 How is your ego getting in the way of your happiness and success? When do you put your desire for recognition? above higher goals Do you try to win fights with your wife or your husband or your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your boss? Do you ever feel like you always? Have to be right Your ego is messing with you. How is your ego getting in your way? How do you conquer? your ego These are some of the questions we'll be answering in today's episode and Today my guest is Ryan Holiday the author of the recently released book ego is the enemy To the uninitiated Ryan was well. He actually is a best-selling author. He wrote the book trust me. I'm lying He Apprenticed under Robert Green who's the the famous author of the book 48 laws of power He worked with Tucker max who's a friend of mine, and he was a director of marketing at America American apparel Where his campaigns have been used as case studies by Twitter YouTube and Google as you can tell he's a he's a big Underachiever Ryan holiday. How are you mate? Great to have you here. I'm doing great It's good to talk to you and you're joining us from your home in Austin, Texas. Is that right? I am yes All right, and now you and I this is the first time that you and I have actually connected officially a few years ago We were introduced I think by a mutual friend Maneesh safety and you were actually considering subletting my apartment in New York there It's funny how that works. I went to middle school with Maneesh. Okay, and then the next thing I know we got connected and we we already knew a bunch of the same people anyway I think we're sort of in the same circles. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you didn't take my apartment in the end. I did not I Took a much smaller apartment that I was much less happy with I Priced you out of the market. Obviously. I was charged charging you too much Ryan make great to have you here. What what is ego like? What is our ego? well, there's there's the Freudian definition obviously which is is somewhat antiquated, of course, and then there's the sort of psychological definition of an egotist, which is you know It's sort of a real diagnosis. I'm using ego in the colloquial sense The Walsh has this great line where he's saying, you know ego is when confidence becomes arrogance I think it's it's when We cease living in the actual world and we live in the world inside our own head when we when we sort of live in our Are the vivid illusions we create about who we are about how other people are about our place in the world? And so my my contention is that this kind of ego the idea that we're better than other people that the rules don't apply to us That we're the center of the universe these things are very much at odds with any creative or entrepreneurial Profession, although they might help in some sort of short-term Situations eventually those costs catch up to you and and can lead to really bad things So when I think of someone who has a big ego I think of someone who's kind of like cocky with a lot of bravado Which is certainly someone having a lot of ego, but it can be something else quite different to that kind of well Sure, I mean confidence I think is essential right if you don't believe you can do something you're probably not going to be able to do it I think you know if confidence is based on having done the work having received, you know Objective feedback having a track record of success. Whatever. That's great You know either the ego I'm talking about is that is the Donald Trump s ego where a man lives so fully inside His own world and in some ways look It's it's certainly admirable in the way that he's able to get other people on board with this But he is not living in the same universe that you and I are and I'm not making a political statement here I'm just saying this person lives in a different world than you and I do and That that can work until it doesn't work and when it doesn't work. It's very very bad. There's a reason that you know most Most downfalls aren't are perpetrated from the outside. They are they are Implosions right people especially successful people as you do things you start to get this sense There's this great line in in billions that showtime show by Brian compliment where he says that the main character You know when people call you superman long enough you start to think you can fly That's the problem because you can't fly and so you you end up overreaching or over estimating something or pissing the wrong person off And and and that's when all those chickens come home to roost Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? It's an interesting Dynamic because I think of Kobe Bryant the the recently retired LA like is the basketball star and I also think of Beyonce the the pop singer and and and various other high achievers often talk about creating Like a character for themselves when they go on court or when they go to perform on stage Kobe Bryant considers himself Superman when he goes on stage He kind of like imagines the cape being put on and he turns into a different personality when he's on the court With a huge ego and he's just like dictating play Beyonce has said previously I can't remember the name of the character that she creates for herself But she says every time before she goes out on stage she pretends that she's someone else Sasha fierce. I think was the name. I think that's it. Yes And and so when she goes out there now She's got this ego where she's like bravado and she's confident. She's making things happen So it is a true that we can actually harness The ego and this very thing for our own good And it's not actually causing us problems if we use it in certain situations I'm not as familiar with Beyonce. She seems to be a Very successful person, but Kanye West to me is an interesting example for you to bring up There's this sort of epic rant that Jason Whitlock did right after Kobe retired that that I think illustrates this No one can argue that Kanye or sorry that Kobe is not an Extraordinarily talented that he has not done things in basketball that no one has done before But what I think is so interesting about about Kobe is that He is clearly incapable of playing well with other players, right? Jason Whitlock. He was saying on the on the one hand, you know, Kobe had won a lot for the Lakers But if you look at the Lakers post Kobe leaving that the franchise is destroyed. It's gonna take years and years for them to recover So what's interesting is that often ego is really good in some cases for the person doing it but has a is a is a The It's putting the costs onto onto other people in that way So how many more championships could Kobe have won if he'd been able to to play With Shaq for a longer period of time if he hadn't driven him out of LA If he hadn't driven other players out of LA if he hadn't been able if he'd been able to build a succession plan or or to sort of Maybe post more to a stop instead of having this abrupt end What what what's so interesting about Kobe is that his ego made him extraordinarily Successful, but it often came at the success at the expense of everyone else on the Lakers team And you see that with you know, even someone like Michael Jordan Michael Jordan Obviously a wonderful basketball player and from what I understand a pretty decent human being But when you're punching members of your own team in the face Your ego is not serving you well, right? These people these are not your enemies These are quite literally on the same team as you and yet somehow, you know You find yourself deliberately hurting them And so it might my contention is not that ego and success are are mutually exclusive It's that often even in really successful people ego is there making their lives more difficult and And you know if a Kanye West or a Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan could have harnessed that part of themselves just a tiny bit more How much more could they have accomplished? Hmm? It's interesting, isn't it? Because we we as a society when it comes to Michael Jordan, obviously we consider him the greatest athlete of all time It's made of all depending on what sport what sport or you can say athleticism But certainly he's what he won six NBA titles and he is certainly revered as being the greatest basketball of all time If not the greatest athlete So there seems to be some kind of like almost Philosophical contradiction there because as a society we consider Jordan to be the best and we copy what he does But yet at the same time you seem to be saying well in actual fact There are things that we shouldn't admire about that and that that comes at a high cost I think that's right. It like when we hold up someone like Michael Jordan We're not looking at him as a human being we're looking at him as a machine who did this one thing very well, right? We're not saying hey, I'd like that guy to be my father, right? Because we haven't Analyze that part of his personality. I think you look at someone like Steve Jobs is another interesting example, right? Extraordinarily talented his ego is so bad early on an apples trajectory that that that John Scully the CEO that Jobs had hired is forced to fire him and and when you really look at the reasons that John Scully did that They're hard to argue with like you would have fired Steve Jobs And I would have fired Steve Jobs and we probably would have been right for not just because he was berating people because he was unmanageable But because the the company wasn't performing right and it was only Steve Jobs leaving For us to sort of go on this journey start another company learn some lessons that he comes back and is a successful CEO But but that could have very easily been the end of the story, right? Like the the fact that he was able to come back and create Apple into being one of the most successful companies in history was Was a in some ways a lucky break what he did wasn't lucky, but getting that second chance We don't always get those and so I think you want to look at At the gamble that that that ego takes someone like Lance Armstrong's maybe an example like he cheated He almost got away with it But then he didn't and then it all came crumbling down and and so I Want people to be aware of what that risk is with ego to know that it you can choose it as your fuel But the evidence historically tends to show that it's very bad fuel or it's like jet fuel It'll work or it'll explode all over you and and you know take you with it I was I was at Arnold Schwarzenegger's home in Los Angeles on Saturday night And I was very fortunate enough to speak with him one-on-one for about five minutes at one point And then in his kitchen in a small group of five people and we're talking about a lot of things and My listeners on the James Swannick show will know I actually posted an episode Just this week about how I managed to get Arnold Schwarzenegger to wear my blue light blocking glasses that I sell Swannies glasses and if you're listening to this and you haven't yet heard that interview go back a week or so depending on when You're listening to this and you can hear the story I've got audio there of Arnold Schwarzenegger talking to me or you can go to my Facebook page James Swannick official and see the actual video of Arnold wearing my glasses, but we're talking about Michael Jordan. We're talking about Steve Jobs. It's very interesting Arnold Schwarzenegger I admire him greatly He has achieved seven-time mr. Olympia. He became the governor of California He gives an enormous amount to charities. He inspires people to be healthy And he's got a big ego like he does have a big ego You would have to have a big ego to accomplish all of those things yet Right most of us would have stopped after any number of those things and said I did it right right, but You know, obviously he had this this I guess you call it a scandal four or five years ago when it came out that he'd fathered a Love child with his housekeeper and his marriage to Maria Shriver Obviously collapsed and now they're divorced and he's living By himself in this in this big home and so you can look at it I guess that's another example of saying there's someone whose ego maybe got in the way now We don't know the intricacies of what what happened there We're can only assume but is that another example of someone whose ego has has has the jet fuel has run out So to speak and all of a sudden they've imploded self imploded I think we all have examples like that in our own lives And so I'm not trying to make an example out of these people and say these are horrible people What I'm saying is that you know with ambition comes ego and if you're not vigilant against it It's not hey, I don't have an ego because I read this book about meditation and now it's gone forever It's that the more you do and the more you accomplish the more seductive ego is going to be right because not only do you start to think you're Great, but literally everyone you meet tells you how great you are, right? So we all have that in us. We all tend to to begin to overestimate our abilities We tend to to start to think we're untouchable. We start to think It's obviously ego manifests itself differently based on where we happen to be in life But we all have that temptation and so I think you can look at some of these well-known figures and see that that What it ultimately did was was some significant damage and then I think we should be in some ways I think writing some of these people off as as being egotistical Doesn't or attributing their success to their ego doesn't give them the credit they deserve in the sense that Kind of west is not a great rapper because he has a huge ego He's a great rapper because he did the fucking work, you know what I mean? Because he's a he's a creative person who is who has lived and breathed this craft for a really long time and he and he's Built relationships and he's a savvy marketer and all these things. That's why he's great I would argue that ego is the reason he gets up on stage and interrupts Taylor Swift for no real reason and Turns a lot of people who should be his fans against him to me That's where the ego is the ego that that that That the force that drove him to create, you know, watch the throne that wasn't ego That was sort of creative joy and and and brilliance And so I think we've we've got to make that distinction and make sure that we're we're both giving people the credit they deserve and Holding them accountable for for their flaws as well We're talking to Ryan holiday who is the author of the recently released and published book ego is the enemy Ego is the enemy. It's a philosophical exploration of difficulties. We create for ourselves in life Send Ryan a tweet right now at Ryan holiday Make sure you you send me in there as well at James swanick and just let Ryan know that you enjoyed Listening to him or give us a little tip on one one takeaway from this episode. I'm sure Ryan would love to retweet you as well I Just taking it away from like ego of trying to get praise and success and all that kind of stuff if we just look At it from a merely one-on-one point of view Let's just say a romantic couple for example husband and wife boyfriend girlfriend boyfriend boyfriend girlfriend girlfriend whatever it is Just last night. I had an argument with the romantic interest in my life with my girlfriend and You know, I found myself in the moment Thinking that I was right feeling that I was right and really wanting to have a need to prove that I was right Sure, and I'm sure anyone who's in it in a relationship would probably feel this way That's my ego getting in the way, right Ryan. I think it is it's it's then It's it's the need to be sort of above someone or to need to Maybe make someone below you. I think is is one manifestation of ego The other thing too is like we sort of get locked in these Someone says something and so then we reply and then all of a sudden we've gone down this sort of escalation Or it's a downward spiral and now none of us wants to admit defeat or admit that we don't care about this thing Nearly as much as as we sort of put into it and and so it when you can put your ego aside And actually think about that other person and go like hey They probably don't want to admit that they're wrong either or hey Maybe they don't care about this as much as as they're acting like either you can sometimes de-escalate those situations But again, this is all much easier said than done But I think you make a good point ego is not just a problem because it's going to ruin the Multi-million-dollar business that you've created if you can't see the the people in your life as their own people with their own wants needs and desires and and and And and genuinely care about that if you can only care about yourself Not only does that make you an asshole, but it's going to make you very hard for for people to put up with When has ego in that situation got in your way, right? In in my personal life, I mean all all all the time, right? It's For all I'll give you an example I think we're all kind of trying to Decreate or address some problem that we have in our childhood. Obviously. This is not my insight It's pretty common in psychology, but it's like if your parents. Let's say didn't recognize you enough or didn't Acknowledge, you know what you did enough then sometimes you'll look for that in your partner and be totally crushed when you know They didn't notice that you got your haircut or they didn't notice when you did this these these sort of minor things that that to you Have become huge deals, but since you can't articulate why they're a huge deal. You just feel resentful or angrier or or You know slighted in some way So I think resentment is to me a big form of ego and it's it's something that I suffer with you sort of collect these lights or these doubts that you then kind of explode about and and Look that doesn't that doesn't make you a pleasant person to be with that doesn't that doesn't treat the person that you're with very Well either the the bigger one for me in my personal relationship, it's somewhat related to work is The inability to say no or have any real sort of balance in my life, right? So I open the book I talk a lot about like I sort of struggle with sort of compulsive working, right like to me Work always is easy and it always goes pretty well, right? But relationships are complicated. You know doing stuff around the house is complicated. It doesn't come as easily to me So it's like I can I can sort of be off in my own world I can hey I just need to run up, you know check something on my computer and four hours later I come back and I'm like, you know, I I just expected this person to wait for me Which is you know an inherently selfish thing to do So so that sort of balance this idea There's this wonderful quote from Bertrand Russell where he says the first sign of an impending nervous collapse is the belief that your work has become terribly important I Think I think I suffer from that Yeah It's funny, you know in in terms of of ego with me I I feel like I have a lot of ego when it comes to my family back in Australia Well, I have my parents have Aaron both live in Brisbane, Australia as does my youngest brother Tristan who's now a business partner of mine in in my swanese blue light blocking glasses And then my brother Edward is a house master and deputy headmaster over in the UK And as it comes to Entrepreneurship or entrepreneur endeavors I feel I definitely feel like I have an ego because my my dad's not wasn't and isn't an entrepreneur nor is my mother Nor is my brother Need that neither are two of my brothers, you know, my brother has a job over in the UK my brother Tristan I'm now sort of teaching or helping or Sure into the entrepreneurial Jenny So one of the big complaints that I get from my youngest brother as we're talking about growing the business is that I Patronize him or I speak to him in a way. I talk down to him Sure when my mother who's very conservative and she doesn't really know what I what I do She just wants me to get a job and a safe hundred grand a year salary with full medical benefits So I don't have the up and downs of right an aerial journey. I can't I feel myself thinking I'm separate I'm so smart. I'm so clever because I went to America and I'm learning from these amazing people and great coaches And I'm interviewing people like Ryan holiday here and I'm getting mentored by Tai Lopez And they're just sitting back in Australia this cute little island not really knowing what's going right? And so I feel that ego and I don't like it about myself, but I but I feel it What's going on there Ryan based on your research like why am I feeling that and I guess I guess I should Say it's a good thing that I recognize it as well, right? Absolutely. There's this line there's this great book in The Alcoholics Anonymous Community called the new pair of glasses and and the the the writer he's talking He defines ego as a conscious separation from and so what he means is Ego is when you suddenly think that you're more different than other people or other things than you are the same when you have That sort of conscious separation and I feel that too. It's like you guys don't you don't Know what it's like to be me, right? That's the idea that you're somehow special and better or different than everyone else and look obviously that there are Differences and we all have our unique experiences, but that sort of sense of superiority. I feel that too It comes from childhood. I think if you feel like maybe your parents and recognize you or understand you you you can start to You look inward instead of getting that external validation that every child should get you you kind of go Well, why am I special and you look for other things and that can often be in your work or in your identity as a successful person? And so you you end up as a byproduct condescending to other people bossing them around being really controlling You know being dismissive those sort of things And that's really bad I think what you're talking about can manifest itself even worse like all of a sudden Let's say your company now employs two hundred people Well, you're gonna have to be able to trust a lot of those people and delegate a lot of work to them and and give them Responsibilities what I think you see with a lot of egotists like not to go back to Donald Trump but like Donald Trump is running his campaign with like seven people and Hillary has almost a thousand people working for her and Part of Trump's problem is that he's a micro manager He's such a control freak and he thinks he's so special that he has to be in control all the time That's why he says so many dumb things on Twitter because other people can't interrupt him and say hey You shouldn't do that. He doesn't he's not able to hand that off to another smart person And so a lot of entrepreneurs have that trouble their their identity is so tied up in being special or better That it that it ultimately stymies the business and prevents them from expanding and scaling. Yeah I definitely feel those at times The the sense of superiority. I know sometimes I come across as condescending and dismissive When it comes to my conversation with my brother, I'm very conscious of it. I'm trying to work. I'm trying to work on it They say that Recognizing it all being awareness is the first step, right? So I do have that Awareness and I think what what really drives this is that I I really even the fact that I moved to America from Australia Was my way of kind of separating from what I saw to be mediocre thinking or Or me not wanting to consider myself being mediocre I always wanted to go and make it and and and achieve great success and that Ego because it is ego has driven me like it's driven me I mean I I did what in my world seemed impossible Which was I became a sports center anchor on ESPN for a couple years with zero television experience And when I got that job and finally is on TV and I'm hanging out with Tom Brady and Kobe Bryant all these famous people I was like giving myself a pat on the back going right. Yeah, you see what I mean You took the risk you moved over to America and you lived in a hostile paying $15 a night But then you finally made it and I kind of like gave me that sense of like Sure sense of superiority. So I don't know I mean, I it's such a it's such a great contradiction because that ego drove me to that and I loved the fact that I accomplished that and it Gives me so much happiness, but at the same time I do feel that sense of superiority in some cases with some people Well, what's so so interesting is that like to build a company? You had to make something where there wasn't something before to write a book you have to take an idea in your head Which everyone has hundreds of times a day and then you turned that into 300 pages, right? Or or to you know to be a champion in a sport It's like to be that the heavyweight champion of the world you have to literally beat Into submission the other strongest people in the world, right? Like I and Muhammad Ali says, you know, it's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am That's what he said and it's true, but that's why we have to work so hard Because we have to work so hard to fight that because here's the thing just because you're good at one thing Doesn't mean you're gonna be good at these other things So I think Kanye West again an interesting example brilliant musician He announced a couple months ago that he was like $50 million in debt because of his fashion empire It just keeps not working and and that's what I see a lot with entrepreneurs that I deal with or you know Successful people that I advise they they they start to believe Excuse me. They start to believe they have the Midas touch, right? that because the first thing they touch turned to gold or the first 50 things that they touch turned to gold that That's what's gonna happen every single time and and they tell themselves the wrong story and they often are Sloppier on the future projects or they overestimate the demands of the audience. They start to they start to read The evidence in a very self-serving way and then all of a sudden they overreach and you know We're all just a few bad decisions away from everything toppling That's why you go so dangerous. It's dangerous. Isn't it? It is dangerous. It's dangerous and How are we born with this or do we develop it like is it is it nature or nurture? I think it's it's it's both I mean, obviously, there would be some evolutionary reasons to care about yourself a lot But I I I have to think that our sort of self-esteem culture must contribute to it You know that this my generation sort of raised with these helicopter parents who we sort of interfere with every single thing They tell you how amazing you are, you know, they value self-esteem above everything else And then I also wonder it's like for instance, you have this podcast So you know that you have an audience and you're that you're kind of performing for that audience like you know that you In your underwear at midnight is not exactly the same as who you are when you sit down to write an article or send an email Or your podcast so you know that there's like the sort of performance James and then kind of regular James And and there's a lot of warnings for people in our space about making sure that you know You don't let this stuff go to your head What about a world where suddenly everyone has an Instagram account and a Twitter account with followers and fans now? Everyone is sort of a quote-unquote performer especially young kids But they're not really taught any of the the skills or the warnings about balancing that so that's what I think is so scary so what are some examples of of of people who have really mastered of finding the right balance between Healthy ego if you like or like enough enough ego where it's like they're a little bit cocky They're a little bit arrogant They harness that to really make things happen But yet they're also so aware that they do incorporate others that they are respected that they do have that sense of Of of of humility I guess yeah One of the stories I tell in the book that if someone I've come to admire a lot is is is George Marshall Who the Marshall plan is named after? He was a brilliant general who sort of time and time again put his his own needs behind the needs of the country for instance FDR offered him the chance to lead the troops at D-Day, which would have been a life-changing opportunity right it sort of launches Eisenhower to the presidency, but George Marshall says to him hey look I don't want any of my personal feelings to decide who you to decide who gets this job I want you to pick the best person for it But at the same time he was very proud of the fact that he was a general He insisted that FDR refer to him as general Marshall not as George right so he's proud of his accomplishments But he's also not gonna put that pride ever in the way of what he's sort of signed on to do or the mission that he's serving There's a story About Marshall he sits for this official portrait that he needed to sit for a really long time So you know you go you show up they paint you you go to show up they paint you and then the artist goes All right, you're done. We're set and Marshall he just gets up to leave And the painters like but we don't you want to see the painting and he's like no no It's all right. I got to go because he is like what does he need to look at a picture of himself for right? He knows what he looks like and and What what Marshall did is someone asked his wife, you know, they were like how was your how did your husband sort of not have This ego and she said look he's just like you he has the same drives and urges that you have he's just conquered He's just worked at them right. He's just decided not to let them lead him down the bad road You compare that to someone like general MacArthur also a brilliant general, but this sort of vain Arrogant man who ultimately sort of is forced to be recalled by Truman because because of of his, you know Repeated in in subordination. So I when I look at someone like Marshall and I see the Marshall plan I see that he was secretary of state secretary of Defense that he that he was You know our essential diplomat in sort of one of the openings of China You know that that he he led the troops in World War one that he did all the organization in this sort of brilliant Logistic work in World War two. I see someone who's in Accomplished more than sort of you and I could ever dream of but he was the reason he was able to do that Is that he mastered his ego and that's it might not be as sexy They didn't make a movie about Marshall the way they did about Patton But we got to remember that Patton's attitude what made him such a cinematic figure is also what got him in trouble all the time, right? I know mastering the ego you said something they're mastering the ego. That's that's powerful I'm actually gonna write that down so to remember the whole thing when it comes to like mastering the ego You use the example of Bill Belichick who's the the New England Patriots Head coach if you follow the American football the NFL Bill Belichick has won Super Bowls with Tom Brady as the quarterback Why is he an example of someone who's who has seemingly mastered their their ego Ryan? Well, one of my favorite Bill Belichick stories is is they the New England Patriots drafted Tom Brady in the sixth round Yeah, right It's probably the single best draft pick in the history of football right to get a three-time Super Bowl winning champion Multi-MVP 12 season quarterback in the sixth round like, you know, 200 the 200th pick or whatever is absurd That would be like, you know Investing in Microsoft Amazon and Google All on the IPO on the same day, you know what I mean? It's just unheard of but when you when you when when you talk to the Patriots and David Halberstrand Wonderful biography of Bill Belichick is a good source for this The Patriots were not pleased three seasons later or two seasons later when Tom Brady turned out to be the superstar Obviously, they they were glad but the their first instinct was to go. How did we get this so wrong? How was our intelligence and our scouting so off that we let this superstar? Dwindle or you know, sort of dangle there until the sixth round and and so what what I think really great people Master the ego do is they don't care what you think of them. They don't care about the external scorecard They have a sort of an internal scorecard an inner model of perfection that they're that they're pursuing and holding themselves against So Bill Belichick doesn't care that you think he's the greatest coach in the world or that he's a genius He cares about the standards that he holds himself to and what he thinks is possible to do in the game And I think that's inherently humbling Look, I'm I don't know Bill So I can't tell you he's an egoless person but he has clearly built a franchise that has managed to avoid the pitfalls of ego and entitlement and and self-absorption that has that has made it harder for other teams to last You know even half as long as the Patriots We're talking to Ryan Holiday who is the author of the book ego is the enemy His previous book was the obstacle is the way and his first book was trust me. I'm lying You can find him on Twitter at at Ryan holiday. He's also online at Ryan holiday.com make sure you check him out Ryan let's do some actionable steps here the viewer or listener right now He's listening to this and maybe they're aware now of their own ego and where it's it's playing havoc with their own life What us let's go over say three actionable steps that we can do here to to recognize when ego is happening and how to either Harness it or master it or eliminate it depending on the circumstance I think you want to consciously the first one I would say is you want to consciously pick up the mantle of a student, right of that sort of beginner's mindset The longer you can keep that the better you're gonna be, you know There's this epic Titus quote where he says one cannot learn that which they think they already know and and if you can remember that if you can remember that you know sort of pride and arrogance and and and Know it all is him is actually gonna prevent you from learning and it's gonna inflate the ego You're gonna do yourself a big favorite, right? So you want to you want to say hey, there's always something for me to learn There's an Emerson quote He says, you know every man that I meet in one way or another is my superior And I'm gonna be able to learn from him And so if you can if you can say that that's I think that's gonna knock your ego down a Peg or two and be very important Pat Riley has this concept of the disease of me. This would be the second one where he's saying, you know a team comes together and That you know, they all have this shared common goal But then once success arrives then all of a sudden it's about sort of getting yours, right? It's like why does he get paid more than me? Why does the media care more about him than me? So if you can fight that disease of me, right that sort of selfishness that Putting your own needs above other people. Is it Tony Adams? There's that line You know play for the jersey or play for the name on the front of the jersey and they'll remember the name on the back So you see if you realize that like sort of doing great work and not so much caring about the credit of the attention Might have some cost in the short term. I think over the long term. It's better And then there's another thing you said you're talking to Robert Green. You should ask him about this when I was sort of thinking about Changing my life. I wanted to become a writer and I had a really good job at the time I was an American peril. I knew I had about a year before I could make that leap and Robert He said to me, you know, okay, you have a choice now Is that year is that going to be a lifetime for you or dead time? You so he's saying how are in instead of, you know, bemoaning the fact that you have to go to this office every day for a year instead of You know complaining that you're stuck in traffic or that you're you know, someone was late You know, whatever we do when we we are stuck with like time that we didn't plan for He said how are you gonna sort of live and breathe in every single moment and get every single bit out of it? Right, which is a I think it inherently unegotistical thing to do to instead of complaining about You know, you're playing being an hour late. You're like, okay I got an hour more to work on an uninterrupted and so that a lifetime dead time calculation is one that I try to make constantly and and if you are constantly choosing a lifetime You are gonna over time pull ahead of all the other people who waste their time Complaining or blaming other people or or just you know, twiddling their thumbs I think that that last point a lifetime dead time and said another way could be just being grateful expressing gratitude When I wake up in in the morning, uh, most days, I don't do it every day But most days I write in a book called five minute journal Love that a couple of my friends actually created it. You can check it out at fiveminutejournal.com And uh, it asked you, you know, one very simple question Which is what are three things you're grateful for today and just doing that for just two minutes. I mean 120 seconds It's amazing how you get out of your head like you get out like I didn't realize I was getting out of my ego, but now that we've had this conversation ryan I'm realizing that's actually what what you're doing because it's humbling you it's going wow I'm so appreciative of the fact that I slept in a comfortable bed with the roof over my head today I'm so appreciative that I got to interview cool people like ryan holiday and robert green today I'm so appreciative for the wonderful friends in my life Uh, because I know a lot of people don't have a lot of friends and a lot of people don't sleep under a roof or in a bed That is very much Getting you into a feeling of gratitude and getting out of your ego Now I'm just realizing this that that is just a great daily practice. Do you do something like that ryan? You're you're you're totally right. Um, I think it's not just gratitude, but it's also removing Expectations right like being able to to greet when you're when you're grateful waking up That you're alive. You're gonna be less upset when you look outside and it's raining unexpectedly Or you know that uh, it's too hot or that you've got a bunch of meetings You don't want to do you can sort of put some of those expectations aside It's easier to appreciate whatever there is and whatever happens. I I know alex and uh, who does five minute journal I I love what they're doing. I I just write in a plain moscinae where I just write, you know I try to write what I did the day before what I've got coming up Um, you know what what I feel like I can do better what I'm working on And I try to write what I'm grateful for as well I think I think journaling in the morning is very very important. It's sort of forced meditation But not in the sit there and think nothing sense. Yeah, it's good for people with really bad cases of add Tony robin says it another way actually he says live in appreciation not expectation. So that's right. Yeah start living in appreciation all right, so three tips there from Ryan holiday on how to master the ego number one was consider yourself a student always be learning a great quote there every man is my superior and I will learn from them so Uh, always be constantly learning. Here's just one little caveat to that. It's like the more the more that I learned Ryan The more egotistical I seem to get because I know that friends or family who aren't learning as much as me I feel like I'm just progressing so much. So let me let me give you a quote then that I think might work on that There's uh, John John Wheeler who's a physicist. Um, he would he says as our island of knowledge grows So too does our shoreline of ignorance So instead of focusing on how much bigger your island is to other people You know, you want to focus on all the things that you now know that you have no idea about Yeah, and and uh, you know socrates is was considered, you know, the wisest man who ever lived because he He knew how much he didn't know and so I think if you focus if you just flip it It's the same fundamental reality, but yeah, you're right. It'll it'll it'll prevent that from happening. Yeah, it's you're right I mean, it's it's amazing just like how again going back to tony robbins. He says change your language change your thought patterns change your life Yeah, it's like if you say, oh man life is hard Then you're gonna see everything as hard if you say life is a gift Then you're gonna look at everything as a gift. You say life is a party. Whoa Then you're gonna look at every opportunity as a party same same thing as this example You can go I'm so smart because I get to interview the world's smartest people I'm so cool because I was hanging out with Arnold Schwarzenegger the other night Or you can say whoa, man. I I have so much to learn about life. I am clueless when it comes to like the amount of Amazing things that are going on with people and and psychology and things and success Man, I'm just a student. I'm just like this humble student Right switch it around like that. It just gives it a completely different meaning Yeah, Marcus really as he says, you know, our life is what our thoughts make it And so I think if you choose those right thoughts it it it can combat some of those things Yeah So yeah, number one was consider yourself a student always be learning the second tip from ryan holiday to master the ego was Fight the disease of me selfishness Don't care about the attention So much be thinking about how you could I mean even just a simple little daily exercise is how can I help People how can I just do a little thing of helping people? I remember right up before 2010 I was always going into relate new relationships thinking how can this person help me And then I read keith farazi's book never eat alone And it was all about helping other people first and I just completely switched it on its head And I start I drew up a list on a whiteboard not dissimilar to the one that you see behind me And I just wrote out my write down my friends at the time and over the next two or three weeks I just systematically went I've tried to find a way that I could help my friends whether it was just connecting them or sending them a news article Or whatever something very small man That totally transformed my life because a week after I'd helped out a friend of mine With something he reached out to me and said hey james ESPN is looking for an international anchor for sports center and I thought you'd be really cool for it Can I introduce you to a producer there and I said hell? Yeah, sure and then long story short I ended up going through a process of Becoming a sports center anchor if you haven't read that story if you go to my blog James swanick and just type in how I bluffed ESPN You can just see the whole story there about the process that I did to with zero television experience Going to ESPN auditioning Then finally becoming a sports center anchor the point of this story is this The moment that I stopped thinking How can someone help me and I turned it around to how can I help that person guess what people started helping me? The very thing that I dreamed of doing hosting a tv show came true because I helped someone else And that's what ryan's talking about here fighting the disease of me fighting that disease of selfishness Be trying to think of other people and help other people first And it will come back to you right ryan. Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay. And then the third tip is Instead of bemoaning your experience ask yourself How are you going to breathe in every moment and get everything out of it a live time versus dead time? Remove expectations live in appreciation not expectation So there you go three tips there from ryan holiday on how to master the ego make sure that you check out ryan's New book which is ego is the enemy where can our listener and viewer grab your book ryan? amazon bookstores everywhere as far as I know There you go It's everywhere just type in ego is the enemy and you'll be able to find that any parting words ryan Just sort of summarize and nicely put a book into this conversation here about ego Well, look, I I really liked what you were just talking about about helping other people And I think the story of how you and I got connected is exactly the same way you don't Not only do you never know how reaching out to someone or doing something is gonna Is is is gonna work out for you, but also, you know, I think tim ferris has said this It's when he when he meets people he always says like treat them as though they're an editor at the new york times Because they might become one someday or they might know an editor at the new york times And so it's like imagine if you and I had had some nasty conversation quibbling about like how much an apartment should rent for You know that four years later that comes back to bite someone in the ass, right? So it's like part of part of the problem with ego is that when you're in its way You don't treat other people well and you don't you have no idea The ways in which that might be holding you back Yeah, wonderful. Beautifully said Ryan holiday. Thank you so much for your time I'd I really appreciate it's been great to to finally connect with you Versus Over only over email and yeah, we'll have to see each other in person sometime. That will be great Ryan Thank you so much for your words of wisdom. Make sure you check out Ryan's book ego is the enemy His previous books obviously the obstacle Include the obstacle is the way you can check him out at ryan holiday.com Do go and send a tweet right now to ryan holiday at ryan holiday and at james swanick. Please do Share this episode with someone who you think needs a little bit of help with mastering the ego Get it out there to the world. Thank you ryan and thank you to the listener and the viewer And I will catch you on the next one. See you I'll tell you right now. How do you get smarter in seconds some jumping jacks in the spot? This is the world's leading one of the world's leading neuroscientists acting like a