The timeless art of turning trials into triumph.
Video Summary by Productivity Game
Key Takeaways
"In every situation, life is asking us a question, and our actions are the answer."
The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience.
Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher.
Some of the most successful people in history—from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs—have applied stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. Their embrace of these principles ultimately mattered more than their natural intelligence, talents, or luck.
If you’re feeling frustrated, demoralized, or stuck in a rut, this book can help you turn your problems into your biggest advantages.
At the beginning of World War II, the Germans used a devastating military tactic called blitzkrieg to take control of Europe. When Allied forces fought their way back onto European soil, many allied leaders feared that the German blitzkrieg would push them back to the Atlantic Ocean—but not General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Where others saw threat, Eisenhower saw an opportunity. The Blitzkrieg was like a spear. The tip of the spear was led by a narrow column of German Panzer tanks, with troops traveling far behind them.
If the Allies allowed the German blitzkrieg to push through their front line and bend the Allied forces around the tip of the spear, they could expose the German flanks and surround the Germans creating what General Patton would refer to as the meat-grinder.
By using the ancient Stoic practice of turning obstacles into opportunities, Eisenhower used German aggression against the Germans and earned a decisive victory at the Battle of the Bulge and eventually total victory in Europe.
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
1. See the Upside of Every Setback
This mindset is especially relevant today as we appear to be heading into an economic recession. Most people view a recession as a destructive event and it is, but it’s also a great opportunity.
If you’re looking to start a business, a recession can allow you to hire great people you wouldn’t otherwise be able to and during a recession you’ll be able to negotiate better contracts with vendors and you’ll get office space or warehouse space for much cheaper than you would when the demand is high.
If you can fight through the recession, you’ll come out the other side able to capture more market share and have an easier time marketing your business since you’ll have fewer competitors than you would in an economic boom.
In fact, some of the greatest businesses were launched during or shortly after an economic recession.
- Roy and Walt Disney started Walt Disney productions at the start of the Great Depression.
- Costco started during a recession in the late 1970s.
- LinkedIn started just after the dot-com bubble burst
A recession is also a great time for savvy investors. A market crash means that great companies are effectively on sale. Instead of buying when the market is reaching higher highs, savvy investors have cash on hand to buy when everyone else is fleeing the market.
"Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful."
The key to spotting opportunity in a recession or in any other setback in life or at work — is to not merely endure a setback, but to love it.
Author Ryan holiday says the first thought should not be I’m okay with this or I think I feel good about this, but I feel great about this because if it happened then it was meant to happen and I’m glad that it did when it did and I’m meant to make the best of it.
“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it.”
Adopt the Amor Fati Attitude
The Amor Fati attitude is more in line with an ancient Stoic attitude than what is considered a Stoic attitude today.
Stoics aren’t indifferent and unaffected by events. They are cheerful in the face of any event, positive or negative. Stoics aren’t like cows standing in the rain, they’re more like children jumping in puddles, sticking their tongue out to catch the raindrops.
A simple yet concrete way to practice an Amor Fati attitude is to see your so-called negative emotions as assets.
- If you’re feeling lonely love it it’s your body reminding you that you value others and it’s the push you need to reach out and connect with others.
- Getting frustrated or feeling guilty? That’s great, that confirms that you have a higher standard and you can use that energy or feeling to maintain that standard.
In the book Ryan holiday uses a story of boxer Jack Johnson to perfectly illustrate in an Amor Fati attitude.
On July 4th, 1910, Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries faced off in what was marketed as the fight of the century. Johnson was the first black heavyweight champion in the U.S.A. and Jim Jeffries, who boxing fans labeled the great white hope, had come out of retirement to stop the black boxers ascension.
For 15 rounds Johnson received racist taunts from Jeffries corner and a hostile crowd of 20,000 people, but Johnson’s seemed to enjoy every minute of it. After receiving a punch that opened his upper lip, Johnson gave Jeffries a gory bloody but cheerful smile.
With every passing round, Johnson became increasingly cheerful and playful which caused Jeffries to become more enraged. This quickly tired of Jeffries and by round 15 he lost the will to fight and his corner threw in the towel.
When life punches you in the face just smile back. Stay cheerful when facing something or someone you hate to gain the upper hand.
- If someone’s rude or dismissive, love it.
- If it’s your boss who’s rude and dismissive, you can easily exceed his or her expectations.
- If it’s your competition who’s rude and dismissive, you’ll surprise them that next time you face-off.
- Got injured and stuck in bed awesome, now’s a great time to rest and catch up on some reading.
2. Don't Wait for Setbacks, Simulate Them!
If you learn to love every obstacle that life throws your way, you’ll find that more obstacles offer opportunities to improve your life in some way. But you need not wait for a real obstacle, you can simply imagine obstacles in your way.
- If you own a business, imagine a year from now you show up at your office and the doors are locked and someone has put an out of business sign on your front door. What happened? What went wrong? Did your product become obsolete? Did a competitor steal your market share? Did you get complacent and lose the drive you once had?
- By taking a few minutes to think negatively and simulate threats to your business’s survival, you can strengthen your business by turning those threats into a strategic advantage.
- Facebook constantly does this: they identify threats and incorporate those threats into their business. They noticed and bought Instagram very early. Then Facebook borrowed stories from a competitor snapchat and made it just different enough to not get sued and by doing so they grew to new heights.
- If you don’t run a business, use this concept in your career: imagine showing up to work and realizing that you no longer have a job. Imagine a candid final conversation with your boss. What are the reasons you’re being let go were? Any of them within your control? Were there skills you could have built or strategic relationships you could have developed?
This technique is called a pre-mortem. A post mortem is a common medical exercise. It’s when doctors examine the causes of a patient’s unexpected death.
But a pre-mortem is the act of examining why your career, business or next work project failed before it fails.
When doing a pre-mortem, the key is to go beyond simply protecting your downside and instead, identify the threats to your career, business or next work project and find a way to turn those threats into opportunities.
Video Summaries by OnePercentBetter & FightMediocrity
Key Takeaways
"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 obstacles to our acting...The impediment to action advances the action. What stands in the way, becomes the way."
We have to look at our problems in another way.
Let’s say theres an obstacle or problem that cannot be solved. What we have to do is try to turn this problem upside down and find a different angle or approach to solve it. What stands in the way, becomes the way.
Let’s face it, we all encounter different challenges in our life. We cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we respond to the things that happens to us.
There is no such thing as a setback, problem or obstacle. There is simply an opportunity.
You should try to see all these obstacles as an opportunity to do things differently. Think of it like this; your life may not be how you preferred, but it is how it is, so you have to take a different angle, approach or work with it in another way.
This is a philosophical idea, but it’s also a recipe for entrepreneurship, personal happiness, for navigating a world that is inherently unpredictable.
It’s a philosophy for self-made individuals, for resilient and robust, people who understand that they don’t control these outside forces, but they do control their internal forces.
We DON’T control what happens to us. We DO control how we respond to what happens to us.
1. Perception
Perception can be boiled down to how you see the problem. The story you tell yourself about a thing has a huge impact on what that thing actually will be for you.
If you decide to see it as horrible or unfair or insurmountable, it in many ways will be those things. Look at the problem from another angle and then take action.
2. Action
Although problematic and unfortunate, this thing is what it is, but you can in fact do something about it. The desire to do something about it and take action and respond to the problem.
Keep telling yourself that you will try to do something, regardless of whatever obstacles you may be facing, Use your creativity, be persistent and ingenious, make things happen, stop looking for angels and start looking for angles.
3. Will
The Will is looking at the thing we don’t control. We can’t control that we are all going to die, that people might try to hurt us in life or screw us over. We can’t control that not only will that happen, but we might not be prepared for it.
The discipline of the Will has to do with building that internal power deep inside you and building inner strength. Understanding our own mortality. Understanding that there are things that are bigger than us and causes that are bigger than us.
Face it, there will always be more obstacles. Behind mountains, there will be more mountains. There is no such thing as an easy life and we will all run into problems in one way or another.
Amor Fati
Amor Fati a great Stoic concept which in Latin means a love of fate and the Stoics were about accepting, embracing and loving what happened to them, even if it was bad.
Stoicism is this idea that in everything that happens to us, there’s a chance to practice excellence, to practice virtue, to improve our position in life and this is an idea that is very stern.
Instead of asking how do we reduce adversity and obstacles in our life start asking how do we take advantage of it? Seize the events which paralyze everyone else.
Objective judgment, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance, now at this very moment. Of all external events. That’s all you need.