Book Synopsis: The Obstacle is the way |5 Key takeaways

Obstacles are an important aspect of our emotional, mental and physical lives. We procrastinate because of them and feeling like paralyzed as well. But can these obstacles be used in favor of you. Actually helping you pave your way forward in life as a strong person. Ryan Holiday explains in his book “ The Obstacle is the Way.” Lets go:

1.Something bigger than yourself:

“People are getting a little desperate. People might not show their best elements to you. You must never lower yourself to being a person you do not like. There is no better time than now to have a moral and civic backbone. To have a moral and civic true north. This is a tremendous opportunity for you, a young person, to be heroic.”
“When it comes to obstacles and whatever reactions they provoke-boredom, hatred, frustration, or confusion-just because you feel that way, does not mean everyone else does.”
“One of the best ways to create opportunities or new avenues for movement is to think: If I cannot solve this for myself, how can I at least make this better for other people?
Whatever you are going through, whatever is holding you down or standing your way, can be turned into a source of strength — by thinking of people other than yourself. “

“Embrace this power, this sense of being part of a whole. It is an exhilarating thought. Let it envelop you. We’re all just humans, doing the best we can. We’re all just trying to survive, and in the process, inch the world forward a little bit help your little bit to the universe before it swallows you up, and be happy with that. Lend a hand to others. Be strong for them, and it will make you stronger.”

2.Follow your process:

“Don’t think about winning the SEC championship. Don’t think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, at this moment. That’s the process: Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.”
“Excellence is a matter of steps. excelling at this one, then that one, and existing in the present, taking it one step at a time, not getting distracted by anything else. Not the other team, not the scorecard or the crowd.”
“Don’t think about the end — think about surviving.”
“The unordered mind loses track of what’s in front of it-what matters-and gets distracted by thoughts of the future. The process orders, it keeps our perceptions in check and our actions in sync.”
“ We are A to Z thinkers, fretting about A, obsessing over Z, yet forgetting all about B through Y.”
“Subordinate straight to the process. Replace fear with the process. Depend on it. Lean on it. Trust in it.”

3.Control your emotion:

Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself

— Syrus

“When America raced to send the first men into space. they trained the astronauts in one skill more than in any other part: the art of not panicking.”
“ At 150 miles above Earth in a spaceship smaller than a VW, this is death. Panic is suicide.”
“ Un-certainty and fear are relieved by authority. Training is authority.”
“Obstacles make us emotional, but the only way we shall survive or overcome them is by keeping those emotions in check.
Greek called it “Apatheia.”
It is the kind of calm and equanimity that comes with the absence of irrational or extreme emotions. Not the loss of feeling altogether, just the loss of the harmful, unhelpful kind. Don’t let the negativity in, don’t let those emotions even get started. Just say: “ No, thank you. I can’t afford to panic.”

4.Anticipation (Negative Thinking)

Offer a guarantee and disaster threatens.

--Ancient Inscription at the oracle of Delph

A CEO calls her staff into the conference room on the eve of the launch of a major new initiative. They file in and take their seats around the table. She calls the meeting o attention and begins: “I have bad news. The project has failed spectacularly. Tell me what went wrong?”
That’s the point. The CEO is forcing an exercise in hindsight-in advance. She is using a technique designed by psychologist Gary Klein known as a “pre-mortem.”
In a postmortem, doctors convene to examine the causes of a patient’s unexpected death so they can learn and improve for the next time a similar circumstance arises. Outside of the medical world, we call this a number of things- a debriefing, an exit interview, a wrap-up meeting, a review- but whatever it’s called, the idea is the same: We’re examining the project in hindsight after it happened.
“Nothing happens to the wise man against his expectation,” he wrote to a friend.”… nor do all things turn out for him as he wished but as he reckoned- and above all, he reckoned that something could block his plans.”
“You know you want to accomplish X, so you invest time, money, and relationships into achieving it. About the worst thing that can happen is not something going wrong, but something going wrong and catching you by surprise. Why?
Because unexpected failure is discouraging and being beaten back hurts.”

5.Perseverance

“ If persistence is attempting to solve some difficult problems with dogged determination and hammering until the break occurs, then plenty of people can be said to be persistent. But perseverance is something larger. It’s the long game. It’s about what happens not just in round one but in round two and every round after-and then the fight after that and the fight after that, until the end.
The Germans have a word for it: Sitzfleisch. Staying power.
Winning by sticking your ass to the seat and not leaving until after it’s over.”
“Persistence is an action. Perseverance is a matter of will. One is energy. The other, endurance.”

“Our actions can be constrained, but our will can’t be. Our plans-even our bodies-can be broken. But belief in ourselves? No matter how many times we are thrown back, we alone retain the power to decide to go once more. Or to another route. Or, at the very least, to accept this reality try and decide upon a new aim.”

Originally published at https://theobstacleguy.com on March 1, 2021.