Rise Above

Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential

De: Scott Barry Kaufman PhD

Narrado por: Scott Barry Kaufman PhD

“Brilliant…the evidence-based manual we need to be free.”—Arthur C. Brooks, author of From Strength to Strength

“A call to action for anyone who feels stuck in a pattern of anger and blame. It isn’t easy work, but it can be life-changing.”—Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

“A message that needs to be heard today more than ever.”—Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

An empowering roadmap for becoming the hero of your life

Life is never easy. But even in the most challenging times, we have the ability to rise above—and thrive. In this engaging and hopeful book, renowned psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman unpacks the victim mindset and shines a light on the many ways we can empower ourselves—offering research-based insights on:

• managing tough emotions—instead of letting them manage us
• making peace with the past, understanding and healing from trauma, and even achieving post-traumatic growth
• resisting the trap of self-esteem, and how to find genuine satisfaction instead
• getting out of our comfort zone—to move forward and shape the course of our lives.

Written with empathy, insight, and a dose of humor, Rise Above speaks to the challenges many of us face, no matter our stage of life. You’ll find actionable solutions to help you own your story, transcend setbacks, and reach your full potential.

Genuinely life changing, I can’t recommend it enough.

I love this book. I wrote that in the present tense because this isn’t a book to read and remember, it’s a guide I plan to revisit often, and many quotes and passages I will return to daily. There are so many tools here for many kinds of growth, Everyone can find a trove of valuable insights and life changing points of view to truly change their minds, lives, and the world. Favorite book of the 2020s. (Pay no attention the fact I bought the e, audio ABD the physical copy. Now I’m off to collate all my notes, highlights and screen grabs. Makes me wonder if a workbook might be coming … I’m on board for that. Again, I love this book.

Amazing!

At first glance, this title might come off as a self-help book, but the author has a profound understanding about mental health. He balances the need for acknowledging the need for improved mental health while criticizing the state of mental health awareness today. What makes this title stand out is that he does not use labels to describe certain traits like narcissism or neuroticism, but insists that personality traits exist on a continuum. Also, he does a great job discussing the dangers associated with over-identifying with certain characteristics that fuel a victim mindset. The information here would be of value to everybody.

This!!!!!!!

I got this book on audible and am going to be buying the hard copy. I’m a trauma therapist and I appreciate this book calling out the dangerous direction our culture has taken in glorifying victim hood. This book is well and delicately written. I will recommend this book to my clients. This book is also a great listen, the author is entertaining, I was surprised how quickly I got through it, a lot of times listening to books can be dry and boring but this one was not.

Basically a Top 10 List in Book Form

The advice is sound, but it’s the kind you’ve likely seen all over social media. It plays things too safe, resulting in a sanitized, clichéd, and ultimately trivial read. Worst of all, it comes off as both condescending and self-congratulatory.

Lazy forgot updates

The book claims South Africa never violently backlashed. Probably author wrote and forgot the last 6 months before he released book, South Africa attacked and backlashed the exact way the author claimed they didn’t. Lazy not to update. Gaslighting

Part of the problem

This book feels completely out of touch with the reality of people who’ve lived through real trauma or experienced lasting adverse experiences.

It leans hard into the “life is tough for everyone” cliché, which trivializes actual suffering.

I get that some might consider things like learning difficulties traumatic, but it’s frustrating when those with minimal lived impact start dismissing others who are trying to speak from deeper, more painful experience.

Honestly, this book is written for people like the author those who haven’t been truly affected by trauma but still claim the authority to speak on it. It’s just another layer of the self-congratulatory “post-traumatic growth” narrative that’s circulating in trauma-lite circles.