I came across a beautiful extract from an interview with Michael Caine, the famous English actor. I'll put it at the end of this post, and it's only 90 seconds long, so I invite you to watch it.
In this interview, Caine explains his life philosophy, which he learned on stage while taking his first steps in acting.
He was supposed to join a scene on the stage through a door, but one of the actors threw a chair precisely on the doorway, so he couldn't step in. He told the actor on stage that he was stuck and didn't know what to do. And the actor told him to "use the difficulty".
But what does that mean?
"If it's a comedy, fall over it. If it's a drama, pick it up and smash it."
Caine made that acting lesson a life one.
It's an attitude towards obstacles and difficulties that makes a lot of difference in any situation. In particular when we are on a journey to create something new or innovative.
In Being At Full Potential, I've learned to call this attitude "altering your relationship with adversities". Different words, same attitude.
It's not about ignoring difficulties or adversities. On the contrary, we acknowledge them as a reality we have to deal with. So, instead of getting crushed by them, we look for ways to use them. Maybe, we can use just one per cent of the difficulty, but that's enough to set us in motion.
Ah, Cain also has another philosophy: to avoid difficulties if you can, so you won't have to use them.