Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday: Stoic Classic or Self-Help Illusion?

 “Ego Is The Enemy”, first published in 2016, is still one of the world’s biggest modern philosophy books. Some have called it one of the best non-fiction books out, while others regard it as another self-help book with a catchy title. 

What really sets this book apart and makes it popular amongst readers is its simple explanations, numerous historical instances and examples, and its concise length, as it has around 256 pages in most editions and upto 300 at most. 

Even ten years later, “Ego Is The Enemy” is a book that sparks countless discussions, whether it be from enjoyers of the book who admire its simplicity or from critical readers who argue that it’s just another shallow self-help book. 

It’s time to REALLY see what this book’s about, why it’s so famous, why it’s still relevant, and if it really is the perfect book for your next read. (With no spoilers!) 

Spoiler-Free Summary

“Ego Is The Enemy” shows us how the human ego silently manipulates our every decision. The book shows how the human ego affects our relationships, career and long-term ambitions.

More specifically, the book is written for those who aspire big and wish to achieve something in life. It’s intended for people of all ages and in all walks of life; students, professionals, artists, entrepreneurs or anyone who feels they need a change in life. 

It’s divided itself into three different stages: Aspiration, success and failure. It serves as a guidebook to how ego can destroy our efforts. Throughout all of these different stages, it tells us how to deal with tough moments, impulses, and prevent that disconnection from reality that makes all your effort topple like a house of cards. 

How it spreads its message is not through a “revolutionary ideology” but through age old values of humility and stoicism. It introduces stoic philosophy through various historical examples and anecdotes, along with a bit of his own personal experience. 

I feel that this one line from the introductory section captures the gist of the entire book. Take a look.

“While the history books are filled with tales of obsessive, visionary geniuses who remade the world in their image with sheer, almost irrational force, I’ve found that if you go looking you’ll find that history is also made by individuals who fought their egos at every turn, who eschewed the spotlight, and who put their higher goals above their desire for recognition. Engaging with and retelling these stories has been my method of learning and absorbing them.”

He puts forward not only a few tenets of stoicism for life and work, but also encourages us to ask bigger questions. At the core, what do we want to do in our life? What truly makes us happy and satisfied? 

So, is this book for you?

In simple words, “Ego Is The Enemy” is an introduction to basic stoicism and how it’s applied in a workplace context or in a project or if you’re an ambitious person. 

As mentioned earlier, it uses a lot of historical instances and even dives back to the roots of stoic philosophy. If you are somebody who has problems controlling your ego or have struggled with work ethic and/or procrastination in the past, this book may set you on the right track. It explains the importance of humility, learning to be a student, and learning to actually work to get things done. It also shows us how to deal with humiliation and setbacks in life. 

However, it’s important to note that this is not an actual in-depth introduction to stoicism. It does drift past some of the key ideas, but it doesn’t really explore different contexts or the entire philosophy. As I’ve mentioned a couple times already, it only deals with workplace or business context. So, if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or if you’re working on a project then maybe, this may be somewhat helpful to you. 

I’d also like to note that this is not an all-in-one handbook that teaches you how to achieve your goals from beginning to end. “Ego Is The Enemy” is more about changing your mindset and changing your perspective on situations. 

However, there are some flaws with the book that will very likely affect your reading experience and what you take away from it, so hang in there, because this next section is really important.

Honest thoughts, as a reader 

Short and concise

What I really like about this book is that it doesn’t try to expand itself by botching the pacing or finding other ways to increase the length of the book. 

That’s kind of what sets it apart from a lot of books in the modern self-help genre. There are a large number of chapters and none of them are longer than 20 pages at most.

Despite the many things I have to say about this book, as you’ll see later, it is honestly very articulate and concise. 

I also like how the historical instances and anecdotes aren’t used to simply extend the story and each one actually shows something different rather than enforcing the exact same narrative as the last one. This problem usually shows up in such books, even sometimes in renowned ones such as “The 48 Laws of Power” (even though it’s a pretty good book in my personal opinion). 

“Grass is green” type of content 

Reading the book, I came to notice that a lot of the content in this book is actually just basic life lessons. 

For example, we all know that we shouldn’t be arrogant, or look down on other people and consider ourselves superior to everyone else. This is a basic life lesson that we’re taught as kids and that we learn early on. You don’t need four different chapters to understand that, and that’s the biggest problem with this book. 

Another example; “Don’t talk too much about what you’re going to do if you haven’t done it yet.” That’s the introductory chapter to this book. You don’t need historical anecdotes to understand that. 

You don’t need to be educated in stoicism to know that you mustn’t be arrogant, that you must learn to be a student, or that you shouldn’t lose yourself in dreams of grandiose because of something that hasn’t happened yet. 

All these teachings are common sense. It’s the same thing as re-enforcing the fact that grass is green and skies are blue. 

I think this is the single worst thing about the entire book; because apart from that 25% of the book that’s just a reminder to use common sense, I believe that it could have actually been a good introduction to stoic philosophy. 

In fact, there are several chapters that are absolutely outstanding. There’s one in particular that I thoroughly enjoyed called “What’s Important to You?” in part 2, which makes you ask larger questions like about what you value in life, does fame and money matter more that satisfaction in the work itself, and that might be the single best chapter of the book, in my opinion. 

Repetition and quality difference between the chapters 

There is lots of repetition between many distinct chapters that are supposed to convey completely different lessons and there’s a huge gradation between the best chapters and the not-so-good ones. 

And despite the concise and crisp nature of the book itself, it somehow is both packed with content and strangely empty in a few parts of the book. It doesn’t affect the pacing, but even as a first introduction to stoicism, this one major flaw has consistently chipped at the potential of this book. 

In a book that relies on repetition like most recently “The Let Them Theory” or “Ego Is The Enemy”, repetition and catchy mantras aren’t just for marketing, they’re key to the book itself. However, in this one specific book, the content it so focused on repeating a certain bunch of ideas just in different ways that it loses its capacity to explore different contexts and other ideas because of its short length. 

Conclusion

“Ego Is The Enemy” is, personally, a somewhat good introduction to stoic philosophy, but as mentioned above, maybe it’s just me but this book has a lot of flaws that diminish its enjoyability and overall quality and in a few ways, doesn’t completely accomplish what it seems to aim for. I have mixed feelings about this so I am giving it a rating of: 

5/10