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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Surrounded by Setbacks summary
Thomas Erikson
Turning Obstacles into Success (When Everything Goes to Hell)
20 mins
Brief summary
Surrounded by Setbacks by Thomas Erikson is a self-help book focused on providing practical tools to overcome obstacles and challenges. The author draws from his own experiences, and encourages readers to embrace failures as opportunities for growth and development.
Table of Contents
Surrounded by Setbacks
Summary of 7 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 7
It’s time to wake up and take full responsibility for your life.
What are the complaints you re-hash with your colleagues every Monday over lunch?
We all have things we’re concerned about; things we wish were different. In fact, we become so used to our complaints that it becomes like a background soundtrack that we don’t even hear anymore.
There’s nothing wrong with worrying and complaining. But don’t fool yourself that it’s going to change anything in your life. As the saying goes, talk is cheap. And, unfortunately, good intentions are too. The only thing that’s going to change your life is action. More, specifically, your actions.
The key message here is: It’s time to wake up and take full responsibility for your life.
Most people live in a cozy place called Laterville. It’s a comfortable suburb, where everyone plods along, punching the clock at their jobs, and doing okay. Nothing ruffles the status quo, and no one sticks their heads out too much. People talk about wanting to start their own companies, or write books, or change their relationships with their children. Sometimes they even have elaborate plans for how to make that happen. But no one ever does anything about it. After all, there’s plenty of time. Why not start tomorrow?
You probably also live in some version of Laterville. You know you want things to be different, but you don’t actually take the steps to make it so. You allow yourself to be distracted by your phone, or sucked into a friend’s drama, or convinced to work overtime again. Before you know it, months have gone by and you’re no closer to reaching your dreams.
You can blame being stuck on your boss, or your friend, or capitalism, or any number of things. But the truth is, the only person who’s really responsible for your life is you. You’re responsible for your decisions, 100 percent of the time – both the actions you take and the ones that you don’t.
And you’re also responsible for the way you react to things that happen to you. That’s something you should find empowering: if you’re responsible for your life it means you don’t have to wait around for someone to come and make it better. You have the power to change it. Right now. No matter what cards you’ve been dealt.
But first of all, you need to learn how to face your fears, and deal with any setbacks that come your way.
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What is Surrounded by Setbacks about?
Surrounded by Setbacks (2021) is a practical guide to achieving your goals despite the obstacles you will inevitably meet along the way. We all experience setbacks in our lives. Some of them will be minor and fixable, while others will be completely outside of our control. But by learning to manage your responses to all kinds of adversity, by taking complete responsibility for your life, and being stubbornly persistent in your approach, you can achieve your dreams.
Who should read Surrounded by Setbacks?
- Determined dreamers ready to achieve their goals
- Disappointed career professionals wondering why their hard work hasn’t paid off yet
- Restless renegades who want to stop living according to society’s expectations
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