Ego is the Enemy
Hello everybody,
Before doing anything else, I have to give massive credit to Ryan Holiday for writing this outstanding book. Is it worth to buy and read?
Absolutely!
As almost everybody is, I'm reflecting sporadically. Puberty is a time when people focus on figuring out their identity and worth. And I do occasionally have the Question: “Am I arrogant?”, or in more detail: “Is my Ego blocking or distracting me from achieving the most?”
The strongest quote from the book is:
The author passionately believes:
- That you should not talk but work.
- To be a team player and not hog tasks at work.
- To reflect honestly when you get surprising results
Another brilliant principle is introduced in the chapter with the heading 'become an eternal student.' I subconsciously applied that mindset to one of my most experienced skills. Playing the Guitar.
Because of my mentor, I always felt like an apprentice. I've always been aware that he's a much more experienced and mature artist than me. I am learning a lot from him by getting constructive feedback every week, but he also grows as a teacher by mentoring me.
The important fact is that the ego and ambition is placed in someone else's hands. It's a big component of mastery to realize that you don't know everything. How do you want to improve at something whilst thinking that you can already do it extremely well?
The book often reminded me of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which states that people with little knowledge tend to overestimate their abilities, precisely because they ignore how much knowledge is necessary to master them. Additionally, that even the best gurus don't have the same ego as ignorant beginners in their topic:
But the book interestingly didn't give off that message. Ryan Holiday proclaims that everyone in society needs to be modest and honest with themselves. He splits confidence and ego into two categories and shows many good examples of true modesty and stories of people almost completely blinded by their immense ego.
All in all, I highly recommend this book. I have to admit that I've only read it 70%, so I might add more stuff to this blog post later.
Have a fantastic week and I hope to see you in my next blog :)
