You are Awesome, by Neil Pasricha 

publisher: Simon & Schuster 

Do you want to learn 9 secrets of resilience?

You are Awesome, by Neil Pasricha is easy to read, sprinkled with personal anecdotes and relatable stories. He is master of a casual and friendly tone.

A quick book that offers fair insight to how we make ourselves miserable. He unpacks why we struggle and offers reasonable strategies to circumvent most of our self-inflicted suffering.

How are we in our own way? We give up before we start. We have forgotten how to try. Pasricha prescribes, resilience. We are over-extended in attempts to be hyper-productive. Our best efforts leave us deeply disconnected and inefficient. He has a secret for that.

Humans naturally have total future-blindness, the inability to conceive of changes and shifts in the future (despite the fact that we can all reflect and recognize how far we have come and how much we have grown in the past). This future-blindness sets us up for all sorts of false expectations and the corresponding disappointments and shock. He has a secret for that.

Paralyzed by the fear of failure or anything close to disapproval of others most of us are unwilling to risk and therefore incapable of growth or innovation. Bummer. But, Pasricha has a secret for that.

Tragedy? Lost a job, survived a divorce, suffered a setback? Who hasn’t stumbled on one or a dozen of these? More often than not, given enough time people report those very same setbacks were “the best thing that ever happened to me.” I call this a breakdown-through (link), one of my favorite phases of life and creativity. We think when things get hard, “oh no! My life is over. Thus “break-down” but it is in this incubation phase when sh*t hits the fan opportunity is ripe for the impending Breakthrough. Watch a brief explanation of the concept presented at #herstory in Las Vegas July 2019.

Read my article about it. 

Pasricha’s You are Awesome, integrates the wisdom of well known thinkers such as Brené Brown Ph.D, researcher storyteller, professor, Ted Talk goddess and champion of vulnerability and Daniel Gilbert, Harvard professor and author of one of my first favorite books about how our minds work, Stumbling on Happiness. The root of all Pasricha’s 9 secrets evolved from the powerful work Growth Mindset from Carol Dweck Ph.D referenced in the early chapters. As all authors and thinkers rely on the work of those who preceded us, Pasricha quotes many brilliant minds including Carl Jung, you’ve heard of him, right?

Some of the tools discussed are reframing, as he calls it “shifting the spotlight” and “telling yourself a different story.” There are chapters on each. Other secrets include “lose more to win more” which is painfully true.

 With these nine secrets, none of them “easy” he reminds us, we can build up skills, mental practices to transform the story we tell about who we are and the lives we are living. Easier to understand than to put into practice, but impressively valuable if you can begin to integrate even a fraction of what is offered here.

Near the end he got to the stuff close to my heart: gratitude practices that make us happier and healthier (yes, proven by science to be so!) and mindfulness practices which lower stress, improve wellbeing physical and emotional. So, overall a helpful little dip into making vital shifts to improve your life and live more intentionally with deep richness and resilience.

#mindfulness #gratitude #GrowthMindset  #bookreview #resilience