The Obstacle Is the Way

At first glance I fell prey of availability bias and confirmation bias and my first impression was; this book has nothing new to offer but some generic advice that you could come across any self-help book. This book just like majority of self-help books is containing plenty of famous quotes from well-known people, as well as general advises such as perseverance and persistent for that matter. However I could overcome my biases and start observing what this book has to offer.
Ryan talk about the influence that stoicism had on his life and how revolutionized it has been for him. He explicitly mention that he is not going to talk about stoicism in large and advise the audience to go through the originals such as Meditations by Marcus Aurelius in particular. His aim where illustrating how stoicism comes handy in other famous people life and how stoicism could look like in real life.

The author also talk about perception and how it could be real game-changer in one's life. How great people thrive not in spite of adversity that happened to them but because of it. He quotes Andy Grove (of the founders and the CEO of Intel): “Bad companies are destroyed by crisis, Good companies survive them, Great companies are improved by them”, as well as some other nice examples. Ryan also describes what post-mortem is and how great companies and people use it to their advantage.

I have been through the audio book narrated by Ryan Holiday which ends with nice interview between him and Tim Ferriss. He will talk about his personal life and his profession. Both authors exchange their insights about stoicism and why they are appreciating it.