Saturday, July 01, 2017

“Book Summary: Ego is the enemy”, a Corporate Workforce blueprint




Introduction
      If I say this book is suitable for all people in the corporate world, it would be an understatement.
      If I say this book is suitable for all who seek self-improvement in whatever shape or form they desire as in arts and music, Business, Finance, Relationships… etc.  that would be an understatement.
      If I say that this book should be read by all students and in any age, that would be an understatement as well.
      However, I choose the title above for this review “Corporate workforce blue print” because I happen to work in the corporate world for decades and I believe that the corporate world will benefit immensely from this content in many ways, from improving employee’s relationships to improving one's own productivity and hence improving the company’s financial bottom line.


What this book is and is not about:
          This book doesn’t seek to satisfy its audience with empty words and wishful thinking, It doesn’t refer to the ego in any extrinsic sense or wishful thinking, rather it offers a very realistic approach to dealing with ones ambitions, success and failure. The three stages humans will go under at one point in their lives. How realistic? Well, to the point that may make one feel turned down, disappointed or even depressed until you suddenly realize that this content is pure Gold offered to deal with human’s nature, success and failure and seek to guide us to a happy, nurtured lifestyle.

Note on the Audio:
          Before going to the summary, just want to point out that if you have this book in print, you must get it in Audio format as well. Ryan did amazing job of narrating his book. It shows his humble nature and his sincere willingness to help.

Summary
The book is divided into 3 main parts; these are stages we will experience in our lives as part of being humans.
Here is the list of the 3 stages along with the recommendations and warning on how to deal with each.
               1) Aspire: when we start to wish, plan and aspire for new projects or achievements.
o   Obey before you command
o   Be canvas for other to paint on
o   Restrain yourself
o   Get out of your head, Do rather than just Think
o   Don’t be sucked into early pride of achievement.
o   Work, work, work
                 2) Success:  when we achieve what we had aspired to.
o   Stay a student
o   Don't tell yourself a story
o   Don't seek super vision of success early on
§  Quote by Seneca “Great destiny is great slavery”
o   Figure out what's important to you
o   Careful with entitlement, control and paranoia, they can become liabilities
o   Manage yourself.
§  Quote: “A fish stinks from its head”
o   Be happy with what you have, not how others enjoy or have.
o   Don’t let it go into your head
o   Meditate on the immensity
§  Quote: "A monk is one that is separated from all and in harmony with all"
                    3) Failure: when we fail to achieve or fall short of or sink into the bottom
o   Be warn that ego exaggerates failures, it may not be that bad after all.
o   Ego plays a role in prolonging failures.
§  Examples of voices in ones' head; "I knew u couldn't do it, why did u even try, this s not fair, someone else's problem"
o   Be humble; humble people can handle failure much better than egoistic ones without constant validations.
o   When you are at the bottom, just stop.
o   If your reputation is not able to handle few blows, it was not worth anything in the first place.


Other advices suitable for all stages:
  •       Live without wasted time (Malcolm X story in prison)
  • ·        Dead time (Waste) is controlled by the ego
  • ·        Don’t expect constant validation of your work, that is ego land.
  • ·        Success is piece of mind knowing you are doing the best you can, even if you are in the Failure stage.
  • ·        Maintain your own scorecards, successful people remember their failures to learn from them much more than they remember their successes.
  • ·        Always love. Don’t act out of anger, hostility, envy. And if you can’t act out of love, at least forgive and move on.




Mounir Aswad
Mississauga, July 1, 2017

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