Ego Is the Enemy

Ego Is the Enemy backs four of Tom's lessons. Under each of his lessons, what the book says about it, and on which pages.

• Macro and micro at the same time

  Holiday says a leader's days shift from doing to deciding, with priorities set at the top and trusted people doing the rest, which matches Tom staying at two altitudes and coaching instead of becoming the bottleneck. pp. 113 and 116. In the book: The Standard of Performance.

• Turn down anyone unclear about their commitment

  Holiday warns that passion without purpose produces people who can describe everything they will do but cannot show progress, which is the signal Tom screens for when he asks founders about commitment. p. 55. In the book: The canvas strategy, Plus, minus and equal.

• Signals show before numbers, and numbers come at month four

  Bill Walsh went two seasons at 2 and 14 while looking for evidence elsewhere than the scoreboard that the team was turning around, which is reading early signals before the numbers arrive. pp. 144 and 145. In the book: The impartial spectator, Alive time or dead time.

• People online are selfish, so lead with what they get

  The canvas strategy says to think of something you can do for every person you meet and to look at it entirely from their benefit, which is leading with what the other person gets. pp. 60 and 61. In the book: The canvas strategy, Plus, minus and equal.

Holiday argues that ego, an unhealthy belief in our own importance, is the main thing that stops people from achieving what they want, keeping what they achieve and recovering from failure. He splits a working life into three stages, aspiring, succeeding and failing, and shows through historical case studies how ego damages each one. Quiet, patient figures such as Sherman, Marshall, Merkel and Katharine Graham are set against Howard Hughes, John DeLorean and Dov Charney. The remedies are practical habits: silence while working, a permanent student mindset, purpose with realism instead of passion, serving others through the canvas strategy, deciding what matters to you, organising yourself and others, and keeping an inner scorecard. He closes by saying ego must be swept away every day because the dust always returns.

• Talking about your goals uses up the same energy as doing them, so stay quiet while you build (p. 38).
• The canvas strategy: help the people above you succeed, let them take credit, and you build a bank of favours and control the direction of the path (pp. 58-62).
• Purpose is passion with boundaries, and realism means asking where to start and how you will know you are moving (pp. 55-56).
• Do not turn your rise into a narrative; Bill Walsh credited his Standard of Performance and not a master plan (pp. 100-101).
• Start with deceptively small things and keep your identity small (p. 102).
• Decide how much is enough and what is important to you, or the default becomes more (pp. 106-107).
• Leadership shifts from doing to deciding, so set priorities and build the system around the work (pp. 113-116).
• Use dead time as alive time, and let the effort be enough because rewards are out of your control (pp. 148-153).
• Keep an inner scorecard measured against your potential, and review lucky wins as hard as losses (pp. 166-168).
• Perfecting the personal usually leads to professional success, and ego needs sweeping every day (p. 182).

• What makes a format repeatable, as opposed to a hit that happened once?

  Walsh credits a Standard of Performance made of small exact details for the 49ers' wins, and the team failed when it drifted back to believing its own story (pp. 100-101).

• How do you build a personal brand that generates inbound rather than requiring outbound?

  The canvas strategy builds relationships and a reputation for being indispensable by helping others first, and the talk chapter warns that announcing yourself drains the work (pp. 38, 60-61).

• Which of my stories travel, and which only feel like they should?

  The chapter on telling yourself a story says retold narratives round off the luck and doubt, so facts and the real order of events should outrank the tidy version (pp. 100-102).

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Tom builds founders' personal brands, video first, as a personal brand strategist. Personal brand strategist, UK