Obstacle Is The Way

Question 1

Whatever we face, we have a choice:

Answer 1

Whatever we face, we have a choice: Will we be blocked by obstacles, or will we advance through and over them?

Question 2

Feelings

Answer 2

You must realize: Nothing makes us feel this way; we choose to give in to such feelings. Or, like Rockefeller, choose not to.

Question 3

We have a choice about how we respond to this situation

Answer 3

We have a choice about how we respond to this situation (or any situation, for that matter). We can be blindly led by these primal feelings or we can understand them and learn to filter them. Discipline in perception lets you clearly see the advantage and the proper course of action in every situation—without the pestilence of panic or fear.

Question 4

This is how you see the opportunity within the obstacle.

8 ‘Tos’

Answer 4

1. To be objective
2. To control emotions and keep an even keel
3. To choose to see the good in a situation
4. To steady our nerves
5. To ignore what disturbs or limits others
6. To place things in perspective
7. To revert to the present moment
8. To focus on what can be controlled

Question 5

Aurelius on choose not to be harmed

Answer 5

Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been. —MARCUS AURELIUS

Question 6

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter

Answer 6

Top contender for middleweight title in mid-60’s, wrongly accused of triple homicide; went on trial; biased & bogus verdict: 3 life sentences

Question 7

Looking the warden in the eye, Carter proceeded to inform him and the guards that he was not giving up the last thing he controlled: himself.

Answer 7

In his remarkable declaration, he told them, in so many words, “I know you had nothing to do with the injustice that brought me to this jail, so I’m willing to stay here until I get out. But I will not, under any circumstances, be treated like a prisoner—because I am not and never will be powerless.”

Instead of breaking down—as many would have done in such a bleak situation—Carter declined to surrender the freedoms that were innately his: his attitude, his beliefs, his choices.

Question 8

All of this had a purpose: Every second of his energy was to be spent on his legal case.

Answer 8

Every waking minute was spent reading—law books, philosophy, history. They hadn’t ruined his life—they’d just put him somewhere he didn’t deserve to be and he did not intend to stay there.

Question 9

It took nineteen years and two trials to overturn that verdict, but when Carter walked out of prison, he simply resumed his life.

Answer 9

No civil suit to recover damages, Carter did not even request an apology from the court. Because to him, that would imply that they’d taken something of his that Carter felt he was owed. That had never been his view, even in the dark depths of solitary confinement.

Question 10

He (Carter) had made his choice:

Answer 10

This can’t harm me—I might not have wanted it to happen, but I decide how it will affect me. No one else has the right.

Question 11

Our perceptions are the thing that we’re in complete control of.

3 ‘we decides’

Answer 11

1. We decide what we will make of each and every situation.
2. We decide whether we’ll break or whether we’ll resist.
3. We decide whether we’ll assent or reject.

No one can force us to give up or to believe something that is untrue (such as, that a situation is absolutely hopeless or impossible to improve).

Question 12

Shakespeare good nor bad

Answer 12

“Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Question 13

Good or bad?

Answer 13

There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.

Question 14

Power of perception

Answer 14

Welcome to the power of perception. Applicable in each and every situation, impossible to obstruct. It can only be relinquished. And that is your decision.

Question 15

T. Roosevelt ‘cool headedness’

Answer 15

What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice. — THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Question 16

Defiance and acceptance come together well in the following principle:

Answer 16

There is always a countermove, always an escape or a way through, so there is no reason to get worked up. No one said it would be easy and, of course, the stakes are high, but the path is there for those ready to take it.

Question 17

If you believe: ‘nothing happened’

Answer 17

Shaking off the bad stuff as it happens and soldiering on—staring straight ahead as though nothing has happened. Because, as you now realize, it’s true. If your nerve holds, then nothing really did “happen”—our perception made sure it was nothing of consequence.

Question 18

Welcome to the source of most of our problems down here on Earth.

Answer 18

Everything is planned down to the letter, then something goes wrong and the first thing we do is trade in our plan for a good ol’ emotional freak-out. Some of us almost crave sounding the alarm, because it’s easier than dealing with whatever is staring us in the face.

Question 19

Uncertainty and fear are relieved by authority.

Answer 19

Training is authority. It’s a release valve. With enough exposure, you can adapt out those perfectly ordinary, even innate, fears that are bred mostly from unfamiliarity. Fortunately, unfamiliarity is simple to fix (again, not easy), which makes it possible to increase our tolerance for stress and uncertainty.

Question 20

The Greeks had a word for this: apatheia.

Answer 20

Obstacles make us emotional, but the only way we’ll survive or overcome them is by keeping those emotions in check—if we can keep steady no matter what happens, no matter how much external events may fluctuate.

Question 21

No negativity or its emotions

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

As Gavin de Becker writes in The Gift of Fear:

Answer 22

“When you worry, ask yourself, ‘What am I choosing to not see right now?’ What important things are you missing because you chose worry over introspection, alertness or wisdom?”

Question 23

Does what happened keep you from?

Answer 23

Does what happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness?

Question 24

Marcus Aurelius had a version of this exercise where he’d describe glamorous or expensive things without their euphemisms

Answer 24

Roasted meat is a dead animal and vintage wine is old, fermented grapes.

The aim was to see these things as they really are, without any of the ornamentation.

Question 25

Clarity over sympathy

Answer 25

Think of all the ways that someone could solve a specific problem. No, really think. Give yourself clarity, not sympathy—there’ll be plenty of time for that later.

Question 26

Perception = a skill: practice it

Answer 26

It’s an exercise, which means it takes repetition. The more you try it, the better you get at it. The more skilled you become seeing things for what they are, the more perception will work for you rather than against you.

Question 27

The Greeks were clever. But beneath this particular quip is the fundamental notion that girds not just Stoic philosophy but cognitive psychology:

Answer 27

Perspective is everything.

Question 28

We can’t change the obstacles themselves—that part of the equation is set—but the power of perspective can change how the obstacles appear.

Answer 28

How we:
1. approach
2. view
3. contextualize an obstacle
and
What we tell ourselves it means
- determines how daunting and trying it will be to overcome.

Question 29

‘I’ in relation to the obstacle

Answer 29

It’s your choice whether you want to put I in front of something (I hate public speaking. I screwed up. I am harmed by this). These add an extra element: you in relation to that obstacle, rather than just the obstacle itself.

Question 30

What we’re forgetting in that instance, as billionaire serial entrepreneur Richard Branson likes to say:

Answer 30

“Business opportunities are like buses; there’s always another coming around.”

Question 31

Question: does our perception give us perspective or cause the problem?

Answer 31

The way we look out at the world changes how we see these things. Is our perspective truly giving us perspective or is it what’s actually causing the problem?

Question 32

Perspective has two definitions.

Answer 32

1. Context: a sense of the larger picture of the world, not just what is immediately in front of us
2. Framing: an individual’s unique way of looking at the world, a way that interprets its events

Question 33

Everything changed for Clooney when he tried a new perspective.

Answer 33

He realized that casting is an obstacle for producers, too—they need to find somebody, and they’re all hoping that the next person to walk in the room is the right somebody. Auditions were a chance to solve their problem, not his.

Question 34

Where the head goes, the body follows.

Answer 34

Perception precedes action. Right action follows the right perspective.

Question 35

Epictetus on externals and choices regard to them

Answer 35

In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices. — EPICTETUS

Question 36

Tommy John

Answer 36

One of baseball’s most savvy and durable pitchers, played twenty-six seasons in the majors. Twenty-six seasons! His rookie year, Kennedy was president. His final year, it was George H. W. Bush. He pitched to Mickey Mantle and Mark McGwire.

Question 37

They called it a “dead arm” injury. Game over. John wouldn’t accept that.

Answer 37

Was there anything that could give him a shot to get back on the mound? It turns out there was. The doctors suggested an experimental surgery in which they would try to replace the ligament in his pitching elbow with a tendon from his other arm. What are the chances of me coming back after this surgery? One in one hundred. And without it? No chance, they said.

Question 38

Tommy John attitude on “dead arm”

Answer 38

John reminded his family that whether it took one year or ten years, they wouldn’t give up until there was absolutely nothing left that they could do.

Question 39

To harness the same power, recovering addicts learn the Serenity Prayer:

Answer 39

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.

Question 40

And what is up to us?

8 ‘Ours’

Answer 40

1. Our emotions
2. Our judgments
3. Our creativity
4. Our attitude
5. Our perspective
6. Our desires
7. Our decisions
8. Our determination

Question 41

What is not up to us?

Answer 41

Well, you know, everything else. The weather, the economy, circumstances, other people’s emotions or judgments, trends, disasters, et cetera.

Question 42

Playing field vs rules

Answer 42

If what’s up to us is the playing field, then what is not up to us are the rules and conditions of the game. Factors that winning athletes make the best of and don’t spend time arguing against (because there is no point).

Question 43

Palahniuk on big picture

Answer 43

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up. — CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Question 44

Yet in our own lives, we aren’t content to deal with things as they happen.

What something means; fair or not? behind all of this?

Answer 44

We have to dive endlessly into what everything “means,” whether something is “fair” or not, what’s “behind” this or that, and what everyone else is doing. Then we wonder why we don’t have the energy to actually deal with our problems.

Question 45

Focus and monsters

Answer 45

Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.

Question 46

Those people with an entrepreneurial spirit are like animals:

Answer 46

blessed to have no time and no ability to think about the ways things should be, or how they’d prefer them to be.

Question 47

Don’t waste time on false constructs. Emerson quote:

Answer 47

“We cannot spend the day in explanation.” -Emerson

Question 48

What matters is that right now is right now.

Answer 48

It doesn’t matter whether this is the worst time to be alive or the best, whether you’re in a good job market or a bad one, or that the obstacle you face is intimidating or burdensome.

Question 49

One thing is certain. It’s not simply a matter of saying: Oh, I’ll live in the present.

Answer 49

You have to work at it. Catch your mind when it wanders—don’t let it get away from you. Discard distracting thoughts.

Leave things well enough alone—no matter how much you feel like doing otherwise.