Imagine a life where everything always goes your way. You naturally make every green light while driving, everyone adores you, and you seem to be the luckiest person on Earth. “skrrrrp” (record scratch noise). That’s not reality. What really happens is that we have our ups and down, our successes and our failures, and our wins and losses.
One thing that is for certain is that along this journey of life, certain challenges will present themselves. Many people will see these challenges as road blocks, barriers, or regular ole bad luck. They will see these challenges in life as obstacles rather than the opportunities they can be.
Check out this short story about the king and the boulder…
The obstacle in our path
In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.
Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.
The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.
Flip the Script
When an obstacle presents itself, don’t look at the obstacle as something that is trying to tell you to stop or quit. See it for the opportunity that it is. You just lost your job? Isn’t that horrible? Or is it really an opportunity to find the better job you’ve always wanted? Your business just experienced a pretty public failure. Is it over? Or is it an opportunity to use the publicity to come back stronger. Biden seems to have won the presidency over Trump. For Trump supporters, this is horrible. But I ask, is it an opportunity to see things a little differently?
The Takeaway
This is NOT a post on politics, so please don’t take my references to the election as a statement in any way. That’s not what this post is about. This post is about challenges and how we view them. Successful, strong-minded individuals, will look for and find the opportunities in any obstacle that presents itself. They will look to take something that appears to be a negative, a road block, or barrier and turn it into something positive that gives them momentum to keep moving forward.
Like everything in life, whether something is bad or good is simply a matter of how you look at it. If you see losing your job as horrible, then it will be. If you see a public business failure as the end of your business, it will be. If you see Biden winning the election as horrific, you’ll see horrific things happen. You get what you look for out of life and every obstacle brings with it the opportunity to be a victim, who is powerless to the obstacle, or a go-getter that breaks through every challenge put in your path. I urge you to be the go-getter and look at every obstacle as an opportunity. You’ll be more successful in life with just this one little change in mindset.
Here’s a great book by one of my favorite authors, Ryan Holiday. His book, The Obstacle Is The Way, is a great book that can help change your mindset on how to view the challenges life throws at you. Get your copy on Amazon via may associate’s link here:
