The Obstacle Is The Way By Ryan Holiday, Purple, Business

The title of the book is drawn from a quote from Meditations, a series of personal writings by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius: "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."[1] Holiday draws from Meditations, Aurelius, and the philosophy of stoicism to expand the central theme of the book, which is that how we respond to obstacles is what defines us.[4] Holiday argues that if an individual learns the framework to flip obstacles into success (as many individuals with different types of successes have done so), he or she create can actually be better for it.
In The Obstacle Is The Way, the framework that Holiday offers is composed of three disciplines: perception, action and will.[5] As he explains this framework, Holiday supplements each section with historical anecdotes and figures from politics, commerce, sports, and history including Theodore Roosevelt, Demosthenes, John D Rockefeller, Amelia Earhart, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Ulysses S. Grant, Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, among others.[1][6][7]
Author Ryan Holiday explains the purpose by which he wrote the book, writing If all this book does is make facing and dismantling such stumbling blocks a little easier, it will be enough. But my aim is higher. I want to show you the way to turn every obstacle into an advantage. So this will be a book about ruthless pragmatism and stories from history that illustrate the arts of relentless persistence and indefatigable ingenuity. It teaches you how to get unstuck, unfucked and unleashed. How to turn the many negative situations we encounter in our lives into positive ones - or at least to snatch whatever benefit we can from them.