Book Review: Ego is the Enemy

What I’m Reading: Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Why I Picked It Up: I came to this book through Jocko Willink’s Leadership Strategy and Tactics. His message about putting your ego aside to focus on the mission hit me harder than I expected. It made me realize how often ego quietly shapes decisions, reactions, and leadership habits. I wanted to go deeper, so I picked up Ego Is the Enemy—and I’m glad I did.

The Insight That I’ve reflected on most: Holiday breaks ego into three phases of life: aspiring, succeeding, and failing. Each one has its own traps, and each one felt uncomfortably familiar. What really grabbed me, though, was how easily ego disguises itself as ambition. Most of us think we’re focused on the work—getting the job, earning the promotion, building the life we want. But somewhere along the way, the scoreboard shifts. We start caring more about being something than doing something.

And today, comparison is everywhere. It’s effortless to measure ourselves against everyone online—titles, houses, wins, losses. That’s where ego creeps in and toxifies our decisions. It twists goals that started out pure. We begin with “I want to accomplish X,” and end up chasing what accomplishing X might say about us. My favorite line from the book “To be or to do?” cuts straight through that fog and forces you to confront how often ego bastardizes your goals without you even noticing.

How I’m Applying It: I’ve been replaying moments in my career where I was clearly in one of those ego phases—hungry for the next step, proud of a win, or frustrated by a setback. And I realized that as recently as the past month, ego had crept into how I was approaching transformation initiatives. I thought I was focused on the work, but I was actually letting my identity and expectations shape how I interpreted challenges. That was a wake‑up call.

To keep myself honest, I put a sticky note on my monitor that reads: “To be or to do?” It’s become a checkpoint throughout my day. Before a meeting, during a tough conversation, even while answering emails—I catch myself asking whether ego is coloring how I’m interpreting what’s happening. And I’ll admit: I’m shocked by how often I have to correct myself. That little reminder has already helped me shift my internal scoreboard from “How do I look?” to “What did I actually move forward?”

Why You Should Read It: If you’re an ambitious leader carrying a lot of responsibility, this book will challenge you in the best way. It won’t give you a checklist or a step‑by‑step plan. Instead, it forces you to confront the part of leadership most people avoid: the internal battles that shape every external result. Holiday’s philosophical tone makes the lessons stick, and the reflections hit close to home. If you want to grow in a way that actually changes how you lead—not just how you talk about leadership—this one is worth your time.

Conclusion: The more I sit with this book, the more I realize that battling ego isn’t a one‑time fix. It’s probably going to be a lifelong endeavor. But there’s a strange sense of freedom in that. When you recognize that many of the challenges you feel—frustration, insecurity, defensiveness—are coming from your own ego, you can finally see them for what they are. They’re not external barriers. They’re internal noise.

That realization alone has made my days feel lighter.

I’m going to keep exploring this topic and seek out other books that push me to confront ego from different angles. It’s something I want to revisit every year as a reminder of how easily ego slips back in.