Thanks Mike

The hardest thing I find is identifying the value someone else holds that depends on the rationality in the culture. My favorite right now is grand kids. I say that if I am right your grand kids will have a wonderful life and if you are right they will live under ISIS or a Putin. I never let them assume that their values will lead to a good outcome. Since there are plenty of examples of their values in practice they are on the defensive. I then have the burden of proof that my values will produce good results. It a burden I happily assume.

Great question! Thanks for asking it.

I have found - through research, personal experienceand indirect experience working with my executive coaching clients over 15 years that developing a deep, meaningful and practically powerful spirituality and set of spritual disciplines tremendously raises the bar my performance, fulfillment, resilience and overall capacity to live larger and more successfully.

How to do this on a secular basis, without the involvement of mysticism or supernaturalism has been my single biggest challenge in integrating Objectivist principles in my life.

Dealing with fools.

Perhaps you need to expand your mental horizons to include pursuing art of some sort.
I have found that beauty and the pursuit of it will energize my goal setting.

Living with an aging parent who has a lot of important knowledge about how to live in the physical realm BUT has absolutely no ability to see the destructive patterns of himself and others that have led him to being dependent upon me.

I posted my comment, then noticed your comment right above mine. Yes, that is the hardest thing...how do we avoid the government interventions that penalize us or give us undeserved benefits.

Figuring out how to separate myself from the immoral system all around me without becoming a hermit.

Generally, I never had a problem. Specifically, yes, as I read these books as a teenager, it was a challenge figuring everything out, just how to live, what kinds of jobs to pursue, etc. Through all of that, especially in the early years, Objectivism was a set of known truths. On my blog, NecessaryFacts, I write about "The First Dagny" and "Dagny Two Point Oh." Having grown up in Cleveland ("Autobiography of a Worker") living in an Ayn Rand novel came rather easily to me. And it was a time of changes for everyone, the revolutions of the sixties, the founding of the Libertarian Party, the runaway inflation (and the Hunt Brothers bust), and then the coming of the Reagan Revolution with the Me Generation, yuppies, the computer revolution. It all pretty much played out as expected.

In my personal life, it was easy enough to find two wives (at different times) who read Ayn Rand's novels. Raising our daughter (2nd marriage), I relied on books that I knew from the Objectivist Newsletter 15 years before, such as How to Raise a Brighter Child and The Tyranny of Testing.

Overall, what I got from AR's novels generally and non-fiction in particular was the strength of my convictions. It is pretty easy to walk away from a bad deal, and even easier to throw my full support behind a good plan.

Allow me to recommend How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. He was deeply influenced by Ayn Rand, though his presentation of his ideas is his own. His thesis is that we allow ourselves to be trapped by unquestioned assumptions. One of them is that the government is powerful enough to stop you from living your life by your own standards. Another is that you must join big causes to be involved in burning issues of the day. A third is that financial independence is impossible, especially in our mixed (and now collapsing) economy.

Listening to a libtard attempt to reason (most recently about why sanctuary cities are a good thing and really do have la-la land less violence) on "fair and balanced" Fox News.
It is less challenging for my blood pressure to pick up the remote and go channel-surfing than to roar at the TV like a dino with rabies.

I'm surprised that reading AR did not help you overcome that. There is more for you to apply. You might want to read some good psychology. And then as AJ said, be more aggressive in pursuing goals. And being more socially active might help.

My biggest challenge is not beating the S*** out of the irrational dimwits with whom I come in contact.

Look in the Marketplace. You can get these from Amazon. I enjoyed them and shared my reviews on four Objectivish boards. Shadows Live Under Seashells, in the Gulch here
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...
and here
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

See also, the prequel, Fallacies of Vision here in the Gulch
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

I would say the biggest challenge is trying to get around the great government involvement in everything. It makes it very difficult to just do your own thing, and not bother anyone, as they have this nasty habit of intruding into everything. That also has fed into the self justification thing, where people believe it is ok to impose their own behavior onto you and then requiring you to approve and allow it, and even celebrate it.

AJ, what Sci Fi have your written, any current? I am of a mind that a lot of RAH was in an Objective vein.

Finding like minded people to bounce stuff off. Before I found this online Gulch, I began to think there must be something wrong with ME, to be the only one who thinks this way (with logic, rather than emotions). After a while I realized that there are others out there, but most keep it to themselves in public, to avoid the browbeating (you selfish, heartless, emotionless creep!).

I'm not sure of your age in relation to mine (soon to be 48) but I need to tell you TRY EVERYTHING, reach for the stars as often as you wish, fail and succeed as often as you have the heart to. I'm no raging success in life but I've met some milestones people told me I couldn't/wouldn't and I'm still chasing dreams/goals (my wife don't get it). If I died tomorrow I'm content.

I'm not trying to talk down to you, but life's too short to doubt yourself to the point of never attempting to achieve. You only get one go (unless the Hindu's are right but you may come back as a flea (where's the fun in that). :)

And now for gratuitous inspirational music (remember I'm 47): https://youtu.be/Lf6ao8cvyoU

I was an OBJ before I read AR. I apply it very easily to every part of my life except one.
I don't really believe in myself enough to pursue any great ambitions.

Balancing my sci-fi authors mind, my constitutional conservatism, and objectivism. It's not as much of a challenge as some would think.