What is it that has led to the downfall of many men? How do the most famous people get caught up in their own hype over and over again? And why do we never learn to fight our greatest enemy, which lives inside every one of us?

The book, Ego is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent, establishes what it is that fuels ego and how to manage and tame this beast within us so that we can focus on what really matters.

Author Ryan Holiday uses eye-opening philosophical and historical examples to show how you can be humble in your aspirations, gracious in your success and resilient in your failures by relying on “inner confidence.”

He defines ego not in the Freudian ego or egotism clinical sense but rather as “an unhealthy belief in your own importance”.

Take Angela Merkel, who was sworn in for her fourth term as German Chancellor last week. She is rational and analytical. She focuses on the situation, not herself, as some people in power often do. Politicians are often vain, obsessing about their image. Merkel cares about results. She reportedly said, “You can’t solve tasks with charisma.”

Present and past historical examples are the fundamental premise of Ego is the Enemy.

Holiday is an acclaimed strategist and writer. He dropped out of college at the age of 19 to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, and later served as the director of marketing for American Apparel.

Having previously written about external obstacles in his book The Obstacle Is the Way, he now tackles internal obstacles.

Holiday discusses the business case history of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Jobs was 100 per cent responsible for his firing from Apple in 1985.

After his later success, Apple’s decision seemed like an example of poor leadership, but Jobs was, at the time, unmanageable as his ego was out of control.

If you were the CEO of Apple, you would have fired that version of Steve Jobs too and been right to do so. It was only later that Jobs worked to prove himself.

A seasoned marketer and entrepreneur who has advised clients like Google, Taser and Complex, Holiday is influenced by the Stoic philosophy. He borrows from the strategies used by renowned stoics like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca to prescribe ways to defeat the ego.

Ryan's recurring idea is to “always stay a student”. This is the central concept that has led many successful people to stay in the game for the long term.

He says defining your purpose and what you are on earth to do should guide you on your journey to success. The goal should be “to do” and not “to be”, stating that “impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive”.

Holiday writes about restraint of self, getting out of your own head, meditation, working for a purpose rather than recognition, maintaining an inner scorecard and loving at all times as strategies to master our greatest opponent.

The book also discusses the difference between ego and confidence, and concludes that the solution to the problem of ego is humility, self-awareness, purpose and realism.

Ego is the Enemy was on bestseller status lists by USA Today, Chicago Tribune, and Publishers Weekly shortly after its release in 2016.