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I finished listening to this book, Ego is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday and absolutely loved the lessons that I learned and I couldn't wait to share some of the amazing quotes from this book.
So I hope that you enjoy them, but before we jump into those, I wanted to share some take aways I learned.
As a business builder and looking to become a leader I really took away from this book some great tips towards building up others and how to put your Ego away and build up humility in it's place. Which many of the quotes I found below focus on this.
Without further ado, enjoy the quotes!
"When ego is gone, you wake up in the middle of the circle and now you're a part of - not apart from - Life, Good, God."
I found this one just so unique. When you decide to not let ego in your life anymore you can be a part of something all encompassing. Now just imagine being able to invite others into this that can them become their best as well.
"Leaders must free their subordinates to fulfill their talents to the utmost. However, most obstacles that limit people's potential are set in motion by the leader and are rooted in his or her own fears, ego needs, and unproductive habits. When leaders explore deep within their thoughts and feelings in order to understand themselves. A transformation can take shape."
Now this one took a few different times of reading through to really grasp, but the idea of freeing those that are under you, perhaps in your business or network marketing and then letting them spread their wings. Don't stand in their way and limit their potential with your own limitation. Step out of the way and let them figure out how to do what needs to be done. Then watch them grow!
"Steve Jobs had a remarkable knack for letting go of things that didn't work. If you were in an argument with him and you convinced him that you were right, he would instantly change his mind. He didn't hold on to an idea because he had once believed it to be brilliant. His ego didn't attach to the suggestions he made, even as he threw his full weight behind them."
Never let your ego hold you back from broadening your understanding of something just because it is different than what is in your head.
"Our job, as souls on this mortal journey, is to shift the seat of our identity from the ego to the self. That's it."
The idea of this quote is to focus in this life is to switch the focus from our ego, the one that reacts without thinking, the one that is biased and not very nice when confronted. The self, however, is someone who thinks before reacting, who takes all ideas into account without judgement.
"Perfectionism is the Ego's wicked demand. It denies us the pleasure of process. Instead, we are told by the ego that we must have instantaneous success - and our perfectionism believes it, lock, stock, and barrel."
In truth, another that is similar has helped me tremendously, "version 1.0 is better than version 0.0." Nothing is ever going to be perfect because we are never going to be perfect. So instead of waiting for the project you are working on to be perfect, put it out there, evaluate and then adjust it as information becomes available.
"'Your job is to get on base,' says my son's baseball coach. Ego likes a line drive, resulting in a double or triple, but end of the day, the goal of getting on base eclipses the HOW of getting on base. Just get there."
This is very similar to the last. The biggest difference is instead of focusing on perfectionism, we can get stuck in thought. Thinking HOW we will get there, the tactics that can get us to our dreams. I spent many years stuck in the thinking process and thus my business didn't grow, I didn't grow. It wasn't until I found someone that could encourage me to just 'swing the bat,' to 'get on base,' and then I started seeing results. In business that step could be just reaching out to someone, posting a curiosity post, or sharing a Live video.
"Leaders must be willing to put the ship's performance ahead of their egos."
This is for all my aspiring leader or current leaders. If you have a team in any degree, you are a leader, but here comes the tricky part, you now have to figure out how to lead them. So many times when you focus too much on how the ship is moving forward through the water, you lose track of the end goal. An analogy I have heard many times is this of a plane. If you are off just 1 degree on your trajectory you will end up hundreds of miles away from your target.
I am not saying that you stop worrying about the day to day actions, but get more in a rhythm of the main Income Producing Activities that you do and keeping an eye on the end goal by evaluating where you are and what you are doing.
"Fight your own pride and ego and be open-minded and always learning new techniques, new things from anyone."
The best way to put this is always be teachable. Did you know that the well-known actor, Anthony Hopkins, in all his wisdom and knowledge, still has about 6-7 coaches? Just think about that, someone who has been acting for at least 40 years, an academy award winner, an amazing actor still hires coaches for acting... So put your ego aside and start learning.
It's funny, as I am going through these quotes, I realized that many of these lessons I learned and shared with you, I have learned by going through this 5 Day Freedom Maker Challenge. It's made for entrepreneurs who have a business, who have a team, who are leaders, who are looking to start a business, or for those that need a jumpstart in their business.
I hope to see you on it because it is constantly a Challenge that I am doing to keep my business moving forward.
Hi nice reading your blog