You Are Awesome by Neil Pasricha
Read my review of You Are Awesome by Neil Pasricha

“Resilience is a skill we now have in very short supply. Not many of us have been through famines or wars or, let’s be honest, any form of true scarcity. We have it all! And the side effect is that we no longer have the tools to handle failure or even perceived failure. These days when we fall, we just lie on the sidewalk crying. We are turning into an army of porcelain dolls.”

“Real growth, real evolution, doesn’t come about through destruction. It comes from taking what came before and integrating it into a greater whole.”

“Here’s the line missing from commencement speeches: ‘Do you love it so much that you can take the pain and punishment too?’ That line isn’t mentioned in commencement speeches, and it’s just as important.”

“When we look at our flops, we’re really giving ourselves credit for all the learning and stamina and resilience baked into those moments when we made ourselves a little stronger.”

“As our world gets busier and our phones get beepier, the scarcest resource of all is quickly becoming attention.”

“We need to find space. Space where we can escape. Space where we can process. Space where we can reflect. Space where we can get off the deck, climb up to the captain’s chair, and make sure our ship is really going the right way.”

“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 adds a ‘To be continued…'”

“We take tiny strings of trouble and extrapolate them into huge problems with our entire identities always on the line.”

“So often we’re attaching stories to facts…and we don’t even know it. Be vigilant. Search for absolute truth. Husk away all those mental attachments causing unnecessary suffering. Keep peeling and peeling and peeling until you find the solid and objective core, and then use that core to tell yourself a different story.”

“We need to stop looking at successful people as if we’re looking at products of success…the failures and the losses are part of the process for anyone who is willing to try. All successful people swim in ponds of failure. They swallow and choke on failure. They’re covered in gobs of failure. They have sticky failure in their hair and under their fingernails.”

“Being ambitious means, you have artistic vision. It means you can imagine what the end product should look like even if you don’t know how to make it…yet…When ambitions exceed abilities, it’s a clear sign you’re on the right path.”