The Best Book I Read - Contest/ EGO IS THE ENEMY by RYAN HOLIDAY.

My holiday just ended recently. However, during that time I decided to read however I concentrated so much on novels because I love stories. Towards the end of the holiday I decided to become more productive so that is when I got the book titled "Ego Is The Enemy" by Ryan Holiday and decided to read it. The perception I had is that it would be like many other self help or motivational books. On starting to read it, it was showing a lot of live experiences and I resonated with some of the things said. Sometimes we know things but do not know what they really are, however through reading we get to understand better what we know.

I looked at some of the ways I was acting and I got to know the reason why. This book is such an eye opener about ego. Ryan Holiday goes in depth and mentions that all of us are egotistical however there are moments where such ego is prone to show the most. Ryan Holiday shared a little bit about how he was an early achiever in that in his twenties he already had the dream life with various prestigious jobs and lots of money. However, all that crumbled when ego came into play. He lost his wife due to his workaholic tendencies, the companies he worked for collapsed and his life came to a stand still and that is when he sat down and reflected and realized one of his greatest enemies at that was his go and the ego of those around him.

The teachings I got from this book are as follows;

1) As we are working towards our goals for example career goals, financial goals etcetera we put in so much hard work, sometimes having sleepless nights in that when we achieve the success we were seeking we feel special, which is totally okay. However, EGO can come in to make us feel like as we have arrived in that we may forget that there is more to learn as one can feel that they have arrived. Ryan Holiday calls us to be humble in that despite what has been achieved, we should strive to keep in student mode and strive to keep learning about literally everything from anyone. As the saying goes have to desire and willingness to learn and the teacher will show up.

2) Much as Ryan urged us to keep learning he also advises against us allowing EGO to cause greed in us. In that, despite the success you have achieved you may be geared to keep seeking more without taking time to appreciate what you have. This can push one to emptiness as they may become workaholics always searching for the next big thing only to get it and realize it does not actually satisfy them.
Ryan encourages us to first define what we consider success to us individually, be it money and how much exactly, be it success, be it happiness. This will help one when they have attained what they want and not to go searching not knowing exactly what they are looking for and only to keep going and finding more emptiness and frustration even though to the outside world one may seem like they have their life together.

3) This lesson resonated so much with me. Ryan mentioned that sometimes we inflate our dreams so much yet we put in little to no work. He points out that is our EGO doing that. Sometimes we spend so much time talking about our goals and putting in little work. He says talking takes away from you because our minds may not be able to differentiate reality from the plans in our minds. Therefore, the mind can interpret what one is talking about as having already happened. This causes us to slack in the work required to fulfil our dreams.
His solution to this less or no talk but divert the energy into the work to fulfil the goals or dreams you keep talking about.

There are many lessons I learn but I would prefer to limit myself to the above as they were so profound.
These are some of the parts I highlighted so I would treat them as my inspirational quotes.

"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".

"It’s a temptation that exists for everyone—for talk and hype to replace action."

"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)."

"In actuality, 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.”

"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. 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."

"Doing great work is a struggle. It’s draining, it’s demoralizing, it’s frightening—not always, but it can feel that way when we’re deep in the middle of it. We talk to fill the void and the uncertainty."

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It is a great read and I would recommend to literally anyone because it speaks about all of us in one way or another. I feel it can also prevent someone out there from the pitfalls of ego, as they say it is wiser to learn from other peoples' mistakes than waiting to learn from your own.

I invite @moureenbronia, @kyara2 and @iraguha to participate. I thank @graceleon for preparing such a wonderful contest.