bright young men, the newer, fresher Sammy Glicks that would spring
up to harass him, to threaten him and finally overtake him.
That’s how ego manifests itself. And isn’t that what we’re desperately
afraid of becoming?
I’ll reveal one last thing I hope will make this come full circle. I first read
that passage when I was nineteen years old.
It was reading assigned by a
seasoned mentor who had found, as I would, early success in the
entertainment business. The book was influential and informative for me, just
as he’d known it would be.
Yet over the next few years, I worked myself into a nearly identical
situation as the characters in the book. Not just summoned to the palatial
home to watch the expected and unavoidable dissolution of a person I
admired. But to find myself dangerously close to my own shortly thereafter.
I know the passage struck me because when I went to
type it up for this
epilogue, I found in my original copy pages covered in my own handwriting,
written years before, detailing my reaction, right before I had set out into the
world. Clearly I had understood Schulberg’s words intellectually, even
emotionally—but I had made the wrong choices anyway. I had swept once
and thought it was enough.
Ten years after first reading it and writing down my thoughts, I was ready
once more. Those lessons came home to me in exactly the way I needed them
to.
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. This book
started around the latter idea and to my surprise ended up with a painful
amount of the former as well. I set out to study ego and came crashing into my
own—and to those of the people I had long since looked up to.
It may be that you’ll need to experience some of that on your own too.
Perhaps it is like Plutarch’s reflection that we don’t “so much gain the
knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience [we have] of
things.”
In any case, I want to conclude this book with the idea that has
underpinned all of what you’ve just read. That it’s admirable to want to be
better businessmen or businesswomen,
better athletes, better conquerors. We
should want to be better informed, better off financially . . . We should want,
as I’ve said a few times in this book, to do great things. I know that I do.
But no less impressive an accomplishment: being better people, being
happier people, being balanced people, being content people, being humble
and selfless people. Or better yet, all of these traits together. 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. Working to
refine our habitual thoughts, working to clamp down on destructive impulses,
these are not simply the moral requirements of any decent person. They will
make us more successful; they will help us navigate the treacherous waters
that ambition will require us to travel. And they are also their own reward.
So here you are, at the end of this book about ego, having seen as much as
one can be shown about the problems of ego from other people’s experiences
and my own.
What is left?
Your choices. What will you
do with this information? Not just now, but
going forward?
Every day for the rest of your life you will find yourself at one of three
phases: aspiration, success, failure. You will battle the ego in each of them.
You will make mistakes in each of them.
You must sweep the floor every minute of every day.
And then sweep
again.
WHAT SHOULD YOU READ NEXT?
For most people, bibliographies are boring. For those of us who love to
read, they can be the best part of an entire book. As one of those people, I
have prepared for you—my book-loving reader—a full guide to every single
book and source I used in this study of ego. I wanted to show you not just
which books deserved citation but what I got out of them, and which ones I
strongly recommend you read next. In doing this,
I got so carried away that
my publisher informed me what I had prepared was too big to fit in the book.
So I’d like to send it to you directly—in fully clickable and searchable form.
If you’d like these recommendations, all you have to do is e-mail
EgoIsTheEnemy@gmail.com or visit www.EgoIsTheEnemy.com/books. I’ll
also send you a collection of my favorite quotes and observations about ego
—many of which I couldn’t fit in this book.
CAN I GET EVEN MORE BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS?
You can also sign up for my monthly book recommendation e-mail. The list
of recipients has grown to more than fifty thousand rabid, curious readers
like yourself. You’ll get one e-mail per month,
with recommendations from
me based on my own personal reading. It kicks off with ten of my favorite
books of all time. Just e-mail ryanholiday@gmail.com with “Reading List E-
mail” in the subject line or sign up at ryanholiday.net/reading-newsletter.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aristotle. trans. Terence Irwin.
Nicomachean Ethics. Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing, 1999.
Barlett, Donald L., and James B. Steele.
Howard Hughes: His Life and
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