📚 The Book in 3 Bullets

• See things for what they are, do what you can, and endure and bear what you must.

• What blocks the path is the path.

• See obstacles with objectivity, patience, and humility because life is full of them so you may as well use them as an opportunity to grow.

🌎  How the Book Changed Me

• This book has shown me that obstacles are what gives life its meaning. If there was nothing to overcome or accomplish, what would give you a meaningful life? It has taught me not to shy away from problems, but to embrace them.

✍️ My Top Quotes

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

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

• We must all either wear out or rust out, every one of us. I choose to wear out.

📖 Summary & Notes

• Stop doing nothing when you’re unsatisfied with your job, relationships, or place in the world. Stop feeling overwhelmed. Get started on the thing that stands in the way of improving these circumstances.

• Don’t blame your boss, the economy, politicians, or other people. The only thing at fault is your attitude and approach to the situation.

• The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.

• We live in a time where no other generation has had it better. We have rapid technology advancements, junk food, and cushy lives. We’re soft and entitled. Great times are great softeners. Abundance can be its own obstacle.

• Perception is how we see and understand what occurs around us—and what we decide those events will mean. Therefore, our perceptions can be a source of strength or weakness.

• See things simply and straightforwardly. See them as they truly are—neither good nor bad.

• Obstacles are inevitable in life. Both fair and unfair. What matters most is not what these obstacles are, it’s how we see them, how we react to them, and whether or not we keep our composure.

• When one person sees a crisis, another sees an opportunity.

• We still have biological baggage from our early ancestors. We sense danger in situations where our safety is not at risk. Think of stress about money, or when your boss yells at you. Your safety is not truly threatened here, so we can blindly let our primal feeling control us, or we can control and understand them.

• When faced with a seemingly insurmountable task we must try to:

  • be objective

  • control our emotions and stay level-headed

  • choose to see the good in the situation

  • place things in perspective

  • revert to the present moment

  • focus on what can be controlled

• Situations themselves can’t be good or bad until we put judgment or our perceptions on them.

• Control your emotions. When you are anxious, ask yourself if this is something truly worthy of freaking out about. Freaking out is nothing but counterproductive and limits your ability to see the situation for what it is and actually change it.

• The power of perspective can change how obstacles appear even though we can’t change the obstacle itself.

• Remember just how small and insignificant our problems are in the grand scheme of things. We are little particles of matter floating on a blue ball in space.

• It is up to you: your emotions, judgments, creativity, attitude, perspective, desires, decisions, and determination.

• What’s not up to you: the weather, the economy, circumstances, other people’s emotions or judgments, and disasters.

• Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies our power. But energy directed at external events is self-destructive.

• See an obstacle as an opportunity to grow and as a challenge. Make the choice to embrace the obstacle and not complain about it.

• We’re always trying to figure out the why to our problems as though the why even matters.

• Remember that this moment is not your life, it’s just a moment in your life.

• When given an unfair task, use it as a chance to test what you’re made of.

• There is good in everything if only we look for it.

• In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.

• Courage is the ability to take action even if you’re fearful of taking action. If you want momentum, you’ll have to create it yourself, right now, by getting up and getting started.

• Genius often really is just persistence in disguise. Edison went through thousands of trials prior to coming up with the lightbulb.

• It’s okay to be discouraged, it’s not okay to give up. The ability to plant your feet and keep inching closer when you really want to quit is persistence.

• On the path to success, we will inevitably fail. Action and failure are two sides of the same coin. Just make sure to learn something from each failure and not do it again.

• Failure shows us the way—by showing us what is not the way.

• Follow the process. Don’t get caught up in the totality and difficulty of the grand task. Break it down into pieces and get to work. The process is about doing the right things, right now. Not worrying about what might happen later, or the results, or the whole picture.

• Whatever we face, our job is to respond with hard work, honesty, and helping others as best we can.

• What’s right is what works. It doesn’t have to be a straight line from A to B, you just have to get there. Sometimes the longest way around is the shortest way home.

• Use obstacles against themselves. Sometimes this means leaving the obstacle as is, instead of trying so hard to change it.

• We have the ability to get things done and give them everything we have, and whatever verdict comes in, we’re ready to accept it instantly and move on to whatever is next.

• A premortem looks at what can go wrong as if it will go wrong. By doing this we lower our expectations and can find holes that we previously missed by expecting everything to go as planned.

• Hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. Be prepared for failure and ready for success.

• The art of acquiescence. Acceptance without protest. When the cause of our problem lies outside of us, we are better off accepting it and moving on.

• Learn not to kick and scream about matters out of our control. Indifference and acceptance are certainly better than disappointment or rage.

• Help your fellow humans thrive and survive, contribute your little bit to the universe before it swallows you up, and be happy with that. Lend a hand to others.

• Death doesn’t make life pointless, but rather purposeful.

• Thinking of our own mortality creates real perspective and urgency. It doesn’t need to be depressing. Because it’s invigorating.

• Reminding ourselves each day that we will die helps us treat our time as a gift.

• The obstacles never end. Just as you complete one, another arises. The more you accomplish, the more things will stand in your way. There are always more obstacles, bigger changes, and fighting uphill. Get used to it and train accordingly.

• Stoicism is about transforming fear into wisdom, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.