You Are Awesome: Find Your Confidence and Dare to be Brilliant at (Almost) Anything

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This is another positive book with messages of gratitude and moving forward despite challenges. The author uses his own personal examples of failures (opportunities for learning) and his own struggles (quitting a job after being part of a performance improvement plan) yet he was resilient and kept going leading to his acceptance to Harvard and his wildly successful blog which led to a number of books. But I cannot stress this enough: this book was so helpful to me, and I feel fortunate that it came into my life just when I needed it most. Equal parts reassuring and productive, You Are Awesome allows us to be forgiving and patient toward ourselves while also giving us the tools we need to build self-confidence and finally take that leap toward positive change in our lives. And when all seems lost, always finding a way to add a dot-dot-dot.

You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with F…

Resilence is a skill and often the people that are most resilient aren’t ones that have had the easiest path in life but are the ones that use those bumps in the road to learn and grow. Positively doesn’t mean you don’t have struggles, it means using perspective to take what you can from them and continue on. After a speech I gave recently a breathless fifty-something ran up to me and asked a question that represented what I’m getting asked everywhere:I grew up with The Book of Awesome and The Book of (Even More) Awesome, so finding and reading You Are Awesome was like meeting a childhood friend who had also grown up and was here to share their life experiences and knowledge. Kind of like watching a movie and having the sequel come out ten years later, the characters aging with you and being relevant to your life experiences. Do you have thin skin like the rest of us? The tool you need is resilience. Let this deeply researched book be your step-by-step guide.” For most of us famine, plague, economic depression, and other life-threatening catastrophes are the stuff of history books. When we gain the courage to add a “yet” to statements about ourselves, we leave our options open. Adding the word “yet” is empowering. It wedges a little question mark into the negative certainty we hold on to so fiercely in our minds. It lets us hold both ideas. The idea that we can’t. And! The idea that we can. Everyone can relate to failure but how we react to it can change our paths entirely and keep us moving forward. Every” misstep” is a chance to assess, learn and then move up and onward. I love the balance of personal stories, accessible writing, and strategies that are approachable for everyone.

You Are Awesome - The Institute for Global Happiness You Are Awesome - The Institute for Global Happiness

Whenever I read the fable of the farmer with one horse I sort of picture one of those inflatable clown punching bags that stands in the corner at a five-year-old’s birthday party. The book uses Matthew Syed's journey from an average child to world class table tennis player and relates this to how anyone can become awesome at anything. The emphasis is that no one is born great at anything and that practice, hard work and perseverance is the key to becoming good at something. Syed talks about how hopeless he was at table tennis when his parents first bought him a table and that persistence, not natural talent led to his success. He talks about having a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset and how this is the key to success. Much is made of the importance of being unafraid to fail and breaking down large challenges into smaller parts and seeking marginal gains from all of them. The theme of the book can be summed up by the final few words: take a risk, dare to fail and give it your all. Today we need to learn the skills the farmer had in spades. And we need to learn them fast. Volatility, uncertainty, and complexity is accelerating. Change? Constant. Latest disruption? Getting disrupted. Meanwhile relationships will always spin and swerve … and life always, always, always has other plans. The country went to war, and every able-bodied young man was drafted to fight. The war was terrible and killed every young man, but the farmer’s son was spared since his broken legs prevented him from being drafted.I loves Pasricha’s thoughts on resilience and I couldn’t settle on who this book was best for, my son, my husband or my mother! Neil hits the nail on the head when it comes to adjusting your outlook on your own life and on people and the world around you. He puts a positive spin on what we might typically see as failure, bad news, short end of the straw. Opportunity awaits us around every corner and behind every door. It is just a matter of being able to see the good, be resilient, keep on going, and put yourself in the best situations to encourage success.