What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 - 书评

Essall

　　Tina Seelig is the kind of people you love to hear story from. With the gumption of following her passion and confounding other's expectation, she graduated with of a PhD of neuroscience but opted for a management career path and successfully became a "fabulous" entrepreneur. As she mentioned in this book, she always encourages her students to "never miss a chance to be fabulous". In this book "What I wish I knew when I was twenty" she told stories of how she and amazing people she met becoming fabulous.
　　
　　Half way through the book, I've found the content of the book is slightly less captivating than its title. Some of the advises in the book I’ve already heard from elsewhere, such as " to find a role in the world that doesn't feel like work"; "the harder you work, the luckier you get";"you can make your own destiny by focusing on your goals and working incredible hard" have been repeated so many times I almost found them of being a little bit cliche. Although not being original enough, the book certainly made me have a tighter grip on these mantras of advices, because Seelig always introduces them by relating anecdote or memorable jokes which are are equal inspirational and insightful as those mantra, if not more.
　　
　　Most of the motivation books or blogs love to enshrine deeds of hard work and perseverance, not that they are not important, but we have to admit that we've certainly seen failure befall people who were hard working and persevering. Writing this book for her son, Seelig clearly didn't want his son devoid the sense of reality. She devoted some of her ink on subjects like how personal success usually having to depend on market, how to prepare for failure, and how to decide when to quit. This is my favor part of the book, it reminds me something I read from another book saying people should write fewer books on why they succeed, but write more on why they fail; because people have to realize that their success always have to do with luck and timing which readers couldn't copy, but readers could learn how not to repeat their mistakes.
　　
　　Rest assured it is not one of those books about how to be rich or successful, but rather about finding your true calling and prioritizing your life to live the fullest, which theme, I have to say, is much more beneficial and admirable than the former one.