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?
110 - The Obstacle Is The Way: Mastering Perception
It starts with a storm. The year is 1857, and the economy is collapsing. Panic spreads like wildfire. Investors crumble. Businesses fail. But a young man named John D. Rockefeller doesn’t flinch. He watches. He studies. And while others see disaster, he sees an opening.
That’s the power of perception.
In this episode, Denise and Sam step inside The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday, pulling real stories from history and personal experience to explore a truth that separates those who falter from those who rise: what we see—and how we choose to see it—determines everything.
You’ll meet Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, a boxer wrongfully imprisoned for nearly 20 years, who refused to be caged in his own mind. His words—“I will not under any circumstances be treated like a prisoner”—are proof that even when we lose control over our circumstances, we never lose control over our perception.
Denise and Sam break down the defining moments when perception makes the difference—between fear and opportunity, between despair and resilience. They uncover how biology wires us for panic, but philosophy teaches us power, and why Marcus Aurelius was right when he said: “Choose not to be harmed, and you won’t feel harmed.”
Join us as we explore how to:
- Stay calm when others panic
- Reframe obstacles as opportunities
- Control what we can—and let go of what we can’t
- Train our minds to see before others do
Whether you’re facing professional setbacks, personal challenges, or just the chaos of everyday life, this episode is an invitation to shift your perspective—and in doing so, change everything.
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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 the life and leadership podcast, where we are living out loud the pages of the books on our bookshelves. My name is Denise Rousseau. I'm here with my co-host and friend, sam Powell. We are going through the book the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, and this is the timeless art of turning our trials into triumphs. We're getting ready to dive deep into this book, into part one of the book, which part one is all around perception. Sam, it's great being here with you today. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm great, I'm excited to hop into this. This is an interesting topic and this part one of the book about perception is like multi mini chapters throughout the whole thing, so we'll probably cover one or two of those today and just see where it takes us. But he said in the introduction and just to like contextualize this for everybody before we hop in is that you know the way through obstacles. Really to make them part of your path is one objective judgment, unselfish action and willing acceptance. So those are the three parts of the book. We're in the first part, which is perception, which is objective judgment, really at the end of the day. And so he starts this out, because what is perception? And he says it's how we see and understand what occurs around us and what we decide those events will mean. So what do you think about that, Denise, as we're starting this out? That's an interesting way, especially the second part of that sentence.
Speaker 1:I love this because, as we often talk about, the way you change your life is to change the way you think, and the things that you think about are your perceptions, which is your belief systems, things that you've either had ingrained in you or that you've been surrounded by, your culture, how you see and understand what occurs around you and what you decide.
Speaker 1:Those things mean all drive how you react or respond to them, which also drives the way that you have results or outcomes or don't in your life the way that you want them to be. So I really love that. That's the way that this entire book starts, because it doesn't jump in right away and says here's how you do something or here's what you do for that. It starts with first saying here's how you change your thinking to then change your life, and so I love that he started with that, and I love that he then goes deeper into what we've been talking about the last two episodes, which is the story around John D Rockefeller, and it all was around his character traits. So I'm curious what you took away from this first part. This is 60 pages in section one, so it's not even long, but it's broken up, like you said, into these little mini stories, and so in this first one, it's around the discipline of perception. So what did you take out of this first part?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was. You know, this was interesting, right, it's that. Yeah, the story is really that Rockefeller was in in. He was in this period of time where it kind of sounds a lot like times we're in, but, like you know, there are just big events happening in the world. Right, like there was.
Speaker 2:This is the panic of 1857 of just like there weren't, you know, there were no jobs, people were in a financial crisis, like are failing, like it's that kind of a moment and throughout this, rockefeller is very disciplined in his steadfastness, really Like he is very like other people were you know who they say bemoaning economic upheaval right, and he's quietly observing, right, it's all this.
Speaker 2:Like there's panic there, right, it's. It's all this like there's panic, there's emotion, there's all this stuff out in the world, and he's really steadfast in. I'm watching, I'm learning, I'm looking at things, right, and it really paints him as like this calm in the storm, which I thought was really really interesting, especially like just be who he became and I can't I think we said this last time like he's sometimes a controversial figure for a lot of people, but this is really like he did build an empire, whether or not you agree how he did that or not. It's interesting that, like, it's this steadfastness that we're really, like this, focus on while others go react, I observe and respond, and I think that that's really interesting, right, and this is in the concept of discipline, right, he's very disciplined and kind of holding steady.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was not erratic. It says in the book here that he resisted temptations. He resisted excitement when people were, you know, jumping on bandwagons, if you will no matter how seductive the situation, he just maintained steadiness. He could see, while others could not. In fact, this is something even we learned from john maxwell. As john maxwell says, that the best leaders can see more and can see before other people is kind of what sets them apart, sort of like they're looking at that 20,000 foot view because they can see wider and deeper and longer than other people. But and then they step back from that before they make decisions. And the book talks around how Rockefeller was a great investor but he used cold, hard common sense. And then it talks around his personality, which I found fascinating because it said he was adaptable, calm, brilliant and resilient. And I've been studying for about a year now the concepts beyond behind resilience, especially when you are faced with stress and burnout, especially at work, and so I found that to be fascinating because he didn't get rattled. He was in the midst of depression, not his own depression, but depression in the economy, but people were depressed because of the depression. It was a crisis. There was nothing glittery about what he was doing. There was nothing that he did, though, that it says was aggressive or bullying enemies, not prosecuting I mean shoot. Go on any social media site right now and see how different the leadership of our country is. That's the opposite of the way that Rockefeller was handling his leadership, and this is not a political discussion, but let's suffice to say it's black and white Leaders that are good. Leaders are calm, adaptable, resilient, are calm, adaptable, resilient, use common sense, have strength to resist temptation and are creative and innovative despite obstacles. And so it goes on to say that we will all come across obstacles in our life, fair or unfair, and you'll discover time and again that what matters most is not what these obstacles are, but how we see them, how we react to them and whether or not we keep our composure. And I think that's a good lesson for anyone, especially during times of change and transformation, whether it is economically, in our political environment, no matter what country you live in or where you work.
Speaker 1:There are so many companies going through massive transformation, whether it's because of AI or technology, or the economy or whatever. A couple of weeks ago, there was a change that was a drastic change for one company Southwest Airlines. They laid off 1,750 employees from their headquarters in Texas, and it was drastic because the company was not known for doing that. They were known for years and years as a steady, stable, composed company. They were one of very few, if only the only, airline that ever was making money when other airlines were failing. And so what we see with this story as it's continuing to unfold now is a couple of things Leadership changed.
Speaker 1:The leaders that had been the staples there had retired or passed away and gone on.
Speaker 1:New leaders were coming in, some from former airlines like the one I used to work for, some from other companies, and they were coming in to try to look at that 20,000 foot view of what's going to be best to take Southwest from where it is today to where it is needing to be tomorrow, and a decision was made to cut a drastic amount of the workforce.
Speaker 1:Now, when that happens and it's you that's involved I think you and I can both speak for this that you have a personal feeling around what it feels like when your role is eliminated, especially if you're not in the meetings that discuss what jobs are being cut. You can contrast that as well with what's happening in our own country's government that's cutting jobs left and right and wondering is there actually common sense and data that's showing what jobs should be eliminated or not? But last point, you can sit in that and wallow and feel bad and sad and mad. Or you can look at the point of this book which is the resilience of overcoming obstacles as opportunities, and that the perception is what we can see and think. But perception isn't always true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And he says we can learn to perceive things differently, to cut through the illusions that others believe or fear. We can stop seeing the quote unquote problems in front of us as problems. We can learn to focus on what things really are. Too often we act re emotionally, we react emotionally, get despondent and lose perspective. All that does is turn bad things into really bad things, get despondent and lose perspective. All that does is turn bad things into really bad things. Unhelpful perceptions can invade our minds, that sacred place of reason, action and will, and throw off our compass.
Speaker 2:And I think that, like that's exactly what you're saying, right, like this reactionary mode where it's like let's go in, let's cut a thousand jobs and we see this happen over. We've seen this happen a lot, especially for those of you who have ever come from like a tech space, like it's all it's been for the last three years, is just like this reactionary let's cut and change and do whatever and, like you know, make these drastic changes. And now we're seeing that cover from the public space into the, you know, from the private space into the public space for the government, and it's. It is creating this sense of like fear in, you know in people and it's it is creating the sense of like fear in, you know, in people and it really and I think the fact that we live in an age where everyone can access everyone's thoughts on social media and things like that not helping us right, because we're sitting in this space of, you know, reacting emotionally, getting despondent, losing our own perspective on things and it's just turning things into really bad things. And you know what he's, you know, really telling us here is that we have to be disciplined in our perception. Yes, we can listen, yes, we should listen to other people, right, that's how we learn, that's how we grow, that's how we expand our thinking, but we can't react to it just because we've taken in more information. We have to think on it and we have to respond right, that's the lesson from Rockefeller is, you know, we don't follow the masses and follow the emotion. We take a breath and then we respond right.
Speaker 2:And this is, you know, this reminds me of like raising kids. You know, I have a son who's very he's just a big feelings guy, right, like he feels things big and wide and deep, and what I find is I'm helping, you know, helping him grow and learn is teaching him to put that space in between the feeling and the action, and that is a learned skill and you can look around at all the adults in your life and figure out who's worked on that skill and who hasn't right. Who's the person that's blowing up on the little league field at the umpire and who's the person who's taking a deep breath and going, oh, I don't like that call, but I also don't have that perspective right, like I'm not seeing it from their you know, their space, or, yeah, I don't like it, I don't like it, but there's there's a moment there where I take a deep breath and I do something different.
Speaker 2:And that's really what this is. It's a discipline that you work on day in and day out. It is a skill you learn that helps us not be so reactive. And he says discipline in perception lets you clearly see the advantage and proper course of action in every situation, without the pestilence of panic or fear, and I think that that's such an important thing, and I think if we had more of that in our own lives and in this world, we'd all be a lot better off right. We would make better decisions collectively, individually, on broader scales, like you said, right. If we had leaders that were doing that consistently across you know everything that we do who saw farther and didn't react in that way, we'd be a lot better off right. Everyone would feel less fear, less of these moments of oh my gosh, what's happening.
Speaker 1:I think with what you're describing. That comes up for me, sam, is it's about missed communication, because the book says that we all have biological baggage which was a really interesting way to describe it, but it basically was around that we're all wired and primed to detect threats and dangers. It's that fight or flight response that we instantly go there if we think something is a miss. And yet most often what I find especially when I'm coaching people who maybe have a challenge or an obstacle, if you will, with a coworker or even with a leader is that there's some disconnect or imbalance in the communication between the two people. It could be a human behavior difference, like maybe one person is a process person and the other person is a people-oriented person. It could be that one person has information but they really can't share it with the other person, and so the other person has made these giant stories out of what they don't know, instead of looking at what they don't know, instead of looking at what they do know. And in the end, the book says that we have a choice around how we respond to situations. For any situations, you can be led by your feelings and you can understand and maybe learn from them, or you can look at your perception as to the reality of that perception. What's true, what is true that is factual about that thing, and then how will you respond to it. And so the author kind of ends this first chapter of this section by saying that there are some things that we can keep in mind when you're faced with an obstacle, and these are things that we want you to think about. We're going to go into the next part as well before we're out of time for today, but here's the things that make this simple but not easy. You can be objective, you can control your emotions and keep an even keel. You can choose to see the good in a situation that feels bad. You can steady your nerves. You can ignore what disturbs you. You can place things into perspective. You can revert to the present moment and focus on what can be controlled. Simple, not easy.
Speaker 1:I had a really elevated conversation with one of my parents over another one of my parents recently. It was highly charged emotions, it was negative, it was not productive, it was hurtful, and it was very easy to think that I couldn't be objective, that I didn't want to control my emotions because my emotions were all over the place. I couldn't see any good in the situation, only bad. My nerves were shot, my things that were disturbing me were off the charts. There was zero perspective because I was caught up in the emotion of it and I really didn't find myself feeling in control of the scenario until I had this slap in the face from this book saying whoa, this thing that you're experiencing is your perception of a thing.
Speaker 1:The opposite person by this one parent had a different perception, and my other parent had another perception, and my brother had another perception, and strangers and friends and family members outside of our inner circle also had perceptions. So it wasn't until I got to the next part of the book that we're going to slip into next, which is about recognizing your power, and that means the power for how you are going to take what you have felt into, what you're going to do. Because the book talks around how no one can take away your attitudes, your beliefs or your choices. And once I realized that everything around that bad situation didn't necessarily become positive and good, because, remember, not about positive intelligence. This is about overcoming obstacles and opportunities, becoming the strength that you find from them, but finding that no one can take away that just because their perceptions might be different is super powerful when you can get outside of the other person and live inside your own self.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and it takes that like satisfaction of life that you know, I think we learned a lot about this in like the happiness right, Like it doesn't matter what's happening around you You're, it's what's within you that has so much more power over your life, over how happy you are, over how satisfied you are, over how unhappy you are than anything else. And so if you've got this disciplined way of looking at perception right Like I'm not going to go into this crazy reactionary mode and once I start to gain control of that, then I realize how much power I really have when it comes to perception right. I have the ability to know what's affecting me. And he tells this really great story of um Ruben hurricane heart Carter, who was a top contender for the middleweight um boxing title and, uh, he was in the mid sixties.
Speaker 2:He was wrongfully accused of a triple homicide and was wrongfully convicted. And he said when he stepped into jail and into prison after he was convicted I know you had nothing to do with the injustice that brought me to this jail and I'm willing to stay here until I get out, but I will not under any circumstances be treated like a prisoner, because I am not and will never be powerless. And I can't imagine right walking into a prison knowing how wrongfully unjust this situation is, where you are sitting there Now. I have to serve this life, triple life sentence for something I did not do was not a part of, and I'm going to walk in there and say I'm not powerless in this, you have nothing. And he spent his time, all of his time, focused on the legal part of his battle and fought and fought and fought and took him almost 20 years. But he overturned his conviction and was released free.
Speaker 2:And they said and he says in here that like he didn't start living his life, like he just stepped back into it, it was part of this dirty of him, like his life was 20 years in prison, it was just part of the experience which, like this crazy way of thinking it, but it really is this crazy way of thinking it, but it really is this extreme way of thinking about, if you take control of your perception, you have so much power in how you show up in your life, right, and he, you know, he says in here we are never completely powerless. Our perceptions are the things that we are in complete control of. And when you think about that, like I just think about how, really, like how powerful that makes me feel, thinking about okay, this horrible thing can happen around me, but I control what it does to me.
Speaker 1:Two decades. Two decades. He was in prison for two decades and it took two trials to overturn that case. But what he talked about as well is that he became educated and better and improved, maybe because he was forced to have time on his hands. If you will, this is completely not a parallel story, sam, but when I know I need to be at my best, thinking and where I really need to harness, paying attention and getting work done, sometimes I have to go away and escape. I might go to a hotel, somewhere that I really enjoy and love. I've told you this before. I think that sometimes I'll go to a hotel somewhere that I really enjoy and love. I've told you this before. I think that sometimes I'll go to a hotel where there's an ocean or I'll go to a hotel where there's Disney World and I go there with the intention that I'm going to hold myself up at this place. That gives me peace and I'm going to focus my intention because no other distractions are around. There's no bills, there's no laundry, there's no obstacles outside of that four walls where I am and I have gotten more done doing that than I ever get done just sitting in my home office. In fact, my very first articles that I wrote for Forbes. I did that where, with something that would normally take weeks was taking me hours to get done, because all the distractions were removed.
Speaker 1:Now, granted, carter had a massive obstacle in front of him. He was in prison, trying to fight for his ability to get out from this wrongful charge, and ended up doing it. And so the book ends by saying in this chapter that if you have your wits fully about you, you could step back and remember situations, and that those situations aren't good or bad, they just are. And so this was a story we told episodes and episodes ago about a lesson I had learned from the certification for positive intelligence, which was this Taoist story principle where there was this farmer, and I'm going to have to find the episode where we talked about it, so it's not just a repeat. But the basic gist about this story was there's nothing in life that's good or bad, there's just life, and it's around how we perceive those things in our life and what we do with the things that create our ability to move forward. So I would say for me, as we round out, the end of this chapter called recognizing your power.
Speaker 1:In summary, the author says that obstacles become obstacles because of our perception. But there's these three things that stood out for me. The first is that because there is perception of things that could be good or bad, you can rise above that, just like Carter rose above it or like Rockefeller rose above the depression. You can, number two, have positive intelligence through your perception. So, even though I keep saying, it's not about positive intelligence, without positive intelligence you're also not going to get through this, because that is really around you having a perception that something can be positive from that obstacle and turning that obstacle to the opportunity. And the third thing I took away at the end of this is that the power of perception comes from what you talked about earlier with John's book. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn, because sometimes the mistakes that we have in life become the training ground. Or even back to that Steph Curry example is that it's in the practice that makes the perfection, not in the stumbles that create the solutions. So how about, for you, anything else you take away?
Speaker 2:from this first part before we end for today. Yeah, I think the way this little part actually started with the quote from Marcus Aurelius is the thing that keeps living in my head is choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been. And it just reminds me of like being in a situation where, like I'm not offended by something somebody said because I choose not to be offended, like it doesn't bother me, right? I don't care. You can tell me that truth. That's harsh, that's fine, because I chose not to be so. My reality is different than the maybe the person next to me who chose to feel offended by this thing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And there's so much power in that ability to choose how you feel about something, and because that really changes your perception of the events of the world around you. And so if you're like, if we're putting these two sections together, it's if I can control the perception I can control. Take that breath, take that moment, then I can really step into my power, which I just love. These two things coupled together.
Speaker 1:I love them too, and I love what's coming next, which is that's great if your life is going smooth, but what happens when there's other people that are so irritating? And so what do you do to steady your nerves? And this may be the very topic that myself, yourself and others listening will get a lot of value from, as we continue to see the flurry of emotions that lives on side inside of social media, especially in light of things that are changing in our economy and in our government, especially for where we live. So next week we're going to talk around steadying our nerves and controlling our emotions. I'm looking forward to learning and living out loud those pages inside the book. And so, friends, on behalf of my friend Sam Powell my name is Denise Russo Thanks for listening with us and joining us for another episode of what's On your Bookshelf.