Ego Is the Enemy
by Ryan Holiday
Holiday's book on the ways ambition curdles into ego, at the aspiring, successful and failing stages, is built on historical portraits and Stoic restraint. It is short, pointed and occasionally self-aware about its own author's hubris. The best chapters are on staying a student and on 'the work is enough.'
Read it if…
you are achieving and have started to believe your own press.
Skip it if…
you are already too self-effacing; this book will push the wrong way.
Three things you will actually use
- Remain a student; find people better than you.
- Do the work; skip the talking about the work.
- Judge yourself by your standards, not the applause.
Do this first
Write down one area where you have stopped learning because you think you already know.
Our verdict
A sharp, short corrective for the ambitious.
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