1: Theodore Roosevelt spent almost every day of his childhood fighting severe asthma.

“Despite his privileged birth, his life hung in a precarious balance—the attacks were an almost nightly near-death experience,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. “Tall, gangly, and frail, the slightest exertion would upset the entire balance and leave him bedridden for weeks.”

When he was twelve, … continue reading