Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words. (Page 0)
The orator Demosthenes once said that virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage. We must begin by seeing ourselves and the world in a new way for the first time. Then we must fight to be different and fight to stay different— that’s the hard part. (Page 0)
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself— and you are the easiest person to fool. (Page 1)
for people with ambitions, talents, drives, and potential to fulfill, ego comes with the territory. Precisely what makes us so promising as thinkers, doers, creatives, and entrepreneurs, what drives us to the top of those fields, makes us vulnerable to this darker side of the psyche. (Page 1)
Modern psychologists, on the other hand, use the word “egotist” to refer to someone dangerously focused on themselves and with disregard for anyone else. (Page 2)
The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self- centered ambition. That’s the definition this book will use. It’s that petulant child inside every person, the one that chooses getting his or her way over anything or anyone else. (Page 2)
ego is the enemy of what you want and of what you have: Of mastering a craft. Of real creative insight. Of working well with others. Of building loyalty and support. Of longevity. Of repeating and retaining your success. It repulses advantages and opportunities. It’s a magnet for enemies and errors. (Page 2)
If ego is the voice that tells us we’re better than we really are, we can say ego inhibits true success by preventing a direct and honest connection to the world around us. (Page 3)
Marina Abramović puts it directly: “If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.” (Page 4)
Just one thing keeps ego around— comfort. Pursuing great work— whether it is in sports or art or business— is often terrifying. Ego soothes that fear. It’s a salve to that insecurity. Replacing the rational and aware parts of our psyche with bluster and self- absorption, ego tells us what we want to hear, when we want to hear it. (Page 4)
ego is the enemy of building, of maintaining, and of recovering. (Page 6)
to help you suppress ego early before bad habits take hold, to replace the temptations of ego with humility and discipline when we experience success, and to cultivate strength and fortitude so that when fate turns against you, you’re not wrecked by failure. In short, it will help us be: Humble in our aspirations Gracious in our success Resilient in our failures (Page 6)
When we remove ego, we’re left with what is real. What replaces ego is humility, yes— but rock- hard humility and confidence. Whereas ego is artificial, this type of confidence can hold weight. Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned. Ego is self- anointed, its swagger is artifice. (Page 8)
Demonicus was ambitious, which is why Isocrates wrote him, because the path of ambition can be dangerous. Isocrates began by informing the young man that “no adornment so becomes you as modesty, justice, and self- control; for these are the virtues by which, as all men are agreed, the character of the young is held in restraint.” (Page 15)
“Practice self- control,” he said, warning Demonicus not to fall under the sway of “temper, pleasure, and pain.” And “abhor flatterers as you would deceivers; for both, if trusted, injure those who trust them.” (Page 16)
“Be affable in your relations with those who approach you, and never haughty; for the pride of the arrogant even slaves can hardly endure” (Page 16)
“Be slow in deliberation, but be prompt to carry out your resolves” and that the “best thing which we have in ourselves is good judgment.” (Page 16)
Among men who rise to fame and leadership two types are recognizable— those who are born with a belief in themselves and those in whom it is a slow growth dependent on actual achievement. To the men of the last type their own success is a constant surprise, and its fruits the more delicious, yet to be tested cautiously with a haunting sense of doubt whether it is not all a dream. In that doubt lies true modesty, not the sham of insincere self- depreciation but the modesty of “moderation,” in the Greek sense. It is poise, not pose. (Page 19)
if your belief in yourself is not dependent on actual achievement, then what is it dependent on? The answer, too often when we are just setting out, is nothing. Ego. (Page 20)
Where Isocrates and Shakespeare wished us to be self- contained, self- motivated, and ruled by principle, most of us have been trained to do the opposite. Our cultural values almost try to make us dependent on validation, entitled, and ruled by our emotions. (Page 20)
What we see in Sherman was a man deeply tied and connected to reality. He was a man who came from nothing and accomplished great things, without ever feeling that he was in someway entitled to the honors he received. In fact, he regularly and consistently deferred to others and was more than happy to contribute to a winning team, even if it meant less credit or fame for himself. (Page 21)
One might say that the ability to evaluate one’s own ability is the most important skill of all. Without it, improvement is impossible. And certainly ego makes it difficult every step of the way. It is certainly more pleasurable to focus on our talents and strengths, but where does that get us? Arrogance and self- absorption inhibit growth. So does fantasy and “vision.” (Page 21)
In this phase, you must practice seeing yourself with a little distance, cultivating the ability to get out of your own head. Detachment is a sort of natural ego antidote. (Page 21)
What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self- awareness. (Page 21)
If you want to be more than a flash in the pan, you must be prepared to focus on the long term. (Page 22)
We will learn that though we think big, we must act and live small in order to accomplish what we seek. Because we will be action and education focused, and forgo validation and status, our ambition will not be grandiose but iterative— one foot in front of the other, learning and growing and putting in the time. (Page 22)
Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.—LAO TZU (Page 23)
At the beginning of any path, we’re excited and nervous. So we seek to comfort ourselves externally instead of inwardly. There’s a weak side to each of us, that— like a trade union— isn’t exactly malicious but at the end of the day still wants to get as much public credit and attention as it can for doing the least. That side we call ego. (Page 24)
It was easier to talk about writing, to do the exciting things related to art and creativity and literature, than to commit the act itself. (Page 25)
Writing, like so many creative acts, is hard. Sitting there, staring, mad at yourself, mad at the material because it doesn’t seem good enough and you don’t seem good enough. In fact, many valuable endeavors we undertake are painfully difficult, whether it’s coding a new startup or mastering a craft. But talking, talking is always easy. (Page 25)
We seem to think that silence is a sign of weakness. That being ignored is tantamount to death (and for the ego, this is true). So we talk, talk, talk as though our life depends on it. (Page 26)
silence is strength— particularly early on in any journey. As the philosopher (and as it happens, a hater of newspapers and their chatter) Kierkegaard warned, “Mere gossip anticipates real talk, and to express what is still in thought weakens action by forestalling it.” (Page 26)
So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong. (Page 26)
Sherman had a good rule he tried to observe. “Never give reasons for what you think or do until you must. Maybe, after a while, a better reason will pop into your head.” (Page 26)
Strategic flexibility is not the only benefit of silence while others chatter. It is also psychology. (Page 26)
“A man’s best treasure is a thrifty tongue.” (Page 26)
Talk depletes us. Talking and doing fight for the same resources. Research shows that while goal visualization is important, after a certain point our mind begins to confuse it with actual progress. The same goes for verbalization. Even talking aloud to ourselves while we work through difficult problems has been shown to significantly decrease insight and breakthroughs. (Page 26)
After spending so much time thinking, explaining, and talking about a task, we start to feel that we’ve gotten closer to achieving it. Or worse, when things get tough, we feel we can toss the whole project aside because we’ve given it our best try, although of course we haven’t. (Page 27)
A lot of us succumb to this temptation— particularly when we feel overwhelmed or stressed or have a lot of work to do. In our building phase, resistance will be a constant source of discomfort. Talking— listening to ourselves talk, performing for an audience— is almost like therapy. I just spent four hours talking about this. Doesn’t that count for something? The answer is no. Doing great work is a struggle. It’s draining, it’s demoralizing, it’s frightening— not (Page 27)
We talk to fill the void and the uncertainty. “Void,” Marlon Brando, a quiet actor if there ever was one, once said, “is terrifying to most people.” (Page 27)
greatest work and art comes from wrestling with the void, facing it instead of scrambling to make it go away. (Page 28)
The only relationship between work and chatter is that one kills the other. (Page 28)
“To be or to do? Which way will you go?” (Page 31)
In every case, they can quickly redirect us from doing to being. From earning to pretending. Ego aids in that deception every step of the way. It’s why Boyd wanted young people to see that if we are not careful, we can very easily find ourselves corrupted by the very occupation we wish to serve. (Page 31)
Appearances are deceiving. Having authority is not the same as being an authority. Having the right and being right are not the same either. Being promoted doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing good work and it doesn’t mean you are worthy of promotion (they call it failing upward in such bureaucracies). Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive. (Page 32)
What is your purpose? What are you here to do? Because purpose helps you answer the question “To be or to do?“ quite easily. If what matters is you— your reputation, your inclusion, your personal ease of life— your path is clear: Tell people what they want to hear. Seek attention over the quiet but important work. Say yes to promotions and generally follow the track that talented people take in the industry or field you’ve chosen. Pay your dues, check the boxes, put in your time, and leave things essentially as they are. Chase your fame, your salary, your title, and enjoy them as they come. (Page 33)
“A man is worked upon by what he works on,” Frederick Douglass once said. (Page 33)
What you choose to do with your time and what you choose to do for money works on you. The egocentric path requires, as Boyd knew, many compromises. (Page 33)
If your purpose is something larger than you— to accomplish something, to prove something to yourself— then suddenly everything becomes both easier and more difficult. Easier in the sense that you know now what it is you need to do and what is important to you. The other “choices” wash away, as they aren’t really choices at all. They’re distractions. It’s about the doing, not the recognition. (Page 33)
each opportunity— no matter how gratifying or rewarding— must be evaluated along strict guidelines: Does this help me do what I have set out to do? Does this allow me to do what I need to do? Am I being selfish or selfless? (Page 34)
it is not “Who do I want to be in life?” but “What is it that I want to accomplish in life?” Setting aside selfish interest, it asks: What calling does it serve? What principles govern my choices? Do I want to be like everyone else or do I want to do something different? In other words, it’s harder because everything can seem like a compromise. (Page 34)
To be or to do— life is a constant roll call. (Page 35)
Kirk came to what must have been a humbling realization— that despite his years of playing and being invited to join Metallica, he wasn’t as good as he’d like to be. At his home in San Francisco, he looked for a guitar teacher. In other words, despite joining his dream group and quite literally turning professional, Kirk insisted that he needed more instruction— that he was still a student. (Page 37)
The power of being a student is not just that it is an extended period of instruction, it also places the ego and ambition in someone else’s hands. There is a sort of ego ceiling imposed— one knows that he is not better than the “master” he apprentices under. Not even close. You defer to them, you subsume yourself. You cannot fake or bullshit them. An education can’t be “hacked”; there are no shortcuts besides hacking it every single day. If you don’t, they drop you. (Page 38)
updating your appraisal of your talents in a downward direction is one of the most difficult things to do in life— but it is almost always a component of mastery. The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better. Studious self- assessment is the antidote. (Page 39)
Frank Shamrock has a system he trains fighters in that he calls plus, minus, and equal. Each fighter, to become great, he said, needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against. (Page 39)
The purpose of Shamrock’s formula is simple: to get real and continuous feedback about what they know and what they don’t know from every angle. It purges out the ego that puffs us up, the fear that makes us doubt ourselves, and any laziness that might make us want to coast. (Page 39)
“False ideas about yourself destroy you. For me, I always stay a student. That’s what martial arts are about, and you have to use that humility as a tool. You put yourself beneath someone you trust.” This begins by accepting that others know more than you and that you can benefit from their knowledge, and then seeking them out and knocking down the illusions you have about yourself. (Page 39)
To become great and to stay great, they must all know what came before, what is going on now, and what comes next. They must internalize the fundamentals of their domain and what surrounds them, without ossifying or becoming stuck in time. They must be always learning. We must all become our own teachers, tutors, and critics. (Page 40)
A true student is like a sponge. Absorbing what goes on around him, filtering it, latching on to what he can hold. A student is self- critical and self- motivated, always trying to improve his understanding so that he can move on to the next topic, the next challenge. A real student is also his own teacher and his own critic. There is no room for ego there. (Page 40)
“It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows,” Epictetus says. You can’t learn if you think you already know. (Page 41)
The art of taking feedback is such a crucial skill in life, particularly harsh and critical feedback. We not only need to take this harsh feedback, but actively solicit it, labor to seek out the negative precisely when our friends and family and brain are telling us that we’re doing great. The ego avoids such feedback at all costs, however. (Page 41)
Ego doesn’t allow for proper incubation either. To become what we ultimately hope to become often takes long periods of obscurity, of sitting and wrestling with some topic or paradox. Humility is what keeps us there, concerned that we don’t know enough and that we must continue to study. Ego rushes to the end, rationalizes that patience is for losers (wrongly seeing it as a weakness), and assumes that we’re good enough to give our talents a go in the world. (Page 42)
your passion may be the very thing holding you back from power or influence or accomplishment. Because just as often, we fail with— no, because of— passion. (Page 44)
I’m talking about passion of a different sort— unbridled enthusiasm, our willingness to pounce on what’s in front of us with the full measure of our zeal, the “bundle of energy” that our teachers and gurus have assured us is our most important asset. It is that burning, unquenchable desire to start or to achieve some vague, ambitious, and distant goal. This seemingly innocuous motivation is so far from the right track it hurts. (Page 45)
Opportunities are not usually deep, virgin pools that require courage and boldness to dive into, but instead are obscured, dusted over, blocked by various forms of resistance. What is really called for in these circumstances is clarity, deliberateness, and methodological determination. (Page 46)
In many more examples we see the same mistakes: overinvesting, underinvesting, acting before someone is really ready, breaking things that required delicacy— not so much malice as the drunkenness of passion. (Page 47)
Passion typically masks a weakness. Its breathlessness and impetuousness and franticness are poor substitutes for discipline, for mastery, for strength and purpose and perseverance. You need to be able to spot this in others and in yourself, because while the origins of passion may be earnest and good, its effects are comical and then monstrous. (Page 48)
How can someone be busy and not accomplish anything? Well, that’s the passion paradox. (Page 48)
If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then passion is a form of mental retardation— deliberately blunting our most critical cognitive functions. (Page 48)
What humans require in our ascent is purpose and realism. Purpose, you could say, is like passion with boundaries. Realism is detachment and perspective. (Page 49)
Passion is about. (I am so passionate about ______.) Purpose is to and for. (I must do ______. I was put here to accomplish ______. I am willing to endure ______ for the sake of this.) Actually, purpose deemphasizes the I. Purpose is about pursuing something outside yourself as opposed to pleasuring yourself. (Page 49)
Leave passion for the amateurs. (Page 50)
One of the roles was that of an anteambulo— literally meaning “one who clears the path.” An anteambulo proceeded in front of his patron anywhere they traveled in Rome, making way, communicating messages, and generally making the patron’s life easier. (Page 51)
anteambulo means clearing the path— finding the direction someone already intended to head and helping them pack, freeing them up to focus on their strengths. In fact, making things better rather than simply looking as if you are. (Page 54)
if he wanted to give his coach feedback or question a decision, he needed to do it in private and self- effacingly so as not to offend his superior. He learned how to be a rising star without threatening or alienating anyone. In other words, he had mastered the canvas strategy. (Page 55)
Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you’re the least important person in the room— until you change that with results. (Page 56)
Be lesser, do more. Imagine if for every person you met, you thought of some way to help them, something you could do for them? And you looked at it in a way that entirely benefited them and not you. The cumulative effect this would have over time would be profound: You’d learn a great deal by solving diverse problems. You’d develop a reputation for being indispensable. You’d have countless new relationships. You’d have an enormous bank of favors to call upon down the road. (Page 56)
That’s what the canvas strategy is about— helping yourself by helping others. Making a concerted effort to trade your short- term gratification for a longer- term payoff. (Page 56)
Whereas everyone else wants to get credit and be “respected,” you can forget credit. You can forget it so hard that you’re glad when others get it instead of you— that was your aim, after all. Let the others take their credit on credit, while you defer and earn interest on the principal. (Page 56)
the person who clears the path ultimately controls its direction, just as the canvas shapes the painting. (Page 58)
I have observed that those who have accomplished the greatest results are those who “keep under the body”; are those who never grow excited or lose self- control, but are always calm, self- possessed, patient, and polite. (Page 59)
Our own path, whatever we aspire to, will in some ways be defined by the amount of nonsense we are willing to deal with. (Page 62)
John Steinbeck once wrote to his editor, “[ lose] temper as a refuge from despair.” (Page 62)
It doesn’t matter how talented you are, how great your connections are, how much money you have. When you want to do something— something big and important and meaningful— you will be subjected to treatment ranging from indifference to outright sabotage. Count on (Page 63)
Those who have subdued their ego understand that it doesn’t degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them. (Page 63)
Restraint is a difficult skill but a critical one. You will often be tempted, you will probably even be overcome. No one is perfect with it, but try we must. (Page 64)
It is a timeless fact of life that the up- and- coming must endure the abuses of the entrenched. (Page 64)
you’re not able to change the system until after you’ve made it. In the meantime, you’ll have to find some way to make it suit your purposes— even if those purposes are just extra time to develop properly, to learn from others on their dime, to build your base and establish yourself. (Page 64)
It is natural for any young, ambitious person (or simply someone whose ambition is young) to get excited and swept up by their thoughts and feelings. Especially in a world that tells us to keep and promote a “personal brand.” We’re required to tell stories in order to sell our work and our talents, and after enough time, forget where the line is that separates our fictions from reality. (Page 70)
David Elkind has famously researched, adolescence is marked by a phenomenon known now as the “imaginary audience.” (Page 70)
They do this because they’re convinced that their every move is being watched with rapt attention by the rest of the world. (Page 70)
A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. (Page 73)
Christians believe that pride is a sin because it is a lie— it convinces people that they are better than they are, that they are better than God made them. Pride leads to arrogance and then away from humility and connection with their fellow man. (Page 74)
the elegiac poet Theognis wrote to his friend, “The first thing, Kurnos, which gods bestow on one they would annihilate, is pride.” (Page 74)
Pride blunts the very instrument we need to own in order to succeed: our mind. Our ability to learn, to adapt, to be flexible, to build relationships, all of this is dulled by pride. Most dangerously, this tends to happen either early in life or in the process— when we’re flushed with beginner’s conceit. Only later do you realize that that bump on the head was the least of what was risked. (Page 74)
Pride takes a minor accomplishment and makes it feel like a major one. It smiles at our cleverness and genius, as though what we’ve exhibited was merely a hint of what ought to come. (Page 74)
Rockefeller knew he needed to rein himself in and to privately manage his ego. Night after night he asked himself, “Are you going to be a fool? Are you going to let this money puff you up?” (However small it was.) “Keep your eyes open,” he admonished himself. “Don’t lose your balance.” (Page 76)
As he later reflected, “I had a horror of the danger of arrogance. What a pitiful thing it is when a man lets a little temporary success spoil him, warp his judgment, and he forgets what he is!” It creates a sort of myopic, onanistic obsession that warps perspective, reality, truth, and the world around us. (Page 76)
“vain men never hear anything but praise.” (Page 76)
Genghis Khan groomed his sons and generals to succeed him later in life, he repeatedly warned them, “If you can’t swallow your pride, you can’t lead.” He told them that pride would be harder to subdue than a wild lion. He liked the analogy of a mountain. He would say, “Even the tallest mountains have animals that, when they stand on it, are higher than the mountain.” (Page 77)
The question to ask, when you feel pride, then, is this: What am I missing right now that a more humble person might see? What am I avoiding, or running from, with my bluster, franticness, and embellishments? (Page 77)
Privately thinking you’re better than others is still pride. It’s still dangerous. (Page 78)
We are still striving, and it is the strivers who should be our peers— not the proud and the accomplished. Without this understanding, pride takes our self- conception and puts it at odds with the reality of our station, which is that we still have so far to go, that there is still so much to be done. (Page 78)
this isn’t about deferring pride because you don’t deserve it yet. It isn’t “Don’t boast about what hasn’t happened yet.” It is more directly “Don’t boast.” There’s nothing in it for you. (Page 78)
The best plan is only good intentions unless it degenerates into work.—PETER DRUCKER (Page 79)
To cultivate a product of labor and industry instead of just a product of the mind. It’s here where abstraction meets the road and the real, where we trade thinking and talking for working. “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do,” was how Henry Ford put it. (Page 80)
Fac, si facis. (Do it if you’re going to do it.) (Page 82)
“When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.” (Page 82)
Every time you sit down to work, remind yourself: I am delaying gratification by doing this. I am passing the marshmallow test. I am earning what my ambition burns for. I am making an investment in myself instead of in my ego. (Page 83)
You know a workman by the chips they leave. It’s true. To judge your progress properly, just take a look at the floor. (Page 84)
Why is success so ephemeral? Ego shortens it. Whether a collapse is dramatic or a slow erosion, it’s always possible and often unnecessary. We stop learning, we stop listening, and we lose our grasp on what matters. We become victims of ourselves and the competition. Sobriety, open- mindedness, organization, and purpose— these are the great stabilizers. They balance out the ego and pride that comes with achievement and recognition. (Page 91)
Without virtue and training, Aristotle observed, “it is hard to bear the results of good fortune suitably.” (Page 97)
“The worst disease which can afflict business executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism,” Geneen famously said. (Page 98)
In the Mad Men era of corporate America, there was a major drinking problem, but ego has the same roots— insecurity, fear, a dislike for brutal objectivity. (Page 99)
“Man is pushed by drives,” Viktor Frankl observed. “But he is pulled by values.” (Page 99)
Success is intoxicating, yet to sustain it requires sobriety. We can’t keep learning if we think we already know everything. (Page 99)
Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.—RALPH WALDO EMERSON (Page 101)
Genghis Khan one of the greatest military minds who ever lived, he was a perpetual student, whose stunning victories were often the result of his ability to absorb the best technologies, practices, and innovations of each new culture his empire touched. (Page 101)
Under Genghis Khan’s direction, the Mongols were as ruthless about stealing and absorbing the best of each culture they encountered as they were about conquest itself. (Page 102)
Khan’s first powerful victories came from the reorganization of his military units, splitting his soldiers into groups of ten. This he stole from neighboring Turkic tribes, and unknowingly converted the Mongols to the decimal system. (Page 102)
While the Mongols themselves seemed dedicated almost solely to the art of war, they put to good use every craftsman, merchant, scholar, entertainer, cook, and skilled worker they came in contact with. The Mongol Empire was remarkable for its religious freedoms, and most of all, for its love of ideas and convergence of cultures. (Page 103)
John Wheeler, who helped develop the hydrogen bomb, once observed that “as our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” (Page 103)
each victory and advancement that made Khan smarter also bumped him against new situations he’d never encountered before. It takes a special kind of humility to grasp that you know less, even as you know and grasp more and more. (Page 103)
With accomplishment comes a growing pressure to pretend that we know more than we do. To pretend we already know everything. Scientia infla (knowledge puffs up). That’s the worry and the risk— thinking that we’re set and secure, when in reality understanding and mastery is a fluid, continual process. (Page 104)
“Humility engenders learning because it beats back the arrogance that puts blinders on. It leaves you open for truths to reveal themselves. You don’t stand in your own way… . Do you know how you can tell when someone is truly humble? I believe there’s one simple test: because they consistently observe and listen, the humble improve. They don’t assume, ‘I know the way.’” (Page 104)
It is not enough only to be a student at the beginning. It is a position that one has to assume for life. Learn from everyone and everything. From the people you beat, and the people who beat you, from the people you dislike, even from your supposed enemies. At every step and every juncture in life, there is the opportunity to learn— and even if the lesson is purely remedial, we must not let ego block us from hearing it again. (Page 104)
The second we let the ego tell us we have graduated, learning grinds to a halt. That’s why Frank Shamrock said, “Always stay a student.” (Page 105)
Pick up a book on a topic you know next to nothing about. Put yourself in rooms where you’re the least knowledgeable person. That uncomfortable feeling, that defensiveness that you feel when your most deeply held assumptions are challenged— what about subjecting yourself to it deliberately? Change your mind. Change your surroundings. (Page 105)
An amateur is defensive. The professional finds learning (and even, occasionally, being shown up) to be enjoyable; they like being challenged and humbled, and engage in education as an ongoing and endless process. (Page 105)
Take the theory of disruption, which posits that at some point in time, every industry will be disrupted by some trend or innovation that, despite all the resources in the world, the incumbent interests will be incapable of responding to. Why is this? Why can’t businesses change and adapt? A large part of it is because they lost the ability to learn. They stopped being students. The second this happens to you, your knowledge becomes fragile. (Page 105)
The great manager and business thinker Peter Drucker says that it’s not enough simply to want to learn. As people progress, they must also understand how they learn and then set up processes to facilitate this continual education. Otherwise, we are dooming ourselves to a sort of self- imposed ignorance. (Page 106)
Myth becomes myth not in the living but in the retelling.—DAVID MARANISS (Page 107)
We want so desperately to believe that those who have great empires set out to build one. Why? So we can indulge in the pleasurable planning of ours. (Page 109)
Crafting stories out of past events is a very human impulse. It’s also dangerous and untrue. Writing our own narrative leads to arrogance. It turns our life into a story— and turns us into caricatures— while we still have to live it. (Page 109)
these explanations and stories get “cobbled together later, more or less sincerely, and after the stories have been repeated they put on the badge of memory and block all other routes of exploration.” (Page 109)
This is what happens when you prematurely credit yourself with powers you don’t yet have control of. This is what happens when you start to think about what your rapid achievements say about you and begin to slacken the effort and standards that initially fueled them. (Page 110)
once you win, everyone is gunning for you. It’s during your moment at the top that you can afford ego the least— because the stakes are so much higher, the margins for error are so much smaller. If anything, your ability to listen, to hear feedback, to improve and grow matter more now than ever before. (Page 110)
financier Bernard Baruch had a great line: “Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done— except by liars.” That is, people’s claims about what they’re doing in the market are rarely to be trusted. (Page 111)
When we are aspiring we must resist the impulse to reverse engineer success from other people’s stories. When we achieve our own, we must resist the desire to pretend that everything unfolded exactly as we’d planned. (Page 111)
“The way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things.” He’s saying you don’t make a frontal attack out of ego; instead, you start with a small bet and iteratively scale your ambitions as you go. (Page 112)
“Keep your identity small,” fits well here. Make it about the work and the principles behind it— not about a glorious vision that makes a good headline. (Page 112)
A great destiny, Seneca reminds us, is great slavery. (Page 112)
are we suddenly a “filmmaker,” “writer,” “investor,” “entrepreneur,” or “executive” because we’ve accomplished one thing? These labels put you at odds not just with reality, but with the real strategy that made you successful in the first place. (Page 112)
Instead of pretending that we are living some great story, we must remain focused on the execution— and on executing with excellence. We must shun the false crown and continue working on what got us here. (Page 113)
To know what you like is the beginning of wisdom and of old age.—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (Page 114)
we’re never happy with what we have, we want what others have too. We want to have more than everyone else. We start out knowing what is important to us, but once we’ve achieved it, we lose sight of our priorities. Ego sways us, and can ruin us. (Page 115)
All of us regularly say yes unthinkingly, or out of vague attraction, or out of greed or vanity. Because we can’t say no— because we might miss out on something if we did. (Page 116)
All of us waste precious life doing things we don’t like, to prove ourselves to people we don’t respect, and to get things we don’t want. (Page 116)
The farther you travel down that path of accomplishment, whatever it may be, the more often you meet other successful people who make you feel insignificant. It doesn’t matter how well you’re doing; your ego and their accomplishments make you feel like nothing— just as others make them feel the same way. It’s a cycle that goes on ad infinitum … while our brief time on earth— or the small window of opportunity we have here— does not. (Page 116)
Only you know the race you’re running. That is, unless your ego decides the only way you have value is if you’re better than, have more than, everyone everywhere. More urgently, each one of us has a unique potential and purpose; that means that we’re the only ones who can evaluate and set the terms of our lives. (Page 117)
According to Seneca, the Greek word euthymia is one we should think of often: it is the sense of our own path and how to stay on it without getting distracted by all the others that intersect it. (Page 117)
It’s not about having more than the others. It’s about being what you are, and being as good as possible at it, without succumbing to all the things that draw you away from it. It’s about going where you set out to go. About accomplishing the most that you’re capable of in what you choose. That’s it. No more and no less. (By the way, euthymia means “tranquillity” in English.) (Page 117)
If you don’t know how much you need, the default easily becomes: more. And so without thinking, critical energy is diverted from a person’s calling and toward filling a bank account. (Page 118)
Ego rejects trade- offs. Why compromise? Ego wants it all. (Page 118)
Ego tells you to cheat, though you love your spouse. Because you want what you have and what you don’t have. (Page 118)
Maybe your priority actually is money. Or maybe it’s family. Maybe it’s influence or change. Maybe it’s building an organization that lasts, or serves a purpose. All of these are perfectly fine motivations. But you do need to know. You need to know what you don’t want and what your choices preclude. Because strategies are often mutually exclusive. One cannot be an opera singer and a teen pop idol at the same time. Life requires those trade- offs, but ego can’t allow it. (Page 118)
The more you have and do, the harder maintaining fidelity to your purpose will be, but the more critically you will need to. (Page 119)
Find out why you’re after what you’re after. Ignore those who mess with your pace. Let them covet what you have, not the other way around. Because that’s independence. (Page 119)
One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.—BERTRAND RUSSELL (Page 120)
With success, particularly power, come some of the greatest and most dangerous delusions: entitlement, control, and paranoia. (Page 121)
“The Strongest Poison ever known,” the poet William Blake wrote, “came from Caesar’s Laurel Crown.” Success casts a spell over us. (Page 121)
Achieving success involved ignoring the doubts and reservations of the people around us. It meant rejecting rejection. It required taking certain risks. We could have given up at any time, but we’re here precisely because we didn’t. (Page 121)
A critic of Napoleon nailed it when remarking: “He despises the nation whose applause he seeks.” He couldn’t help but see the French people as pieces to be manipulated, people he had to be better than, people who, unless they were totally, unconditionally supportive of him, were against him. (Page 123)
Entitlement assumes: This is mine. I’ve earned it. At the same time, entitlement nickels and dimes other people because it can’t conceive of valuing another person’s time as highly as its own. (Page 124)
Control says, It all must be done my way— even little things, even inconsequential things. It can become paralyzing perfectionism, or a million pointless battles fought merely for the sake of exerting its say. (Page 124)
Paranoia thinks, I can’t trust anyone. I’m in this totally by myself and for myself. It says, I’m surrounded by fools. It says, focusing on my work, my obligations, myself is not enough. I also have to be orchestrating various machinations behind the scenes— to get them before they get me; to get them back for the slights I perceive. (Page 124)
“He who indulges empty fears earns himself real fears,” wrote Seneca, who as a political adviser witnessed destructive paranoia at the highest levels. (Page 125)
In its frenzy to protect itself, paranoia creates the persecution it seeks to avoid, making the owner a prisoner of its own delusions and chaos. (Page 125)
It is not enough to have great qualities; we should also have the management of them.—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD (Page 126)
As president, his first priority in office was organizing the executive branch into a smooth, functioning, and order- driven unit, just like his military units had been— not because he didn’t want to work himself, but because everyone had a job and he trusted and empowered them to do it. As his chief of staff later put it, “The president does the most important things. I do the next most important things.” (Page 126)
He knew that urgent and important were not synonyms. His job was to set the priorities, to think big picture, and then trust the people beneath him to do the jobs they were hired for. (Page 127)
in the end, we all face becoming the adult supervision we originally rebelled against. Yet often we react petulantly and prefer to think: Now that I’m in charge, things are going to be different! (Page 129)
As you become successful in your own field, your responsibilities may begin to change. Days become less and less about doing and more and more about making decisions. Such is the nature of leadership. This transition requires reevaluating and updating your identity. It requires a certain humility to put aside some of the more enjoyable or satisfying parts of your previous job. It means accepting that others might be more qualified or specialized in areas in which you considered yourself competent— or at least their time is better spent on them than yours. (Page 130)
it would be more fun to be constantly involved in every tiny matter, and might make us feel important to be the person called to put out fires. The little things are endlessly engaging and often flattering, while the big picture can be hard to discern. It’s not always fun, but it is the job. If you don’t think big picture— because you’re too busy playing “boss man”— who will? (Page 130)
Every project and goal deserves an approach fitted perfectly to what needs to be done. (Page 130)
What matters is that you learn how to manage yourself and others, before your industry eats you alive. Micromanagers are egotists who can’t manage others and they quickly get overloaded. So do the charismatic visionaries who lose interest when it’s time to execute. (Page 131)
Ego needs honors in order to be validated. Confidence, on the other hand, is able to wait and focus on the task at hand regardless of external recognition. (Page 134)
we never earn the right to be greedy or to pursue our interests at the expense of everyone else. To think otherwise is not only egotistical, it’s counterproductive. (Page 135)
A general’s place in history is assured by his feats in battle, so even though Marshall was needed in Washington, Roosevelt wanted to give him the opportunity to take command. Marshall would have none of it. “The decision is yours, Mr. President; my wishes have nothing to do with the matter.” The role and the glory went to Eisenhower. (Page 135)
this is what we regularly refuse to do; our ego precludes serving any larger mission we’re a part of. (Page 135)
As you become more accomplished, you’ll realize that so much of it is a distraction from your work— time spent with reporters, with awards, and with marketing are time away from what you really care about. (Page 136)
the people who saw George Marshall as simply modest or quiet missed what was special about the man. He had the same traits that everyone has— ego, self- interest, pride, dignity, ambition— but they were “tempered by a sense of humility and selflessness.” (Page 137)
Play for the name on the front of the jersey, he says, and they’ll remember the name on the back. (Page 137)
A monk is a man who is separated from all and who is in harmony with all.—EVAGRIUS PONTICUS (Page 138)
what the Stoics would call sympatheia— a connectedness with the cosmos. The French philosopher Pierre Hadot has referred to it as the “oceanic feeling.” A sense of belonging to something larger, of realizing that “human things are an infinitesimal point in the immensity.” (Page 139)
Ego tells us that meaning comes from activity, that being the center of attention is the only way to matter. (Page 139)
When we lack a connection to anything larger or bigger than us, it’s like a piece of our soul is gone. Like we’ve detached ourselves from the traditions we hail from, whatever that happens to be (a craft, a sport, a brotherhood or sisterhood, a family). Ego blocks us from the beauty and history in the world. It stands in the way. (Page 139)
“Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.” (Page 140)
Go and put yourself in touch with the infinite, and end your conscious separation from the world. Reconcile yourself a bit better with the realities of life. Realize how much came before you, and how only wisps of it remain. (Page 142)
The height of cultivation runs to simplicity.—BRUCE LEE (Page 144)
Shelby Foote observed that “power doesn’t so much corrupt; that’s too simple. It fragments, closes options, mesmerizes.” That’s what ego does. It clouds the mind precisely when it needs to be clear. Sobriety is a counterbalance, a hangover cure— or better, a prevention method. (Page 147)
Leaders like Belichick and Merkel know that steak is what wins games and moves nations forward. Sizzle, on the other hand, makes it harder to make the right decisions— how to interact with others, who to promote, which plays to run, what feedback to listen to, where to come down on an issue. (Page 148)
Today’s interconnected world requires its own. Because there is so much information to be sorted through, so much competition, so much change, without a clear head … all is lost. (Page 148)
Sobriety is the counterweight that must balance out success. Especially if things keep getting better and better. (Page 148)
As James Basford remarked, “It requires a strong constitution to withstand repeated attacks of prosperity.” (Page 148)
There’s an old line about how if you want to live happy, live hidden. It’s true. The problem is, that means the rest of us are deprived of really good examples. We’re lucky to see someone like Merkel in the public eye, because she is the representative of a very large, silent majority. (Page 148)
Most successful people are people you’ve never heard of. They want it that way. It keeps them sober. It helps them do their jobs. (Page 149)
Here you are at the pinnacle. What have you found? Just how tough and tricky it is to manage. You thought it would get easier when you arrived; instead, it’s even harder— a different animal entirely. What you found is that you must manage yourself in order to maintain your success. (Page 150)
Alexander just never grasped Aristotle’s “golden mean”— that is, the middle ground. Repeatedly, Aristotle speaks of virtue and excellence as points along a spectrum. Courage, for instance, lies between cowardice on one end and recklessness on the other. Generosity, which we all admire, must stop short of either profligacy and parsimony in order to be of any use. (Page 150)
Aristotle wrote. “In each case, it is hard work to find the intermediate; for instance, not everyone, but only one who knows, finds the midpoint in a circle.” (Page 151)
We must avoid what the business strategist Jim Collins terms the “undisciplined pursuit of more,” as well as the complacency that comes with plaudits. To borrow from Aristotle again, what’s difficult is to apply the right amount of pressure, at the right time, in the right way, for the right period of time, in the right car, going in the right direction. (Page 151)
We know what decisions we must make to avoid that ignominious, even pathetic end: protecting our sobriety, eschewing greed and paranoia, staying humble, retaining our sense of purpose, connecting to the larger world around us. (Page 152)
No one is permanently successful, and not everyone finds success on the first attempt. We all deal with setbacks along the way. Ego not only leaves us unprepared for these circumstances, it often contributed to their occurrence in the first place. The way through, the way to rise again, requires a reorientation and increased self- awareness. We don’t need pity— our own or anyone else’s— we need purpose, poise, and patience. (Page 157)
It is because mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty. Nothing is so mortifying as to be obliged to expose our distress to the view of the public, and to feel, that though our situation is open to the eyes of all mankind, no mortal conceives for us the half of what we suffer. (Page 159)
Almost without exception, this is what life does: it takes our plans and dashes them to pieces. Sometimes once, sometimes lots of times. (Page 160)
George Goodman once observed, it is as if “we are at a wonderful ball where the champagne sparkles in every glass and soft laughter falls upon the summer air. We know at some moment the black horsemen will come shattering through the terrace doors wreaking vengeance and scattering the survivors. Those who leave early are saved, but the ball is so splendid no one wants to leave while there is still time. So everybody keeps asking— what time is it? But none of the clocks have hands.” He was speaking of economic crises, although he may as well have been talking about where all of us find ourselves, (Page 160)
If success is ego intoxication, then failure can be a devastating ego blow— turning slips into falls and little troubles into great unravelings. If ego is often just a nasty side effect of great success, it can be fatal during failure. (Page 161)
“Almost always, your road to victory goes through a place called ‘failure.’” In order to taste success again, we’ve got to understand what led to this moment (or these years) of difficulty, what went wrong and why. We must deal with the situation in order to move past it. We’ll need to accept it and to push through it. (Page 165)
Ego loves this notion, the idea that something is “fair” or not. Psychologists call it narcissistic injury when we take personally totally indifferent and objective events. We do that when our sense of self is fragile and dependent on life going our way all the time. Whether what you’re going through is your fault or your problem doesn’t matter, because it’s yours to deal with right now. (Page 165)
failure always arrives uninvited, but through our ego, far too many of us allow it to stick around. (Page 166)
Absorbing the negative feedback, ego says: I knew you couldn’t do it. Why did you ever try? It claims: This isn’t worth it. This isn’t fair. This is somebody else’s problem. Why don’t you come up with a good excuse and wash your hands of this? It tells us we shouldn’t have to put up with this. It tells us that we’re not the problem. That is, it adds self- injury to every injury you experience. (Page 166)
see past and through. As Goethe once observed, the great failing is “to see yourself as more than you are and to value yourself at less than your true worth.” (Page 167)
Stock buybacks are controversial— they usually come from a company that is stalled or whose growth is decelerating. With buybacks, a CEO is making a rather incredible statement. She’s saying: The market is wrong. It’s valuing our company so incorrectly, and clearly has so little idea where we are heading, that we’re going to spend the company’s precious cash on a bet that they’re wrong. (Page 167)
Someone might outbid you for the job, for your dream house, for the opportunity you feel everything depends on. This might happen tomorrow, it might happen twenty- five years from now. It could last for two minutes or ten years. We know that everyone experiences failure and adversity, that we’re all subject to the rules of gravity and averages. What does that mean? It means we’ll face them too. (Page 168)
As Plutarch finely expressed, “The future bears down upon each one of us with all the hazards of the unknown.” The only way out is through. (Page 168)
What matters is that we can respond to what life throws at us. And how we make it through. (Page 169)
According to Greene, there are two types of time in our lives: dead time, when people are passive and waiting, and alive time, when people are learning and acting and utilizing every second. Every moment of failure, every moment or situation that we did not deliberately choose or control, presents this choice: Alive time. Dead time. (Page 171)
That’s what so many of us do when we fail or get ourselves into trouble. Lacking the ability to examine ourselves, we reinvest our energy into exactly the patterns of behavior that caused our problems to begin with. (Page 173)
What matters to an active man is to do the right thing; whether the right thing comes to pass should not bother him.—GOETHE (Page 175)
there will be times when we do everything right, perhaps even perfectly. Yet the results will somehow be negative: failure, disrespect, jealousy, or even a resounding yawn from the world. Depending on what motivates us, this response can be crushing. If ego holds sway, we’ll accept nothing less than full appreciation. (Page 176)
It’s far better when doing good work is sufficient. In other words, the less attached we are to outcomes the better. When fulfilling our own standards is what fills us with pride and self- respect. When the effort— not the results, good or bad— is enough. (Page 178)
With ego, this is not nearly sufficient. No, we need to be recognized. We need to be compensated. Especially problematic is the fact that, often, we get that. We are praised, we are paid, and we start to assume that the two things always go together. The “expectation hangover” inevitably ensues. (Page 178)
Robert Louis Stevenson later observed about this meeting, “It is a sore thing to have labored along and scaled arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement.” (Page 179)
It will happen. Maybe your parents will never be impressed. Maybe your girlfriend won’t care. Maybe the investor won’t see the numbers. Maybe the audience won’t clap. But we have to be able to push through. We can’t let that be what motivates us. (Page 179)
Change the definition of success. “Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self- satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” (Page 180)
“Ambition,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, “means tying your well- being to what other people say or do … Sanity means tying it to your own actions.” (Page 180)
The world is, after all, indifferent to what we humans “want.” If we persist in wanting, in needing, we are simply setting ourselves up for resentment or worse. Doing the work is enough. (Page 181)
If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.—EMILE ZOLA (Page 182)
In Greek mythology, characters often experience katabasis— or “a going down.” They’re forced to retreat, they experience a depression, or in some cases literally descend into the underworld. When they emerge, it’s with heightened knowledge and understanding. (Page 183)
Duris dura franguntur. Hard things are broken by hard things. (Page 183)
William A. Sutton observed some 120 years ago that “we cannot be humble except by enduring humiliations.” (Page 183)
these events seem to be defined by three traits: 1. They almost always came at the hands of some outside force or person. 2. They often involved things we already knew about ourselves, but were too scared to admit. 3. From the ruin came the opportunity for great progress and improvement. (Page 184)
In 12- step groups, almost all the steps are about suppressing the ego and clearing out the entitlements and baggage and wreckage that has been accumulated— so that you might see what’s left when all of that is stripped away and the real you is left. (Page 185)
change begins by hearing the criticism and the words of the people around you. Even if those words are mean spirited, angry, or hurtful. It means weighing them, discarding the ones that don’t matter, and reflecting on the ones that do. (Page 187)
“A team, like men, must be brought to its knees before it can rise again.” So yes, hitting bottom is as brutal as it sounds. (Page 187)
the only way you can appreciate your progress is to stand on the edge of the hole you dug for yourself, look down inside it, and smile fondly at the bloody claw prints that marked your journey up the walls. (Page 187)
It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character.—MARCUS AURELIUS (Page 188)
The problem is that when we get our identity tied up in our work, we worry that any kind of failure will then say something bad about us as a person. It’s a fear of taking responsibility, of admitting that we might have messed up. It’s the sunk cost fallacy. (Page 189)
Most trouble is temporary … unless you make that not so. Recovery is not grand, it’s one step in front of the other. Unless your cure is more of the disease. (Page 192)
“He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man,” Seneca once said. Alter that: He who will do anything to avoid failure will almost certainly do something worthy of a failure. (Page 193)
The only real failure is abandoning your principles. (Page 194)
This is characteristic of how great people think. It’s not that they find failure in every success. They just hold themselves to a standard that exceeds what society might consider to be objective success. Because of that, they don’t much care what other people think; they care whether they meet their own standards. And these standards are much, much higher than everyone else’s. (Page 196)
“Vain men never hear anything but praise.” (Page 197)
the scoreboard can’t be the only scoreboard. Warren Buffett has said the same thing, making a distinction between the inner scorecard and the external one. Your potential, the absolute best you’re capable of— that’s the metric to measure yourself against. Your standards are. Winning is not enough. People can get lucky and win. People can be assholes and win. Anyone can win. But not everyone is the best possible version of themselves. (Page 197)
A person who judges himself based on his own standards doesn’t crave the spotlight the same way as someone who lets applause dictate success. A person who can think long term doesn’t pity herself during short- term setbacks. A person who values the team can share credit and subsume his own interests in a way that most others can’t. (Page 199)
the Streisand effect (named after a similar attempt by the singer and actress Barbra Streisand, who tried to legally remove a photo of her home from the Web. Her actions backfired and far more people saw it than would have had she left the issue alone.) Attempting to destroy something out of hate or ego often ensures that it will be preserved and disseminated forever. (Page 201)
Rich, powerful person becomes so isolated and delusional that when something happens contrary to his wishes, he becomes consumed by it. The same drive that made him great is suddenly a great weakness. He turns a minor inconvenience into a massive sore. The wound festers, becomes infected, and can even kill him. (Page 203)
Love was transformational, hate was debilitating. (Page 204)
“We begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.” (Page 204)
Are we going to be miserable just because other people are? (Page 205)
This obsession with the past, with something that someone did or how things should have been, as much as it hurts, is ego embodied. (Page 206)
As Benjamin Franklin observed, those who “drink to the bottom of the cup must expect to meet with some of the dregs.” (Page 208)
As Harold Geneen put it, “People learn from their failures. Seldom do they learn anything from success.” (Page 209)
It’s why the old Celtic saying tells us, “See much, study much, suffer much, that is the path to wisdom.” (Page 209)
All great men and women went through difficulties to get to where they are, all of them made mistakes. They found within those experiences some benefit— even if it was simply the realization that they were not infallible and that things would not always go their way. They found that self- awareness was the way out and through— if they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have gotten better and they wouldn’t have been able to rise again. (Page 209)
training was like sweeping the floor. Just because we’ve done it once, doesn’t mean the floor is clean forever. Every day the dust comes back. Every day we must sweep. The same is true for ego. You would be stunned at what kind of damage dust and dirt can do over time. And how quickly it accumulates and becomes utterly unmanageable. (Page 212)
There’s a quote from Bismarck that says, in effect, any fool can learn from experience. The trick is to learn from other people’s experience. (Page 216)
being better people, being happier people, being balanced people, being content people, being humble and selfless people. (Page 216)
And what is most obvious but most ignored is that perfecting the personal regularly leads to success as a professional, but rarely the other way around. (Page 216)
