sherman technically outranked Grant and, and,

00:18:11.140 and similarly at, uh, at Vicksburg, he, he, he could have been in a position, a superior position,

00:18:16.940 but he decided to subsume his personal, uh, his sort of personal ego and vanity to serving this

00:18:25.800 greater mission. And they built a team, uh, where, where they, where they functioned quite well

00:18:30.680 together. And in fact, you know, Sherman's role at, uh, at Vicksburg was actually one of, of, of a,

00:18:37.220 of a faint, uh, a distraction. And he did not participate in the main thrust of the battle,

00:18:42.200 but, but he, he, he would tell Grant over and over again, Hey, like, look, I'm just here to do

00:18:46.560 my part. And what they discovered together at Vicksburg, and I talk about this in obstacle,

00:18:51.020 what they discovered at Vicksburg was accidentally, uh, a strategy that Sherman would then use to,

00:18:57.920 to, to win the civil war, his, his march to the sea, um, which in itself was an exercise in the

00:19:04.000 restraint of ego. The, the, the reason the U S civil war went longer than it needed to.

00:19:08.880 And why so many people died is, is that the generals were convinced that it would be decided

00:19:14.260 in a series of head to head battles. McClellan, who was much smarter than Sherman, who had all the

00:19:19.620 credentials, who was, who was given a superior command would, would spend weeks and months waiting

00:19:25.500 and maneuvering for these large decisive battles that he, he thought would, would decisively win

00:19:30.920 the war and they never happened. And what Sherman realized is that if he took the war to the enemy,

00:19:35.820 if he took this march to the South, um, and he avoided these confrontations and he instead, he

00:19:41.900 instead, he instead focused on the objectives, the cities that he needed to take and the sort of

00:19:47.400 bringing the, what he called the hard hand of war to the Southern people, he would win. But that, 0.95

00:19:52.720 that required a certain awareness and, and, um, disdain for the, the vanity that had motivated,

00:20:00.900 these other generals. And so, you know, then the final, the final thing I talk about in the book

00:20:05.180 related to Sherman is, is after the war, Sherman is one of the most influential people in all of

00:20:09.760 America. And he's, he's essentially offered the presidency and he says, you know what? No, I, I,

00:20:14.820 I don't like politics. I have all the rank I want. I don't, I'm, I'm, the Sherman-esque statement

00:20:21.060 is his famous statement, declining to run for presidency. If, if nominated, I will not run.

00:20:26.120 If elected, I will not serve. Um, he doesn't run for presidency. Grant wins the presidency. It's the

00:20:31.420 worst thing that basically happens to him. Sherman was, was I, this model for me of someone who's

00:20:37.060 very self-contained, very self-motivated, very realistic, um, you know, not pessimistic, but

00:20:44.000 realistic in his assessment of himself and his own abilities. And I think that's what made him such a,

00:20:49.000 a powerful force ultimately, uh, you know, for, for the, for the good of the United States and,

00:20:54.060 and for his own sort of personal happiness. Right. Yeah. That contrast between Sherman

00:20:57.880 and Grant was interesting. Um, you know, Grant, yeah, went on to be the president and he was an

00:21:02.260 okay president. Like what didn't, I think he had some problems. Like there was like a lot of 1.00

00:21:06.780 corruption. It didn't go well for him. A lot of corruption within his, his presidency, et cetera.

00:21:12.740 Yeah. He basically bit off more than he could chew. He didn't have any, like Grant and I love

00:21:18.720 Grant and I wrote, I raved about him in, in obstacle, but you know, Grant, Grant was a great

00:21:23.900 general because he didn't play politics. He focused on, on the task at hand and that's why he worked

00:21:29.960 so well with Lincoln. So for him to run for president was, uh, I think in a large part, a

00:21:36.840 complete, uh, misunderstanding of his own strengths and weaknesses, but, but whatever, uh, you know,

00:21:42.580 Eisenhower ran for president and did pretty well, but so he ran for president, he did terrible. Uh,

00:21:47.980 it, it, it sort of caught him by surprise how poorly it went, um, because he wasn't a great judge

00:21:52.980 of, of character, uh, politically. And so, you know, this is where the corruption, the corruption

00:21:59.320 happened. And after his presidency, he's, he starts a brokerage house with his son and an investor

00:22:04.920 named Ferdinand Ward, who turned out to be, uh, basically a Bernie made off of his day. And it,

00:22:11.220 financially, uh, Grant is bankrupted and ruined. He ends up having to literally to pawn his civil

00:22:18.100 war mementos, his sword, um, to pay off the debts that he incurred. And, um, uh, I remember Sherman

00:22:25.460 wrote a letter. Um, I don't remember if it was two grand or someone else, but basically he was saying

00:22:29.780 how sad it was that Grant was trying to, he said, Grant aimed to rival the millionaires who would have

00:22:38.440 given anything to have won one of his battles. And so it's this inability to know sort of what's

00:22:43.560 important to you, what you actually value and try to compete with everyone else that,

00:22:48.700 that often gets us into trouble. Right. I mean, this is a perfect example of

00:22:52.580 individuals who they succeeded in one area of life and they think, oh, well I can succeed

00:22:58.160 in this other area of life just because I was successful. And this one other, I mean,

00:23:03.500 that's not how it works. Not how it works. No, it's definitely not how it works. And we think,

00:23:08.460 Hey, it was easy last time. It'll be easy this time. And we don't really understand

00:23:12.700 what went into our success the first time, oftentimes because we take it for granted.

00:23:17.300 Um, and we, we, you know, we, we give ourselves a little bit of the halo effect because I was

00:23:23.720 dominant in this area. Naturally, I must be dominant in this other area. And so you see so many people

00:23:29.780 waste so much time and money. And I mean, ultimately Grant died at like 63, partly reeling from these

00:23:38.360 failures and, and, you know, what might America have looked like? What might have his life had

00:23:44.220 looked like if he had, if he'd managed to resist that, that impulse. And, and I think that's very

00:23:50.840 sad. It's a cautionary, I'm not judging him. I'm saying it's a cautionary tale for me that I try to

00:23:57.040 live in my own life. It's like, when you, when you, when you accomplish something or you've,

00:24:02.180 you know, you've built some level of success for yourself, all of a sudden that these opportunities

00:24:06.940 start coming your way and you have to decide, Hey, which of these opportunities are in any way

00:24:12.700 adjacent or similar to what I'm already good at, you know, and do you even have an understanding of

00:24:18.280 what you're good at? Um, but ego can be this seductive force that, that really leads you astray.

00:24:24.140 Okay. So you also talk about John Boyd and we can't leave this podcast without talking about

00:24:28.380 John Boyd because he's one of my favorite characters from history. Cause he's this really

00:24:31.980 complex character, but super complex. Um, you use him as an example of not letting ego get in the

00:24:39.180 way during the aspire phase. What can we learn from the life of John Boyd about overcoming ego

00:24:44.300 in that part of our life when we're just starting out on some venture? Yeah. Well, so what I would say

00:24:50.000 is first off, if you don't read my book, you should definitely read, uh, the art of manliness

00:24:54.560 piece on the, the, the, to be or to do speech, which is, uh, obviously I was familiar with this

00:24:59.980 speech, uh, before from Robert Corum's amazing biography of Boyd, but that, that piece is, is

00:25:06.460 that, that speech is what I, I based the story of Boyd, uh, on in one of the chapters. And basically

00:25:12.540 what, what Boyd was famous for doing, people don't really know who he is. He was one of, uh,

00:25:18.120 you know, America's greatest fighter pilots, and then ultimately became sort of a warrior inside

00:25:23.240 the Pentagon for reform and efficiency and strategy change inside the U S military. And, um,

00:25:30.580 one of the, he, he was much more influential as sort of a groomer of men than he was as an actual

00:25:37.940 sort of leader of troops on the battlefield. Uh, but one of the things he would do is he, he had

00:25:44.560 this speech as, as a, as a, a young sort of acolyte would come into his orbit. He would see

00:25:50.640 them for all their potential. He would know that the sort of trajectory that most young officers

00:25:55.820 would go through, which is they would show promise. And then they would start to sort of

00:25:59.920 become addicted to the, to the status, to the trappings of, of politics and power of their office,

00:26:05.960 uh, or of their, of their post and, and how it would lead them astray and eventually make them

00:26:11.900 sort of do more harm than good. And so he would give this speech where he would draw them in and

00:26:15.680 he would say, look, you know, you're coming to a fork in the road. Are you going to be someone

00:26:21.100 that does things, or are you going to be someone who is something? So basically saying, are you going

00:26:27.240 to choose between status or influence? Are you going to choose between credit or, or, or accomplishment?

00:26:34.680 And that speech was, was what I talk about that. Cause we, we, as young people have to make that

00:26:42.860 same choice as we're starting. Are we going to focus on sort of purpose and mission, or are we

00:26:48.560 going to, or are we going to focus on, you know, impressing people or financial rewards or, or any

00:26:57.060 number of these superficial concerns that often lead many, many people, uh, astray. And so I read that

00:27:03.700 speech when I was 19 years old, it was very influential to me. And the idea of like, man,

00:27:09.080 credit is this seductive, egotistical thing that really, uh, prevents a lot of people from fulfilling

00:27:16.320 their, their true and deepest potential. And I've sort of held him up as a model in my life of someone

00:27:20.940 who said, look, I'd rather be the guy behind the scenes. I don't really care what people think of me,

00:27:25.260 but I'd rather have, I'd rather have influence than, uh, let's say power, or I'd rather have,

00:27:33.280 you know, uh, accomplishment versus credit and recognition.

00:27:40.020 Right. And that's what happened in his life. Like he, you know, didn't, he wasn't able to advance to

00:27:44.980 general. He stayed a Lieutenant Colonel for his career.

00:27:47.640 Yeah. Uh, because yeah, he was focused on these, you know, reforming the Pentagon and the brass

00:27:53.380 top brass didn't like that. And, um, but in the end, like the tactics and the strategy and the,

00:28:00.000 the whole approach to warfare that he developed that was used during the first Gulf war, um,

00:28:06.620 by the Marines. And like, it's what allowed us to like basically end the war in like a few days.

00:28:11.020 Totally. Yeah. He, he did not lead troops in battle, but he influenced the entire scope and,

00:28:19.520 uh, battle plan of all of the troops across, you know, across the different branches of the armed

00:28:26.240 forces, which is, you know, he really lived what he was talking about. There's no aircraft carrier

00:28:30.680 named after John Boyd. And, you know, he died and they were saying that somewhat dingy apartment,

00:28:35.660 but he was, he was uncorrupted and he was pure and true to what he believed in. And he, I think

00:28:42.160 ultimately accomplished far more than he would have had he, you know, coveted these, these other

00:28:48.160 things. And, you know, that's, that's something that I think every, every young person faces,

00:28:54.400 you've got to say like, look to be, or to do who, who am I going to be? What is important to me?

00:28:59.520 What, I think Sherman faced this. And I think a lot of great people, what, you know, what,

00:29:04.500 what path am I going to follow in life? Am I going to follow the one that maybe gets me paid really

00:29:10.080 well right out of the gate? Or am I going to, am I going to put in the time and the hours to,

00:29:14.740 to be self-sufficient and, and free and, and able to, uh, able to, to, to do the things that I actually

00:29:24.380 think are important and that I need to be done.

00:29:26.500 So, uh, another part thing you talk about in the book in the aspire phase that trips

00:29:30.680 particularly young people up is this idea of passion. And we've had other guests on the show

00:29:34.580 talk about how passion can trip people up. Um, but instead of passion, right, I know we shouldn't

00:29:40.960 have passion and we can talk about why, but what should we have instead of passion?

00:29:46.360 Well, I think, uh, you know, I, I'm, I'm using passion in the, in the more pure sense of its

00:29:51.680 definition, like what the Greeks would say, the passions, right? Like the, the sort of,

00:29:56.500 the uncontrollable urges and energy that, that they sort of saw as, as dangerous, I think.

00:30:03.300 So when I hear people go, I'm following my passion, I sort of get the sense that they're

00:30:07.260 just being whipped around by something that they don't quite control. Um, I would, I would

00:30:13.060 contrast passion with, with purpose. Um, purpose is, this is what, you know, purpose is the John

00:30:21.000 Boyd, the John Boyd approach. It's, this is what is important. This is what I'm trying to do. This

00:30:26.780 is the larger mission that I'm serving rather than, you know, um, I've just got to do this.

00:30:33.660 I'm so passionate. I'm so excited. Let's go, let's go, let's go. I think purpose is deliberative and,

00:30:39.480 and patient and, uh, controlled and, and passion is, is zealous and, and, and unrestrained.

00:30:47.680 And so I think someone with purpose is able to sacrifice. They're able to play a longer game.

00:30:53.780 They're, they're able to, uh, you know, put up with things that maybe, uh, they would have rather

00:30:59.540 not had to like Jackie Robinson was not passionate about baseball. Jackie Robinson, uh, you know,

00:31:06.880 integrated baseball as someone on a mission of immense purpose. And that's what allowed him to say,

00:31:13.460 you know, not punch someone in the face who deserve to be punched in the face. Um, or, 0.64

00:31:18.500 or, you know, not at branch Ricky said, you know, I want someone who has the guts not to fight back.

00:31:23.820 Uh, someone with purpose has that someone with passion is, is I think sort of a, you know,

00:31:29.420 a vessel that can barely contain itself. Right. I had, uh, Angela Duckworth on the podcast

00:31:33.860 last week and that's what she'd like her. She's like the grit lady. Yeah. And yeah, she says purpose

00:31:38.940 is the thing you got to have. That's what allows you to have, or one of the factors allows you to have

00:31:42.080 grit to see things through the long through. And you have this, this purpose that you're dedicated

00:31:46.160 to. And even when things get tough, you're still going to stick to it. And yeah, and passion is

00:31:51.060 fleeting, right? It's, it's emotionally based. Um, and so one day you might feel great and super

00:31:56.280 passionate and excited, but the next day, eh, not so much. And yeah. Or like, I see this with a lot

00:32:03.000 of authors, right? They'll go like, Oh, I'm passionate. I want to do a book. And it'll be like, about what?

00:32:08.340 They're like, I don't know. And it's like, okay. Uh, someone who has purpose is saying,

00:32:12.500 this is what I believe. And this is what I want to communicate to the world. And maybe a book is the

00:32:19.280 best way for me to do that. Or when they decide that a book is the best way to do it, then they're

00:32:23.800 all in. But passion is, Hey, someone said I should do this. And now, uh, that's why I'm doing it. And

00:32:29.580 let's go right now. You know what I mean? Uh, uh, you know, um, it was at Christopher McCandless.

00:32:36.560 He's passionate about the wild. I want to go into the wild. I got to pursue this calling.

00:32:41.240 And then he goes there and he's not remotely trained or knowledgeable enough to do it. And he,

00:32:45.780 he dies a tragic, unnecessary death there. Um, and you know, Hey, we've got to make it to the summit

00:32:51.840 of Everest, even though, uh, all the warnings are against it. And, uh, you know, everyone is saying

00:32:58.760 it's a bad idea. Passion is able to override that. Um, you know, and, and, and get past it. That's,

00:33:08.160 that, that's not admirable to me, admirable to me, you know, Shackleton, I've got to get back to my

00:33:14.420 men. I've got to rescue my men. That's purpose. You know, that's, that is admirable to me.

00:33:20.120 All right. So we've been talking about the aspire phase and I can see how this can, this,

00:33:24.200 this part of, um, the phase, the life cycle of any venture can trip up a lot of young people.

00:33:29.740 Cause yeah, we get these grandiose ideas. We, we get those motivational posters, put them on

00:33:35.140 Instagram, talking about how we're going to do great things, blah, blah, blah. And a lot more talk,

00:33:38.820 a lot less action. So yeah, I guess the bottom line is in the aspire phase, just more action, less talk.

00:33:45.500 Yes. Yes. More action, less talk and more openness and, and less

00:33:49.780 certainty and self-absorption. Okay. So let's move on to the success phase. Um, you, you, people,

00:33:56.060 you, you aspire to it, you've set your goals, you've worked, you achieve success. And I think

00:34:00.880 it was Napoleon who said that, you know, the most dangerous moment in any battle is that the moment

00:34:05.440 of victory. Um, so how, why is that? Why does, how does success get in the way of success?

00:34:13.220 Well, I think what Napoleon is saying is that it's at that moment of victory that you can wrote,

00:34:21.440 you, you think that you've earned the right to relax. You think that, that that's where you make

00:34:27.720 your gravest mistakes. And in many ways, the stakes are highest at that moment as well. So,

00:34:32.560 you know, that it's, it's in, it's, you might be, you might've been disciplined when you were on the

00:34:39.580 ascent because you sort of knew you needed to be, but now you're successful or you feel like you've

00:34:45.160 earned some victory. Now chaos and disorder might, may take over or, or bad habits that were suppressed

00:34:52.560 early on now come, come home, home to roost. And so what, what I think success requires is not,

00:35:01.820 or what set, what success needs is not ego, not, uh, complacency, but sort of a doubling down on the

00:35:09.140 good habits that, that created that success in the first place. So, uh, you know, you know, if,

00:35:16.620 if, if, if it was your dedication to learning that, that, that, that took you to this place,

00:35:22.680 one cannot say, well, and now I know everything I need to know. So it's all good. It's, it's,

00:35:27.800 you know, Genghis Khan says, uh, or I talk about Genghis Khan in the book and that really what was so

00:35:34.020 profound about him as a conqueror was that at, at every, every new country he took over, he, he saw as a,

00:35:40.440 as essentially a superior culture that he needed to absorb into his empire and into his

00:35:46.560 way of thinking, what can I learn from this enemy that I just vanquished? You know, what is the best

00:35:50.780 that their society has to offer? I'll be saying, you know, if you feel pride, you cannot lead. Uh,

00:35:56.360 and, and this, this, uh, this idea that one must always remain a student and one must always, uh,

00:36:06.340 resist the impulse to feel like that this success that they've achieved says something about them as a

00:36:13.120 person, that it says that you're better than you were before you had the success.

00:36:20.280 So I get the idea about always being a student, like maintain that white belt mentality. Um, 0.91

00:36:26.160 yeah. I thought one of the chapters that you had, it was interesting was about,

00:36:28.700 like you said, mentioned earlier, like doubling down on the habits or actions you did to get you

00:36:35.320 to the success and continue that and actually like developing a system. Um, yeah. And I think that's,

00:36:41.060 uh, that's a hard for a lot of really like entrepreneurs, artists, writers, they think

00:36:46.100 that sort of stodgy and stifles creativity, but you argue that that's actually what's going to allow

00:36:50.080 you to continue your success that you've gained. Sure. I'll give you an example of this. It's a

00:36:55.900 somewhat current one. So Donald Trump has run probably one of the most impressive presidential

00:37:01.020 campaigns of the last century. I don't admire him as a politician at all. I think he's a horrendous

00:37:08.020 person, but, um, it's, it's one cannot help, but be blown away that the fact that this guy

00:37:15.000 beat out 16 or 17 other candidates, uh, totally on his own with a staff of like five people.

00:37:21.380 Like it's pretty, it's, it's astounding when you think about how little he spent, how little

00:37:28.360 experience he had in this and the, you know, billions of dollars of free media attention that

00:37:33.760 he's been able to do to, to cobble together this nomination. Right. So you could argue that

00:37:39.420 previously he was in the aspirational phase and now he's achieved some measure of success

00:37:44.220 in that he's now the presumptive nominee as we're talking. I don't know when this comes out,

00:37:49.680 uh, if he'll actually be the nominee yet. I don't think so, but he'll be the nominee. Right. And so

00:37:54.440 he could be forgiven for thinking like, let's say, God forbid, he wins the presidency.

00:37:59.580 If he thinks that the, the sort of amateur esque, you know, tiny team that he managed to win the

00:38:07.660 campaign with is going to function, uh, the same way in terms of governing the, one of the most

00:38:14.240 powerful countries in the world, he's going to be sorely mistaken. And in fact, we saw the same

00:38:18.660 thing happen with the Obama campaign when they won in 2008. Um, they felt like, I remember there was,

00:38:27.000 there was a lot of interesting articles. They built this sort of technologically, uh, uh, based team.

00:38:33.540 It was decentralized. It was, it was fast moving. It was filled with lots of young people. So all this

00:38:39.260 stuff. And then they just assumed it would naturally transfer over to the bureaucracy that is, you know,

00:38:44.480 the executive branch of the United States. And then they were rudely surprised when, Hey, they weren't

00:38:49.880 using the same computers that there were legal constraints and that you had to run things through

00:38:55.160 certain processes. And Hey, all of a sudden the things that got you there, aren't the things that

00:38:59.940 are going to allow you to be successful once you're there. And so I think that's similar to a lot of us.

00:39:04.680 Like we can be, we can be scrappy and fluid and loose on our way up. And I've certain, I've certainly

00:39:10.920 had to go through some of these growing pains myself. Um, but then once you've arrived, you have to,

00:39:16.700 now you're the man, you know, you were, you were railing against the man before, but now you're the man

00:39:22.200 and people are counting on you and expecting certain things from you. And you're expected

00:39:27.600 to perform and operate at a certain level that, you know, things you were able to get away with

00:39:34.520 before are not possible now. And, you know, you could argue maybe that that's what sunk Ulysses S.

00:39:40.920 Grant, uh, versus a Dwight D. Eisenhower who came in and, and really instituted a sense of order and

00:39:47.800 purpose and, and discipline to, to, to the white house. But that requires a sense that, Hey,

00:39:53.880 maybe the way that I want to do things are not the way that things are going to have to be. And I'm

00:39:58.060 going to, I'm going to be okay accepting that I'm going to put in the hard work to do what needs to

00:40:01.540 be done. Well, I'm curious, Ryan, I mean, you're a writer. Um, how have you, and you're a successful

00:40:06.360 one. Um, how has your approach to your craft and your business changed, uh, since you've gained

00:40:13.240 success? I mean, Austin with the way is New York times bestseller, right? Uh, not New York times,

00:40:18.400 but it is sold very, very well. Um, which, which, you know, in some ways, I don't want to say it

00:40:23.340 caught me off guard, but it certainly sold better than I expected. And as I finished this book, you

00:40:27.660 know, I think one of the things you have to, you have to do in that position is, is okay. Now the

00:40:31.920 expectations are higher. You know, I'm not freed from those expectations. I have to deliver to an

00:40:38.220 audience. Uh, I have to, I have to hit a certain mark, right? And ideally in a career, you're always

00:40:43.480 getting better than you were before. So now the expectations have changed and that's something

00:40:47.200 that's managed or that, that has to be managed. But I think the big thing that happens when people

00:40:52.760 are successful, whether you're a writer or an entrepreneur, uh, or, or even executive is that

00:40:58.200 you more responsibilities and obligations are thrust upon you. So where I was able to write the last book

00:41:06.940 without as many interruptions, you know, now I've got interviews that I have to do or speaking gigs

00:41:12.380 that I have to do, or my business is taking off. So I have more clients. Now, if I don't have the

00:41:17.800 discipline to institute a system or a schedule that I stick to, or if I'm not able to prioritize

00:41:24.280 and I treat everything that happens equally, that is a recipe for, uh, dropping some major balls,

00:41:32.280 making errors, you know, um, uh, letting people down, you know, you talk, I mentioned Eisenhower,

00:41:38.760 you guys have an amazing post on Eisenhower's priority matrix about urgency versus important.

00:41:44.780 Uh, that's, that is the situation that success puts you in is you've got so many demands on your time

00:41:51.940 that if you can't properly prioritize and order them and deal with them, deal with them accordingly,

00:41:58.580 you're going to find yourself consumed with some trivial matter that you used to,

00:42:03.120 that used to be part of your job, but, but you, you're too egotistical to, uh, to delegate.

00:42:09.440 And so, you know, those are just some of the ways that you find yourself, you know,

00:42:14.120 in a position of abundance, certainly, but that doesn't mean that there are not problems related

00:42:18.660 to it.

00:42:19.100 Right. I think that in just the delegation, right? There's lots of books and articles about

00:42:22.600 delegating, but I think, yeah, the thing that keeps people from delegating is ego. They think

00:42:26.240 that I can do this better than the other guy. I'm going to delegate this to totally. And,

00:42:30.720 and here's why it's egotistical. You're right. You pro I can do most of the things that I have

00:42:36.480 to delegate. I mean, there's this stuff I don't like, like, you know, booking travel or, you know,

00:42:41.180 scheduling. I don't like that. But a lot of the things that I now have to delegate, uh, I like

00:42:47.040 doing, or I know that I'm really good at, but you have to be able to do the calculation that says,

00:42:53.020 hey, uh, I'm handing this off to this person and it's going to be done, you know, 10% not as well

00:43:00.480 going forward. But the trade-off for that is I have to do this other thing. And I'm the only person

00:43:07.060 in the world that can do that thing. You know, like I'm the only one that can write my books.

00:43:11.760 I mean, I guess theoretically there's ghostwriters, but given that this is my job, I'm the only one that

00:43:16.540 can do that. So, you know, Kobe Bryant, uh, you know, he's the only one that can get on the court

00:43:23.340 and play as Kobe Bryant. So as these endorsements and, you know, maybe he's actually great at

00:43:30.360 negotiating contracts and it seems silly to give someone a 15% commission for negotiating your

00:43:36.160 contracts for you. But if that's distracting from the training that he has to do, or that's,

00:43:42.380 that's occupying his mind. So he's not thinking about the next game with the same dedication that

00:43:47.880 he did before, all of a sudden his performance on the court is going to suffer. And, you know,

00:43:52.860 I'm not Kobe Bryant. I'm not saying that, but all of us deal with that problem in our own way,

00:43:57.200 that we're the only ones that could do some of the things. And, uh, if we're not able to delegate,

00:44:05.000 those things are going to suffer. Like there's a quote I have in the book from,

00:44:07.940 from Eisenhower's chief of staff. He's saying the president does the most important things

00:44:12.840 and I do the next most important things. And if you can't build the approximation of that,

00:44:18.700 you know, into your own life, once you're successful, I don't think success is going

00:44:23.320 to last that long for you, or it's going to be very miserable. Yeah. So let's talk about, uh,

00:44:28.160 failure. Everyone's going to fail at some point in their life. How is ego the enemy when we fail?

00:44:33.720 That's like the moment we fail. It's like when you think people would like that, you wouldn't,

00:44:36.960 you wouldn't have any ego, right? Or do you think that ego was helpful because it would help you

00:44:43.140 sort of protect you in that moment of vulnerability? Right. But in fact, the vulnerability is good

00:44:48.880 because, and you, and it, by preventing you from having it, it's preventing you from,

00:44:53.540 from capitalizing on it. So it's like, you know, let's say, uh, you were egotistical in your success

00:44:59.920 and you alienated people and you, you, you made some mistake or you overreached, you know,

00:45:06.080 failure is in that way is a moment of truth, right? It's exposing this thing that maybe you

00:45:12.760 didn't want to be true. And the worst thing that can happen is for you to bury your head in the sand,

00:45:18.400 right? The worst thing that can happen is that, you know, you hit what should be rock bottom,

00:45:23.660 but you're too hard headed to accept that that's what in fact has happened. And that happens a lot.

00:45:28.880 Like, I mean, think about Steve jobs, right? Steve jobs is fired from Apple, uh, in, you know,

00:45:34.440 uh, by, by John Scully, uh, because he'd, he'd become unmanageable. He was unaccountable. He was,

00:45:40.080 he was basically unhinged. He could have taken that and said, this guy screwed me over. Uh, 0.98

00:45:47.240 you know, I, you know, he screwed me over. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I'm

00:45:52.100 going to retire with my money and millions and live a life of luxury or whatever. But instead he said,

00:45:58.120 he basically, you know, and he was an egotistical person, but he started two other companies and

00:46:04.100 those companies were better than Apple. And he learned from those mistakes. I mean, one of those

00:46:08.200 companies was Pixar. Um, he learned from those mistakes. He went on a journey of, of self

00:46:13.500 improvement and, and introspection. And ultimately he came back from back to Apple and built it into

00:46:19.440 the world's most valuable company. But, uh, that's not what most people do when they're fired.

00:46:24.460 Most people get fired and then they hold a grudge and they, they believe that they've

00:46:28.840 been screwed over or wrong and they continue down that negative path. It becomes a, a downward

00:46:35.020 spiral for them. And so what ego does when we fail is it refuses to learn the lessons inherent in that

00:46:43.960 failure and set us up for greater failure. Right. I think you call this narcissistic injury.

00:46:49.920 Yeah. Yeah. Narcissistic injury. It is a psychological term. It's like what, when something

00:46:56.560 happens and we take that as an, as an injury to our identity and to our fragile sense of self,

00:47:02.840 like when gang members kill each other, it's, it's, it's a funny, it's funny, it's tragic,

00:47:08.520 but it's funny. It's like the things they kill each other over are these things that a normal person

00:47:13.340 would be like, wait, what do you care that he said that about you? Like, you know, but because

00:47:18.240 they're so their narcissistic ego is so fragile, the idea that someone would bump up against them or

00:47:24.740 that someone would disrespect them, you know, in, in quotes leads them to do this horrible thing that

00:47:30.800 is, you know, obviously going to jail is far worse than, you know, somebody tagging a wall in your

00:47:37.500 neighborhood or whatever, but the narcissistic injury, it's, it's so fragile that it has to sort

00:47:43.560 of deal with this threat in an overblown, you know, preposterous fashion. And so I think so much

00:47:51.160 of what ha so much of what happens to us when we're, when we're consumed by ego is that we,

00:47:58.220 we, we take, we take the success that we've achieved and we say that it says something about

00:48:04.200 us as a person. And then logically when we fail or when we're, you know, we're snubbed by someone

00:48:11.220 or we're disrespected by someone, we take that as a statement about our identity as well.

00:48:17.340 And often that, that makes us overreact in such a, uh, a damaging fashion that it, that it's far

00:48:23.780 worse than, than whatever had happened already.

00:48:26.100 Right. And on the flip side, it doesn't even have to be someone else doing something to you. It

00:48:29.320 could just be like fate, you know, just like luck chance totally cause you to fail, right? You started

00:48:34.320 your business at the wrong time. There's a downturn in the economy yet because of that narcissistic

00:48:39.180 ego, you would think of the, well, it's something I did, right? I messed up even though like anyone

00:48:44.940 else in your position would have done the exact same thing.

00:48:48.120 Sure. And, and ego makes it hard to ask for help. It makes it hard for you to re-evaluate

00:48:53.520 your decisions. It makes, it makes it impossible for you to see this thing objectively because you're

00:48:58.440 so tied up in it. And so it either makes, uh, you know, it makes what, what could have been a,

00:49:04.360 a small, you know, a small problem into a full blown catastrophe, or it just delays the inevitable.

00:49:11.580 It's kicking the can down the road. And when, and when you, when you, you know,

00:49:16.820 come back to it, it's worse. Uh, there's so many people, you know, they narrowly dodge a crisis,

00:49:24.400 but instead of learning from it, uh, the next crisis is just, you know, 10 X, you know, more explosive.

00:49:31.480 So, uh, Ryan, we've been talking about how ego, uh, can be the enemy, but is ego always a bad thing?

00:49:37.500 Cause like, you know, look, I'm a big student of history. Churchill was an admitted egoist,

00:49:42.060 right? Extremely. Like he was, he was supremely egotistical. Even Teddy Roosevelt, you could say

00:49:46.720 was supremely egotistical. Um, yet ego is like what drove these guys, what they were doing. They feel

00:49:54.240 like they had something to offer people, right? There's so that, that, that, um, narcissism that they,

00:49:59.060 they felt that they were, they were the guys who were there to save democracy or like, you know,

00:50:04.700 Teddy Roosevelt in his case, you know, clean up the muck, you know, that was in the corruption

00:50:08.260 that was going on. So, I mean, how can you balance that? I mean, what is going on there? Is that,

00:50:13.100 would you call that ego or is it something else or is some kind of egos can sometimes be beneficial

00:50:18.380 in small doses? Yeah. I mean, look, that's, that's the fascinating question about this. Why,

00:50:23.360 why are there so many incredibly successful, accomplished, even admirable people who,

00:50:28.700 who did have big egos? Um, a friend of mine, um, uh, Daniel O'Brien wrote a book about, uh,

00:50:36.720 presidents and his, like, he starts, he's like, look, to realize, to, to be told when you're like

00:50:42.460 10 or 11 years old, you know, that they're, the president is the most powerful man in the world.

00:50:46.900 And to think like, Oh, that should be me like requires a certain amount of ego and maybe even

00:50:52.140 a bit of insanity. And so, you know, there's no question that people who feel that unending drive

00:50:58.320 to not just be successful, but to be like the number one person on earth, that's going to require

00:51:03.800 a certain amount of ego, I think. But when you look at people like Winston Churchill or, uh, we'll start

00:51:09.280 with Churchill. Churchill was on the one hand, incredibly talented, super smart, courageous,

00:51:16.900 wise, you know, honorable, all these amazing things. I think that's why he was successful,

00:51:23.620 not because of his ego. You know, a lot of musicians were drug dealer or sorry, were drug addicts, but

00:51:29.380 that wasn't what fueled their music. In fact, that took away from it. And like, when you look at

00:51:33.640 Churchill's life, often he was right so often, but he couldn't, he alienated many people and he would

00:51:44.280 hurt, he would hurt his own chances of success because he didn't understand that the way that he

00:51:51.960 dominated conversations, the way that he overstepped his bounds, the way that he impeded other people's

00:51:58.680 things. Like he was convinced that being right all the time was all that mattered. And in fact,

00:52:05.800 if he'd had a little bit more empathy and a little bit more understanding, he'd have been probably more

00:52:09.780 successful. And, and then, you know, his, his, his deep conviction that he was right about Nazi Germany, 0.76

00:52:17.300 whereas everyone else was wrong. That was that, that work when he was right in that instance,

00:52:23.440 but there were other times in his career where he felt he was equally right and had unending

00:52:28.520 confidence and, and egotism convinced that, you know, he was that and he was wrong. And so it's a

00:52:34.220 double-edged sword. And I think, you know, someone like TR is similar in the sense that if, if you watch

00:52:39.680 the, the Roosevelt documentary that, that, um, that, uh, Ken Burns just did, it's the same thing. You see this guy

00:52:46.780 who, who, who, who at the end of his life is so, has so clearly been driven by this compulsion that

00:52:52.920 he cannot be still, he cannot do anything that it, you know, it forced him to run for his disastrous

00:52:58.300 sort of third term. Uh, he turned on his protege who was one of his close friends. You know, he, he,

00:53:05.060 he did this adventure in, in South South America that nearly killed him. He forced his kids to fight

00:53:10.940 in world war one where they died. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily being easy or it

00:53:16.500 wasn't necessarily easy to be Theodore Roosevelt. And I think some of us would have, some of us would

00:53:22.960 be aghast at the cost of that ego in his personal life as well. So yeah, it's a double-edged sword.

00:53:31.380 Uh, I think so. It, it, it forces you, it, it, it, in, in some ways you have to be a little bit

00:53:39.640 crazy to, to go this far, but it's, it's, it's a gamble whether that craziness is ultimately going

00:53:47.560 to sort of take a, a hard toll on you as well. And, and so it's like, when we look at these really

00:53:52.660 successful egotists, we also want to look back and think, okay, is there, is there a politician who

00:53:59.480 was just as egotistical as Winston Churchill, whose career ended disastrously because of that

00:54:05.880 ego? Almost certainly so. And so- Adolf Hitler. Yeah, right, right. You, you, the survivorship 0.92

00:54:12.760 bias gives us a warped picture of, of these things, I think. Right. Well, Ryan, this has been a great

00:54:19.220 conversation. Uh, where can people learn more about Ego is the Enemy? So the book is available

00:54:24.660 everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, um, coming out in a bunch of different languages, which I'm

00:54:30.160 really excited about. And then you can go to my website, ryanholiday.net and, uh, read my stuff

00:54:35.560 there. Awesome. Well, Ryan Holiday, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:54:39.200 Thanks, man. I appreciate it. It's always good to talk to you.

00:54:41.420 My guest today was Ryan Holiday. He's the author of the book, Ego is the Enemy. You can find more

00:54:45.700 information about his work and the book at ryanholiday.net. And it also is available at amazon.com

00:54:50.440 and bookstores everywhere. Also make sure to check out the show notes for this podcast at

00:54:54.000 aom.is slash ego. Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For

00:55:10.660 more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at

00:55:13.580 artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy the show, I'd really appreciate it. If you give us a review

00:55:17.260 on iTunes, help us spread the word about the show. As always, I appreciate your continued support.

00:55:21.300 And until next time, this is Brent McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - June 23, 2016

#212： Ego is the Enemy

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