“The obstacle is the path” is a Zen proverb that tells us that obstacles are the key to success.
Sometimes the only way out is through. The key to overcoming adversity is at times simple perseverance. Winston Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Churchill was surrounded by people who, early in World War II, wanted him to give in to Hitler. He would not surrender. If he had, the world would be a very different place today.
Adversity gives us strength. Great athletes must challenge their bodies to develop the strength, skill and agility needed to excel. My mother is fond of quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.” The Russians are the masters of extended times in space. These cosmonauts were able to spend many months in the apparent weightlessness of space free of the constraints of gravity, but when they landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan, they had to be carried away on stretchers. They had lost so much bone and muscle mass that they could no longer stand.
In entrepreneurship, we are taught that the key to innovation is the “pain”. The pain is the problem that your innovation solves. If there is no pain, no problem, then there is no need for your innovation. Many entrepreneurs developed innovations that made them very successful when they found that the marketplace did not offer a solution to their own problem. They knew that others would value their solution if available so they offered a product or service to solve the same problem for others. Read Full Article.
