Wildly popular blogger: Seth’s website has 100,000 subscribers, and his posts, which have received over 30 million hits, have been featured in the national media and translated into over twenty languages.

Warm and encouraging: Seth takes the traditional message that we possess the tools to build our own happiness and strips it of its usual psychology-speak and aphorism-infused pep and addresses it on a foundational human level with humor, grace, and humility.

All of us feel trapped, stuck, or unable to move forward in life at some point. What is it that’s holding us back? According to Seth, it’s who, not what. Ultimately, the greatest obstacle to achieving your full potential is you.

But you are also the solution to your greatest problem.

This book combats a destructive mind-set that we all sometimes fall into: I can’t change. I am the victim of my circumstances, and I am confined by my personal limitations. This philosophy, though intangible, destroys more dreams and limits more lives than any actual, physical obstacle.

To show us how to overcome this philosophy of fear, Smith draws on literature, history, and his personal experiences with chronic depression, as well as on encounters with remarkable “ordinary” people who’ve embraced a different philosophy: the belief that we possess the power to lift ourselves out of the abyss and into the light.

Smith inspires us to see that no matter how dire our circumstances may be, there is always a positive step you can take, however small it might be. He doesn't sugarcoat the difficulties or offer promises of overnight success. But he does promise that if you continue to see yourself as a victim you’ll remain frozen and fearful. We may not be able to control what happens to us, but we can always control how we react.