You may not feel it.

The obstacle is bigger, brighter, stronger, and more experienced than you.

You feel small, inadequate, and impotent in comparison.

This also sounds like an irritant to whatever or whoever appears bigger.

You are able to adapt more rapidly, learn faster – including from your mistakes, move and produce more quickly, come across new ideas – absorbing and implementing these with innovation and panache, and you are able to keep true to your mission and purpose.

You have an advantage and its exciting.

‘When we believe in the obstacle more than in the goal, which will inevitably triumph?’*

What really matters to you?

I’ve just read this description of Warby Parker‘s co-founder: ‘Neil Blumenthal loves helping people see.’**

I love this.

(Especially because it resonates with how I want to help people see their purpose and dreams.)

Amy Poehler suggests, “Everybody is interesting when they are interested in something.’**

I take this to mean, when we make our lives to be centred on some thing or some need or someone else, rather than ourselves, then they get really interesting.

Which brings us back to the obstacle in our way, which, when looked at through the lens of what we are interested in and passionate about, becomes the creative possibility for something new.

Be the change.

(*From Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way.)
(**From 99U’s Make Your Mark.)

Who listens to you?

Who do you listen to?

It’s a gift given to us and which we give to others.

It’s astonishing what can be mined from deep within us towards expression: through intentional silence, questioning, exploring, experiences, and imagining – it’s all listening.  It’s listening which seeks to enable flourishing.  It’s definitely not judgemental or criticising.

Whilst this kind of deep listening comes easier to some than others, it’s a skill we can all learn, enabling us to attend to what is and avoid the distractions.

‘Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”*

(*Simone Weil, quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way.)

“I am impatient to break loose into the universe.”*

Frank Laubach, expressing this adventurous sentiment, wondered whether ‘this entire universe is a desperate attempt by love to incarnate itself.’*

When all is well, we must perceive what is not there to bring it into being.  We have to be divergent and imaginative in our thinking.

When our way is blocked – and often it will be because the brighter future will not come easily or cheaply – we must not be divergent but converge on the truth and reality of what is before us.

‘[Samurai] Musashi understood the observing eye sees simply what is there.  The perceiving eye sees more than what is there.’**

Marcus Aurelius practised observation by describing things in a non-ornamental way – ‘roasted meat is a dead animal, and vintage wine is old fermented grapes.’**

Some people seem to see few ways of moving forward whilst their imaginations work overtime when it comes to the obstacle.

Use divergent thinking to see the ways forward and convergent thinking to accurately know the obstacle, but don’t get these the other way around.

I thought to add these words from Isabel Guerrero, formerly of the World Bank, but finding herself on a journey to help the poor and celebrate their beauty: ‘Don’t get afraid of the pain.  Don’t get afraid of the unknown.  Step out of your comfort zone so you can continue growing.  And this is a lifelong thing.  It’s not just when you’re younger.  It continues.  That’s the beauty.’

(*From Frank Laubach’s Letters From by a Modern Mystic.)
(**From Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way.)

The closed mind will struggle to find the resources it requires.

The open mind is better prepared to find more possibilities.

The unprepared mind is more prone to panic.  Astronauts will repeatedly walk through all the elements of a space mission, from the journey to the craft to everything their time in space will include, so when things go wrong – and things will always go wrong – they will not panic.  Gravity is well worth a viewing.

Astronauts are trained to focus on the specific problems or obstacles they must address when something goes wrong.  Panic blurs everything with emotion and they would not be able to see what they must do.

I know this is something I must keep learning.  When I face obstacles, I know I can panic and I fail to see what I can do.

When I live the daily discipline of opening my mind, to see and understand more, I am providing myself with more options.

Here, then, are three preparations:

Determine not to give up too soon, or stop at the first option or solution.

Make it simple: to identify and focus on the important things rather than everything – an ability emerging from training our minds.

Go natural, be intuitive – trust yourself.  You are discovering the places in yourself you can act from.

I may call this thing an obstacle but it isn’t.

It is much more.  Sorry.  It’s a complicated, and maybe complex system of people and connections and skills and issues and needs.  When I call it an “obstacle,” making it almost invulnerable, it’s likely because of I’m panicking or fearful.

The more accurately I can describe what I really face the more chance I have of seeing where potential opportunities lie within it.

There’s one more element to the “obstacle.”

Me.  I have to know myself accurately.  Only then I may bring the full me to bear on what I must overcome.

The best way of knowing who I am arises from knowing who others are, who may become the people who bring help in the form of skills and abilities I do not possess.

Every moment is an opportunity to explore and become something new.

Some of the most difficult moments offer us the best opportunities.

I mentioned I’m on a trip in which I’m exploring how to overcome obstacles, so this is something which is real for me.

I am seeing how it depends upon how I see and then act upon the obstacles which stand before me.

I can react with panic and anxiety, and end up paralysed.

I can respond positively and remove the obstacle to be able to continue – which is better.

Or, I can initiate and use the obstacle as an opportunity – which is best.

Having a goal is important.  To keep focusing on the goal is not so important.  What is really important is the process, meaning I can see the steps and enjoy the daily process rather than waiting for the goal to happen – which, without the process, the goal appears an insurmountable whole.*

Allied to this, along the way, it’s important to prototype, to iterate: ‘What gets you there is fast iteration, and fast failing.’**  This tackles the element within the obstacle which is perfectionism.  (I’ve been in an organisation for more than thirty years which does not allow for fast iteration and fast failing and it’s killing it.)

Those who have overcome their obstacles and delivered their art will have failed many, many times.

(*One of the things running has taught me is to respect the steps, the miles.)
(**From Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way.)

Some think because of who they are and what they’ve done, they deserve an invitation.  When they receive it, they can turn it down.  They’re in control.

Some never receive an invitation and are shocked when they do.  They wonder what they can bring, hardly realising humility and gratitude are powerful forces for creativity.

We’ve all been invited.  Here’s how you can check.  Find a mirror.  Breathe on it.  If the glass mists, you’re definitely invited.

There are things which get in the way, of course.  Ryan Holiday suggests these are fuel for fire-making.  This resonates with me, so, as I travel to be part of a futures mentoring community for the best part of a week, I’m going to be exploring how I can do this.  Holiday offers this from Marcus Aurelius:

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

What we each get a chance to do now is to extend this invitation to others.  This will be couched in a way which connects with our playful curiosity and creativity.

For me it would sound something like this: Every person has a dream within them made up of skills and passions and experiences; I can help identify and develop these.  You’ll say it in a different way and the uniqueness of this will be important to someone.

Then create an experience to go with the invitation.

Have fun always.

(*Quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way.)