Use the Difficulty: Turn Every Obstacle Into an Advantage.

Listen to the audio.

You’re cruising along, locked in, then - WHAM - a chair lands in the doorway. Most people freeze. Michael Caine didn’t. He flipped the script, built the scene around the obstacle, and walked away with a life-long mantra: “Use the difficulty.”

If that mindset can rescue a stage performance, imagine what it can do for you when a project explodes, a supplier flakes, or your personal plans go sideways.

Why “Use the Difficulty” Works

  1. Reframes Reality – Instead of “Why me?” you ask “What can this become?” That single pivot yanks you out of victim mode and drops you into creator mode.

  2. Triggers Creativity Under Pressure – Constraints breed innovation. Limitations force fresh thinking you’d never explore on an easy road.

  3. Builds Leadership Cred – Teams rally around the person who sees a dead end and still finds daylight. They’ll follow the one who turns a mess into momentum.

  4. Protects Emotional Energy – Harnessing setbacks keeps frustration from spiraling into burnout. You spend energy on solutions, not self-pity.

Some Examples:

  • When a key employee bails in the middle of a project, most teams freak out and scramble to backfill. Flip it: promote a hungry rising star, trim the scope to what really matters, and document every move so succession planning happens in real time.

  • If your budget gets slashed by 30 percent, don’t moan about scarcity. Zero in on the highest ROI deliverables, renegotiate vendor deals, and make lean execution your new bragging right.

  • Tech meltdown during a big presentation? Skip the apology tour and own the room. Ditch the slides, grab a whiteboard, and let your expertise shine without the crutches - you’ll look even more credible.

  • Your flight home gets canceled, refuse to stew at the gate. Grab a quick local adventure, capture fresh content, meet new people, and turn the delay into a story everyone else wishes they had.

The U.S.E.R. Loop™

A four-step cycle you can drop into any challenge.

  1. Uncover – State the raw obstacle. No sugar-coating.

  2. Scan – List every upside lurking inside: skills to learn, contacts to make, etc.

  3. Experiment – Pick one upside and act fast. Test, feedback, no overthinking.

  4. Reinforce – Capture what worked, share the story, lockmichae in the lesson.

Run the loop once, solve the problem. Run it forever, build an antifragile culture.

Action Steps

  1. Daily Drill: At day’s end, jot the toughest snag you faced and answer, “How did I use the difficulty - or how could I have?” Five minutes. Compounds fast.

  2. Team Huddle: Kick off the next meeting by asking each member for one obstacle they flipped into an advantage last week. Celebrate mini-wins to hard-wire the habit.

  3. Challenge Card: Print “Use the Difficulty” on a wallet card or phone wallpaper. That visual cue breaks the reflex to complain.

  4. Scenario Sprints: Once a month, run a 15-minute tabletop exercise: throw a wild, worst-case curveball at the group and see how many opportunities they can mine.

  5. Story Bank: Capture every success story in a shared doc. When crises hit, flip through the bank - proof you’ve conquered chaos before sparks instant confidence.

Bring It Home

Obstacles aren’t detours - they’re ramps. Train yourself and your team to hit them at speed, launch higher, and stick the landing. Start running the U.S.E.R. Loop today, and the next time a chair blocks your doorway, you’ll know exactly what to do: pick it up, smash your scene, and own the room.

Next Step: Ready to ingrain this mindset across your leadership team? Book a 20-minute strategy call and let’s turn every “problem” into your competitive edge.