You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life (Book of Awesome Series, The)
You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life (Book of Awesome Series, The) book cover

You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life (Book of Awesome Series, The)

Hardcover – November 5, 2019

Price
$18.47
Format
Hardcover
Pages
288
Publisher
Gallery Books
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1982135881
Dimensions
5.5 x 0.9 x 8.38 inches
Weight
12 ounces

Description

“With all the world throws at us, resilience is now a precious commodity, and it’s the underpinning of this terrifically helpful book by Neil Pasricha. You Are Awesome is more than a boost for your self-esteem, it’s a perspective-setter for failure and success, and an homage to the amazing reserves of the human soul.” —Mitch Albom, author of Finding Chika and The Five People You Meet In Heaven “No one knows 'awesome' like Neil Pasricha, and here he explores how we can make our very lives more awesome. With real-life stories and a conversational style, he shows how we can move forward in the face of challenge to make our days more intentional and joyful.” —Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and Outer Order, Inner Calm "Neil was an incredibly quiet, shy, and curious student in my classroom over thirty years ago. I have long retired from teaching and am now watching as he becomes the teacher for me and many others. This is a guidebook for those establishing careers and raising families. But it's also for those of us in later years facing a whole new set of challenges. As always, Neil's glass is half full and his enthusiasm for living is truly infectious." —Mrs. Stella Dorsman,xa0Neil's third-grade teacher “There are few things more certain in all aspects of life than set backs ! Finding the resilience to, not just cope, but take these in your stride and ultimately learn from them is a critical skill in today’s unpredictable world. Neil’s book provides an invaluable framework and toolkit. Full of practical ideas and suggestions, supported by personal anecdotes and stories that bring them to life. Neil has done it again, produced a personal, practical and universal guide to life” — David Cheesewright,xa0Former President and CEO, Walmart International “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.” —Susan Cain,xa0author of Quiet “[Pasricha's] tone is light, but his message is thought-provoking and inspiring ... Under Pasricha’s guidance, readers learn how to reframe their stories and put life in perspective, making the road to awesome not only possible but enjoyable. ” — Candace Smith, Booklist “A brilliant book, generous, heartfelt and true. Neil is going to help you change your life.” —Seth Godin, author of Linchpin “Pick up this book for its gloriously self-affirming title—after all, you are awesome!—and stay for its wise and transformative advice. Writing in his usual engaging style, Pasricha will challenge you to build resilience, get out of your own way, and pursue a life of accomplishment and meaning.” —xa0Daniel H. Pink, author of When , Drive , and To Sell Is Human “I have been through struggle. I have been through loss. And I have had to get stronger. Resilience is a muscle that hurts to build. What would have made it easier? Neil’s words. This book. A recipe for thickening our skin in thin-skinned times.” —James Frey,xa0author of Katerina “With Neil's signature style of humor, research, whimsy and insight, You Are Awesome touches a chord and shows us the power of combining optimism and resilience to create more meaning at work, school and home...” —Shawn Ac hor, author of Big Potential “With simple effortlessness, Neil renders complex ideas easily memorable and everyday practical.” — Col. Chris Hadfield,xa0former Commander of the International Space Station and author of An Astronaut's Guide To Life “A playful, yet powerful path from anxious to awesome. Pasrichaxa0blends science, story and a healthy dose of humor to deliver tools and strategies that cultivate resilience in a world that's never needed it more. Read You Are Awesome now!” —Jonathan Fields, Founder / Podcaster, The Good Life Project “Neil isxa0the happiness mixologist. He combines an insight for awesome, a dry sense of humor, hard-earned wisdom and just the right amount of science, shakes it all together vigorously, and then pours you a libation you can toast to life that's rich, resilient and deeply delicious.” —Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit “This utterly charming book will put a smile on your face and a skip in your step.” —Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take , Originals , and Option B , and host of the TED podcast WorkLife “ You Are Awesome is a breath of fresh air. It's about digging deep to discover the inner resilience we are all born with—and moving forward with purpose and positivity.” —Ken Blanchard, xa0coauthor of The New One Minute Manager and Refire! Don't Retire “A breath of fresh air. You Are Awesome is about digging deep to discover the inner resilience we are all born with and moving forward with purpose and positivity.” —Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One-Minute Manager Neil Pasricha thinks, writes, and speaks about intentional living. He is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation , which together have spent over 200 weeks on bestseller lists and have sold over a million copies. He hosts the award-winning podcast 3 Books ,xa0where he’s on a fifteen-year quest to uncover the 1000 most formative books in the world by interviewing people such as Malcolm Gladwell, Judy Blume, and the world’s top-ranked Uber driver. He gives more than fifty speeches a year, appearing for audiences at places such as Harvard, SXSW, and Shopify. He has degrees from Queen’s University and Harvard Business School, and lives in Toronto with his family. Connect with him on social mediaxa0@NeilPasrichaxa0or get his latest writing for free at Neil.blog/Newsletters.

Features & Highlights

  • #1 international bestseller
  • Publishers Weekly
  • bestseller
  • The Globe and Mail
  • (Toronto)
  • The Toronto Star
  • bestseller
  • The Vancouver Sun
  • bestseller
  • From Neil Pasricha—
  • New York Times
  • , million-copy bestselling author of
  • The Book of Awesome
  • series and
  • The Happiness Equation
  • , thought leader for the next generation, and one of the most popular TED speakers in the world—comes a revelatory and inspiring book that will change the way we view failure and help us build resilience.
  • We are lucky. For most of us, famine, plague, economic depression, and other life-threatening catastrophes are the stuff of history books. We’re living in an era with the highest-ever rates of longevity, education, and wealth. Cars drive us home as our phones entertain us before we arrive to food delivered to the front door. We have it all! But there’s just one side effect. We no longer have the tools to handle failure...or even perceived failure. When we fall, we lie on the sidewalk crying. When we spill, we splatter. When we crack, we shatter. We are turning into an army of porcelain dolls. A rude email from the boss means calling in sick. Only two likes on our post means we don’t have friends. Cell phones show us we’re never good enough. Yesterday’s butterflies are tomorrow’s panic attacks. Record numbers of students have clinical anxiety. And what about depression, loneliness, and suicide? All rising! What do we desperately need to learn? RESILIENCE. And we need to learn it fast. Read
  • You Are Awesome
  • to learn: • The single word that keeps your options open after failure • What every commencement speech gets wrong • 3 ways to dramatically accelerate your ability to learn and adapt • The 2-minute morning practice that helps eliminate worry • Why you need an Untouchable Day (and how to get one) • and much, much more... Because the truth is, you really are awesome.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(273)
★★★★
25%
(114)
★★★
15%
(68)
★★
7%
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Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

An entertaining and inspiring read to help you bounce back and keep growing

Resilience is a vital skill. It’s crucial to our health, happiness, and leadership. Resilience is a muscle that we can strengthen – ideally before we really need it. Positive psychology research and best practices show that we can build resilience strengths or habits for Post-Traumatic Growth.

Since I enjoyed and reviewed Neil’s previous book, The Happiness Equation, he sent me an advance copy of his new book, You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life (November publication).

You Are Awesome centers on nine key factors. He calls them “secrets,” but these approaches are well-known and researched. Here are a few key points that stood out for me:

- We tend to catastrophize the size of our problems and lose perspective on where they fit in our lives.
- We incorrectly think it’s all about me. Others aren’t shining a spotlight on everything we do. People focus on themselves, not us.
- We often see our future as a continuation of the way things are now. When times are tough, it’s very hard to see the steps that will take us to better times. When we look back, we can see how those tough times or failures took us to a better place. This helps build our resilience.
- Social and mainstream media companies use fear to get our attention by bombarding us with negative headlines (truly fake news). We need to be more intentional with our attention and buffer all that destructive static and deadly noise.
- The stories we’re telling ourselves to interpret our experiences often skew toward what’s wrong rather than what’s right with us and the world. We can rewrite our stories to keep reminding ourselves just how good we have it.
- Neil uses three questions to tell himself a different story:
1- Will this matter on my deathbed?
2- Can I do something about this?
3- Is this a story I’m telling myself?
- Our vision or ambition should exceed our current abilities. We should stretch our imagination to picture where we want to get better or what we want to change. We then fail our way to success by learning and growing to make it happen.
- Lose more to win more. We often don’t realize how many failures people have worked through to become successful. Moving through failure is the key to resilience and success.
- We need to counter multi-tasking with blocking out significant time to focus on single tasks that are most important to us.
- Restrict your choices, keep decisions simple, and don’t overthink or second guess yourself.

Neil blends an intimate personal and family biography, with research, practical how-to applications, breezy humor, and clever turns of phrase (“Resilience is being able to see that tiny little sliver of light between the door and the frame just after you hear the latch click”). What sets this book apart from over 10,000 books on resilience listed at Amazon is Neil’s highly engaging writing style.

An entertaining and inspiring read to help you bounce back and keep growing – especially during tough times. You Are Awesome brings alive the axiom that tough times don’t last, but tough people do.
4 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Well, worth your time!

Every once in a while, I read a book and am whisked away by how good it is. Normally, a fiction author can transport me to another world, another place. But Neil Pasricha's new book, You Are Awesome: How To Navigate Change, Wrestle With Failure, and Live An Intentional Life, rises above other self-care books most helpfully.

Pasricha sets up a pretty simple premise: He breaks the book into nine different "secrets" about positive actions (or ways of thinking) that you can incorporate into your everyday life that's manageable. That's no small feat.

But the two aspects of his book that I value the most are his heart-felt personal stories. He shares how he made mistakes, fell on hard times, and went through dark times only to come out stronger. We've all had times when life hits us hard. Seeing how Pasricha deals with challenges is extremely helpful. The second aspect that he incorporates into the book is a memory tool.

At the beginning of each new section of the book, he lists out all the secrets. Not only is seeing the list extremely helpful, but I learn better through repetition.

In the seventh section of the book, I found seeing all the previous secrets on the page in large type great mnemonic devices.

Often with other self-help books, I'll hold the philosophical concepts in my mind for a few days, but then I'll forget some of the specifics. Pasricha boils down the nine secrets into short phrases. Some I found more helpful than others, and none of the secrets are revolutionary. I don't say that to disparage Pasricha's book, but rather to compliment him on his ability to take nine ideas and package them together into a way to live one's life.

In today's high-paced world, there are a lot of quick schemes out there: Fad diets, get rich scams and shallow platitudes that don't help in the long run.

The secret that I've found in life is to change how we think and act. Pasricha focuses on that as being positive is key to his nine secrets.

All of us have an opportunity to make a choice. When we get hit hard by a rough time in life, we can either find a way to get through a difficult time or get stuck. Even when something small happens, such as spilling a glass of coffee onto a rug, we can get angry or say "pyt" like the Danish to and shake things off.

If you're looking for an easy read to help you with some of your day-to-day challenges, then I highly recommend Your Are Awesome. I finished reading the book coming to and from work over a week and a half. I've also found that I had some great conversations with my wife about the tenets in the book.

All in all, a great book with lots of heart and soul. The mix of the two with easy to implement ways of living your life makes for a solid foundation to help you grow and living more intentionally.

(I received an Advance Reader’s Edition of You Are Awesome from the publisher and I’m reviewing it honestly and voluntarily.)
3 people found this helpful
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You are Awesome IS Awesome

I learned valuable lessons and was highly entertained in the process. I can’t ask for more than that!

This book has excellent advice and, in some spots, even made me laugh. Neil tells great stories that aren’t just great stories – they also have a point. I appreciate how Neil weaves his own stories into the book and shares his own difficulties. I finished this book wanting to meet Neil (and his family) and with tools to use in my own life.

As an added bonus, it was a quick read, which is important to me.
✓ Verified Purchase

dot, dot, dot. Take a breath, then a step... the best next step.

Neil inspired my team years ago, as a speaker... telling his story. The authenticity of his message sank deep... and helped shift our culture to one of connectedness. And today, with YOU ARE AWESOME, he gives us perspective to see our challenges as they are... and ways to move forward. If you believe in better, and need someone to guide your way... it's Neil. Enjoy the read!
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Finished this book in Three Days. Can

Wow! That was a fast read. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Neil speak (twice!), listening to his podcast, 3 Books, and speaking to him in person where I received an advanced copy of You Are Awesome. Before reading this wonderful book, I recommend listening to a podcast episode or watching a YouTube video of him speak. Why? You’ll hear his voice and understand his earnest nature and while reading the book, his fantastic advice will resonate with you more deeply (and you'll hear his voice in your head. There is so much verbal gold in You Are Awesome that I can’t wait to put it all in practice. I will be more resilient in life because of the advice Neil gives in this book.
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Neil Pasricha does it again!

Neil Pasricha does it again! I've never seen someone so committed to spreading this much Awesome in the world. If you feel like you're ready for a change and deserve a more awesome and intentional life, you're going to love this book. #Believe
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The Right Book at the Right Time!

Every once in a while, a book comes out at exactly the right time, where the content of the book and the cultural moment are exactly in tune. You Are Awesome is such a timely and helpful book which addresses a developing crisis of personal insecurity, interpersonal relationship upheaval in the time of social media, and constant distractions and provides helpful and actionable advice in each chapter.

Long time fans of Neil Pasricha will know what they are getting into here, with Pasricha’s trademark wit, charm and easy flowing text. As always, this book is a joy to read - but that clear writing serves a practical purpose too - many of the book’s greatest pieces of advice are memorialized in little snippets to help you remember them during your daily life and put them into practice.

For those who are new to the author, they are in for a treat and after delving through this one, should check out other books in the Awesome series to help keep a smile on your face and a positive attitude.

Another great book from a favorite author!
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Worth the read.

There are LOTS of self-help books out and it's difficult to choose which one is most appropriate. What I like most about Neil's book is how practical it was - and, frankly, how simple. Living a simple, more fulfilled life leads to being and feeling awesome. While it's not rocket science, it's helpful to have someone articulate all of this in a meaningful, impactful way.
✓ Verified Purchase

Neil does it again! Another great read that will delight and inspire.

A very enjoyable book that will motivate and inspire you to live "an intentional life." Funny, edgy, and honest.
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This is AWESOME

BUY this book. Neil masterfully weaves beautiful storytelling with the empirical evidence to support the work. And then takes it a step further with practical application for (YOU) the reader. Don’t think twice, buy and read this book now.