The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

by Ryan Holiday

Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

And from what we know, he truly saw each and every one of these obstacles as an opportunity to practice some virtue: patience, courage, humility, resourcefulness, reason, justice, and creativity.

Great individuals, like great companies, find a way to transform weakness into strength. It’s a rather amazing and even touching feat. They took what should have held them back—what in fact might be holding you back right this very second—and used it to move forward. As it turns out, this is one thing all great men and women of history have in common. Like oxygen to a fire, obstacles became fuel for the blaze that was their ambition. Nothing could stop them, they were (and continue to be) impossible to discourage or contain. Every impediment only served to make the inferno within them burn with greater ferocity.

Turn it around. Find some benefit. Use it as fuel.

I can make this good.

met separately with both of the supposed owners and bought the land from each of them.

He paid twice, sure, but it was over. The land was his. Forget the rule book, settle the issue.

Liddell Hart came to a stunning conclusion: In only 6 of the 280 campaigns was the decisive victory a result of a direct attack on the enemy’s main army. Only six. That’s 2 percent. If not from pitched battles, where do we find victory? From everywhere else. From the flanks. From the unexpected. From the psychological. From drawing opponents out from their defenses. From the untraditional. From anything but . . .

attack. These things force us to be creative, to find workarounds, to sublimate the ego and do anything to win besides challenging our enemies where they are strongest. These are the signs that tell us to approach from an oblique angle.

Or it might be to aim for something else entirely, and use the impediment as an opportunity to explore a new direction.

“physically loose and mentally tight.”

Adversity can harden you. Or it can loosen you up and make you better—if you let it.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

Ordinary people shy away from negative situations, just as they do with failure. They do their best to avoid trouble. What great people do is the opposite. They are their best in these situations. They turn personal tragedy or misfortune—really anything, everything—to their advantage.

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 with strength.

True will is quiet humility, resilience, and flexibility;

His own experience with suffering drove his compassion to allay it in others.

but equally prepared for the worst. And then prepared to make the best of the worst.

Lincoln’s words went to the people’s hearts because they came from his, because he had access to a part of the human experience that many had walled themselves off from. His personal pain was an advantage.

Stoic maxim: sustine et abstine. Bear and forbear.

if Lincoln had been defeated, he was prepared to bear whatever the resulting consequences with dignity and strength and courage. Providing an example for others, in victory or in defeat—whichever

One needs only to look at history to see how random and vicious and awful the world can be. The incomprehensible happens all the time.

Certain things in life will cut you open like a knife. When that happens—at that exposing moment—the world gets a glimpse of what’s truly inside you. So what will be revealed when you’re sliced open by tension and pressure? Iron? Or air? Or bullshit?

The will is what prepares us for this, protects us against it, and allows us to thrive and be happy in spite of it. It is also the most difficult of all the disciplines. It’s what allows us to stand undisturbed while others wilt and give in to disorder. Confident,

calm, ready to work regardless of the conditions.

Always prepare ourselves for more difficult times. Always accept what we’re unable to change. Always manage our expectations. Always persevere. Always learn to love our fate and what happens to us. Always protect our inner self, retreat into ourselves. Always submit to a greater, larger cause. Always remind ourselves of our own mortality. And, of course, prepare to start the cycle once more.

This is strikingly similar to what the Stoics called the Inner Citadel, that fortress inside of us that no external adversity can ever break down. An important caveat is that we are not born with such a structure; it must be built and actively reinforced. During the good times, we strengthen ourselves and our bodies so that during the difficult times, we can depend on it. We protect our inner fortress so it may protect

us.

the way to strengthen an arch is to put weight on it—because it binds the stones together, and only with tension does it hold

weight—is a great metaphor.

You don’t have to like something to master

it—or

it’s very easy to internalize the assumption that nature has been domesticated and submits to

our whim. Of course it hasn’t.

To do great things, we need to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We’ve got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens.

But: I feel great about it. Because if it happened, then it was meant to happen, and I am glad that it did when it did. I am meant to make the best of it.

They cared about their fellow prisoners and drew great strength by putting their well-being ahead of their own.

We may not say it, but deep down we act and behave like we’re invincible. Like we’re impervious to the trials and tribulations of mortality. That stuff happens to other people, not to ME. I have plenty of time left. We forget how light our grip on life really is.