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?
120-The Obstacle Is The Way: Part 2-Episode 6; Seize the Offensive and Prepare for None of it to Work
Denise and Sam explore the "Action" section of Ryan Holiday's book "The Obstacle is the Way," focusing on how to seize opportunities in crisis and transform obstacles into advantages.
• The Japanese art of Kintsugi illuminates how broken pottery repaired with gold becomes more valuable than before
• Taking swift action when opportunities arise separates successful people from those who merely dream
• Preparation must happen before opportunities present themselves - when the moment comes, it's too late to prepare
• Crises provide unique opportunities to implement changes that would be impossible during normal times
• Leaders who guide teams through difficult times often inspire greater loyalty than those who only lead during good times
• Successful people iterate faster, trying and failing many times while others are still planning
• Being prepared for failure is essential—the key is accepting results quickly and moving forward
• The will to persevere cannot be affected by outside circumstances, making it our most powerful internal resource
Join us next week as we conclude our book discussion by exploring the final section on "Will" and how to maintain perseverance in the face of obstacles.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Subscribe to our new YouTube channel.
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 in 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 and friend is Sam Powell, and we are going through the book called the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. We're in the last episode of the second section of the book, and what is the section really about, sam?
Speaker 2:This is all about action. So in the three parts of this book it's perception, action and will. And this is the wrap-up of action before we move in next week to will.
Speaker 1:Okay, sounds good and maybe by the time we get to the end of the episode today we'll maybe share what we took away from the action section. But right now we're going to talk about seizing the offensive, and that's an interesting title for this chapter, because you can think of offensive as something bad, something seems offensive, or you could take it like offense, meaning that that is a really important part of a sport and your company, lead the game, is all engaged in the art of sport and leadership through that yeah, and I didn't think about both sides of it like.
Speaker 2:I thought about it like the second, um second version that you mentioned, but I didn't think about it like the first. But but now that I'm rethinking the chapter, either one really fits pretty well. So that's interesting. Yeah, and I think this chapter is best summed up in one of the quotes. That is by President Barack Obama's advisor, rahm Emanuel, and he says you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.
Speaker 2:On a serious crisis to go to waste, things that we had postponed too long, that were long term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. A crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before, and so when we think about seizing the offensive, it really is taking that obstacle and using it right, like all those plans that you might've had. Like you have to react to the situation and whatever the situation is even if it's a bad thing that happened, which is what the story of this chapter starts out with you have to jump in and take it. Like now is your moment, don't let it pass you by, or else you know you've really wasted what is kind of a huge opportunity being dropped in your lap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's always two sides to a coin. And so, speaking of coin, this morning I saw some ad random thing that pops up on my Facebook and it was this guy who was like a coin collector and he was talking about oh my gosh, if you have this 1973 penny, take a look in your coin jar, because this penny is worth $15,000. And the reason that the penny is worth so much money is because something bad happened to it in the minting process. It's like the letters were too close or there was like double, like blurriness on the words, and anyway, I thought, oh, this is kind of fascinating. So I was watching his little video and he was going through all kinds of different coins that are, in our mind, worth nothing. A penny is worth nothing. You can buy nothing with a penny anymore, yeah, yeah, or you drop it on the floor, hide it under the couch, throw it in the you know, I've seen so many coins just in the parking lot at, you know, the grocery store. So he was saying, if you have this, there was like one that was worth $50,000.
Speaker 1:So I started thinking, okay, well, here's a situation where somebody took something that was bad these coins were minted improperly and turned it into something good or valuable. And there's this. There's this artwork, and my pastor was telling us about it years ago. It's called Kintsugi. You're from, from Japan. Do you know this word, Kintsugi artwork? So the gist of this art and correct me if any of this is wrong from what you know but essentially it's like pottery that gets broken, and so imagine that something has tragically happened and the artist takes it and takes gold and melts back together the broken pieces, and this thing that may have been just a piece of pottery in your kitchen is now worth thousands or millions of dollars because it is restored. It took the offensive action of being broken to be restored into something beautiful and new, all because something was taken with care.
Speaker 2:Right. And it's that essence of taking that moment of brokenness of you know obstacles, of you know something bad in quote happening and doing something with it right, so you could throw out the broken cup or you could paint it back together with gold and create something extraordinarily unique, one of a kind, and is now more valuable, more more beautiful than it was before. And that's really, I think, what this is about is like it's it's not wasting that moment, it's recognizing it. Because how many times we do that? It's like, oh, this thing happens and you're like, oh, I should probably do this right. Or like even just the small things.
Speaker 2:Like, oh, somebody goes through your mind. It's like I should reach out to them. It's like you should, you should stop exactly what you're doing in that moment. Send them a text, it'll take you 30 seconds, right. Like, hey, I'm thinking of you, hey, I'm doing whatever. Right, because those are the things that that stick with you. Like I had a. I had somebody that I worked with um text me last week and they sent me a picture and it was like it said. It was one of those memes that was like your manager has more influence on your mental health than your therapist ever will, and and they said it to me, and they said I've seen this a few times and this made me think of you because you were my favorite manager that I've ever had and I was like, oh, they're like I don't want to you know I was gonna put it on.
Speaker 2:LinkedIn, but I didn't want my current manager to be upset and I laughed. But that, taking that five seconds it took to save that pictures, take that screenshot and then text me, that is something that, like, I think I'll probably carry with me forever. Right, that I know that, like hey, in a way I impacted one person this way. Like that's awesome, right. And so it's those little moments that, like, we have to grab them when they come up. If not, we're just wasting so many opportunities that get thrown in our lap. Right, if you believe in fate or God or meant to be or whatever, like it's almost as if the universe is throwing these things at you and it's your job to pick them up. Right, it's your job to seize that moment.
Speaker 1:I wonder if, when you were leading that person, that I would suspect not every day in that environment was perfect right?
Speaker 2:There were escalations, there were a lot of bad days.
Speaker 1:Problems right. So there was something, though, about the way in which you built that relationship, that she remembered the good things, even despite the quote bad things, and probably the good things came because of the bad things and the way that you led, and so, in this chapter, ryan says that if you think it's simply enough to take advantage of opportunities that arise in your life, you will fall short of greatness. Any sentient can do that. What you must do is learn how to press forward precisely when everyone around you sees disaster, and it seems to me that the people that are the most allegiant to leaders, with a compassion and passion for the work of leadership, come through difficult times, not just great times. I mean, I've had some really awesome leaders, but I've also had times in my own career, just like you have, that not every day is awesome, and I can for sure think of leaders who are not awesome as well, and so this is basically saying that if you're in a crisis, there's an opportunity to do things that maybe you didn't do before.
Speaker 1:I could think of a time when COVID happened, and at that particular time I'm trying to unwind, because now it's crazy that it's so long ago. So you and I were on parallel teams, but not the same team yet when this was happening and there was a situation where we could no longer do trainings in person and people were a little bit frantic about how am I going to lead people that don't live in the same place as me, that are now working at home, with their kids at home? And so we took that crisis opportunity, or crisis, and turned it into an opportunity and it turned out into something wonderful. So I remember we had an in, we had a fellow who ended up later coming and being a full-time part of my next team in my career, and this fellow, kylie, she and I sat together and said well, what should we do? This is an opportunity to really lead through crisis. And so we identified some of the top women leaders in the company and decided we were going to interview them and ask them about how they led through challenging times and how they overcame obstacles and found opportunities despite circumstances.
Speaker 1:And we turned it into this television series that was like a cartoon, like a talk show cartoon, and it became really fun. It was popular, but the lessons in it were about how to lead well when things don't go the way that you want. So we seized the offensive meaning there was something offensive that happened, covid and we turned it into something that ended up being a model that we submitted for awards even. It was just a really cool experience, and I think that the point is that wasn't on our learning radar. We weren't planning to do a cartoon television series. We weren't planning to interview top leaders, female leaders in the company, and we weren't planning to interview top leaders, female leaders in the company, and we weren't planning to create something that would emerge as this beautiful end result. And so sometimes it takes that sort of pressure to have something great come out of it right, sort of like a butterfly right and coming out of a cocoon. There's a lot of pressure there to become something that isn't like what you were before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that that's. I think that's exactly it, right. He says, like something has happened, something disruptive, like an event, a failure, an accident or tragedy, use it. And that's what this is like, and that's what that story is. And I love, I love that Like're taking this moment and we're going to interview people, we're going to bring that connection in, we're going to, you know, inspire people how to do this and get through this unprecedented moment in time. And I think that's exactly it. Like it is just jump on it, like everybody, like you said. I love that quote that you said like press forward.
Speaker 2:Precisely when everyone around you sees disaster and everyone around you is going, oh my gosh, look at how terrible this is, you're going all right, what do we do now? Right, how do we move forward? And I think that's what good leaders do always. Right, it's good leaders just assess the field, assess the play, what is happening, and how do I, you know, move forward? It reminds me of like a like in American football, a defensive touchdown. Like I see the opportunity to like intercept the ball and then I find the hole and I run for it. Right, like I like.
Speaker 2:That plan's been in my head. It is long set dormant, as the author says, like I'm ready for that moment when it happens. But how's the moment? Right? This is the thing that happened. Like everyone else is looking at the disaster of oh no, the quarterback overthrew it and all of that. But this is my moment as the defensive player, to grab it and go and run and score and get the win and get the points on the board, and I just think that that's we have to be like ever vigilant for those moments, because I, like I really am a big like believer. That that's, you know, the universe, fate, god, whatever you want to believe, like pushing you into something like that.
Speaker 2:Those are those little signs right that we have of like this is the time to do it. And the difference, I think, between people who are wildly successful and those who sit in a lot of like someday I will do this or, you know, one day this would be great is seizing these moments, is grabbing the offensive moment when it comes up here's a key to something you just said that player knew how to run that play, had it in their back pocket, if you will, knew that if the opportunity came, they were prepared.
Speaker 1:I think that this is I'm going to mess up the quote, but John Maxwell talks a lot about this, about how to be prepared. Preparation is not made in the moment, it's made before the moment happens.
Speaker 2:quotes from John Wooden from the very first book that we read. I don't think the quotes actually it's in the book, but I don't think it's from. Like it's not from the book. It's one of John Wooden's quotes of you know, when the moment of opportunity comes, it's too late to prepare. Like you have to be ready. You have to be constantly growing, constantly learning, constantly thinking about, okay, now that I have this moment, now that here's the opportunity, like I got to be ready to execute that it's here, right, like I think about that all the time in, you know, developing a business and owning a business in that thing.
Speaker 2:It's like, well, I'd like to do this eventually and so when that moment comes, I better be ready for it, you know if I sit in front of my ideal client who's like we'd love you to come do this, I better be ready with something right, I better be ready to like step into the game and you know and take that and that's that. I think we underestimate the preparedness of how important that is in our lives.
Speaker 1:You know, we actually did that ourself and this may be something that will help someone listening. So when you and I left our jobs, we I want, don't want to say we didn't have a plan, but we weren't expecting to leave our jobs just like many of you maybe even listening out there today but we seized the offensive. We knew that we were going to have to navigate this new world and I recall sitting with you and thinking through like, well, what is it that I think I need, and is that thing something other people would need, and how are we going to map this out? And at that time you hadn't yet started your company, which is now very successful as a coaching and leadership development company, and we thought about well, what could an experience look like for people who are having obstacles in front of them? But that was like almost the specific reason for creating our retreat, your signature story, which was a retreat that we created because people had an obstacle and they wanted to find opportunity in it. And as I think back to some of the people that were participants in that first retreat, to some of the people that were participants in that first retreat, I'm wildly, wildly proud of the success that some of them have had because they were able to seize that moment like you're talking about.
Speaker 1:And the book says that if you've always planned to do something like write a screenplay, travel, start a business, approach a mentor, launch a movement, well, now that something has happened which let's call it the crisis moment or the obstacle moment, some disruptive event like a failure or an accident or a tragedy or a layoff the book says, use it. So this whole chapter talks about how take that negative and turn it into a positive. It's the other side of the coin where you can manifest, make something possible. I think the best way to do it, frankly, is with a coach. I think it's hard to navigate that without an accountability, as you call them, or for us to be able to work together. In fact, in some ways, even this podcast came from some of that. Right, like we were both just reading and I had to end one podcast and decide if we were going to start another one, and I even remember that experience. You weren't originally planning to be the co-host of this show.
Speaker 2:Nope, I was coming in for a book to read through it with you. And now here we are, two years later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's been awesome. It's been awesome. Now, the book also is fair. Right, it says sometimes trials are frustrating, unfortunate, unfair, and so the next part of this, last part of this book, is that sometimes you have to prepare for things to not work.
Speaker 2:so, yeah, this is kind of like the I know this is the very last chapter of this whole section. Right, this whole section is about taking action, getting in that moment, like right, just getting in the game, stepping in, doing it, taking the opportunity when it comes your way, and he's ending the whole thing on. Prepare for none of it to work and, like you said, it's just that womp, womp. But that's real life, right, like we can try our best, we can get our mindset right, we can take all the right actions, but the timing's off. Right, this, the world wasn't ready, the thing didn't work out, something else that we couldn't have anticipated happened. Right, like we just aren't in control of the bigger picture and we need to be ready for that.
Speaker 2:Right, and it reminded me so much of solve for happy of you, like right, that the difference, like the happiness equation that he talks about there is that you know it's about your perception, right, what do I expect to happen? And versus what happened? Right, and is that ratio off? Like right, is that unbalanced or whatever? And so I think, like this in this chapter is like a page, two pages, right, like it's very short, but the idea is so big and I have like almost the entire one page highlighted because it's that. It's the thing that's going to keep you grounded. It's the thing that's going to keep you happy at the end of the day is that you realize you can take all of the right actions, you can do all of the right things and things still won't work. And that's okay, right and expect that, because if you expect it, you don't stay out of happiness, imbalance very long I think the important part in this chapter for me is when you're talking about expectation.
Speaker 1:If you do nothing, you should expect nothing. This is about. This whole section is about just try. If you don't try, you don't get. I always tell my kids this If you don't try for something, then you won't get it.
Speaker 1:If you don't apply for a scholarship, you shouldn't expect money to hit your bank. Will you get the scholarship? Maybe not. Are you going to do your best in school and maybe not be the valedictorian? There's only one, so chances are. You have to think about the odds. But does it mean then, well, I'm just not going to try, I'm just not going to do my best why you still want to strive for something that is bigger and better than yourself as you continue to evolve, and so trying is, as Ryan said, it's not a bad thing. Nothing can ever prevent us from trying, and so this last chapter, for me, was all about pivots. And how do you take the thing that you were really trying for, and if it just doesn't work out the way that you wanted it to, then you decide to make a pivot. I can recall that in um, the turn of the century, in 2000.
Speaker 2:When you said turn of the century, I'm thinking like 1800 to 1900. I cannot accept, even though we're a quarter of the way into this century, that here's where we are.
Speaker 1:Oh goodness. So I was working in the entertainment industry and the music and film and television industry and I loved it, but it started feeling like a job and then I started to not love it, and there was a time right before Olivia was getting ready to be born she was born in 01 and I was at Planet Hollywood, and I can remember the day almost exactly what happened, minute by minute, when 9-11 happened and I was a month away from having her and I was literally the weekend of having a massively big celebrity event that was going to really go sideways because of 9-11 and people not being able to travel into town, and so I had to make a conscious choice, because on the 14th of September, all of the Planet Hollywood's closed. Here I am a month away from having a kid. I was in the midst of having a massive event and not knowing what was going to happen, because our restaurant now was closed and that was the sponsor of the event, and so I don't know if I did what just normal hormonal moms do, but did something crazy.
Speaker 1:You did too. You started a business while you were having a baby, and I decided to go to graduate school while I was having my baby. So Olivia was born and I enrolled in graduate school right before she was born. But it changed my entire career. So I went to graduate school, I got a degree, thinking I would stay in the entertainment side of business, but what ended up resulting was through my thesis. It landed me into an area where I was presenting my thesis. This will make you laugh. It's totally an aside so I won't spend a lot of time on it. But my thesis was about whether or not people would trust the computer to book their air travel, because up until then people were calling on the telephone. So luckily I had the right hypothesis.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you chose the right option, because that would have been embarrassing if you were like.
Speaker 1:No, I wrote a whole thesis on how this would never work so by writing the thesis and proposing that, yes, people wanted a better quality experience in booking their air travel, but also combine it with using the internet, I ended up getting this intern well, not an internship, a fellowship, if you will to finish my thesis with air tranran Airways.
Speaker 1:That was where I learned about leadership development, and it completely changed the rest of my career to focus on developing talent and coaching and I don't even want to call it training, because I don't think leadership development is training, but creating experiences and opportunities for people to really uncover their passions and their potential and their purpose in life, which is what ended up resulting in our retreat that we had. So the point is that sometimes things won't happen the way you expect. I was working in an industry I loved and I didn't stay in it. I went to get a master's degree in that industry and didn't stay in it. I lost my job because of 9-11 and didn't have an opportunity to go backwards, only to go forward, and so none of that was something on my plan, my goal plan. I think it's important to have goal plans and to have a vision for what you want your future to look like, but to me, the end of this chapter really talks about the importance of being prepared to pivot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's that I read this article this morning that I like I actually I very rarely comment on stuff, I'm just like I don't know, I just tend not to do that but I read this article this morning and I actually commented on it and I said I was like this is something I need to pull up every single morning and start my day reading, because the article was all about how the most successful people, the people who get the big things that they want out of life, are the ones who just work with this crazy like speed, like they just iterate faster than everybody else.
Speaker 2:They try and fail a hundred times before most people have even tried Right. And it's that, that and it's that expectation, and I think it's like this shift in your perception of action, that like and he says it in the book of you know, it's an infinitely elastic formula in every situation, that which blocks our path actually presents a new path with a new part of us. And it's that like, if I iterate really fast, if I try and fail and then change and do whatever, it's amazing where you end up Like I've been experimenting with that a lot with my business in the last couple of weeks, like probably the last six weeks, and I feel so productive. I don't know that I am, but I'm learning so many things. I'm trying, I'm failing, like I haven't found anything that, like really works, and all these experiments I'm doing, but I've learned so much.
Speaker 2:I've changed, like I feel like I've changed my entire trajectory in trying and failing a million times and expecting that to be the path, because I'm not unhappy with the fact that, like I tried this and it didn't work, I tried this, I didn't work. I tried 50 things and they didn't work. But, like I know that this is changing the whole path that I'm on, it is like moving me from this, like one path that was really not going to go anywhere, to one I didn't even expect one, I didn't even know, and I think that that's really the lesson here is expect. Expect it not to work, but expect that to be part of your path, right. Expect the actions that you take and that bias for action to lead you places, like you said, of your career journey, like that you never would have dreamed up, you never would have thought of.
Speaker 1:This is making me think of the book book the alchemist. It's one of my all-time favorite books. It's absolutely on the front of my bookshelf. It's not a leadership development book, but I recommend it to every leader. It's by paulo coelho and the essence of the book is what you just described, which is that this guy expected to go somewhere on this trip and it was what he found in the journey. That were his best lessons in life, not the end result. I won't give the spoilers, because you should totally have this book on your bookshelf, but this is about experiencing why you're here, and the book says that Duke Ellington had a quote that said problems are a chance for us to do our best, just our best. That's it, not the impossible. Be willing to roll the dice and lose, prepare, at the end of the day, for none of it to work. I mean, I think that that's probably the essence of Las Vegas, right? People go there expecting to win, but if everybody won, there wouldn't be these fancy, elaborate hotels. Yeah, exactly, exactly, they wouldn't be making money.
Speaker 2:Elaborate hotels? Yeah, exactly, exactly. They wouldn't be making money if every single person won. But the experience is fun, right, being in that environment is fun and that's what it is. It's entertainment, you know, and that's really like the approach, and I love how he ends this chapter and I guess the whole section of. We have it within us to be the type of people who try to get things done, try with everything we've got and whatever verdict comes in, are ready to accept it instantly and move on to whatever is next, and I think that that's that right. We've just spent weeks talking about action, all the ways to get in motion, and get in action so that these obstacles become part of your path, and I think that, like, really thinking about that concept of like okay, but whatever happens, we accept it quickly, we iterate fast, we move on, we integrate it into part of the path that is the journey of our life.
Speaker 1:Perfect segue for what's coming next, because you can easily say, well, just move on.
Speaker 1:But if you don't have the will, it's really hard to do that.
Speaker 1:And if you don't have kind of that thing in you, that gumption in you to keep going, especially because failure sometimes feels bad and yet, oh gosh, John Maxwell has two bestselling books about it Failing Forward, and Sometimes you Win, Sometimes you Learn. It's all about the art of failure, and so if you can have the will inside of you that you can persevere through these things, then that's the point of having the obstacle be that epiphany for how you're going to continue to evolve to whatever it is you're doing. So, as we wrap it up, let's maybe just look at what we just did. We went through a whole section on the perceptions that we have about the obstacle. We talked about the actions we take when we're going to move in around or through or over those obstacles or not, and then next time we'll be talking through how do you do that with will when things don't necessarily go the way that you want? So how would you sum up where we are now that we're two-thirds of the way done with this little book?
Speaker 2:I. I think we've come a long way, right. I mean, we've talked about, basically, how to shift your entire entire mindset, control your emotions, your thoughts, all that sort of good stuff, and then how to put it into motion, right, the discipline of that, the processing, you know, the iteration, the energy, all of that good stuff. And I think the next part and so I'm just going to steal, like the second sentence of the beginning of the next part, because I think that perfectly describes where we are is that will, is our internal power, which can never be affected by the outside world, and our perception and our actions can be right, like what happens around us and to us and through us changes our perception.
Speaker 2:The things that happen in the world are outside of our control. We can influence a lot, but they're outside of our control. But the will and where we're headed in this book is the stuff that no one can take from you. So that's such an like this next chapter is really interesting, or this next section is really interesting, and I, like I hope people continue on the journey with us because I think that that's so important, right, what is the part of this existence that nobody can take from you? And that's what we're about to jump into.
Speaker 1:I love how you set that up, but I know we're out of time for today, but I want to just share this last thought with all of you is that you're hearing our stories and the way we're living these books out loud, and you mentioned the John Wooden episodes, Sam. I would highly encourage you to go back to that series, friends, because that talks about why it's important to drink deeply from these books. You can listen to our stories. You could get us. This is a small little book. You could read this book literally in probably a day if you're just reading the words. But if you're reading the words without digesting the words and figuring out how to apply those words, you're not going to get the bulk out of it. And so you know. I have highlighter marks, I've got post-it note pages on all these things.
Speaker 2:I have to go back to all of it.
Speaker 1:Every week I look back at, well, what did we actually uncover here? I listened to the episode after we've actually already talked it out loud, like we're the actual speakers on here, and I still learn when I go back and re-listen once we've recorded the episode. So I want to encourage you, friends, to know that this is about your journey. This is about your obstacles as opportunities, and if you can find that through listening to the way we're navigating it, that's awesome. But this has got to be a personal journey for yourself as well. We'll make sure that we have ways for you to find how to get a copy of this book. It's definitely one that I have found, sam, that I love having off of my bookshelf and working on with you. So next week we're going to talk about perseverance and will. I'm looking forward to that with you. But 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.