Episode 314 · Dec 24, 2020

What Really Matters Is How You Respond to Obstacles

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In a brief but powerful Christmas Eve message on The Daily Mastermind, host George Wright III delivers a timely reminder that the direction you focus your energy determines everything about your future. This is not a message about resolutions or year-end lists. It is a message about a mindset that has carried human beings through their darkest hours and can carry you through yours.

The Power of Silence and Reflection

The holiday season creates something rare: pockets of quiet. George encourages you not to fill every one of them. Drawing on ideas from Ryan Holiday's book *Stillness Is the Key*, George makes the case that stillness is not emptiness. It is the raw material of clarity. Use the quiet moments of the season to think honestly about the life you want and the path you need to take to get there.

A Quote Worth Keeping: Les Brown on Commitment

George opens with a quote from motivational speaker Les Brown, a longtime friend and recurring speaker at Daily Mastermind events:

Keep your commitment to your commitment.

It is a deceptively simple idea. Not just "make a commitment" but honor the one you already made. As you move into a new year, that distinction matters more than any resolution you could write on a blank page.

George Washington's Lesson on Christmas Eve

George shares a passage from Ryan Holiday's daily stoic email, which centers on a remarkable piece of American history. On Christmas Eve 244 years ago, George Washington faced one of the darkest moments of the American Revolution. Losses had mounted. Support was fading. Everything seemed to be going wrong.

Washington wrote in a letter to Robert Morris that it was pointless to dwell on the causes of their misfortune. As Holiday relays from Washington's letter:

We should rather exert ourselves.

Instead of asking who was to blame or how things had gone wrong, Washington focused on how to respond. He crossed the Delaware River the next day in a daring attack on Hessian troops in Trenton, a move that may have saved both his army and the American Revolution. Washington practiced Stoicism throughout his life, drawing on the philosopher Cato and choosing to see events "in the calm light of mild philosophy."

Why Asking "Whose Fault Is This?" Keeps You Stuck

Ryan Holiday's message, and George's takeaway from it, is direct: the questions "why did this happen" and "who is to blame" are irrelevant distractions. Whether you are dealing with a struggling business, a difficult family situation, an industry upended by forces beyond your control, or a string of poor personal choices, answering those questions does nothing to move you forward.

What moves you forward is deciding what you are going to do next. You have the power to exert yourself. You can still turn things around.

How to Use This Season to Reset Your Focus

George offers a clear direction for how to spend the reflective time the holidays give you:

Focus not on the obstacles. Focus not on the past. Focus on your response.

He encourages you to think about why you will succeed rather than why you might fail, and to keep your attention on the future you know you can build. Surround yourself with positive people, positive content, and positive emotions like gratitude and optimism. If you are alone during the holidays, lean into podcasts, videos, music, and other resources that feed your mind well.

Action Steps

When you have quiet time this holiday season, use it intentionally. Sit with your thoughts rather than filling every moment with noise.
Write down the obstacles or setbacks from the past year. Then set that list aside and write down how you plan to respond to each one.
Revisit Les Brown's principle: keep your commitment to your commitment. Identify one commitment you made that you have let slide and recommit to it before the new year begins.
Seek out Ryan Holiday's daily stoic writings for daily perspective grounded in Stoic philosophy.
Fill your environment with positive inputs, whether people, podcasts, music, or reflection, so your mindset is already moving in the right direction.

It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live. As George Wright III reminds you, Les Brown's belief holds true: there is greatness inside of you. It does not require perfect circumstances. It requires faith, action, and a steady focus on what comes next.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III. I hope you're having an amazing Christmas Eve. I wanted to just put a little message out there for you today. I've been thinking a little bit about what are some things that you might be doing with your family and friends, or maybe you're spending time alone, maybe you're spending some time away from home, or maybe you're at home. But regardless, I think that you're going to find that this is the time of year that we become the most reflective and we ponder the most of what's going on in our lives and what we're going to be doing headed into next year. And I had a short thought that I wanted to share with you. And before I do that, let me just give you the quote of the day. The quote of the day in the Daily Mastermind mobile app is from Les Brown. And I really like Les. He's been an amazing speaker, friend, that we've been able to have many, many times at our events over the years. He's just got so much words of wisdom and enthusiasm. But his quote today was, Keep your commitment to your commitment. I love that. Keep your commitment to your commitment. And that's something you ought to really consider as we go into the new year. Now, as I mentioned before, over the next couple of days and over the weekend, you're going to have a lot of time to reflect. Yeah, there'll be some hustle bustle. there'll be a lot of things going on but there's going to be times when you're going to be able to ponder and reflect and think a little bit about what you want to see happen as the year closes out and the new year comes upon you and I want to remind you of this concept and this idea that I've kind of adopted that silence is the key you know don move away from those times that you have just to yourself where you can think about things and really reflect and ponder on the life that you want to have The idea of Silence is the Key which is a book written by Ryan Holiday is something that has really been something I tried to embrace more and more in my life And recently I had an email I got from Ryan, and it's his daily stoic, which is thoughts of stoicism that he shares on a daily basis. I'd encourage you to maybe check that out. But he had a thought, and it was called, What Matters is Your Response. What Matters is Your Response. And I'm going to read it to you, because I think he has a gifted way of speaking and writing. So I'm going to share that with you here today, and just a couple of thoughts, just as we go. He says, It was a dark day almost exactly 244 years ago. Christmas was here at one of the darkest times in the American Revolution. George Washington was planning to cross the Delaware River, a desperate move necessitated by a string of setbacks and ebbing support for the revolution across his struggling country. Whose fault was this disaster? How bad had things gone so poorly? Washington wasn't interested in those questions. as he wrote in a letter to Robert Morris from his headquarters that day, it is in vain to ruminate upon or even reflect upon the authors or causes of our present misfortunes. Instead of looking backwards, Washington said, he said, quote, we should rather exert ourselves, unquote, meaning they should focus on how they were going to respond not why they were there His response was a daring attack on the Hessian troops in Trenton the next day which may well have saved his army and the foundering nation. This mindset is part and parcel of the Stoicism that Washington had known and followed all of his life, looking at the events in the calm light of mild philosophy. As he liked to quote from the Stoic philosopher Cato, deciding not to be ruled by his fantasia, and instead focusing on what he'd do next. And that's what we should take a minute to think about this Christmas time. Whether we're busy working, or taking some time with family, or planning out how we're going to use 2020 for a fresh start. Not what caused our troubles, not what authored them, not how much blame they deserve, not whether it could have been avoided. those questions are irrelevant distractions. Answering them, an exercise done only in vain. What matters is how we plan to exert ourselves, how we plan to fix our situation, how we plan to respond to what life has thrown at us. Whether it's a passive-aggressive family member, a struggling business, an industry destroyed by the pandemic, or a series of bad personal choices, we have the power to decide what we're going to do next. We can exert ourselves. We can still turn this around. And I love that. I love the whole idea of it because I think it's important for us and I want you to consider over these moments that you have over the coming weekend. Focus not on the obstacles Focus not on the past Focus on your response Focus on how you going to tackle the problems that are in front of you Focus on why you will succeed and conquer your troubles. And most importantly, I'd like to encourage you to focus on the future that you know you can create. It's never too late to start living the life that you were meant to live. You will create that future. You will have things go your way. I believe in you, and we all have, as Les Brown would say, greatness inside of us. We just need to have faith. We just need to take action. And we just need to believe and focus on the right things. And I believe that if you'll focus on the right things, when you have time to think and ponder, you'll come up with the solutions and suggestions that you need. Focus on positive emotions like gratitude and appreciation and optimism, and surround yourself with positive people. Even if you're alone over the holidays, you can look to the inspiration and support of people online. You can look towards surrounding yourself and inundating your mind with positive things like podcasts and videos or whatever it is that helps you. Music, pictures, reflections. Do what you can to focus on the future and do what you can to really clarify a vision of what you want to accomplish this next year. I believe if you'll do that, you'll be more motivated, you'll be more inspired, and more willing to take action in your life. And you can focus less on what's going on and more on how you're going to respond to it. Anyway, that's my message for today. I hope you have an amazing Christmas Eve, and I look forward to talking with you a little bit more tomorrow and over the coming weeks. Have a great day. This is George Wright III, and this has been The Daily Mastermind. Thank you.