What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Sam Powell, Zach Elliott, Tom Schweizer, Dennis LaRue, and Michelle King.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
114-The Obstacle Is The Way: Part 2, Episode 1; Discipline of Action
Have you ever felt stuck when facing an obstacle, unsure how to move forward? The key to transformation lies not in your perception alone, but in what you do next.
Continuing our journey through Ryan Holiday's "The Obstacle is the Way," we explore Part Two – the critical transition from perception to action. Theodore Roosevelt's wisdom frames our discussion perfectly: "We must either wear out or rust out. Every one of us." This choice between meaningful movement and stagnation lies at the heart of overcoming any challenge.
We dive deep into what Holiday calls "the discipline of action" – the deliberate, bold, and persistent steps required to transform obstacles into opportunities. It's not just about movement, but right and effective action aimed at specific goals. Like a baseball player choosing which pitches to swing at, we must be strategic about where we direct our energy rather than spinning our wheels like a hamster going nowhere.
What separates those who triumph over adversity from those who remain stuck? The answer isn't in what happens to us, but in what we do with what happens. We share real stories of people faced with unexpected job changes who chose to see opportunity rather than misfortune – creating momentum for themselves rather than waiting for perfect conditions.
The path forward becomes clear: no one is coming to save you, and complaining only creates the illusion of progress. True transformation begins when you take that first step, however imperfect it might be. As we prepare to explore persistence in our next episode, we invite you to consider: what meaningful action will you take today toward overcoming your obstacles?
Join us on this journey of growth and discovery. If you're finding value in these conversations, please share with others who might benefit and let us know how you're applying these principles in your own life.
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf, a life and leadership podcast where we live out loud the pages of the books that are on our shelves, with your host, denise Russo, and Sam Powell.
Speaker 1:Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is our life and leadership podcast, where we're living out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. My name is Denise Russo, I'm here with my co-host, sam Powell, and we are going through a book called the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. If you're just new to joining us, we have just finished the first part of three parts of the book, which was all about our perceptions, and today we're going to start part two of the book, which is about how you take those perceptions and turn them into action. So, sam, I'm looking forward to getting some traction and some action with you today.
Speaker 2:Yep, same, action is always the way forward. It's the thing I think I encourage people the most. As a coach of, just, I would say just get in the game, just get going, get moving, get off the bench, take your bat. I think in the book they say take the bat off your shoulder like, just get going. And so this is is good, we're in this section of the book and, um, these first two parts that we'll cover today are the discipline of action and get moving. But he starts um part two with a little one paragraph preface and I love that he says in this is that our movements and decisions define us. We must be sure to act with deliberation, boldness and persistence, and I think that when I think about action, it's those three things for sure. I'm doing it on purpose, I'm being bold with my action, I'm being brave in that space and persistent. So, like I'm relentless, I just keep going, keep going, keep going, because that really consistency is the key. I think a lot of times that really consistency is the key.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times I think consistency is the key, persistence and flexibility, the author says. But one of the things that I highlighted was right after the sentence that you highlighted, which is said these are the attributes of right and effective action, because you can take an action on something and it completely not be an effective or right action because, remember, this is about removing obstacles, not creating additional ones yeah, that reminds me of um.
Speaker 2:I forget the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of like you can be in motion without moving forward right. And so when he talks about it's like in being in the right action is what's the thing that's moving you forward, not just moving you right. Like being busy isn't great unless the busyness is building towards something.
Speaker 1:It kind of is making me think of a hamster wheel right Like the little hamster gets on there and he's running along and happy and exercising, but he's never going anywhere.
Speaker 2:Exactly, Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's like running on a treadmill versus like running a marathon right, that has a start and an end to it, right, right? So this first part of the discipline of action. One of the things that stood out to me was that the author says that we forget 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, and the only way you'll do something spectacular is by using it all to your advantage. And so I had highlighted that part, and I had just recently come off of speaking on a panel discussion for my undergrad college to some college students, and we were talking about how you can view things in your life exactly like what this says that something happened to me or something happened for me, and it's just a difference.
Speaker 1:One word shifts your mindset into being positive about something that you are experiencing or going through, and I think until you get through the thing you're going through, you can't look back on it and be able to assess what actually happened. You can predict something, you can assume something, you can have a perception about something, like the whole first part of the book, but until you get to to the other side, like going back to this story from the beginning of the book, when the guy took the stick to move the the boulder right. I imagine when he first grabbed it he didn't positively know that it was going to move the rock. But when he got the rock moved he could look back and say, wow, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Or here's what I might have done differently. Or I wish that the stick would have been longer, or I wish somebody else would have been here to help me. Or oh no, it was perfect the way it was. But you don't know that until you have an experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what hindsight's always 2020 is the saying is there's so much wisdom that you gain by going through an experience that, looking back, it helps you see that thing more clearly. A lot of times and you're right we are sort of just gambling. Every single time we move forward, we take an action, we take a step, because we don't always know 100% what's going to happen. Right, you can't know with absolute certainty that when I take the step I won't fall down. It's just that you just have that certainty that if I do, I'll figure it out. It's okay, right, we'll get there.
Speaker 1:What do you think Sam is in certain people that they can overcome an obstacle, like the book sort of talked about how some people can turn a really bad situation into something good, and so I'm thinking about, for example, stories of adversity that turn into complete triumph. It could be that there was what was the name of the book. It turned into a movie. I think it was called Unbreakable, and it was about the story of a guy who was like put into a concentration camp and he ended up escaping and then he became like stranded on a raft and was dying and he ended up then becoming like a motivational speaker. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2:No, but go ahead and check that out.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I feel like the author is Hildebrand. Maybe I will have to look at it after the episode, but the movie was really really good. But this was a guy who faced continuous adversities and obstacles and ended up having a lot of victory from it. A lot of victory from it. And then I think about similarly you've got a lot of stories about, maybe, athletes like Special Olympics athletes, for example. What is it about certain people that have the tenacity to take these really significant obstacles and use them to their their best advantage for opportunity?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that it like when you get yourself in action. He says in this section that, because action is natural and innate, like you trip and you fall and your body is instinctually going to try to protect you, right, you're going to catch yourself. Right, we end up breaking our wrist when we fall because we're catching ourselves. Right, like there's this innate, action-oriented part of who we are, and I think that the people who embrace that, despite whatever circumstance, are the people who know that on the other side of that, action is something good. Right, and it might be a broken bone to get through it, get there. But like, on the other side of that is preventing you from something worse.
Speaker 2:Right, I didn't hit my head, which I have to protect more than anything. Right, I, you know, learned how to write with my left hand when I broke my right wrist because I'm right handed, had a right with my left hand when I broke my right wrist because I'm right-handed. Right, like, I've gained some skill. And so I think it's this like the people who keep that hope alive, that optimism alive, are the ones that really can like, look at that, but there's an action-oriented quality to those people. Right, they're the person who's not just going to sit around and say like, oh, I accept this. Like, oh, this is this, just is what it is. Oh, this sucks, oh, this is whatever. Like you're allowed to do, that he even says that at one point in this book. Like no one's saying you can't take a minute to think damn it, this sucks. Like right, like you're allowed. But you, you, you move forward from there, right, and I think that those are the people that triumph.
Speaker 2:It's the people who get back in the game, who stand back up and keep running, keep playing, keep going, because that's the only like they know. That's the only way forward, that's the only option.
Speaker 1:It kind of makes me think about the. There was a long time ago a movie with Will Smith and remember he was like a guy looking for a job and he was homeless and trying to take care of his son.
Speaker 1:Can't remember the name of the movie, but the idea of the movie was he was really down on his luck and he was to the point, literally, of being homeless. And there's a couple scenes I remember where he was just to the point of tears and thought that he would not get a job. He was getting rejected after rejection, after rejection, after rejection, but he kept moving forward and one thing you just said was he was running towards something, he wasn't running away from something and he didn't say stay stuck for long. He kept being persistent, he kept driving action and he definitely found resolve within himself to have a positive mindset around the fact that anything could be possible. And it was a story about a real person who ended up then becoming really successful in life, and that's how they ended up making the movie about his life about his life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that that's really like the point of this section that Ryan Holiday is making is like this is a discipline of action.
Speaker 2:And it's funny like this is how he starts out the whole section on action. We're going to go through a lot of the parts of it, but there's a discipline to it. It's the okay. I failed, but that's fine. I learned something. I move forward. I learned something, I move forward, I keep going and keep going and I'm disciplined in the fact that I keep getting back up, I keep getting back into motion and I think like that's that quality, that like you have to hold on to and build into yourself, is the discipline of action itself.
Speaker 1:I wonder if this ties nicely to friends. Go listen to our episodes on atomic habits, because the way you have discipline is through building positive habits. Right, like you know, you could lose your job and do nothing about it, but if every day, you get up and have that discipline to take action on what you are going to do, not what happened to you, then that's the way to make progress forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I like the way he kind of ends this, this section is you know, no one is coming to save you. And it's funny I just I have been telling myself for months I was going to start doing like little TikToks reels, whatever, and I literally just started. So I'm like, all right, I'm doing this. But one of the ones I think it was yesterday that I posted maybe was that nobody's coming to save you. Like you are the leader of your own life, you're the one who does this and so you've got to have this discipline. And so he says no one's coming to save you. And if we'd like to go where we claim we want to go to accomplish what we claim are our goals, there is only one way and that is to meet our problems with right action, and that's what you're talking about. Right, like it has to be the right action, but we have to have the discipline to go pursue that right action all the time.
Speaker 1:I wonder if it's also a point, sam, to figure out what do you really want, because it's hard to have a discipline if you aren't sure where you want to go. You know it's like saying you get in the car to drive somewhere but you don't have a final destination, so you just kind of drive around a waste gas. You still have to have somewhere that you're headed. So the next part of the book here, this next chapter, is called get moving, and so it kind of makes me think about the idea that you could get yourself moving like that hamster and have nowhere to go, or you can have a plan. You can have a plan, you can have this vision, you can have persistence and the perception of where it's going to take you.
Speaker 1:But I love what the first quote from Theodore Roosevelt says in my book, which is we must either we must all either wear out or rust out. Every one of us. My choice is to wear, wear out. So what that said to me is that's about movement, right, like keep trying, keep moving, get yourself to the point where you don't finish until you just can go no more, versus just sitting there and kind of like rotting away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think about that. Like you know, they always say when people get close to retirement or get close to the end of their life, like they think about their legacy. But if I think about beginning with the end in mind, like what would my legacy be? Like I want to be exhausted at the end of my life. I want to have known that I, like, did it all. Not that I just atrophied, right, not that I just the dust is collecting where I'm sitting, like I want to just drop at some point of like I I tried it all, I did it all, I did my best, I did the things I wanted to do and I just I love that quote Like I don't want to rust out, I want to wear out at the end of you know, at the end of the day and I think you're spot on about finding that goal and finding what is it that I'm trying to do right?
Speaker 2:Like this is where I, like I think coaching is so powerful. It's why I have a coach, because there are times where, like, as I'm going through my day, going through my weeks, it's like I lose sight of what my bigger picture is, because there's so many things I could be doing right. There's so many infinite directions. I can take everything in my life, and then I have a coach specifically for my business, and and what my coach helps me do is sit down and think through what are my priorities? What is the next right step? Not what's the next step, what's the next right thing to get me to the goal that I want? And I worked with him to figure out what those goals were right. What does this really look like? Somebody asking me those really powerful questions, and so you know, I think that that's. I think you're spot on right. You get this discipline, you get moving, but, like sure, it's aimed towards something good, it's aimed on a trajectory that you really want.
Speaker 1:I think that's so, so, so important. So my coach, christopher, was working with me today actually on time and priority management, and so we were talking about what this book says, which is, you could always be doing more. There's always more. There's an infinite amount of things we can do, technologies we can try, people we can meet, experiences we can have, but you only still have a finite amount of time, and we don't know when that time actually will expire, and so the idea is to figure out what matters most and to not look back and have a regret for how you invested versus wasted your time, which is the topic of a book that I've been trying to finish writing for a couple of years now.
Speaker 1:And um, and so it got me to really thinking about the fact that I think, where I sometimes, uh, get to the point where Theodore Roosevelt was saying, you know, getting worn out versus rusting out, you can do too many things you can wear out and still not be moving.
Speaker 1:You could still be like the little hamster on the wheel where you're not getting anywhere but you're really running really fast, and so the idea here is that this says is, like you mentioned just a moment ago, is the take step number one take the bat off your shoulder and actually swing, because you have to start. But to start you need to know also what you're going to do. Like you can imagine that if you were playing baseball, every time a pitch came, no matter if it was good or bad, you could swing the bat, but eventually you're going to get worn down, tired and maybe not connect with the ball. So the idea is to still be able to watch what's coming at you, be able to connect with it and have a strategy for where that ball is going to head. So it's going to give you your maximum potential to get on a base right. So there still has to be a plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and it's funny he says in here you know, life can be frustrating. Oftentimes we know what our problems are. We may even know what to do about them, and so if you've taken that step of like I know what I'm trying to do and a lot of times it's like well then, I don't know the next step, like what is the next right thing. But I think that like and this kind of like I wrote down in the book like kind of harkens me back to coaching. That my favorite ridiculous coaching question is when somebody tells me I don't, I don't know, I don't know what to do next, or I don't know the answer to that, like I don't, I don't know. Right, if I ask them a question, that's kind of their response and my favorite ridiculous coaching question is well, if you did know the answer.
Speaker 2:What would it be? Uh-huh. And then is that me. And they answer it like every time, and it's like I, like we. We do know what the next step is. We do know what the right next thing. We do know how to take the bat off of our shoulder. We do know that we need to take the bat off of our shoulder and to make that swing, and we know, maybe, what some of those pitches are that we should or should not swing at right, like as soon as you swing, you're like I should have swung at that right, or it goes past you and you're like, oh, I should have swung at that.
Speaker 2:but the point is like, just get in there and and do it right, like, even if it's not the right action, getting in motion helps you realize where like your right motion is. And so sometimes like this this is just get moving right, get started, get focused, get somewhat in the right direction and you're going to land on the field somewhere, and so then just pivot when you realize you're way left when you should have been right.
Speaker 1:This may be a facetious question, but have you ever been frustrated in life? Maybe once or twice. So, naturally, the answer for probably everybody listening is yes. I've had a time in my life when I've been frustrated. Another question Do you enjoy being around people that complain?
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, no, no, like who does. Do you enjoy being around people that complain? Oh gosh, no, no, like who does. So if you are frustrated and you're finding yourself just sort of sitting there and complaining about what you don't have, what you can't get, where you are blaming other people, you don't want to even be around other people that do that, so why do you want to be around yourself that's doing that. So I was talking not long ago with somebody who's going through an experience of really just a lot of transformation in their job, and the person was sharing the situation, which was a legit situation and it was a frustrating situation, but the person continuously was sort of pivoting towards, well, you know, kind of an Eeyore complex I don't have this, I'm not going to have that, the company's not going here, they're probably going to do this Instead of thinking, well, what if you did something about it?
Speaker 1:Because you're basically saying that you're willing to stay stuck. You're willing to stay in an environment that you don't like. What you're doing you no longer get joy from it. You don't like the people that you work with or for. What you're doing is not actually adding value to not only the world but to yourself every day, but you're okay with staying stuck because of something that's a compromise. Like you like getting paid on Friday, it pays your health insurance. Maybe your stock matching is good. So it still is a question of what you are willing to accept or not accept, and if you're willing to move or not move, because in that case there was movement, but it was as the beginning of this chapter, when we started to talk about it, which is the right, you know, versus just action, versus right and good action.
Speaker 2:It's still action to complain, but it's not right and good action yeah, yeah, and I think that like the wrong action, right, can get you stuck. It like if you feel like you're real busy but not moving anywhere, you're in the wrong space. Like he says, you know that, like, that's it. Like stay moving always is what he says, and it reminds me of Newton's like first law of motion right, an object in motion stays in motion, an object at rest stays at rest. And so if you are spinning your wheels like you're not really in motion, right, like if you're not, if it's not resonating with you that like you're progressing, you're moving forward, right, it's like I'm just in the cycle of complaining and like, yeah, I'm doing a whole lot of nothing, you're not in motion, really. Right, like you're just, you're not, you're not in the right action. And that's the key is to get in, getting towards the right action, moving in that momentum, just doing something that like pushes you in the right space.
Speaker 1:I kind of wonder if this isn't the whole point of the book that you have to sometimes have things happen in this case, maybe to you or around you or in your space that are happening, that feel like an obstacle to drive you to action. Like going back to the guy with the boulder if the boulder wasn't there, maybe people would or have not, wouldn't have gone up and down the street, Like maybe they wouldn't even care that the street was available. But suddenly, when that boulder was there, everybody wanted to go down the street and they were getting frustrated and they couldn't believe that the king had done this bad thing to prevent them from having progress. But I wonder how many of them, on a daily basis, were walking up and down the street. And I wonder what it took for the one peasant to have the resolve to just say well, I still want to walk up and down the street, so I'm going to actually do something about it.
Speaker 1:And he made a way for other people because at the end of this chapter it says that there might be conditions that aren't exactly to your liking. So again, thinking back to your own personal situation, okay, there might be something happening in your personal or professional life that is not exactly to your liking. He then says you don't feel ready yet. John Maxwell often says is there's often people that are just getting ready to get ready and those people don't have any intention. I've been that person. I've absolutely been that person.
Speaker 2:I've made a lot of plans for plans. I've been that person. I've absolutely been that person. I've made a lot of plans for plans.
Speaker 1:Well, it says you don't get a pass. And you actually took action on that, like you said last week, by starting to do these little videos, and you know it also was rendering you positive results because you were doing something you said you would do, you committed to it, you're getting response from it and who knows where that will lead. And this basically says, if you want momentum, you have to create it for yourself right now by getting up and getting started. So it makes me think again about the situation with some people who are being affected at work. I was talking yesterday to someone who I had worked with for, oh my gosh, a really, really long time, and this person was displaced yesterday after like 17 years at work. And so when I was talking to the person, I asked them well, what are you going to do? And he had such a positive outlook. What he said to me was well, I'm going to take advantage of the time that I now have to do the things I haven't done that I've wanted to do, and in his case, it was that he wanted some free time if you will, it's not really free, but free time to get some certifications in something or the other that would help him do something that be more fulfilling.
Speaker 1:And he said to me when we were talking you know, denise, I have to be honest that over the last couple of years, I've felt stuck. He started talking about not having gotten a pay increase in a while and not feeling, perhaps, like he was motivated by some of the work, but he never took action on it because it was just like, well, I have a job, I'm thankful for the job, I'm getting paid on Friday for the job, but he didn't take action and have momentum to make a change. And because the change was thrust upon him now his outlook was again either the example of you could say, well, this happened to me and it's so bad and now my life is ruined, or take the approach that he did, which was through a positive lens, which was man, this is like a gift. He was talking to me about how, you know, not all companies offer this, but some companies offer severance and things of that sort. So he said well, wow, I started thinking about how this is a gift.
Speaker 1:It's going to give me time to be able to still have some breathing space to do things I want to do and go places.
Speaker 1:I want to go and experience things I want to experience and maybe try something completely different and new. I had another friend of mine that had worked with me just as long as this other person, who didn't get laid off but had left the company a couple years ago and was now in a situation where he was working for a startup and decided that the startup wasn't going to be successful and has to leave. And so we were talking and he said to me a couple weeks ago you know, I think that what I might do is something completely different, like I might just go buy an ice cream shop and start a franchise, and he's like I don't know anything about franchising, but I'm getting towards the end of my career life cycle and maybe it would just be fun to try something new. And whenever would he have taken a risk like that If he was still in a situation where he didn't need to make a move?
Speaker 2:yeah, and that's it like. I think that was from the, which one solve for happy, that, the that we're only ever. I think maybe it's from atomic habits, I don't know. It's probably mentioned in both. But you're, either. We don't move until something moves us right. Right, like, if everything's good, why change it? Right, we're happy, things are great, we're only ever moving towards pleasure or away from pain, and if things are fine, we don't do anything about it.
Speaker 2:But this is, you know, what he's really encouraged. What Ryan Holiday here is encouraging us is just to get moving, like, just move right, like when an obstacle comes your way, right, cause that's where we're at. Obstacles are inevitable, they're, they're sitting there, something happens at you. Just take a step right, just figure out what it is and get moving. Yeah, and I know we're probably getting short on time here if I'm looking at the clock, um and so, yeah, I think that that's really it, and I love that quote that you ended with uh, you know that he ends this chapter with that you talked through. I had the same thing highlighted and, um, you know now, once you're moving, you know, looking towards next week is practicing persistence. So, once you're moving, how do you persist and keep moving is?
Speaker 1:you know where we'll, where we'll go next week. Oh, I can't wait to do that together with you next week. This is all about action and getting some traction, and I'm looking forward to, as always, being able to learn and grow with you and friends. If you're getting value from these episodes, please share them with others and let us know what you're doing in your own life to get some action from your perceptions on different things. We would love to hear from you. So for today, though, my name is Denise Rousseau and on behalf of my friend, sam Powell. This has been another episode of what's On your Bookshelf.