“Doctors today concur that immediately checking your phone as soon as you wake up can start your day off in a way that is more likely to increase stress and leave you feeling overwhelmed. In other words, you are ruining your day before it even begins.”

Try changing a few rituals to impact your life including:

• Make your bed
• Stretch your body
• Be grateful
• Exercise your body and brain

Changing even the slightest negative, stress inducing ritual can help improve your outlook upon life.

Imagine waking up to a world of possibility and hope.
What would you like to accomplish today?

Something I learned as a result of life experiences is that no one thinks about me as much as I do.

While the obsessive voices in my head lead me to believe the world is out to get me or that my most recent gaffe is in the spotlight of everyone else’s life is absurd.

Nothing matters. Everything passes. Focus on your own accomplishments and your own awareness.

Realize that life is what you make of it and that you should try to live your life on a need-to-know basis.

It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time. Try pleasing yourself some of the time.

Review your accomplishments regularly.

Realize that after compiling your gratitude list that the driver that cut you off in traffic or the client that vented their own emotions can’t change the fact that you have a loving family and supportive friends.

As the author wrote, the lesson they learned, “Believe none of it.”  Strengthen your own internal awareness and voice.  Believe what weeks of gratitude’s of a lifetime of accomplishments represent!

“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 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.” –from the prologue

Many of us insist the main impediment to a full, successful life is the outside world. In fact, the most common enemy lies within: our ego. Early in our careers, it impedes learning and the cultivation of talent. With success, it can blind us to our faults and sow future problems. In failure, it magnifies each blow and makes recovery more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back.

Ego Is the Enemy draws on a vast array of stories and examples, from literature to philosophy to his­tory. We meet fascinating figures such as George Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Katharine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who all reached the highest levels of power and success by con­quering their own egos. Their strategies and tactics can be ours as well.

In an era that glorifies social media, reality TV, and other forms of shameless self-promotion, the battle against ego must be fought on many fronts. Armed with the lessons in this book, as Holiday writes, “you will be less invested in the story you tell about your own specialness, and as a result, you will be liberated to accomplish the world-changing work you’ve set out to achieve.”