1: Don’t just stand there. Do something.
Really? Not always, Ryan Holiday writes in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.
Certain situations call for a different approach.
As in: Don’t just do something. Stand there.
“Sometimes, staying put, going sideways, or moving backward is actually the best way to eliminate what blocks or impedes our path,” Ryan writes.
Yesterday, we looked … continue reading
How has University of Alabama coach Nick Saban built “perhaps the most dominant dynasty in the history of college football?” asks Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.
1: He doesn’t focus on winning, at least not the way other coaches do. Instead, he teaches “the process.”
“Don’t think about winning the SEC Championship. Don’t think about the National Championship,” … continue reading
1: Steve Jobs‘ father prided himself on being a craftsman. He would finish the back of the cabinets he built even though they would be hidden against the wall.
Steve learned early in life to: “Respect the craft and make something beautiful,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.
Steve adopted this philosophy as the founder and wildly … continue reading
1: The year was 1863. General Ulysses S. Grant was stuck.
For a year, he and his troops had tried to crack the defenses of Vicksburg. The city sat high on the cliffs of the Mississippi, providing a “stranglehold on the most important river in the country,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.
Ulysses had attacked Vicksburg head-on. … continue reading
1: The year was 1878. Thomas Edison was a man on a mission.
Day and night, he experimented with more than six thousand different filaments in his quest to discover the incandescent light bulb.
After spending a year in Thomas’ lab, Nikola Tesla commented: “If Edison needed to find a needle in a haystack, he would ‘proceed at once’ to simply ‘examine straw after straw until he found the object … continue reading
1: The year was 1915. Deep in the jungles of Central America, two rival American fruit companies urgently wanted to acquire the same five thousand acres of land.
The challenge? Two different people claimed to own the deed to the plantation. “In the no-man’s-land between Honduras and Guatemala, neither company was able to tell who was the rightful owner so they could buy it from them,” writes Ryan Holiday in … continue reading
1: During the first part of World War II, the worst assignment for British troops was being sent to fight in North Africa. “Methodical and orderly, the British hated the grueling weather and terrain that wreaked havoc on their machines and their plans,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.
“They acted how they felt: slow, timid, cautious,” Ryan … continue reading
1: It was 1974. Major League pitcher Tommy John blew out his arm. He damaged the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow. Permanently. They called it a “dead arm” injury. That was it. Game over.
But Tommy wouldn’t accept that.
He wanted to know: “Was there anything that could give him a shot to get back on the mound?” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The … continue reading
“At 150 miles above Earth in a spaceship smaller than a VW,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way, panic “is death. Panic is suicide.”
1: The art of not panicking was the primary skill required of the astronauts who were the first humans to go into space.
Why? Because “when people panic, they make mistakes,” writes Ryan. “They override systems. They disregard procedures, ignore rules. They … continue reading
“What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice.” -Teddy Roosevelt
1: Ulysses S. Grant was once sitting for a photo shoot. The studio was dark, so the photographer sent an assistant up to the roof to uncover a skylight. “The assistant slipped and shattered the window,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way.
“With horror, … continue reading
