Is there anything new to learn under the sun?
One of the challenges of my life right now is that there are more books that I want to read than time allows. This phenomenon comes in waves in my life- I don’t always have a stack of 10 books by my bedside, each with a bookmark stuck into it begging to be reopened — but I do now.
One of the books that has captivated me is called “Ego is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday. There is too much good stuff in this book for me to do it justice in one blog post, but there are two things that I felt compelled to write down in my notebook (I carry around a notebook where everything gets jotted down that I want to retain)- and then share here.
The first is quote from Epictetus which says “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows”. What seems like a statement of the obvious, in reality I believe that this captures a huge amount of what is the impediment to personal growth. Whether in teaching your children, growing to be an expert in your field, or being a student in a classroom- as soon as you feel like “I’ve got this” the receptivity to learn stops.
In my experience in business- and in particular in the startup world- this is the biggest mistake that people make. There is such a push to be the “smartest guy in the room” that people kid themselves (while they are trying to convince others) that they KNOW so much and it completely shuts down learning. I have witnessed businesses fail and careers plummet largely due to this simple statement that Epictetus succinctly elucidated nearly 2000 years ago. The most successful people I have known are the ones who remain curious and suspend the urge to close down inquiry by being overly confident that they have achieved mastery.
The second thing that really jumped out at me was a story of a man named Frank Shamrock who trains Mixed Martial Arts fighters. This is an area that I know nothing about, but similar to my recent post on what I learned from an NHL coach called Valuable Lessons About Achievement from a Hockey Goalie, there is a ton we can learn from people who are at the top of their game, regardless of the field. In this case, Frank Shamrock has an approach called “Plus, Minus and Equal”. As with most things that make great sense, it is pretty straight forward. The idea is this:
Plus- you need to fight someone who is better than you, so you have something to shoot for and a person to learn from
Minus- you need to work with someone who is less skilled than you that you can mentor and train, so that you can learn how to pinpoint specific areas of growth, and in getting someone else better at the craft, you get better too
Equal- you need to fight against someone who is at your level so that you can train and compete
In business the equivalent statement could be that you need to be a mentor, be a mentee, and also spend time with your peers to challenge each other to grow. So often people skew to either only wanting to spend time with people who are more senior than themselves, or only want to mentor junior people- but that 360 degree challenge is really what Frank Shamrock is talking about. It seems so obvious but unless done intentionally it is the rare person who will find themselves really being pushed from all sides like this.
Fighting our ego doesn’t seem like a popular goal in today’s culture, where feeding the ego seems to be the norm. I love that in the Ryan Holiday book he liberally finds wisdom from both stoic philosophers and modern day unsung heroes (and generations in between) to clearly and convincingly show that the masters do suppress their ego which enables their growth. There is plenty of evidence that Ego is indeed the Enemy- and I hope you enjoy this book as much as I do!
