Founding Pastor of one of North America's most influential churches, Carey Nieuwhof wants to help you avoid and overcome life's seven hardest and most crippling challenges: cynicism, compromise, disconnectedness, irrelevance, pride, burnout, and emptiness. These are challenges that few of us expect but that we all experience at some point. If you have yet to confront these obstacles, Carey provides clear tools and guidelines for anticipation and avoidance. On the other hand, if you already feel stuck in a painful experience or are wrestling with one of these challenges, he provides the steps you need to find a way out and a way forward into a more powerful and vibrant future.

Introduction: Surprise -- Part I: Cynicism -- Find me a happy lawyer: how cynicism snuffs out hope -- Kicking cynicism in the teeth: practical ways to defeat your inner cynic -- Part II: Compromise -- Successful (on the outside): why character determines your true capacity -- Taking your soul off the market: practical ways to deepen your character -- Part III: Disconnection -- Is anyone out there?: why so many of us feel so alone -- Ditching your phone won't help: why you need to solve the human problem -- Part IV: Irrelevance -- Change never asks permission: the silent creep of irrelevance -- Craving different: how regular (and radical) change keeps you in the game -- Part V: Pride -- It's not just the narcissists: how pride gets the best of us -- Habits of the humble: only humility will get you out of what pride got you into -- Part VI: Burnout -- Like falling off a cliff: how to know when you're burning out -- Your new normal: figuring out how to live today so you will thrive tomorrow -- Part VII: Emptiness -- When all your dreams come true: why money, power, and success leave you feeling empty -- My kingdom come?: getting over yourself isn't as scary as you think -- Conclusion: Calvin meets Hobbes.