Talking about overcoming obstacles, John Maxwell reminds us that Robinson Crusoe was written in prison. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress in the Bedford jail. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote The History of the World during a thirteen-year imprisonment. Luther translated the Bible while confined in the castle of Wartburg. For ten years Dante, author of The Divine Comedy, worked in exile and under the sentence of death. Beethoven was almost totally deaf and burdened with sorrow when he produced his greatest works. Lord Nelson’s obstacle was sea-sickness. Nelson, who destroyed Napoleon’s fleet suffered from sea-sickness!

John C. Maxwell, 1993, Developing The Leader Within You, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, p.29-30 , 165