The Obstacle is the Way Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition

An updated and expanded edition of the book that launched a global phenomenon, <The Obstacle Is the Way< presents an infinitely elastic formula for turning our toughest trials into our greatest triumphs.

Since bestselling author Ryan Holiday introduced Stoicism to the world with <The Obstacle Is the Way< in 2014, this simple but powerful philosophy for life has taken the world by storm. This brilliant and engaging book is an invaluable source of wisdom for anyone who wants to become more successful at what they do, whether you&rsquo;re a student, a parent, a professional athlete, or a world leader. Now, Ryan Holiday has updated and expanded this modern classic with a new introduction and new content featuring a diverse set of inspiring characters.

Icons of history&mdash;from&nbsp;Epictetus and Demosthenes to Amelia Earhart and Richard Wright&mdash;followed a simple formula to achieve greatness.&nbsp;They were not exceptionally brilliant, lucky, or gifted. Their success in overcoming extreme obstacles was the result of a timeless set of philosophical principles that the greatest men and women have always pursued.

In <The Obstacle Is the Way<, Ryan Holiday unpacks those lessons and reframes them for today''s world, giving us an indispensable formula for turning our toughest trials into triumphs. This new edition is a chance for old fans to revisit a classic and for a new generation to discover the power of Stoicism.

Autorentext

Ryan Holiday is one of the world’s bestselling living philosophers. His books, including The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, and the #1 New York Times bestseller Stillness Is the Key, appear in more than forty languages and have sold over 10 million copies. He lives outside Austin with his wife and two boys ... and a small herd of cows and donkeys and goats. His bookstore, The Painted Porch, sits on historic Main Street in Bastrop, Texas.

Leseprobe
The Discipline of Perception

Before he was an oilman, John D. Rockefeller was a bookkeeper and an aspiring investor-a small-time financier in Cleveland, Ohio. The son of a criminal who'd abandoned his family, the young Rockefeller took his first job in 1855 at the age of sixteen (a day he celebrated as "Job Day" for the rest of his life). All was well enough at fifty cents a day.

Then the panic struck. Specifically, the Panic of 1857, a massive national financial crisis that originated in Ohio and hit Cleveland particularly hard. As businesses failed and the price of grain plummeted across the country, westward expansion quickly came to a halt. The result was a crippling depression that lasted for several years.

Rockefeller could have gotten scared. Here was the greatest market depression in history and it hit him just as he was finally getting the hang of things. He could have pulled out and run like his father. He could have quit finance altogether for a different career with less risk. But even as a young man, Rockefeller had sangfroid: unflappable coolness under pressure. He could keep his head while he was losing his shirt. Better yet, he kept his head while everyone else lost theirs.

And so instead of bemoaning this economic upheaval, Rockefeller eagerly observed the momentous events. Almost perversely, he chose to look at it all as an opportunity to learn, a baptism in the market. He quietly saved his money and watched what others did wrong. He saw the weaknesses in the economy that many took for granted and how this left them all unprepared for change or shocks.

He internalized an important lesson that would stay with him forever: The market was inherently unpredictable and often vicious-only the rational and disciplined mind could hope to profit from it. Speculation led to disaster, he realized, and he needed to always ignore the "mad crowd" and its inclinations.

Rockefeller immediately put those insights to use. At twenty-five, a group of investors offered to put approximately $500,000 at his disposal if he could find the right oil wells in which to deploy the money. Grateful for the opportunity, Rockefeller set out to tour the nearby oil fields. A few days later, he shocked his backers by returning to Cleveland empty-handed, not having spent or invested a dollar of the funds. The opportunity didn't feel right to him at the time, no matter how excited the rest of the market was-so he refunded the money and stayed away from drilling.

It was this intense self-discipline and objectivity that allowed Rockefeller to seize advantage from obstacle after obstacle in his life, during the Civil War, and the panics of 1873, 1907, and 1929. As he once put it: He was inclined to see the opportunity in every disaster. To that we could add: He had the strength to resist temptation or excitement, no matter how seductive, no matter the situation.

Within twenty years of that first crisis, Rockefeller alone would control 90 percent of the oil market. His greedy competitors had perished. His nervous colleagues had sold their shares and left the business. His weakhearted doubters had missed out.

For the rest of his life, the greater the chaos, the calmer Rockefeller would become, particularly when others around him were either panicked or mad with greed. He would make much of his fortune during these market fluctuations-because he could see while others could not. This insight lives on today in Warren Buffett's famous adage to "be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful." Rockefeller, like all great investors, could resist impulse in favor of cold, hard common sense.

One activist described the Standard Oil trust as a "mythical protean creature" capable of metamorphosing with every attempt by competitors or the government to dismantle it. They meant it as a criticism (and they had a point), but even this critique, and his clearly illegal monopoly, tell us something of Rockefeller's personality. He was resilient, adaptable, calm, always growing, hard to pin down. He could not be rattled-not by economic crisis, not by a glittery mirage of false opportunities, not by aggressive, bullying enemies, not even by federal prosecutors (for whom he was a notoriously difficult witness to cross-examine, never rising to take the bait or defend himself or get upset). This is what great investors cultivate, a rational self-command that allows them to see what others can't, to size up situations and anticipate what's coming next . . . and then to take advantage of it.

Was Rockefeller born this way? No. This was learned behavior. And Rockefeller got this lesson in discipline somewhere. It began in that crisis of 1857 in what he called "the school of adversity and stress."

"Oh, how blessed young men are who have to struggle for a foundation and beginning in life," he once said. "I shall never cease to be grateful for the three and a half years of apprenticeship and the difficulties to be overcome, all along the way."

Of course, many people experienced the same perilous times as Rockefeller-they all attended the same school of bad times. But few reacted as he did. Not many had trained themselves to see opportunity inside this obstacle, that what befell them was not unsalvageable misfortune but the gift of education-a chance to learn from a rare moment in economic history.

You will come across obstacles in life-fair and unfair. And you will discover, time and time again, that what matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure. You will learn that this reaction determines how successful we will be in overcoming-or possibly thriving because of-them.

Where one person sees a crisis, another can see opportunity. Where one is blinded by success, another sees reality with ruthless objectivity. Where one loses control of emotions, another can …