How to be a BAWSE
How to be a bawse: the guide to conquering life is written by Lilly Singh, one of my favorite YouTubers. Lilly is a talented content creator who started off making relatable funny videos gaining more than 11 million followers on Youtube. Over the years, her hard work and creativity has propelled her career and inspired many. She completed a world tour called A trip to Unicron Island where she performed live in 26 cities around the world, showing people that happiness is worth fighting for. Lilly was named one of Forbes 2016 30 under 30. She has made television appearances on The Tonight Show Staring Jimmy Fallon and was featured in Entertainment Weekly, Elle Canada, Vogue India, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She also founded an initiative called #GirlLove to promote gender positivity.
“No one thing should make or break you ”
I really enjoyed reading this book because Lilly's writing reflects her personality. She drops so many gems and gives practical, realistic and relatable advice on how to pursue your dreams successfully. In the book, she shares her struggle with depression and how that experience motivated her to create funny videos to make other people happy. She is a psychology major, who lived at home with her Indian parents in Canada. I feel her struggle cause I'm in the same boat, but reading her success story inspires me to not give up on my dreams.
The book is broken up into 4 parts:
Part 1 - Master your mind
The beginning of the book focuses on reminding readers that life is like a game of Nintendo, because you go through levels, get thrown off by obstacles and face several enemies. Her advice is to conquer your thoughts, be secretive with your plans, control your emotions and call yourself out when you're wrong. She emphasizes the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone, taking ownership of your actions, and responsibility of your life. In this part of the book she also shares her struggle's with mental health and how important it is to love yourself first before expecting others to love you.
“The more details people know about you, the weaker you become””
Part 2 - Hustle harder
In this part of the book, she gives very specific advice on how to be successful. I love that she doesn't sugar code the importance of working hard. First, she says we need to let go of the fear of missing out (FOMO) if you want to be successful. Pursuing your dreams means sacrificing the time you would spend scrolling through twitter, attending parties and hanging out with your friends. She tells her readers to aim high when asking for deals, stop trying to be the best at everything, but surround yourself with a supportive team, and set deadlines for accomplishing tasks. I really enjoyed the "Climb another ladder" chapter because she mentioned how a bawse should master multiple skills. She admits that she is famous in certain crowds, but in other environments, she's a nobody and has to start at the bottom of the ladder. In these situations, she puts her pride aside and starts climbing another ladder, because her business is an empire, therefore, she cannot bank on one success alone.
“You’re building an empire, and you should know that empires are not built overnight and they do not fall easily. They withstand the test of time and are resilient when threatened. Empires are not built upon a single pillar and, similarly, your career should not be built on a single success.”
Part 3 - Make heads turn
This is the part of the book that reassures the reader that they are and their ideas are important. Lilly talks about the importance of protecting your vision because the industry is tough and people will discourage you or try to pull a fast one on you. You also have to let go of the past, eff the protocols and invest in yourself if you want to be a viable investment for others.
“Millennials, in particular, have been raised in an environment that validates them left and right and makes them feel entitled to success and great things. Instead of working hard to achieve success, some of them have grown up under the illusion that success should automatically be granted to them.”
Part 4 - Be a unicorn
This part of the book is a shameless promotion of a few of her accomplishments. She encourages her reader to be unapologetically yourself, not just the filtered, cute social media version of being yourself. She opens up about a past relationship with her ex which she had to walk away from. She also talks about not talking crap and staying positive, being nice to people and not piggy-backing off of other people's success. This part is a nice conclusion to the book because she ends in a positive note and encourages her fans to be grateful for what and be in sync with your mind.
“To be a bawse you must constantly remind yourself of all that you have to be grateful for and learn to truly appreciate those things. ”
