The Obstacle Is the Way Quotes

“Just don’t lie to yourself by conflating emoting about a problem and dealing with it. Because they are as different as sleeping and waking.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Thus, the question for astronauts was not How skilled a pilot are you, but Can you keep an even strain? Can you fight the urge to panic and instead focus only on what you can change? On the task at hand? Life is really no different. 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.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Welcome to the source of most of our problems down here on Earth. 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.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“If your nerve holds, then nothing really did “happen”—our perception made sure it was nothing of consequence.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Shaking off the bad stuff as it happens and soldiering on—staring straight ahead as though nothing has happened.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“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.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“To one person a situation may be negative. To another, that same situation may be positive. “Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” as Shakespeare put it.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Too often we react emotionally, get despondent, and lose our perspective. All that does is turn bad things into really bad things. Unhelpful perceptions can invade our minds—that sacred place of reason, action and will—and throw off our compass.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“To perceive what others see as negative, as something to be approached rationally, clearly, and, most important, as an opportunity—not as something to fear or bemoan.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Oh, how blessed young men are who have to struggle for a foundation and beginning in life,”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“He was inclined to see the opportunity in every disaster.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Our generation needs an approach for overcoming obstacles and thriving amid chaos more than ever. One that will help turn our problems on their heads, using them as canvases on which to paint master works.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Many of our problems come from having too much: rapid technological disruption, junk food, traditions that tell us the way we’re supposed to live our lives. We’re soft, entitled, and scared of conflict. Great times are great softeners.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“As Laura Ingalls Wilder put it: “There is good in everything, if only we look for it.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Samuel Zemurray.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage

“What do these figures have that we lack? What are we missing? It’s simple: a method and a framework for understanding, appreciating, and acting upon the obstacles life throws at us.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Respect the craft and make something beautiful.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“This is why we shouldn’t listen too closely to what other people say (or to what the voice in our head says, either). We’ll find ourselves erring on the side of accomplishing nothing.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our power. But every ounce of energy directed at things we can’t actually influence is wasted—self-indulgent and self-destructive. So much power—ours, and other people’s—is frittered away in this manner.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“In struggling with his unfortunate fate, Demosthenes found his true calling: He would be the voice of Athens, its great speaker and conscience. He would be successful precisely because of what he’d been through and how he’d reacted to it. He had channeled his rage and pain into his training, and then later into his speeches, fueling it all with a kind of fierceness and power that could be neither matched nor resisted.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“doesn’t mean you have to agree. Just”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“With one approach you took advantage; with the other you succumbed to anger or fear.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Again, the event is the same: Someone messed up. But the evaluation and the outcome are different.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“accompanied by hard work and a little upbeat spirit. Others make the opposite choice.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Instead, she simply chose to see each situation for what it could be—”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“To one person a situation may be negative. To another, that same situation may be positive.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“our purposes, nothing we’ll experience is likely without potential benefit.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“If an unjust prison sentence can be not only salvaged but transformative and beneficial, then for our purposes,”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“We decide what we will make of each and every situation. We decide whether we’ll break or whether we’ll resist.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“To steady our nerves To ignore what disturbs or limits others To place things in perspective To revert to the present moment To focus on what can be controlled”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph