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073 - The Obstacle is the Way Part 3

Hello there, Kevin here and welcome to another episode of The Feel Good English Podcast. The podcast that is helping you become more fluent in English and more fluent in life.

So part three of the book The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday is today.

Part one we talked about perception, how we see obstacles is the first step. How we perceive them. Do we think they are scary and will make it impossible to achieve our goals? Or do we see them as opportunities for improvement?

Second we need to take action. What kind of action? How do we take action? That is key as well.

But without this third component which is the focus of today’s lesson, those other two things won’t matter. And the third part is about will. No not the future tense of the verb but, will, talking about our ability to control our own actions, our desire and our power that we have over our own actions.

I am going to talk about some key strategies to help you have a strong will, which will help you keep moving forward when you face obstacles, in today’s lesson part three of the book, The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday.

If you want a transcript to this and other Feel Good English episodes, go to feelgoodenglish.com and you can find out how you can get free transcripts to the Feel Good English Podcast, and get transcripts to every single episode.

So after the episode, go over to feelgoodenglish.com, use your will, and go find some transcripts.

Without further delay, let us get into the episode, part three of The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday.

So perception is the ability to see a situation objectively and action is the practical skill of transforming the obstacle into our advantage.

But, by themselves these aren’t enough. What is really going to make the difference is our will. Unless we believe in ourselves and apply this power to our actions, we will not be able to turn obstacles into advantages; we need to believe that we can do this.

The will is what channels our perception and action into recognizing change.

This goes back to the Stoic Philosophies, developed by the ancient Romans and Greeks. These ancient philosophers, they always asked themselves what they were in control of and what they weren’t in control of.

I talked about this in the first part, some things we can change, some things we can’t. So don’t get caught up in thinking we need to control everything because it won’t work.

One way that we can get past this lack of energy and motivation and desire, is to think about something bigger than ourselves, what are we working towards? What are we trying to help that’s outside of us?

There are some examples from the book, he talks about a guy who was in the military who never wanted to be seen as a top military official. He always wanted to just be the best military official he could be, simply trying to benefit the army.

Maybe your company, you believe in what your company does, it is a positive company bringing change to the world; that can be your will, that can be why you arrive at work and do your best every day because it’s bigger than you, you have somebody out there to help.

Often if we feel stuck, a great way to get unstuck is to think how you can bring value to someone else’s life, how you can make them feel better. It is amazing how we can quickly get out of our own mind and out of these negative feelings when we try to bring value to somebody else.

Other strategies here, again know that this too shall pass. Whatever you are going through will pass, stop thinking your life is going to be changed forever when you are going through difficult times. It always changes and I have seen this too, sometimes we think how are we ever going to get out of this situation? I am stuck in this job that I hate what am I ever going to do?

But then eventually something comes with some of your effort,also sometimes naturally, I think there is a natural occurrence to things when we are putting energy out there into the air; so know that everything passes. So try to remain cheerful, try to remain happy, find something in your day every day, at least once a day to make you happy.

It could be through an activity; maybe you like making music like myself, or you like exercising or you like watching TV, or you like playing video games. As long as you don’t do it excessively, keep these things in your life, keep them in your life so you can stay positive and happy.

If we feel that we don’t have what we need, the resources that other people have, we don’t have the economy of our country is horrible, we don’t have the resources that other people have in their countries, this can be a good thing.

Sometimes constraints in life are actually benefits, it makes you think outside of the box it makes you think beyond the creative capacity of some of the more developed countries.

A good example of this is if you look at the country of Africa, they have come up with some brilliant technologies through the lack of infrastructure, through mobile phones and payments, and how people are able to pay for things around a very very under developed country through simple phone technology, has been completely game changing for the country.

And they wouldn’t have come up with that technology if they didn’t have to. So, simplifying this to your own life, think of the constraints that you have. How can this give you the energy, the power to come up with much better ideas then somebody that might not have to reach that far to come up with ideas?

And lastly, love what happens to you as good or bad, accept it as what is supposed to happen. It can be a cliché, “Everything happens for a reason” and you could say that is crap it is not true. But even saying that everything happens for a reason changes your perspective.

We don’t have to believe that, okay maybe a bomb fell on a city and killed millions of people, it is hard to say everything happens for a reason. that would seem quite evil in a way.

But changing your perspective of that, just simply makes it so you can take action and use any situation to not only benefit yourself but to benefit others.

So things happen for a reason simply so that you can take that situation, use it, keep moving forward, add value to your life to your situation and add value to other people’s lives.

So, don’t be afraid to say that to yourself to say that to others, yes, everything does happen for a reason.

I am going to go through a quick review of the three part episode series I did here on The Obstacle Is The Way,right after this quick message from italki.

So if you are listening to this there is a good chance you are trying to become an excellent English speaker. Maybe you are having problems, maybe there are some obstacles in your way from getting there.

So I will do a quick review of the book, these three components, and connect them to your English learning no more excuses, no more waiting, let’s do this.

So the three components are perception, action and will.

Part one, perception, we need to see our obstacles as advantages; hope we look at the obstacles in our paths makes a huge difference.

You are trying to become a fluent English speaker, you don’t know how to do it, it can be expensive, it can take a long time, there are so many different online courses things to choose from, maybe you live in a city that does not have native speakers. All of these could be flipped into advantages.

If you live in a city without native speakers it is hard, but that is OK, you can find people online and be more creative that way. You can also go out and learn and practice with other English speakers that are from your city; this makes it less stressful, less intimidating, and you can help them learn as well.

And it also can give you a reason to maybe travel to a nearby city with the very specific intention of practicing your English. So maybe you can take a bus for a few hours to a bigger city where there is a meet-up or there is native speakers there, or you go to a bar, an Irish bar or something like that. That gives you an opportunity to do that with a specific intention.

So as you can see turning obstacles into advantages.

Taking action, part two, in general, what I can say is always do something.

Focus on process, small actions every day is the key. Just get started.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with thinking that you need to study two hours a day, study five minutes a day; much better. Always keep moving, always take small actions, this leads to progress, because we need to be persistent. And figuring out what we can do, what activities we would like to stay (with) persistent is key.

Lastly our will, the desire, the hope, the ability to stay motivated, to do this is huge, focus on the bigger picture, why are you doing what you are doing, why are you learning English why do you even care? What benefits can this bring you; can it bring your family? What opportunities can it bring to your life?

There is a lot of value in learning English these days, don’t forget that. It is just not a selfish thing, it’s not about yourself, there is a lot bigger reasons for you to be doing what you are doing to be taking daily action.

So focus on the big picture.

And if you get frustrated just think this will pass. These emotions will pass, these feelings will pass soon, tomorrow, the day after, maybe next week I will feel better I will be happy. So just enjoy the ride.

Thanks for listening to this three parts series on The Obstacle Is The Way.

If you want to download the audio book to The Obstacle Is The Way, you can for free. You can actually get two free audio books if you go to my website, go to feelgoodenglish.com/obstacle and you will see there how you can download the audio book for this for free onto your phone. It is a great way to learn this more deeply, to improve your English; you can take notes right on your phone, very very cool. Go to the website afterwards to do that.

Until next time, keep seeing the problems in your life as advantages, but also know that you need to practice this and learn this as a skill. Nothing is automatic here, it takes practice and time and in a year from now you will be a totally different person if you apply the lessons from The Feel Good English Podcast.

Thanks for listening to the three part series The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan holiday. These lessons can really help you get through difficult times in your life, including if you are frustrated with English learning and trying to become more fluent. So take the time to learn these lessons and apply them to your life, don’t just move on to the next thing. Go deep with these lessons, they can really help you.

Remember too what also can help you is the transcripts to The Feel Good English Podcast. If you would like transcripts to the podcast, go to feelgoodenglish.com and learn how you can get transcripts to this and all other episodes of The Feel Good English Podcast, and even get free transcripts. So see you over at feelgoodenglish.com.

In just a few seconds there will be a vocabulary lesson on this episode.

And my last bit of advice to you today is be grateful, be thankful for the challenges we get to face in our lives.

See you next time.

So this episode is talking about will, the noun form of will. And will is the ability in which a person decides on and initiates action. They have an idea, they want to do something, will is the ability to actually do that. So “He has a strong will.”

“To get caught up”, a phrasal verb. To get caught up means to become involved in something that you don’t want to be involved in or that you didn’t have intentions to be involved in. “I am really caught up in this bad relationship right now.”

“To think outside the box” means to think in an original or creative way. A lot of tech companies these days are successful because they are able to think outside the box.

“Constraint” is a limitation restriction we talked about constraints here.

Constraint is something that limits or restricts what you want to do.

Another phrasal verb you hear quite often, “To come up with”, to come up with is to produce something, especially when you are pressured or challenged to do something. So you have to come up with something at the last minute. You have to create a solution or something at the last minute.

And lastly enjoy the ride, “To enjoy the ride” is expression that we use; it just means to have fun, have fun while you are doing something.

Sometimes if you are doing something that might not to be that interesting or entertaining, sometimes you say “Just enjoy the ride, just enjoy it while you are doing it because you don’t have another option anyway.” Talk to you soon.