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?
112 - The Obstacle Is The Way: Objectivity, Turning Obstacles into Opportunities
Denise and Sam explore how practicing objectivity can transform our approach to life's obstacles, drawing wisdom from Ryan Holiday's bestseller "The Obstacle is the Way."
• Distinguishing between perception (emotional reactions) and observation (factual reality)
• Our first thoughts come from programming and defaults, but our second thoughts define who we are
• Reacting immediately to first impressions can cause us to miss valuable opportunities and connections
• Diversity of thought helps us see beyond our limited perspectives
• Where the head goes, the body follows - perception precedes action
• Taking yourself out of the equation often reveals solutions previously hidden by emotion
• Altering perspective transforms seemingly impossible obstacles into solvable challenges
• George Clooney's career breakthrough came from changing his perspective on auditions
If you're interested in coaching to help shift your perspectives and overcome obstacles, reach out to Denise and Sam through the contact information in the show notes.
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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. 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, my co-host is Sam Powell, and together we're going through a book called the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. This is a bestseller book and it's really about the art of turning our trials into triumphs, our obstacles into opportunities, and I'm really looking forward to having the discussion with you today, sam, how are you doing? I'm doing good.
Speaker 2:I'm doing good I am excited to talk about today. So we're still in section one of the book, which is all about perception, really honing in on how our perception, how our thoughts, affect really how we move forward and what we do. And today, and as we start you know, start chatting here it's about practicing objectivity, which I think is super hard for people. You know. This is where I think so many unconscious biases slip into our life. This is where so much of our default programming gets in our way and we don't even know it a lot of times. So to truly be objective, we're really having to overcome a lot of hurdles to sit in that space. But being practicing objectivity is so, so, so important if you're really trying to move through something. So I'm excited to like deep dive and get your thoughts on this because, I don't know, it's an interesting topic.
Speaker 1:What I thought about when I started reading this one is that perceiving versus observing, which we'll talk about today, for me is about the difference of feeling versus fact, and when I think about what we have learned as being certified to conduct and deliver DISC assessments, which is a human behavior assessment tool and, by the way, anybody listening, if you're interested in finding out about your own styles, whether it's a learning style, a leadership style, a human behavior style, reach out to me and Sam.
Speaker 1:We're multi-certified in different assessments and different programs. It just so happens that the one that I'm talking about right now is DISC, which is the difference between the left-hand side and the right-hand side of the four quadrants, and it is the difference between people that think with fact and people that act with feeling. And so practicing objectivity for me was a really interesting chapter, because I find myself, the older I get, being less objective, and yet my strength side has always been more so on the objectivity side than the perceiving side. And so it really, when this chapter started out, I highlighted, I starred, I put marks all over the book at the very first quote. That is from a very old philosopher, and I don't even proclaim to pronounce his name correctly, but Epictetus Epictetus. Okay.
Speaker 2:That was a good try. I'm not sure either. I should brush up on my Greek.
Speaker 1:I guess I'm going to call him Mr E for now. And so his quote was don't let the force of an impression, when it first hits you, knock you off your feet. Just say to it hold on a moment, Let me see who you are and what you represent, Let me put you to the test. And when I read that, it became a very pronounced quote for me through the last couple of weeks since I first read this part of the book, because it's very easy for us when we're in times of obstacle or times of trials, that when somebody says something to us or something happens to us, if we want to call it that that our first impression can take us off balance. And so that's what I thought of when I started to read this part of the chapter. How about for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't quite realize the direction this little section would take here, because I'm thinking of like, oh, objectivity and um, being objective, and this is really talking about like those initial reactions to a person, an event, a thing, something going on in your life and not, and finding like a weird balance in it because there's a quote like right after that that is that says sometimes being superficial, taking things only at first glance, is the most profound approach, but it, like that, seems to counteract like that quote that you just said. That is how the whole section starts of like don't take like right, like don't trust it. Starts of like don't take like right, like don't trust it. So I think it's this weird like to me. As I started reading this, I was like wait, are you telling me to look to trust my gut like perception of something or to not trust it? And I think really like the point that it's sort of coming around to, which was interesting to me and really thought provoking, was like take in that first, that first impression, that first thought that goes through your mind, but but hold off for a second, right it's.
Speaker 2:I had had a. My cousin and I were texting back and forth about something that she was really feeling distraught about and she was like, I feel like a horrible person because my first thought is blank, blank, blank, blank blank. And I was like, oh, I you know. I heard somewhere once that, like, you aren't who your first thought is, you are your second thought. Your first thought is just the programming, the default, the emotional reaction to whatever the situation is like. You know somebody's mean to you and you're like, well, screw you right, like, but that's not who you are and you might feel bad about that first thought, but it's the second thought, the one that is okay. I hear you first thought, I hear you first perception. But second perception, where I get to put what I truly think onto something is really where, like, I think the point of this is where the objectivity comes in, where it's, it's who I am, more thoroughly than my first initial reaction, sometimes in that first initial thoughts that we have.
Speaker 1:I like how you're saying and describing, though. You take that first thought and you give it value, but you don't react to the first thought. Yeah, uh, huh, you know, but you don't react to the first thought yeah, uh-huh, you know. And so this says that the observing eye simply sees something that's there. So in that first experience, maybe an interaction with a person but the perceiving eye sees more than what is there. It says the observing eye sees events clear of distractions, exaggerations or misperceptions, but it almost makes it sound like Sam, that the perceiving eye is seeing things that are bad. But I don't think that that also is 100 percent always true. I think once you have the objectivity of what the situation is, then you use intuition and things like that and see if your perception is right, because your perception isn't always wrong right, right, and I think it's giving yourself that pause, like you said, to really think about is this, is this true?
Speaker 2:you know, like I like thinking back to sol for happy, where he asked that question of is, is that true, is this true? And that's the thing that you know we think about is like you take in what's, you know what's being told of you. Same thing, like with your emotions we talked about last time. Right, like your emotions are going to come at you, but they are your flag posts, so they're like your little flags that say, hey, pay attention. Right, and your first like observation of something, your first perception of something, is telling you something. But to really get down to objectivity, you have to give it a second, you have to, like you said, not react to it right away and not say, oh, because I thought this is what was happening, this is what this is, and therefore, blah, blah, blah, and I move on with my life.
Speaker 2:It's take a deep breath and really think about is that true? Is is what I'm observing, uh, and perceiving together, like, are those coming together harmoniously or not? I think is almost the question Because, like, when I'm observing, like you're saying, it's just that factual. You know, the sky is blue, it's cloudy today, the grass is green, like it's these things that just are, and the perception is like all of us put on top of that, like the grass is green, but I don't like green. Right, the sky is cloudy, but I hate clouds. Right, it's that like, therefore it's bad, like we automatically jump to these conclusions and it's that moment of like pause, thinking is that true? Is that really what this is and that's where? And that's a practice, because that's what this is is practicing objectivity is really going through that motion and being purposeful about it. I think.
Speaker 1:I like when you're talking about practice, because he phrases it in the version of the book that I have about being like a muscle. So practicing objectivity takes strength and it's like a muscle, and the part that I highlighted there was he said muscles are developed by tension and then by lifting and holding, and so I highlighted that by thinking that sometimes it's in our tensions, it's intense moments, it's in obstacles, it's in things that are outside of our normal, where we have perceptions that might not be true, but at the same time it also could be that those perceptions give us awareness of things that were in our blind spots prior. So, for example, my mom was in the hospital not long ago and there was this one nurse that that I had seen every day because I was there every day with my mom, and so I knew her. I had gotten accustomed to her style, her personality. It was a little bit brash. She was sort of stereotypical from a very urban city in the northeast. I guess you could take your pick of which one it might be, but just a personality style. That was not what you would say would be a typical personality style of someone from a more laid back community, and I became accustomed to her each day because I knew objectively that she was a smart nurse. She was the charge nurse. She was there to take care of my mom. She was sharing with me facts about what she saw, what she observed, what she was doing with my mom, what I should be doing with my mom.
Speaker 1:Well, the first day that my brother met her, my brother had sort of a clash of personality with her and so he was not objective whatsoever. He was very perceptive from his thinking that she doesn't like me, she's rude, she doesn't care about mom. I want a different nurse. Because he only had that one experience. But once time went on, my mom, unfortunately, was in the hospital for a while. He got to see what I did, which was all that other piece which is no, that's her style and she was very qualified and it turned out at the very end she became his favorite of the nurses because he came around to the idea that her facts were what was helping save my mother yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I think that that we so often get blinded by our emotional reaction, our feeling, our perception of something and we lose what is right. And it takes this time and like right, more power to your brother for being open to the idea. Because a lot of people shut down, they're like Nope, this was my initial reaction. I don't like this person right, they're going to go in this box that I put them in and that's it, and that's where they live. And I think that you know, this is really encouraging us and that story is really encouraging us to think about.
Speaker 2:You got to leave the lid open a little bit longer. You can't shove people into a box and close it. You got to give it breathing space. You have to, like poke the holes in it so that, if there's a way, you know, beyond that or past, that you just have to be open to the idea that, like that first thing, isn't it right?
Speaker 2:I'm reacting to my feelings on how this person made me feel, because they're brash, because they're, you know, whatever not to what they're actually doing and the good that they're creating in that situation, because he could have missed all that right he could have like right, like, if she's the not to what they're actually doing and the good that they're creating in that situation, because he could have missed all that right. He could have like right, like if she's the most qualified person in the room, if she's the one who's most helpful, like without that openness he could have lost all of that goodness that he got from her, but he didn't, because he was still open to taking back, you know, like taking a step back from that initial reaction and I'll probably a lot of that had to do with you.
Speaker 2:Think about that too, right, like sometimes it's other people that help us validate that our perception is incorrect, or you? Know, maybe that it is a little valid.
Speaker 1:I think this is why diversity of thought and diversity in your friends is so important, because if you only have one side of a view, how do you know that that perception of the side of your view is right? Example I despise watching what's unfolding in politics, and certainly we're not going to have a political discussion on our podcast today but there is very evident whether you talk on a global scale, on a national scale or even on a micro scale in your own communities, political environment, or maybe at your job, the politics of your job there are sides, which infers that that means that there are perceptions that one side is different and or better and or worse than another side. Instead of the whole. It's like when you have a company where sales is fighting against services, or services is fighting against support, or support is fighting against engineering, when yet it's all one company with one purpose to beat the competitors and provide the best quality services and products to the customers.
Speaker 2:And so when you're objective, it seems to be that you're more able to be open to other schools of thought, because maybe the thought that you have isn't not wrong and not right, but it's not the only yeah, and I, I think we like just the way social media works, the way the algorithms work, like we end up down these rabbit holes that block all that diversity of thought that you're talking about right, like because it is so important to have somebody who sees something different than you at the table in conversation with you for you to really get to get to structure this muscle of practicing objectivity right Like I have a. We have a recent thing going on in our community where, at this point in time, I don't really know what the truth of the matter is. It's like I need to look into it more. But it started to be this really polarizing situation of people talking about, like there was a particular book that was supposed to go into the ninth grade curriculum and the school board pulled it out. That was supposed to go into the ninth grade curriculum and the school board pulled it out, and so people were saying that it was politically motivated by the school board that they didn't want this book.
Speaker 2:Then people are saying we're banning books, we're doing whatever right, and so then it became like this whole conversation about how, like, the school district is banning books and like, as an avid reader, I don't think we should ban books. Right, like, I have a problem with that. I read Fahrenheit for you. I read that book, right, like I don't. I'm not a fan. So when I like came into the conversation on social media and saw it, it was the school boards banning books. And it's like, oh gosh, like you know, emotionally I'm like, no, we can't ban books. Right, like that's terrible and you know. And then, like I watched more people get spun up, spun up, spun up, spun up about it. The author actually came here to our district to like talk about her book and like it was this. It's become this whole thing. It's been in the news, it's like a whole thing, and you know, rightfully so. But there's this whole conversation.
Speaker 2:And then I saw one post from somebody and again it was probably, too, it was not sitting at objectivity, but it was like you are being lied to. Nobody's banning books, they just took it out of the curriculum because they said it's not appropriate for ninth graders. And the post made me stop and think about it and take this big step back of okay, what is the truth of the situation? Right, like what is actually happening here? Like I need to take time to really understand this better. Right, because like is are we? Are we going one extreme or the other? Is the truth somewhere in the middle? And like all I could think about was my dad's like advice to me growing up was like it's never this person's right or this person's right. The truth is always somewhere in the middle and it's like, well, just having that other voice at the, you know, virtual table made me pause, made me think well, what really is happening here? What really is the conversation? Did I go back and watch the three hour long board meeting? No, right, like, I need the AI summary of this board meeting. Like, what is this? Like what's really happening? And so I think that we do that all the time.
Speaker 2:Where we hear these little bits of pieces, we see this initial reaction. We hear the first like oh, they took this book out. Oh, my gosh, we're banning books. Right, like we jump all the way to, like our perceived view of something, but maybe that's not right. Right, but we still don't discount it.
Speaker 2:And I think that's really what he's getting at. Right, like, don't discount your initial reaction, but question it. Right, like, think about it. And you know he says here, objectivity means removing you the subjective part from the equation, and so that's that's really, I think, what this is, and I love how he ends this section about and it's almost like a little bit of a homework assignment for us. But he says take your situation and pretend it is not happening to you, pretend it's not important, that it doesn't matter. How much easier would it be for you to know what to do. How much more quickly and dispassionately could you size up the scenario and its options. You could write it off, greet it calmly and like. I think that that's really what it comes down to is you have to take a step back, take out the emotional response, take out your subjectivity on the matter and move forward through it with the objective facts of the situation 100.
Speaker 1:Agree, my dad is the type of person where he watches one news channel and years ago my husband had shared with him a like an article or maybe it was like a recording or something of one of the celebrities of that news channel saying publicly that it was sensationalism and that they did it to have ratings because news channels and television stations need to make money. And so he was all but saying that, yes, we sensationalize the news, which means you sometimes have to fabricate it. And I saw this chart, maybe a couple years ago, that was showing sort of like on the polar ends of, which ones were left, which ones were right, which ones were liberal, which ones were conservative, which one who made the most money, who owns the television stations, and what it found was that the closer you got to the middle of the chart, which would be, like you know, the bell curve in the middle, the closer you got to the middle the news outlets were the ones that were considered the most boring, like C thinking about that piece of it that I always share with my dad, just turn the channel and just listen to something else and make then your judgment or your opinion, but, like you were saying, with the person that did the social media post. Sometimes emotion style tone the way somebody responds to something is super polarizing. This is not an exact example, that's the same, but there's this one little group that I follow on Facebook which are people that are fans of going to Disney World.
Speaker 1:I know surprise to the people listening, but there is forever a person that will come in even though the person's post is maybe just a regular thing about hey, has anybody tried whatever?
Speaker 1:And somebody will come in and be so rude and so just crass and say something basically not helpful, not productive and potentially not even true, because it riles up the whole thread. And so this one it's saying to take yourself out of the situation like you just shared is a perfect example of what someone can do, because the more skilled you are at seeing things for what they really are, then the way he ends this part of this chapter is saying that perceptions can work for you when rather against you. And so I wonder, as we go into the next part of the book here, when altering your perspective, why is it, sam, that it's easier for us to help somebody else, like if you, if we're coaches, our whole, entire career is built off of helping other people, but sometimes therapists need therapy, coaches need coaches, doctors need to go to doctors. Teachers need continuous learning. Why is it that it's easier sometimes to help other people? Because it's about objectivity, not perspective yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I think it's that stepping outside of it like that's that's a coaching question I often use with clients is like if you, you, if you, if your friend was in this situation, what would you tell them to do? Right, when somebody feels blocked, it's like when I can take myself out of it, I can change it. And this next section, about altering your perception I love the way the quote that it starts with by Viktor Frankl. It says man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. And I think that that's just so true, right, like we control what our perspective is, we control the assessment we put onto our reality and in that we determine our existence. Like my, my son is really wants a cell phone. He's 10 I'm like you know and he always asks us like what age did you get a cell phone?
Speaker 2:I was like, sweetheart, cell phones didn't like that wasn't a thing at 10, that wasn't an option. That's cute, but you know.
Speaker 2:So we decided like okay if he can show us the right responsibility and do whatever. So we came up with this whole chart for him of like things that he has to do to like make this happen, and when we first gave it to him we went through it has like a whole point system. I mean, it's, of course, overly complicated, because it's me of like points you get, if a perfect day or so many days of like it's a whole thing. Um, if anybody wants it for their own kids, I will happily send it to you. Um, but we threw all these things on there of stuff we wanted him to do that.
Speaker 2:Just show responsibility over a long period of time, right, because when you have a phone, you have to be physically responsible, but, like, you also have access to apps and things on there that, like, you have to be responsible for, and we'll shut a lot of it down because he's 10, but there's, you know, there there's this whole perception of it.
Speaker 2:But when we showed him this list, he immediately jumped to I can't do this, this is too hard, like there's no way. And I looked at him and I said if you believe it is too hard, then it is too hard and you can't do it. Yeah, I believe it is perfectly within your capability to make this happen and I think you could do it pretty quickly, right, like you could have a new phone in your hand in five weeks, if you believe you can and if you put the work in. And he was like you know, grumble, grumble, grumble. Well, like that was five days ago was the conversation, I think. Last night he came into my room I was feeding the baby, putting her to bed, and he comes walking in and he was like I got another perfect day on my chart. It's like, yeah, because you like, you change this perception, you alter your complete existence of what's capable, what's not capable, just by your perspective on you know, on something on.
Speaker 1:You know, on something I love that this says you choose, we all choose how we look at things, and so he maybe had a little different angle at how he was looking at how he was going to get this phone.
Speaker 1:This even says that cognitive psychology is all about the idea that if you break something apart or look at it from a new angle the cognitive side of your thinking then it loses power over you.
Speaker 1:And then he goes on to say the author goes on to say that if you have the right perspective like in this case, your son knows that if I get a perfect day, it's going to get me closer to getting the phone and maybe I really can learn how to use these apps or whatever his obstacle is.
Speaker 1:The right perspective has a strange way of cutting obstacles or adversity down to size, and it makes me think of a time at our previous job together that there was really this large request of pivoting in a completely different direction from where we were headed and the mountain in front of us seemed like the story a couple chapters ago where the king put the giant boulder in the street.
Speaker 1:It was too hard to push, it was too tall to climb over, it was too heavy to pull, it was too daunting to even want to move around, but the obstacle that was placed in the way opened up massive opportunities for creative and innovative thinking, to where we came up with some really cool ideas for how to better serve the end result In that case it was customers and so when you change the way you look at the world around you, then the world around you changes. I had a mentor one time that was talking about how sometimes to elevate our way of thinking and our success in life, you have to kind of change the, the types of people that you hang around, and they're limited thinking. And so the quote he had said was if, if you can't change the people around you, then change the people around you, then change the people around you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love that because I think that that's true. Right, Like we, when we limit ourselves, when we put limits, then there are limits and limits exist. Right, when we don't put limits, then we find the ways around that. Right, this is the obstacle, is the way. When the obstacle is the blocker, then it is the blocker. When it's just something to work through, then that's what it becomes.
Speaker 2:To write, you sit in a place of more creative thinking. Right, this is like you and I always talk about coaching because we're coaches. But like this is what I see with clients all the time is, you know where they're like, just, they're stuck on something, entire, like, whatever it is, whether we're working on them getting a new job or, you know, trying to figure out how they're going to search for jobs while they have what I don't know. Like, it can be anything from big to small to whatever, but like, as soon as we work through those questions of like well, how would you get around that? Right, Like my favorite question that one of our mentors as part of the Maxwell program says like the coaching question is well, if you knew the answer, what would it be? And it's such a ridiculous question because it's like well, if I knew the answer, I would do it. But most of the time people answer that question Like anytime.
Speaker 2:I've ever asked somebody that they're like, well, it might be something like that, right. It's like you just remove the obstacle, or you think of the obstacle as just something to like work around. It's like I don't know the answer and it's like, well, if you don't know, you don't know. But if you did know, right, if we just alter that perception, what would it be like? It just opens up our whole mindset into thinking about like yeah, it is possible.
Speaker 1:So the book actually gives a way for us to have an exercise on this that we could share as we wrap up this part of the chapter, which is that perspective has two ways of you thinking about it. The first is in the context, so that's in the larger picture of the world, not just what's immediately in front of you. So let's suppose you were laid off from your job. That feels like it's right in front of you. You're losing your job, but the context is in the bigger picture of what is happening with your department, what's happening with your company, what's happening with the industry, what's happening with the economy. That's the context. The next piece is the framing, which is an individual's unique way of looking at the world and a way that interprets the events.
Speaker 1:Emotions again cloud this, because you get laid off and emotionally you feel hurt. What did I do wrong? Or that person is this, or that person is that, or this is unfair, instead of looking at framing and the interpretation of the event. Was it logical? Because I can tell you from my own personal experiences more than one time that sometimes it's not logical, but it is something that in the perspective. In the context is that there is a team that's brought in, the team probably opens up a spreadsheet. The team plots out where you live and how much money you make and the title you have and the productivity you had or the scores you had on your trust or whatever it is, and they, objectively, you hope, look at fact and then make a determination. But sometimes, again, that limited blind spot is fact in part, not fact in whole.
Speaker 1:So if you can think of your job in a way that you have this perspective, there was a great story that we'll close with for today where George Clooney, the Hollywood actor, was going in for an audition and he spent his first couple of years trying to get roles and he wasn't getting the roles and he just basically felt bad every time he would lose a role, like he'd go away very emotionally hurt when he didn't get the job.
Speaker 1:But then everything changed for him when he tried a new perspective and looked at it through the lens of the production. So the producers and the casting agents have a specific job that they needed to solve a problem for. They needed a character for a specific role for a specific movie or television show and that was their obstacle was to find the solution to their problem. And so when he approached it from that angle, where auditions were a chance to solve a problem for a casting director he started getting more and more jobs and became the superstar that he is. So imagine if you looked at your job if you still have one and you're listening to this this way, or maybe you're building a business and look at it this way what problem can you solve for someone? And then go 100% into that and do your very best job at that, because that's the service of the purpose of moving around the obstacle.
Speaker 2:I love that. And the very last line of this section I highlighted and I wrote Denise next to it because I was like I don't know how many times you've said this to me or to other people, I've heard you say it but where the head goes, the body follows. Perception precedes action. Right Action follows right perspective. Because you always talk about if you get your thoughts right, then everything else you know, first and foremost, like everything else follows right, like getting your thoughts into the right space changes everything that fall. That follows after that. And that's really what this is about is getting the perception right so that and altering it, because you have that power, so you can go live the life that you want absolutely, and it's hard to do on your own.
Speaker 1:so, friends, if you're listening and you want to get your thinking right and change your perceptions, the best way to do it is to engage with a qualified coach. Never had one, maybe want to try a new one, want to explore what it looks like? Maybe you're a coach and you want to elevate your own practice. Reach out to us. This is our passion is to be able to live out loud the pages of these books by being coaches and being coached. So we'd love to talk with you more. There will be ways for you to contact us that you'll see in the show notes of the show. Next week, we're going to be talking about how this is all up to you. It's about choices and control, so I'm looking forward to that discussion. So, for today, my name is Denise Russo and, on behalf of my friend, sam Powell, this has been another episode of what's on your Bookshelf.