My first reaction to the book How To Be A Bawse written by Lilly Singh was ‘oh it’s heavy and big’. After flipping through the book my reaction was ‘is it a fashion magazine whose central theme is Lilly Singh’. I think this will be the reaction of most of the readers who don’t know about superwomen Lilly Singh. Welcome to the world of superwoman aka Lilly Singh.

Lilly Singh is the content creator for You Tube and she has more than 11 millions subscribers for her channel. Like her videos, her book How To Be A Bawse is colorful, vibrant and full of life. Her rainbow book, really, oozes positive energy that reader is bound to be affected by it. I personally always felt happy just by looking at the book and flipping its pages. 

Now the big question who is Bawse. A Bawse is someone who is awesome, not only live life to survive but conquers life with full confidence, hard work, values and live to its fullest. According to Lilly Singh there is a Bawse in everyone one just need to unleash it. She has shared 50 mantras in the book to become a Bawse. Many of these lessons are those which life has taught her, some gained through experience and many more which she learned by observing others. 

While reading the book I was feeling thoroughly energised and inspired to do something in life, to become a Bawse. Such is the forceful impact of the writing of Lilly Singh’s life lesson. Some of them really touched the right cords of my heart like the chapter which talked about keeping emotions aside when work needs to be done, to pause once in a while to live in the moment, fear of missing out, aim high, create a visionary board, be active, understanding priorities of your loved one, be the dumbest, be secretive, get out of your comfort zone, say things which you mean it, organize your life to increase productivity, mold your failures into success, invest in yourself, be in sync. Oh it seems quite many chapters inspired me.

There are two words in the books which I must say are permanently etched in my memory. The words are hurt efficiently and hurt inefficiently. When we are hurt, instead of getting overwhelmed by emotions and painful moments. Use that pain to gain insights and become resilient. In that way we are using painful experience efficiently to grow more stronger hence hurt efficiently.

The best thing about this self help book is that it is not written in the standardised way the self help books are written. The book has no build-ups or fluffy writings. She wrote all the life lessons in the compact style, concise and to the point. There are lot of colors in the book and of course pictures of Lilly Singh in various get ups throughout the book. It was a complete delight to read a self help book in such an avatar.

Gone are those days when self help books were written in the most boring way. With no pictures and loads and loads of unnecessary build up that by the time when writer comes to give a life lesson or important point or advice, the reader just close the book and flip it aside. I think this is the reason why book summary sites are so much in demand as they curtail everything unnecessary and voila 200 page book is summarised  in just two pages.

I seriously believe How To Be A Bawse has the potential to revolutionise  the way in which self help books are written. The first change was brought by Robin Sharma by introducing a fictional story in his self help book The Monk series. Lilly Singh has taken it many steps further by writing a self help book in a hip hop funky and ultra uber cool style. Seriously, she has used analogies, references with which Gen-Next can easily connect. Like for instance Harry Potter, JK Rowling, Games of Throne, Nintendo, iPhone and many other similar. So there is an instant connection with the book. Plus she wrote the book in similar style she creates the video. So reading book was like talking to her.

The Verdict:

Lilly Singh’s unique style of conveying the life lessons does not sound preachy nor it sounds non-doable nor it goes over the board. It is the book young generation will relate to and would be inspired enough to imbibe some of the qualities of Bawse in their own life.

My father-in-law read such higher level spiritual, self help and similar books that connecting with the teaching is far away thing, understanding the real essence behind the writing is also difficult. I found that How To Be A Bawse is much simpler version of the same complicated teachings.     

By the way this is the first self help book which I have read cover to cover, word to word. It is a must read and I personally recommended to buy a hardcover book as the picture and page quality is awesome.