This is a subscriber-only article.

Save 20% on Entrepreneur+ during our Spring Growth Flash Sale

Use code SPRING20 at checkout.

Subscribe Now

Already have an account?

Sign in
Entrepreneur Plus - Short White
For Subscribers

Embrace Your Setbacks -- and Use Them to Your Advantage We're either the sum of our setbacks or the sum of our triumphs. Choose the latter.

By Jason Feifer

This story appears in the January 2018 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Nigel Parry

As we enter into a new year, I've thought a lot about something a woman asked me at the end of 2017. I was a guest on the Never Settle Show, a live-streaming talk show, and she sat in the front row of the audience and stood up to speak. She's experienced a lot of setbacks, she said. A lot of obstacles. Her life often feels stagnant. How, she wondered, can she move forward?

Related: 3 Tips to Transform Setbacks Into Success

And I told her this: Nobody sees your past except you.