The Year My Ego Died (+18 Book Recommendations)
At the end of June this year I retired from the company I had founded. Being a 38 year old retiree has its perks for sure, but I’m assuming most people don’t have a perspective on the challenges associated with giving up the profession/status/context/wealth-generation-machine that they’d been managing for decades. In fact, this is a devilishly difficult thing to do for one super complicated reason: we subconsciously construct an Ego that enables us in the journey we set out for — and that Ego doesn’t just go away over night. It fights you— till its death or yours, and usually wins.
If you do it right, you kill the Ego and are then reborn, fresh for the next adventure.
So, let me explain in a stepwise process what I experienced this year — a process I was unaware of while I was going through it. This process has resulted in a completely renewed “Peter” who is in someways 180 degrees different from the person you would have met last year or have met in years past. This is a process that you’ll find useful if you’re looking to make a dramatic positive change in your life.
If you’d like to stay the same stop reading now.
Under each section there’s a book recommendation that helped me in that stage of the process.
- Recognize your life is subject to cyclical change, and finally death.
— The Adult Years, Frederic Hudson [Secular, Psychology]
— A Year to Live, Stephen Levine [Buddhist]
2. Recognize that your Ego is not YOU.
— Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday [Secular, Business]
— A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle [New Age] < Audio Book
— A Guide to the Good Life, William Irvin [Stoicism]
3. Work to dismantle that Ego.
— Stealing Fire, Steven Kotler [Secular, Business]
— What Doesn’t Kill Us, Scott Carney [Secular, Sociology]
— Facing a World in Crisis, J. Krishnamurti [Buddhist/Hindu/Theosophy]
— Polishing the Mirror, Ram Dass (Buddhist/Hindu) < Audio Book
— Original Be Here Now Talks, Ram Dass (Buddhist/Hindu) < Audio Book
— Love, Service, Devotion, Ram Dass (Buddhist/Hindu) < Audio Book
— The Psychedelic Experience, Timothy Leary (Buddhist, Psychology)
— How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollen (Psychology, Pharmacology)
As you dismantle, look for a way to experience an Ego death. I found that in tandem with my reading/audiobooks I needed certain BIG experiences in order to kill off my Ego once and for all. Those were:
— Jan 2018: Climb a Mountain in Poland in a bathing suit in -15 celsius.
— March 2018: Join 20 other entrepreneurs in Costa Rica for a series of Ayahuasca ceremonies (there was no Ego after this one).
— April 2018: Go to TED for the first time and get baptized in Jamaica (see above pic. That’s a long story.)
— July 2018: ADVENTURES IN EUROPE, FIRST MONTH OF RETIREMENT!
— August 2018: Deep dive on Section #3 content in Montauk for 1 month.
— September 2018: Yoga Retreat in Chiang Mai + 1,000 mile motorcycle tour in the mountains of Vietnam
I found that upon retiring my Ego was on life support. I was no longer a CEO. I didn’t have a job! I had no relevance any more. I wasn’t getting phone calls to speak at conferences *GASP*. I didn’t have 100 employees to work with. What is one to do? Kill that Ego off once and for all AND THEN:
4. Don’t build a new one. Find your truth path instead.
— Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chögyam Trungpa [Buddhist]
— Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Chögyam Trungpa [Buddhist]
— Awakening from the Daydream, David Nichtern [Buddhist]
— Karma Yoga, Swami Vivekananda [Vedic/Hindu]
— Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein [Fiction, Buddhist]
I don’t have any advice on what your path should be. I do know that if you clear out all the old bullshit like I did you’ll see much more clearly, and be much more at ease moving forward. When I’m not feeling at ease, the following thoughts cross my mind, which I’m much more able to squash now:
“I should start a blog.”
“I should write a book.”
“I should start a company.”
“I could be famous.”
“I should make more money.”
“I…I…I”.
So…my time is no longer spent thinking much about the future, or much about the past or much about “I” or “me”. Most days I’m just able to be here now as Ram Dass would say (his podcast is epic).
I’m currently following a Karma Yoga approach to the world and it’s lovely. Karma Yoga is an approach characterized by the acceptance of what is and seeing all experience as the necessary work that needs to be done in that moment. There’s no preference for this or that. There’s no like or dislike. Karma then is like wood thrown on the fire — it’s all just cause and effect. The goal is not to throw any more on, and to let the current pile burn down.
I see each day as an opportunity to learn something. The universe is a school where I’m the student, teacher, and Principle. But this only works because I don’t see us as separate anymore.
In each day I look for ways I can serve my fellow beings — who I feel a “oneness” with — by alleviating suffering in ways big and small, like when I had the joy of buying frogs in a Chiang Mai market only to set them free in the nearby river…
…or in bigger ways like through mentoring at New Lab or in Myanmar as I did this past September.
My hope is that some of the book recommendations I shared will help you in your own journey, if just a little bit. If you’d like to get in touch feel free to drop me a line. I don’t have anything to do until the moment arise for me to do something. I’m here to serve.
xoxoxoxoxox
p
