#212： Ego is the Enemy
Episode Stats
Summary
In the quest to become the men we want to be, we are often our own worst enemies. In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, Brett McKay and Ryan Holiday discuss how ego can hinder our personal progress and success as men.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So in the quest
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to become the men we want to be, we're often our own worst enemies, especially when it comes to
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our egos. Egos is what prevents us from being humble and teachable when we're first starting
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out in an endeavor. It blinds us to our own weaknesses during success and it can cause us
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to wallow in self-pity when we fail. My guest today is Ryan Holiday and in his latest book,
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Ego is the Enemy, he discusses how ego can thwart our personal progress and success as men.
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Today on the show, we look at examples from history of great men whose hubris caused their
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downfall and other men who were able to successfully harness their ego to attain greatness. Along the
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way, provide actionable steps that you can do to prevent ego becoming your enemy. After the
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podcast is over, make sure you check out the show notes at aom.is slash ego, where you can find links
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to resources mentioned throughout the show. As without further ado, Ryan Holiday and Ego is the
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Yeah, it's good to be here. I think the last time we talked, you were recording this from
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your closet and I could see you on the thing. Yeah, well, I'm still recording from my closet.
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All right. Okay, very cool. You just can't see me. Still going old school here. So you got a new
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book out, Ego is the Enemy. Before we talk about the details of the book, let's start off talking
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about what do you mean by ego exactly? Are we talking Freudian ego? What is it?
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Yeah, so definitely not Freudian ego, not even psychologist ego. I think I'm referring to it,
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well, I know I'm referring to it. I'm referring to it in the colloquial sense, the sort of know it
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when you see it ego. You know, what Bill Walsh would say is when self-confidence becomes arrogance,
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you know, when I'm using it as an umbrella term to define sort of all of the characteristics
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in which sort of the normal confidence, normal self-assurance, normal sort of goal-seeking
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behavior bleeds over into the sort of toxic self-absorption and toxic selfishness and
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compulsion that leads to negative outcomes. So I'm referring to not, oh, is that guy literally
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an egomaniac, but much more, you know, what are these traits that make us our own worst enemy
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that put us at odds with the things that we say that we're trying to achieve?
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Okay. All right. And I think what you're talking about is a timeless idea. I mean, it seems like
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a lot of the major religions or philosophies have talked about how ego can get in the way
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Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think at the root of every Greek tragedy, for instance, is hubris. And
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hubris would be a form of ego, you know, even if that word didn't necessarily exist. The idea of,
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you know, what happens when our sense of realism is replaced with delusions of grandeur? What do we do?
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What happens when we overestimate our own importance? You know, it's a thing that essentially
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every religion and every philosophy ever has warned against. It just happens that today,
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I think we, you know, instead of warning against a lot of these things, we actually hold them up as,
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as, you know, positive attributes. This is what every motivational speaker is out there
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encouraging is, is sort of ego in one form or another, sadly.
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Yeah. I mean, it seems like our culture today promotes this unhealthy, exaggerated ego. And you just
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talked about like the motivational speakers and the, but like a lot of the books about business
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and entrepreneurship, it's all about being self-promoting, like, you know, name it and take
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Yeah. And I mean, just think of what social media is. It's your, it's not supposed to reflect your
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actual life. It's supposed to reflect your idealized life. And the, you know, I think a lot of it is
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rooted in what you're just saying, this idea of sort of faking it until you make it. That, that's a
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very, that, that's, that's a seductive egotistical idea that, you know, in my opinion, or in my
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experience doesn't, doesn't normally work out well for people, but you know, you're supposed to dare
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greatly and, and have these grand visions of success and ambition and, and, you know, pursue your passion
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and your calling. We, we say a lot of these things, but they're not tempered with any sort of real
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purpose or any real understanding, or in a lot of cases, we're encouraging them without any hard
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work either. Right. And so it, it, it creates a, it creates a scenario in which our, our grandiose
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impulses are encouraged and excited. And then the things that are supposed to temper and balance that
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out are left by the wayside. Gotcha. And we'll get into more of those things into detail, but for you,
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like, what inspired you to write this book, Ego is the Enemy? Was it events in your own life,
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just observations from culture, or is it in some way a continuation of your work you started in
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The Obstacle is the Way? It's a, it's a little bit of both, I think. So Obstacle is the Way was about
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external obstacles and how people can be sort of rational and creative and strategic about dealing
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with those obstacles and, and sort of using the, the stoic mindset in which to do so. And so I was
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sort of thinking about what comes next after that. I was really thinking, okay, what makes doing that
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so hard for people? And what is the biggest obstacle that most people face? And, you know,
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in my own experience and a lot of the people that I get emails from and my client work and the sort of
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powerful, important people I've worked for, I, what I kept sort of sensing was that the enemy for most
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of us is ourselves. It's not, you know, we, you know, DJ Khaled likes to talk about the they that
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are, you know, they don't want you to have this. They don't, in reality, most people don't like,
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you know, the, the, the world is indifferent to you. What prevents people from achieving what they want
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to achieve is, is oftentimes their own bad habits, their own bad impulses. It's, it's, you know,
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their own ego that's getting in their way. And, and ego is what prevents, you know, looking at a
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situation rationally, not taking it personally. It's what prevents, you know, persistence and
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perseverance, because we feel like we shouldn't have to do these things. So it was sort of a coalescing
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of these two different, you know, trains of thought that I had that, that, you know, ego prevents the
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hard work of, of overcoming obstacles. And ironically, ego tends to be its own enormous
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obstacle. And so that's, that's sort of where I was coming from the book. And originally the book was
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going to be about humility, which I know you guys have written a lot about. And I, I mean, you can
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tell me if, if you think I'm off base here, but I found that sort of talking about humility, one,
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it's a difficult thing to talk about because the first question is like, are you humble? Right?
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So it's like a different thing. It's a difficult thing to talk about, but also humility doesn't tend
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to be very inspirational to people. Right? So it's, it's difficult. I found that almost all the stories
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of humility sound more or less the same. They're not, they're not super action oriented. And so when I
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was thinking about writing about humility, I was trying to think of what is a way to come at it that
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would captivate people's attention and, and sort of actually be of practical use. And I realized that,
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you know, in many ways, ego is the opposite of humility. And so I decided to focus on ego as being
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this, you know, this impediment to the humility that we want and that we need. And so that's where
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the book came from. Right. So you inverted, right? Instead of focusing on humility, you focused on the
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opposite of it, but by doing that, you were able to talk about humility.
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Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I think one talk about humility in a way that is actionable and
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interesting to people, but two, I mean, it's a little bit of the, the, the message of the book
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itself in that, you know, you sit down and you think you have one idea for a book. This is what
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you think you're going to do. And I mean, I had a contract to write a book about this topic.
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And then I, as I was going through the material and, and mostly as I was doing my research and writing
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my notes and starting to sketch out this book, I realized that my, my vision or my plan was flawed
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and it wasn't going to work as I originally planned it. And so I think, you know, when people ask, you
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know, why does humility matter? Why does, you know, why is ego bad? In the most practical sense,
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any sort of creative pursuit or entrepreneurial venture, you start out with a sort of a gut instinct
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or an idea. But if you're not going to be open to feedback from the world, if you're, if you're
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going to be so certain that you're instinctually right, um, you're not going to be able to adapt
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and change when it turns out that things were more complicated than you thought, or that maybe you
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hadn't, you didn't have the experience or you hadn't considered something yet. And so it's only an
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actually doing the thing and then being open to learning from it, that you're able to, to,
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to grow and improve. And, and, you know, this book wouldn't have been possible had I been convinced
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that I was immediately in, uh, you know, unassailably correct with, with my original plan.
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Right. So you had to, you had to overcome the ego to write your book about overcoming the ego.
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Yeah. I mean, you know, you write a book proposal and the publisher says, we don't like it. You can
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say, Hey, screw you. I'm going to self-publish or screw you. I'm going to sell it to someone else. Or you
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can say, well, maybe I don't agree with why you don't like it, but something is clearly not right.
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And so why do I, I need to go back to the drawing board and, you know, do another pass at this and
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then another pass. And then actually making the book is, or making any project is, I think craft
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is inherently ego killing because every day you're struggling against some problem or, you know,
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you're falling short in the pursuit of perfection.
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Yeah. So, um, let's talk, the way you organize the book is interesting. You, you break it up into
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three sections and they correlate to three phases that you say people constantly find themselves in.
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Yeah. So, so, I mean, this might be getting a little too insider for people, but I believe that
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every book should have a three part structure. And this came to me from Sean Coyne, who is Steven
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Pressfield's editor, who's done a, you know, amazing books like the war of art and, and gates
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of fire. Um, but you know, all of, you know, going back to Greek literature, you've got your,
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your, in Aristotle, you've got your, your three part structure. Um, and so I was trying to think,
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you know, what is the three part structure? My last book was perception, action, and will,
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um, the three part structure of, of ego I felt was that we're, when we're starting out,
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ego is destructive because it, it prevents us from learning. It makes us think we're better than
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we are. You know, it, it, it, uh, makes us want to move too quickly, you know, a number of destructive,
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um, uh, destructive traits. And then after we aspire, you know, if we've conquered our ego there,
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then we achieve success, uh, in some way. Um, so, you know, we've, we've gotten a great job,
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you know, we've signed our first deal, we've been, you know, chosen in the draft, whatever it is,
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we're, we're achieving some measure of success. Well, now ego manifests itself in another number
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of ways, right? It's feeling like you've suddenly arrived, that you're better than everyone else,
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uh, that it's going to be amazing from here on out, you know, now maybe you've got people working
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under you. And so power is, is, uh, you know, the, the, the, the corruptive nature of, of power is,
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is warping on onto your ego. Um, maybe you feel like you've learned everything that there is to
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learn. Um, the, these are the effects of ego and the success phase of our life. And then,
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you know, as we know, successful people either aspire to some new level of success. So they're
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essentially going back to the next step or they, they fail in some way, or they, they find out that
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success is, uh, has, it's, has a new set of difficulties, right? Now, all of a sudden they're in a,
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uh, they're attacked by a media outlet or, you know, the, the market shifts or, uh, someone,
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a competitor comes after them. So now they're dealing with adversity or difficulty or failure.
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And so ego here manifests itself in a number of other ways that are also destructive. Um,
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you know, it's taking this thing personally, believing that you've been screwed over and
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giving into resentment or hatred, or it's, uh, it's, you know, you, maybe you, maybe you're,
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you found yourself in a, in a state of difficulty because you screwed up, you did something wrong.
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Well, can you admit that you did something wrong and can you, can you learn from this? Or do you
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decide, Hey, uh, I'm doubling down on the, on the problems that got me here. So whether you're,
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you're aspiring, you're succeeding, or you're dealing with some form of adversity, ego is really,
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uh, the least helpful variable that you could introduce into any of those phases of your life.
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And I feel like we're in sort of a, a constant, uh, fluid transition along that spectrum over the
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I imagine it's possible to be in those three phases, the same time in different fat, like
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different phases at the same time in different facets of your life. So maybe you're totally
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right. Aspiring with your career, but you succeeded in some other, you know, I don't know,
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you're, you've run a marathon or something like that and you did well. You're that.
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Yeah, absolutely. Or to your, you know, you're successful on the one hand and then you've started
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this other venture on the other. And so, you know, if, if you're bringing your ego of success,
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like, you know, um, you know, someone is a, someone's a, uh, a rapper that they decide to
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become an actor, right? You're, you can be egotistical in your, in your musical profession.
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And maybe you're getting away with it because you're so successful, even though it's, it's
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causing problems for you. But if you bring that ego to this new thing that you're starting
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and you're, you're convinced that that ego is, is, uh, is transferable, you're going to
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be rudely surprised when you're not nearly as good at that thing as you maybe think that
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you are. And you're not going to be able to, to improve and take, you know, feedback and,
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and work well with others and, and, you know, sort of hustle and build the relationships
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that you need to succeed in that other field. And so, um, that that's, that's where ego is
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such a tricky thing is that, you know, we never, we're never permanently in any of these phases
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where we're always doing and trying new things. And, and, uh, you know, maybe a project is partially
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successful and partially not successful. And our ego is, is what's going to sort of determine
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that balance, I think. So like you did in obstacles of the way, uh, you went to history
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to find examples of individuals who, uh, were good models of these different, of, of ego,
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either getting in the way or, or them overcoming ego in these different phases of life. And the
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aspire phase, you talk about the civil war general Sherman, uh, who is, you know, controversial,
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uh, figure. Um, but what can Sherman teach about managing our ego in the aspire phase?
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Yeah. I mean, I, I do think it is, it's interesting that he's a controversial figure. I don't totally
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understand the, the controversy 150 years removed from the event, but what I think so fascinating
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about Sherman is that, uh, he was unlike a typical, you know, our sort of stereotype of a great general,
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maybe it's a MacArthur or a McClellan or, um, you know, a Napoleon who sort of believe themselves
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to be marked for greatness from like the day that they were born. Sherman never really had any of
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that. In fact, you know, he was, he was, uh, he was basically orphaned as a young boy. He grew up,
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he was adopted. He, he got into West Point, but he did not, uh, it was not particularly distinguished
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there. He had a series of, of sort of backwater postings. He was like, he was a figure during the
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gold rush and that, uh, you know, he, he actually held the original gold nugget that was discovered
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that set off the gold, gold rush, but he made no fortune in the, in the gold rush. And, um, even in
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the, in the, the early days of the civil war, he was sort of like a mediocre general. Um, but what
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people didn't understand is that he was learning this entire time that he was, um, B.H. Liddell
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Hart, who wrote this amazing biography of, of Sherman, which I used in the book is talking
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about, you know, for the person who thinks that they're destined for greatness, um, they never
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really accomplish enough and they never really enjoy what they're experiencing because they are,
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they are, they felt entitled to it. Whereas someone like Sherman is sort of slow, gradual rise
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was a much sweeter process in that it's the accumulation of actual confidence and the accumulation
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of actual accomplishments. And so, um, I think what, what, what Sherman managed to do was focus
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on what he was trying to accomplish more than his sort of personal vanity or goal. So, you
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know, um, at, at the battle of Vicksburg, for instance, uh, Sherman tech, uh, no, sorry,
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Donaldson, the battle Donaldson for Donaldson, Sherman technically outranked Grant and, and,
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and similarly at, uh, at Vicksburg, he, he, he could have been in a position, a superior position,
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but he decided to subsume his personal, uh, his sort of personal ego and vanity to serving this
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greater mission. And they built a team, uh, where, where they, where they functioned quite well
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together. And in fact, you know, Sherman's role at, uh, at Vicksburg was actually one of, of, of a,
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of a faint, uh, a distraction. And he did not participate in the main thrust of the battle,
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but, but he, he, he would tell Grant over and over again, Hey, like, look, I'm just here to do
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my part. And what they discovered together at Vicksburg, and I talk about this in obstacle,
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what they discovered at Vicksburg was accidentally, uh, a strategy that Sherman would then use to,
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to, to win the civil war, his, his march to the sea, um, which in itself was an exercise in the
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restraint of ego. The, the, the reason the U S civil war went longer than it needed to.
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And why so many people died is, is that the generals were convinced that it would be decided
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in a series of head to head battles. McClellan, who was much smarter than Sherman, who had all the
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credentials, who was, who was given a superior command would, would spend weeks and months waiting
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and maneuvering for these large decisive battles that he, he thought would, would decisively win
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the war and they never happened. And what Sherman realized is that if he took the war to the enemy,
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if he took this march to the South, um, and he avoided these confrontations and he instead, he
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instead, he instead focused on the objectives, the cities that he needed to take and the sort of
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bringing the, what he called the hard hand of war to the Southern people, he would win. But that,
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that required a certain awareness and, and, um, disdain for the, the vanity that had motivated,
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these other generals. And so, you know, then the final, the final thing I talk about in the book
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related to Sherman is, is after the war, Sherman is one of the most influential people in all of
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America. And he's, he's essentially offered the presidency and he says, you know what? No, I, I,
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I don't like politics. I have all the rank I want. I don't, I'm, I'm, the Sherman-esque statement
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is his famous statement, declining to run for presidency. If, if nominated, I will not run.
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If elected, I will not serve. Um, he doesn't run for presidency. Grant wins the presidency. It's the
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worst thing that basically happens to him. Sherman was, was I, this model for me of someone who's
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very self-contained, very self-motivated, very realistic, um, you know, not pessimistic, but
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realistic in his assessment of himself and his own abilities. And I think that's what made him such a,
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a powerful force ultimately, uh, you know, for, for the, for the good of the United States and,
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and for his own sort of personal happiness. Right. Yeah. That contrast between Sherman
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and Grant was interesting. Um, you know, Grant, yeah, went on to be the president and he was an
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okay president. Like what didn't, I think he had some problems. Like there was like a lot of
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corruption. It didn't go well for him. A lot of corruption within his, his presidency, et cetera.
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Yeah. He basically bit off more than he could chew. He didn't have any, like Grant and I love
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Grant and I wrote, I raved about him in, in obstacle, but you know, Grant, Grant was a great
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general because he didn't play politics. He focused on, on the task at hand and that's why he worked
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so well with Lincoln. So for him to run for president was, uh, I think in a large part, a
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complete, uh, misunderstanding of his own strengths and weaknesses, but, but whatever, uh, you know,
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Eisenhower ran for president and did pretty well, but so he ran for president, he did terrible. Uh,
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it, it, it sort of caught him by surprise how poorly it went, um, because he wasn't a great judge
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of, of character, uh, politically. And so, you know, this is where the corruption, the corruption
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happened. And after his presidency, he's, he starts a brokerage house with his son and an investor
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named Ferdinand Ward, who turned out to be, uh, basically a Bernie made off of his day. And it,
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financially, uh, Grant is bankrupted and ruined. He ends up having to literally to pawn his civil
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war mementos, his sword, um, to pay off the debts that he incurred. And, um, uh, I remember Sherman
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wrote a letter. Um, I don't remember if it was two grand or someone else, but basically he was saying
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how sad it was that Grant was trying to, he said, Grant aimed to rival the millionaires who would have
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given anything to have won one of his battles. And so it's this inability to know sort of what's
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important to you, what you actually value and try to compete with everyone else that,
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that often gets us into trouble. Right. I mean, this is a perfect example of
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individuals who they succeeded in one area of life and they think, oh, well I can succeed
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in this other area of life just because I was successful. And this one other, I mean,
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that's not how it works. Not how it works. No, it's definitely not how it works. And we think,
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Hey, it was easy last time. It'll be easy this time. And we don't really understand
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what went into our success the first time, oftentimes because we take it for granted.
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Um, and we, we, you know, we, we give ourselves a little bit of the halo effect because I was
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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,
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,
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
00:42:19.100
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,
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,
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
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.