Book: How to Be a Bawse by Lilly Singh

I'm way behind. Bawse came out last year, and I just finished it yesterday. Though truthfully, I've been reading it about a chapter or two at a time since I got it on release day.

This book is beautiful: thick demi-gloss pages, giant high quality pictures of Lilly at the start of every chapter, and bright, colorful graphics for pull quotes and end of chapter checklists. It's not exactly what I expected, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You know, by the look and feel of this book, it seems very much like it wants to be a coffee table book. It does make an impact.

Through fifty chapters, Lilly outlines her values and ideas on achieving success in very clear, simple language. Given her YouTube audience, I'm not really in her demographic... but I am a regular viewer of her content because I find her brand of positive and confident hustle inspiring. Which it's meant to be but not just for her audience but also for herself. And I'd be willing to be that's exactly what her actual demographic finds so attractive as well.

Her ideas aren't new, not groundbreaking, but they are presented in a way that makes them easily digestible for her audience. And at the end of each chapter she provides a little space to write your own checklist of people, things, places that will help you achieve whatever idea she's just presented.

I've read a few self-help kind of books in my time and this one definitely breaks out from the norm. Mostly due to the way each chapter is presented. But also, Lilly's brand of positive reinforcement and her very easily accessible brand of humor makes it feel like a conversation. I'll also say that I think the fact that if you do watch her videos or her vlog, you can see that these aren't just words she's written down. This book doesn't break from the person she shows so openly in her vlogs. You can see that this kind of positive hustle is the same thing she applies to her own success, daily.

I say that, and I think that two decades ago, this book might've really changed my mind. However I think that at my current age, having struggled to get to where I am in my own life, a lot of her values are things I've already learned or applied. They're concepts that you learn with experience. If you take them to heart early in life though, maybe you'll be a step up from the rest. Will you have 13 million YouTube followers? Probably not. But, maybe you could have a good start on where you want to be someday.


 

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