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The School of Greatness

633 Let Go of Ego with Ryan Holiday

The School of Greatness

Lewis Howes

Inspiration, Education, Greatness, Celebrity, Money, Relationships, Mindset, Health, Business, Self-improvement, Self Care, Health & Fitness, Fitness, Entrepreneurship, Mental Health, Success, Celebrity Interview

4.822K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2018

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“CULTIVATE PEOPLE AROUND YOU WHO ARE NOT AFRAID TO TELL YOU YOU THE TRUTH.” Whether you want to admit it or not, you have an ego. Everyone does. We tend to put a bad connotation on it, but in truth a little ego is healthy. Ego can be confidence about yourself and what you do. It can be a challenge if you become successful, because people become afraid of telling you the truth and pointing out your flaws. To keep growing, however, you must surround yourself with people who aren’t afraid to tell you the uncomfortable truths in a polite way. And if you truly respect someone with power over you, you’ll do the same. To go deeper into this, I am bringing back a strong segment from a previous episode with Ryan Holiday. Ryan is a writer and media strategist. When he was 19 years old, he dropped out of college to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power. He went on to become the director of marketing for American Apparel. His creative agency, Brass Check, has advised clients like Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as many prominent bestselling authors, including Neil Strauss, Tony Robbins and Tim Ferriss (and me). He has worked with huge egos in his career, but what I love about Ryan is his willingness to take on his own ego as well. Learn how to control your ego and help those around you on Episode 633. In This Episode You Will Learn: The spectrum of Ego (00:54) Where confidence comes from (1:33) How to continue your growth (3:02) When people stop listening to the truth they need to hear (3:32) How to tell powerful people the truth (5:18) What to do when you’re right (5:48) Plus much more...

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is Five Minute Friday!

0:05.4

And Ryan Holiday is a media strategist and prominent writer on strategy and business.

0:15.3

And after dropping out of college at 19, he went on to advise many bestselling authors

0:19.3

and multi-platinum musicians.

0:22.1

He served as director of marketing at American Apparel for many years, and he is also a best

0:27.4

selling author of The Obstacle is The Way.

0:30.4

Ryan and his partner Niels were also a key component in the strategy and the success of

0:36.0

the School of Greatness book.

0:37.3

They were a huge part of it for me, and it wouldn't have been a huge success.

0:42.4

Sold over 55,000 copies by now, and also hit New York Times bestseller list.

0:47.8

So I'm super grateful for his strategy, and I believe he's just a brilliant mind.

0:56.2

Aristotle says that it's a spectrum.

0:58.7

So you would say, like, recklessness and cowardice are the extremes and like, courage is in the

1:05.2

middle, right?

1:06.2

Or it's above, so it's like a triangle.

1:09.2

And I think it's like that.

1:10.5

So confidence, like ego is on the greatest who ever lived, I'm perfect, I've got it all

1:15.9

handled, nobody knows better than me.

1:18.3

And then like, I'm worthless, I don't know anything why would anyone listen to me.

1:22.8

And a weird way, those are both sort of self-absorbed positions, right?

1:27.3

You're just all you're just thinking about yourself.

1:29.0

The Nile on the either.

...

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