Ep 57 | Bring in the Ship - How to Overcome Obstacles & Adversity

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into today's topic. Today I'm going to be talking about overcoming Adversity. Here's what I'd like to start with. I'd like to tell you a quick story, something that just randomly popped into my mind the other day while I was on a long drive. If you've listened to some of our previous podcasts around thinking time and quieting the mind, it would not be a surprise to hear from me that something random popped into my mind that was meaningful because I think that we all could pick up some great thoughts when we're sitting in silence. But that's a different conversation, and it's even a past episode, so go check it out. But I was driving the other day, and the most random of stories came to mind. And for me, it was, gosh, over 30 years ago now. I was 12 or 13, I think I was 13 years old, and my father, who's a sports nut, and I had that dad, you know, the dad that always had us out on the field practicing a little bit more than the other kids, taking a few more ground balls, running a few more sprints. Well, my dad had figured out a way when I was in 7th grade to go to a high school football camp with a couple of my friends whose parents were equally as insane. And he sent us to this football camp a few hours away from Metro Phoenix, up in the mountains. And it was an overnight camp for a bunch of 13-year-olds that were with a bunch of 16 to 18-year-olds. And how he got us in, I still do not know. But it was a hell of an experience for a young teen, teenage boy. And it was heavy discipline. It was lots of hard work. It was aggression. It was all these things that I had exposure to but never to that level. And I will never forget that every night we had to meet with the head football coach for this camp, and he was a very, very well-known coach in Arizona who, not surprisingly, was asked to leave the sport and the high school coaching system for being a little too aggressive in his coaching style. As times changed, but I'll never forget he would have us sit every night in front of him and make all of us, now mind you I'm 13, pull out a notebook and take notes on what he was talking around. And there was a quote that he gave one night that for 30+ years now crosses my mind, I don't know, probably on a monthly basis for some reason. For some crazy reason. I'm never quite sure what it is. And the quote he shared that day was from a guy named William McPhee, a member of the Royal Navy, I don't know, 100 years ago, and a writer who said, "The world is not interested in the storms you encountered, but did you bring in the ship?" The world's not interested in the storms that you encountered, but did you bring in the ship? And I remember Coach Parker sharing that quote, and I'm 13 years old, and I wrote it down, and I cannot recall why I took so much interest in it, but I made that my mantra as a 13-year-old. And growing up, you know, I would always go back to it and say, People don't care about whatever storm I'm encountering. They don't care about the challenges I have. They just want to know, did the job get done? And that left a massive impression on me. And I'm sharing it with you because the world, the universe conspires in a weird sort of way. Episodes this week, I talked around attitude being everything. I talked about fear, what it really means, what it's about. I talked about perspective and perception. Then I randomly thought of this quote, and I'm wondering what's going on in the universe. I really am, because not too long after this quote, you know, as I'm doing research for perspective versus perception and that story I told in yesterday's episode, I came across a separate article that was, that was not about is the world really more turbulent Or is it just our perspective or our perception? This one was actually about— its title was, "When It Seems Life is Falling Apart, It May Actually Be Falling into Place Better Than Expected." And as I read that article, what stood out to me were two things. Number one, there was an analogy in there that when you buy a house, not to ironic, I guess it's very ironic for me that talks about an analogy being buying a house and I'm in fact in real estate. But when you buy a house, if you're renovating that house, there's likely a point in time where you question everything you're doing. When you break that house down, you start tearing it down, tearing carpets out, you know, taking walls out if you're going that far. Taking countertops, doing all these things, there's always a moment in time when you're fixing up a house where you think to yourself, "Did I take on too much? Is this really gonna turn out the way I think it's gonna go?" And 99.9% of the time, once you work through that, you start the work and you finish the product, the new product is always substantially better than the one you started with, and certainly better than mid-renovation. The point here is oftentimes you got to take it down to the studs. You've got to get down to the bare minimum. You've got to crash to truly rebirth, to truly regrow. Now I sit down last night to read, and I'm looking at my bookcase saying, you know, I need to start picking up some books I've already read and review them and see what I'm forgetting about implementing or maybe where I didn't take action. And I look at my bookcase and one book stands out to me and I don't know, universe conspiring, what is that book? The book is The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday. And the theme of that book is that obstacles and adversity should not be seen as negative experiences, but rather as opportunities for growth and self-improvement. Ryan talks about in that book that the way we perceive and respond to obstacles, to storms, to house renovations, the way we respond to obstacles determines our success and our happiness in life. And by embracing obstacles. We can actually transform the adversity into an advantage, which ties right back into the article I mentioned about sometimes we've got to bring it all down to rebirth, to regrow, to bring it all back up to a whole different level. And most definitely ties back to the quote, "The world is just not interested in the storms you've encountered." But will you, or did you bring in the ship? So a real interesting episode today, one that's, I don't know, I find it fascinating. It's just funny. Now I know it's my RAS. I know it's the reticular activator at work. You know, I know I thought of this quote, it put things top of mind for me. So I fell into an article, and I'm using fell in like air quotes, right? I fell into an article, and then I sat down and I naturally, you know, picked out the title, "The Obstacle is the Way," but I think they all deliver such, such key messages. And at the end of the day, it's not fear, as we talked about earlier in the week. Certainly not fear. If my attitude is right, like we talked about earlier in the week, and attitude is everything, if my attitude is right and I focus on the mission and I'm clear on that vision and I'm committed to it and I change my story and I view that obstacle as an opportunity and not something that's going to bury me, I'll bring in the ship. And I think, uh, I think we could all use a little of that. So the focusing question for you today: what's going on in your world right now where maybe you're a little bit more focused on the storms that you're dealing with, maybe telling others, creating drama, letting it bring you down instead of just getting the damn job done and bringing in the ship. Where might that be occurring? Where do you need to fix your attitude, rewrite your story, you know, and progress, make some progress today? That's all we have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.