PDF Summary:The Everyday Hero Manifesto, by

Book Summary: Learn the key points in minutes.

Below is a preview of the Shortform book summary of The Everyday Hero Manifesto by Robin Sharma. Read the full comprehensive summary at Shortform.

1-Page PDF Summary of The Everyday Hero Manifesto

In The Everyday Hero Manifesto, Robin Sharma promises that each of us has the potential to achieve great things—we don’t need superpowers or incredible natural talents to do so. By following the system laid out in this book, you can unlock your heroic potential, realize your dreams, and become a force for good in the world.

Our guide begins with a brief introduction laying out Sharma’s premise for this book: that you can accomplish great things. We’ll then discuss Sharma’s suggestions for strengthening your mind, body, and heart to fulfill your heroic potential. Finally, we’ll go over the guidelines Sharma lays out for how an everyday hero should act. Our commentary will provide points of view from other self-help books about how to unlock your potential, exploring Sharma’s suggestions more deeply and providing actionable advice on how to get started on your self-improvement journey.

(continued)...

The first step to healing your heart is to admit it’s damaged: Even if you haven’t endured severe trauma, you’re still carrying old hurts, disappointments, and embarrassments, and those past events could still be affecting you. For example, if you have a painful memory of your ideas being ignored or laughed at, you may be more reluctant to share your ideas today.

(Shortform note: The reason upsetting and traumatic experiences can affect you so strongly is that they change your brain physically. Most notably, they change the areas of the brain associated with regulating emotions and coping with fear. This means that, after you experience an upsetting or traumatic event, you could develop an irrational fear of any situation that reminds you of it. For example, if you once got stuck in a closet as a child, you might have an intense fear of small spaces not just because you’re remembering something upsetting, but because your brain is telling you that you’re in immediate danger, even if you know rationally that you’re not.)

Step 2: Practice Mindfulness

Next, Sharma suggests healing your heart by practicing mindfulness: When you experience powerful emotions (positive or negative), focus on the physical sensations you’re feeling instead of your thoughts. Don’t try to judge what you’re feeling, just identify and acknowledge it. For example, are your shoulders tense? Is your jaw clenched? Do you feel sick to your stomach?

(Shortform note: It might seem strange to focus on physical sensations when you’re trying to get to grips with your emotions, but there’s a connection between your mind and your body that makes this mindfulness practice effective. Every emotion causes certain physical responses, so by identifying those physical sensations, you can work backward to understand which emotions caused them. Notably, the mind-body connection works both ways, meaning that you can also change your emotions (to an extent) through physical actions; for instance, you may be able to genuinely improve your mood by faking a smile.)

Once you’ve identified what you’re feeling, allow yourself to experience it fully. It’s often uncomfortable; you’ll be tempted to try to ignore the sensations or force them to stop. However, trying to get rid of those sensations is counterproductive: It’ll only keep you focused on them (much like how saying “Don’t think of an elephant!” will cause you to immediately think of an elephant). That’s why accepting your feelings is a crucial part of moving past them.

Finally, once you’re able to, let go of those feelings and allow them to fade away.

Tip: Practice Radical Acceptance

Sharma says that, after fully experiencing your feelings, you can let them go. In Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach goes into greater detail about a practice that can help you to move past unpleasant feelings. This process—radical acceptance—has two elements:

1. Recognition. This is the first step that Sharma describes above: clearly identifying your feelings as they happen. This is the first step toward radical acceptance because you first have to understand what you’re accepting.

2. Compassion. Be kind to yourself and to your feelings. Don’t berate yourself for having feelings you don’t like or that you think you “shouldn’t” be having. Instead, feel them fully (as Sharma suggests), and remember that you always deserve love and kindness—you simply happen to be experiencing something unpleasant right now. That doesn’t mean you should act on those unpleasant feelings—for instance, lash out because you’re angry. Rather, you can accept those feelings and move past them without indulging them or blaming yourself for them.

Brach says that meeting strong feelings with recognition and compassion will allow you to accept those feelings for what they are: temporary experiences that will rise up and fade away naturally. She believes that a powerful benefit of this mindfulness practice is the ability to understand and love yourself, even when you’re having thoughts and feelings you don’t want to have. You’ll come to accept that experiencing these temporary sensations doesn’t change your essential goodness.

You’ll also find, over time, that you’re able to control your responses. In other words, you’ll still have strong thoughts and feelings, but you won’t feel compelled to act on them or try to counterproductively force them away.

Create an Empowering Environment

So far, all of Sharma’s advice has been about empowering yourself. However, you don’t exist in a vacuum; your surroundings can also have profound impacts on your energy, confidence, and enthusiasm. Therefore, as much as possible, you should shape your environment to help you succeed.

(Shortform note: Some researchers agree with Sharma that your surroundings have significant effects on your mental and emotional health, noting that this holds true even if you’re not consciously aware of your surroundings. For example, if your room isn’t well-lit, you may have become so used to the dimness that you don’t notice it anymore; however, low light can contribute to stress, anxiety, and depression.)

First, set up your workspace to motivate yourself and eliminate distractions. For example, hang inspirational art on the walls or fill a bookshelf with books that are meaningful to you. If there’s something that tends to pull your attention away from your work, such as a television, get rid of it if you can.

(Shortform note: Sharma’s suggestions for setting up your workspace focus on what you can see from where you’re sitting. However, another important aspect of a workspace is what you can do in it; for instance, some people find it very helpful to have a work area that allows them to stand up and move around. If your energy or focus is dwindling, taking a minute to stand up and move your body can act as a mental reboot or help you find a new way to think about whatever problem you’re stuck on.)

Second, Sharma suggests keeping your surroundings clean, both at work and at home. Keeping your home and office clean will give you a sense of empowerment and control—you can look around and see the immediate, tangible effects of the work you’ve done (cleaning). Conversely, being surrounded by dirt or clutter is distracting and stressful, so it will keep you from doing your best work each day.

(Shortform note: Sharma stresses the importance of keeping your space clean but doesn’t offer much advice on how to do that. One easy tip is to start small: For example, just clean the one room that you spend the most time in, or set aside just 15 minutes each day for cleaning. Another tip is to create a goal to motivate yourself, like deciding that you’ll throw a party for an upcoming holiday and so your house needs to be clean by then.)

How to Be a Hero Every Day

We’ve explored Sharma’s definition of a hero and how to bring out the hero that was always inside you. In this final section, we’ll discuss the five principles that Sharma says allow you to get the best results from your heroic abilities.

(Shortform note: This section contains what Sharma calls the “Five Leaps.'' Although the Leaps themselves make up a small portion of the book, they form the foundation of Sharma’s concept of everyday heroism, and the rest of the book expands on those five core ideas. That’s why we’ve devoted much of this guide to these five principles. We’ve also rearranged these principles to put finding your purpose first—without knowing your purpose, the rest of this work might feel unfulfilling and unnecessary.)

Principle 1: Focus on the Tasks That Matter

Stop just keeping yourself busy, and start doing meaningful, purposeful work.

Sharma notes that often, we equate “having a busy life” with “being productive.” However, if your time is packed with busywork and distractions, rather than work that advances you toward your meaningful goals, then you’re not truly being productive. Further, you’re not living up to your heroic potential. To become an everyday hero, you must replace mindless distractions and less-impactful tasks with purposeful and rewarding work.

For instance, imagine you currently spend an hour each workday in meetings that don’t really require your attendance and an hour each evening scrolling social media. To use that time more wisely and heroically, you might spend it developing your professional skills, creating art that holds significant meaning for you, or doing volunteer work for a cause you believe in. You might also spend time helping others—we’ll discuss the importance of this in detail later.

What If You Can’t Eliminate Less Impactful Tasks?

It may not be possible to eliminate all less-impactful tasks from your schedule and replace them with work that feels more meaningful and purposeful. For instance, in the workplace, you may have no choice but to complete tasks that don’t feel that meaningful to you—if your boss mandates that they’re part of your job, you have to do them (or risk censure).

In this case, you might tell yourself that, while you can’t eliminate all meaningless work from your schedule, you can make a conscious effort to dedicate as much time as possible to things that feel purposeful. Focus on eliminating the less-impactful activities that are in your control—for example, your social media usage.

Principle 2: Build Self-Confidence

Stop saying “I can’t,” and start saying “I can.”

Sharma means this literally. The words you say affect your mindset, so every time you say “I can’t,” you’re weakening yourself, and every time you say “I can,” you’re empowering yourself.

(Shortform note: It’s not just the words you say that can impact your mindset. According to some psychologists, the words you hear can affect you too—and in turn, impact your performance at work and in social situations. For example, a study from 2020 showed that student athletes were happier and played better in games where they were cheered on by a teacher, compared to games where they got no verbal encouragement. However, the opposite is also true: Hurtful words, such as bullying and insults, can lower your confidence and hinder your effectiveness at work.)

To boost your confidence and get in the habit of using empowering words, Sharma suggests that you start each day with a simple mantra (a word or short phrase that focuses your thoughts). For example, before you get out of bed in the morning, you might say, “Today I will be kind, enthusiastic, and productive.”

You can also use words to guide your mind away from negative thoughts. For instance, if you notice self-defeating or belittling thoughts creeping in, say something like, “Let’s not think about that,” or, “That’s not who I am.”

Using Mantras for Mental Empowerment

Sharma implies that saying an empowering phrase just once will focus your thoughts and boost your confidence, but a mantra is typically something you repeat over and over while meditating. A session of mantra-based meditation (MBM) could last anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour.

Some research supports Sharma’s claim that mantras can help you feel empowered and shut out negative thoughts. For instance, mantra-based meditation (MBM) can lead to significant improvements in your mental health, reduce stress and anxiety, and help relieve symptoms of depression.

Principle 3: Take Responsibility

Stop making excuses, and start taking responsibility.

Sharma says that your power comes from taking responsibility for everything in your life—that it’s up to you, and nobody else, to create the life you want. Blaming other people or circumstances for your problems might soothe your ego, but it will also trap you in a mindset of helplessness: You’ll convince yourself that you’re powerless and there’s no point in trying to improve your situation.

For example, an aspiring author sometimes needs to submit a manuscript to dozens of different publishers before one of them accepts it; even then, the author might have to do numerous revisions before it’s ready for publication. An author who takes responsibility for her own outcomes will do that and whatever else is necessary to get the book published. On the other hand, an aspiring author who doesn’t take responsibility might soothe her ego by blaming a rejection or set of extensive revisions on the publisher, the industry, or anything else that makes it someone else’s problem. She might decide that she simply can’t succeed in these hostile conditions and give up on finding a publisher for her book.

Responsibility Isn’t Blame

There’s a common misconception that taking responsibility (or accountability) is akin to saying that your problems are your own fault. As a result, many people don’t want to take responsibility for their lives; it feels like admitting that they did something wrong.

However, self-help expert Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck) explains that there’s a crucial difference between accepting responsibility and accepting blame. Whatever problems you’re facing might not be your fault, but it’s still your responsibility to deal with them; you’re the only one who can fix your problems. For example, if you had a traumatic childhood, that’s in no way your fault—but you’re still the one who has to heal from that trauma and learn how to live a happy, fulfilling life.

Manson’s tip for taking accountability is to recognize that you’re always making choices, no matter what situation you’re in. Even when you feel completely powerless—say, if you’re stuck in a hospital or in prison—you’re still in control of your actions and your attitude, and by recognizing that, you’re accepting responsibility to deal with your situation. You can still consider why you’re in that situation, think about how it could help you, and decide to make the best of it. If you do the opposite and spend your time there sulking or robotically going along with what people tell you to do, that’s also a choice you’re making—and you’re not accepting responsibility to improve your situation.

Principle 4: Be Resilient

Stop getting discouraged, and start getting motivated.

Sharma says that an everyday hero finds inspiration in hardship and failure; every setback is a chance to learn and a reason to improve. For example, if you were passed over for a promotion at work, that’s an opportunity to ask your boss how you can become a better employee—and to transform your disappointment into motivation to work harder.

Further, stop brooding about events that left you feeling bitter or regretful. If there’s a lesson to learn from those events, learn it, then let the memories go. Reflect on your joys and triumphs—remember the great things you’ve already done, so you’ll know that you can overcome your current struggles.

(Shortform note: In this section, Sharma recommends letting go of hurtful memories by meditating on your successes. Practicing gratitude meditation specifically is a great way to remind yourself of the great things you’ve accomplished and come to terms with difficult or upsetting events. A key part of gratitude meditation is to practice feeling grateful for the things in your life that seem negative, such as losing a job, in addition to your joys and triumphs. Through gratitude meditation, you’ll often find that those seemingly-bad experiences were crucial in helping you learn valuable lessons or build mental and emotional resilience, thereby making you better able to handle future challenges.)

How to Move Past Failure and Disappointment

The difference between someone who learns from failure and someone who unhelpfully broods on it is often ego—an overblown sense of one’s own importance or abilities. As Ryan Holiday explains in Ego Is the Enemy, an egotistical person will often refuse to learn from failure because they take it personally—they view failure and disappointment as direct personal attacks and therefore become defensive instead of responding rationally.

For instance, if you fail a test, your ego might drive you to blame your teachers, the exam proctors, or the test itself, meaning that you’ll see no reason to address your own shortcomings. However, if you’re able to set aside your ego, you can then recognize where your own skills and knowledge fell short and work on fixing those shortcomings so that you’ll pass the next test.

Principle 5: Live Selflessly

Don’t just do great things; do great things for others.

Sharma says an everyday hero understands that helping others is the best way to enrich your own life and find true happiness, satisfaction, and pride in who you are. Therefore, make helping others your greatest passion—in other words, use your heroic abilities to benefit others, not just yourself.

This final principle goes directly against the common belief that there’s not “enough” for everyone: enough money, enough resources, enough respect, and so on. People who hold this belief try to take whatever they can, at everyone else’s expense, because they’re afraid of not having enough resources for themselves.

This selfishness is an ancient and deeply-rooted survival instinct, but it’s one that you can overcome through compassion and rational thinking. Sharma urges you to recognize that the world today is very different from how it was for our ancestors; today, there is enough for everyone to survive and be happy.

(Shortform note: Sharma is saying that humans have evolved to be selfish because our ancestors had to be selfish in order to survive. However, some people disagree with this perspective. For instance, Richard Dawkins explains in The Selfish Gene that animals (including humans) engage in both selfish and selfless behaviors to maximize their odds of survival. In other words, we’re not genetically programmed for pure selfishness; in fact, living in tribes where people could take care of each other was crucial to early humans’ survival. Furthermore, recent research suggests that there’s no reason for people to selfishly fight over resources—one study says that the Earth can support three times the current population if we use its resources wisely.)

Help Yourself by Working Hard for Others

Philosophers from many different schools of thought believe that making the world a better place isn’t just a moral duty, but also the best way to live a satisfying life. In other words, even from a selfish perspective, working hard and doing your best for others is worth the effort; by helping other people, you’ll also make yourself happy. In The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Sharma himself offers one possible explanation for why that is: You’re part of the world, not just an isolated individual living in it. Therefore, by improving the world around you, you’re also improving yourself and your circumstances.

Further, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations—one of the definitive texts on Stoicism—says that working for the common good is the only way to live a happy and fulfilling life. Aurelius’s reasoning is that to feel fulfilled, you must have a consistent goal (what Sharma would call your purpose) and spend your life working toward that goal. However, people are naturally inconsistent; your personal desires and goals will change frequently. Therefore, any fulfilling goal must be selfless rather than oriented around your ever-changing personal preferences.

Want to learn the rest of The Everyday Hero Manifesto in 21 minutes?

Unlock the full book summary of The Everyday Hero Manifesto by signing up for Shortform.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being 100% comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you don't spend your time wondering what the author's point is.
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.

Here's a preview of the rest of Shortform's The Everyday Hero Manifesto PDF summary:

What Our Readers Say

This is the best summary of The Everyday Hero Manifesto I've ever read. I learned all the main points in just 20 minutes.

Learn more about our summaries →

Why are Shortform Summaries the Best?

We're the most efficient way to learn the most useful ideas from a book.

Cuts Out the Fluff

Ever feel a book rambles on, giving anecdotes that aren't useful? Often get frustrated by an author who doesn't get to the point?

We cut out the fluff, keeping only the most useful examples and ideas. We also re-organize books for clarity, putting the most important principles first, so you can learn faster.

Always Comprehensive

Other summaries give you just a highlight of some of the ideas in a book. We find these too vague to be satisfying.

At Shortform, we want to cover every point worth knowing in the book. Learn nuances, key examples, and critical details on how to apply the ideas.

3 Different Levels of Detail

You want different levels of detail at different times. That's why every book is summarized in three lengths:

1) Paragraph to get the gist
2) 1-page summary, to get the main takeaways
3) Full comprehensive summary and analysis, containing every useful point and example