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THE BIG IDEAS The Obstacle Is the Way

Perception
The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Key #1: Think clearly. BY RYAN HOLIDAY · PORTFOLIO/PENGUIN © 2014 · 201 PAGES

Action
Key #2: Act correctly.

Will
Key #3: Accept + endure reality. “Whatever we face, we have a choice: Will we be blocked by obstacles, or will we
advance through and over them?
Panic Button
Don’t hit it.
We might not be emperors, but the world is still constantly testing us. It asks: Are
Post-Traumatic Growth you worthy? Can you get past the things that inevitably fall in your way? Will you
Is much better than PTSD.
stand up and show us what you’re made of?
Equation for Genius
Purpose + Focus + Desire. Plenty of people have answered this question in the affirmative. And a rarer breed
The Process still has shown that they not only have what it takes, but they thrive and rally at
And telephone poles. every such challenge. That the challenge makes them better than if they’d never
The Obstacle faced the adversity at all.
Is the Way.
Now it’s your turn to see if you’re one of them, if you’ll join their company.

This book shows you the way.”

~ Ryan Holiday from The Obstacle Is the Way

Learning to turn our biggest challenges into our biggest opportunities is what this book is all
about—”The timeless art of turning trials into triumph.”

Marcus Aurelius tells: “The impediment to action advances the action. What stands in the way
becomes the way.”

In short, the obstacle is the way.

Ryan Holiday is a brilliant writer (and guy) and this book is a *really* smart, lucid, compelling,
“The impediment to action
inspiring manual on the art of living invincibly.
advances the action.
What stands in the way Ryan masterfully integrates ancient Stoic wisdom from Marcus Aurelius + Seneca + Epictetus
becomes the way.” and brings that wisdom to life via inspiring stories featuring everyone from John D. Rockefeller,
Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt to Amelia Earhart and Steve Jobs.
~ Marcus Aurelius
My book is all marked up and peppered with “wow”s and “YES!”s. If you’re enjoying this Note, I
think you’ll really dig it. Get it here.

The book has three parts: Perception + Action + Will.

Let’s take a quick look at each of those and then a quick look at a few of my favorite Big Ideas you
can bring into your life today. Hope you enjoy!

PERCEPTION
“WHAT IS PERCEPTION? It’s how we see and understand what occurs around us—and what we
decide those events will mean. Our perception can be a source of strength or of great weakness.
If we are emotional, subjective, and short-sighted, we only add to our troubles. To prevent
becoming overwhelmed by the world around us, we must, as the ancients practiced, learn how
to limit our passions and their control over our lives. It takes skill and discipline to bat away the

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 “Would you have a great pests of bad perceptions, to separate reliable signals from deceptive ones, to filter out prejudice,
empire? Rule over yourself.” expectation, and fear. But it’s worth it, for what’s left is truth. While others are excited or afraid,
we will remain calm and imperturbable. We will see things simply and straightforwardly, as they
~ Publius Syrus
truly are—neither good nor bad. This will be an incredible advantage for us in the fight against
obstacles.”

Perception.

It’s the first key to turning obstacles into assets.

Ryan walks us through the mechanics of properly conditioning our minds and brings the wisdom
to life with some incredibly compelling stories.

Know this: We ALWAYS have a choice as to how we respond to any given situation. Between
stimulus and response, there’s always a choice. We want to choose wisely.

As we master our perception, we turn our attention to the second principle: Action.

ACTION
“Genius is the ability to “WHAT IS ACTION? Action is commonplace, right action is not. As a discipline, it’s not any kind
put into effect what is in of action that will do, but directed action. Everything must be done in the service of the whole.
your mind. There’s no other Step by step, action by action, we’ll dismantle the obstacles in front of us. With persistence and
definition of it.” flexibility, we’ll act in the best interest of our goals. Action requires courage, not brashness—
creative application and not brute force. Our movements and decisions define us: We must be
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
sure to act with deliberation, boldness, and persistence. Those are the attributes of right and
effective action. Nothing else—not thinking or evasion or aid from others. Action is the solution
and the cure to our predicaments.”

Step one: Get your mind right. Properly see the event as an opportunity to demonstrate our
strength.

Step two: Take right action. With deliberation, boldness and persistence.

Again, Ryan brilliantly (!) walks us through how to go about doing this and we’ll take a quick
look at a couple of my favorite Big Ideas in a moment.

For now, let’s go to step three: Will.

WILL
“If Perception and Action “WHAT IS WILL? Will is our internal power, which can never be affected by the outside world.
were the disciplines of the It is our final trump card. If action is what we do when we still have some agency over our
mind and the body, then Will situation, the will is what we depend on when agency has all but disappeared. Placed in some
is the discipline of the heart situation that seems unchangeable and undeniably negative, we can turn it into a learning
and soul.” experience, a humbling experience, a chance to provide comfort to others. That’s will power. But
that needs to be cultivated. We must prepare for adversity and turmoil, we must learn the art
~ Ryan Holiday
of acquiescence and practice cheerfulness even in dark times. Too often people think that will
is how bad we want something. In actuality, the will has a lot more to do with surrender than
strength. Try “God willing” over “the will to win” or “willing it into existence,” for even those
attributes can be broken. True will is quiet humility, resilience, and flexibility; the other kind of
will is weakness disguised as bluster and ambition. See which lasts longer under the hardest of
obstacles.”

Ah. Genius.

So, those are the three parts to turning trials into triumph: Perception + Action + Will.

Now let’s dive in a little deeper.

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 DON’T HIT THE PANIC BUTTON
“The phrase “This happened “John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the earth, spent nearly a day in space still
and this is bad” is actually keeping his heart rate under a hundred beats per minute. That’s a man not simply sitting at the
two impressions. The first— controls but in control of his emotions. A man who had properly cultivated, what Tom Wolfe
”This happened”—is objective. later called, “the Right Stuff.”
The second—”it is bad”—is
But you . . . confront a client or a stranger on the street and your heart is liable to burst out of
subjective.”
your chest; or you are called on to address a crowd and your stomach crashes through the floor.
~ Ryan Holiday
It’s time to realize that this is a luxury, an indulgence of our lesser self. In space, the difference
between life and death lies in emotional regulation.”

Hah. Love that.

John Glenn FLIES INTO SPACE and his heartbeat never goes over one hundred beats per
minute.

We have a little challenge in our lives and our heart rate soars. Laughing. D’oh.

We must (!) TRAIN ourselves to control our emotions.

Ryan tells us about the first NASA missions. Can you guess what the astronauts were most
thoroughly trained in?

... To NOT panic.

“What such a man needs
Freaking out in outer space is not OK. Those astronauts needed remarkable emotional regulation
is not courage but nerve
to keep their minds right when the inevitable challenge came their way.
control, cool headedness.
We need to cultivate the same ability to control our perception—stepping in between stimulus
This he can get only by
and response to consciously, deliberately CHOOSE the optimal way to view the situation.
practice.”

~ Theodore Roosevelt
Good news is we can build that skill.

As Ryan says throughout the book, it’s simple, just not easy.

(So, next time you feel your heart rate climbing during your normal day, take a few deep breaths,
slow down that monkey mind and think of Mr. Glenn with his Right Stuff orbiting our little blue
marble and take that inspiration with you as you rock whatever you’re up to! :)

POST-TRAUMATIC GROWTH
“My formula for greatness “It’s a beautiful idea. Psychologists call it adversarial growth or post-traumatic growth. “That
in a human being is amor which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” is not a cliché but fact.
fati: that one wants nothing
The struggle against an obstacle inevitably propels the fighter to a new level of functioning. The
to be different, not forward,
extent of the struggle determines the extent of the growth. The obstacle is an advantage, not
not backward, not in all
adversity. The enemy is any perception that prevents us from seeing this.”
eternity. Not merely bear
Post-traumatic growth.
what is necessary, still less
conceal it . . . but to love Imagine that. Something super challenging happens to us.
it.”
We can either break down. OR grow.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
The *same* event can elicit post-traumatic stress or post-traumatic growth. Seriously. Same
exact event. Two different people. Two different responses. Two different results.

What’s the key determinant?

Our PERCEPTION, of course.

Martin Seligman, one of the leading figures in the Positive Psychology movement, talks about

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 this in his book Flourish (and his book Learned Optimism is essentially a manual on the science
“No one is talking glass-
cultivating our perception; see Notes on both books). Here’s how he puts it: “First, students
half-full-style platitudes
learn the ABC model: how beliefs (B) about an adversity (A)—and not the adversity itself—
here. This must be a
cause the consequent (C) feelings. This is a point of major insight for students: emotions don’t
complete flip. Seeing
follow inexorably from external events but from what you think about those events, and you
through the negative, past can actually change what you think.”
its underside, and into its
A + B + C. Got it.
corollary: the positive.”

~ Ryan Holiday
And, I just love the way Ryan tells us that “The extent of the struggle determines the extent of the
growth.” Our only true enemy is a story that tells us something different from that.

Joseph Campbell puts it this way (see Notes on The Power of Myth): “There is an important
idea in Nietzsche, of Amor fati, the ‘love of your fate,’ which is in fact your life. As he says, if
you say no to a single factor in your life, you have unraveled the whole thing. Furthermore,
the more challenging or threatening the situation or context to be assimilated and affirmed,
the greater the stature of the person who can achieve it. The demon that you can swallow gives
you its power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.”

Nassim Taleb echoes that wisdom in his genius book Anti-Fragile, reminding us that “Wind
extinguishes a candle and energizes fire.”

Let’s eat our challenges like an energy bar—getting fueled not crushed.

UNITY OF PURPOSE + DEAFNESS TO DOUBT + DESIRE TO STAY AT IT

“Too many people think that great victories like Grant’s and Edison’s came from a flash of
insight. That they cracked the problem with pure genius. In fact, it was the slow pressure,
repeated from many different angles, the elimination of so many other more promising options,
that slowly and surely churned the solution to the top of the pile. Their genius was unity of
purpose, deafness to doubt, and the desire to stay at it.”

That’s a great equation for genius:

Unity of Purpose + Deafness to Doubt + The Desire to Stay at It = GENIUS.

As Edison tells us, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

We are seduced into believing the myth of genius being a flash of insight with the outcome easily
falling into the hands of its creator.
“There’s no need to sweat
this or feel rushed. No need BUT THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS.

to get upset or despair. PERIOD.

You’re not going anywhere—
As Carol Dweck asks us in her seminal book Mindset (see Notes): “Is it ability or mindset?
you’re not going to be
Was it Mozart’s musical ability or the fact that he worked till his hands were deformed?
counted out. You’re in this
Was it Darwin’s scientific ability or the fact that he collected specimens non-stop from early
for the long haul.” childhood?”
~ Ryan Holiday
Mozart worked so hard he made his hands DEFORMED.

Did you know that?

Because most of us buy into the myth that he was just magically born a genius. Sure, he was
born into a musical family (his father literally wrote the book on music instruction) but he
worked RIDICULOUSLY hard to achieve all that he did at such a young age.

Let’s re-write the genius equation.

It is *not*: Born a Genius + Inspiration + Stars Aligning = Genius

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 It is: Unity of Purpose + Deafness to Doubt + The Desire to Stay at It = GENIUS.

How’s your unity of purpose? You deaf to doubt? You have an insatiable desire to stay at it?
(Fantastic.)

THE PROCESS
“Coach Nick Saban doesn’t actually refer to it very often, but every one of his assistants and
players lives by it. They say it for him, tattooing it at the front of their minds and on every action
they take, because just two words are responsible for their unprecedented success: The Process.

Saban, head coach of the University of Alabama football team—perhaps the most dominant
dynasty in the history of college football—doesn’t focus on what every other coach focuses on, or
at least not the way they do. He teaches The 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, in this moment. That’s the process:
Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.””

The Process.
“The process is about
finishing. Finishing games. Wow. Now THAT is a Big Idea.

Finishing workouts. Finishing You have a big goal? A big challenge? Don’t focus on the hugeness of it. Focus on the little things
film sessions. Finishing you can do to chip away at it.
drives. Finishing reps.
Here’s how Joe De Sena, uber-athlete and creator of Spartan Race puts it in his great book
Finishing plays. Finishing
Spartan Up! (see Notes): “The way to get through anything mentally painful is to take it a little
blocks. Finishing the at a time. The mind can’t handle dealing with a massive iceberg of pain in front of it, but it can
smallest task you have right deal with short nuggets that will come to an end. So instead of thinking, Ugh, I’ve got twenty-
in front of you and finishing four miles to go, focus on making it to the next telephone pole in the distance. Whether you’re
it well.” running twenty or one hundred and twenty miles at a time, the distance has to be tackled
~ Ryan Holiday mentally and physically one mile at a time. The ability to compartmentalize pain into these
small bite sizes is key.”

Telephone pole to telephone pole. That’s how we want to roll.

Here’s another quick story on making The Process primary. In With Winning in Mind (see
Notes), Lanny Bassham tells us: “I suggested that instead of setting a goal to win Ben should
goal set to make the process of playing well his primary focus. “Process is Primary” became
a theme for the year. Ben’s job while playing was to think about executing his mental and
technical systems and not to think about winning. Scoring is a function of great execution, and
winning is the result, but thinking about winning can pull your focus off of proper execution in
a competition. Thinking about process is the answer.

In the fourth tournament of the year at San Diego’s Torrey Pines course, Crane found himself
just 30” from the cup on 18. The crowd knew Ben needed to make the putt for the win, but
Crane had no idea. When the ball rolled in, his playing partner Ryuji Imada offered his hand in
congratulations. Thinking this was just the customary handshake after the round, Ben did not
realize he had won until Heather [his wife] ran on to the green.

“Did I win?” Crane said. This was proof that a player can cause his mind to think about process
instead of outcome even with the possibility of winning pulling at him. Crane’s third career
victory earned him $954,000 sending him on to his best year in goal at that point.”

—> “Did I win?”

Can you imagine sinking a million dollar putt but being so focused on the process that you ask
that question? Let’s make that the goal. All hail THE PROCESS!

PhilosophersNotes | The Obstacle Is the Way 5

 THE OBSTACLE IS THE WAY
“There’s a saying in Latin “So that under pressure and trial we get better—become better people, leaders, and thinkers.
Vires acquirit eundo (We Because those trials and pressures will inevitably come. And they won’t ever stop coming.
gather strength as we go).
But don’t worry, you’re prepared for this now, this life of obstacles and adversity. You know how
That’s how it works. That’s to handle them, how to brush aside obstacles and even benefit from them. You understand the
our motto.” process.
~ Ryan Holiday
... let’s say it once again just to remind ourselves:

See things for what they are.

Do what we can.
Endure and bear what we must.

What blocked the path is now a path.

What once impeded action advances action.
The Obstacle is the Way.”

So good. Vernon Howard comes to mind as we wrap this up.

He tells us: “If it takes apparent misfortune to turn us into true philosophers and doers of good
to receive good, then apparent misfortune is our greatest fortune.”

Hope you enjoyed this quick look at a GREAT book. (Quick link to get it here.)

Here’s to seeing clearly, acting correctly, and enduring + accepting the world as it is as we see
that The Obstacle is the Way!

Brian Johnson,
Chief Philosopher

If you liked this Note, About the Author of “The Obstacle Is the Way”
you’ll probably like… RYAN HOLIDAY

Meditations
Ryan Holiday is a media strategist and prominent writer on strategy and
Letters from a Stoic business. After dropping out of college at nineteen to apprentice under Robert
The Enchiridion Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, he went on to advise many bestselling
authors and multiplatinum musicians. He served as director of marketing at
Spartan Up!
American Apparel for many years, where his campaigns have been used as case
Turning Pro studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google and written about in AdAge, the New
Mindset York Times, and Fast Company. Learn more about Ryan here. Book here.

About the Author of This Note

BRIAN JOHNSON

Brian Johnson loves helping people optimize their lives as he studies, embodies
and teaches the fundamentals of optimal living—integrating ancient wisdom
+ modern science + common sense + virtue + mastery + fun. Learn more and
optimize your life at brianjohnson.me.

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