Review of How To Be Successful
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Choong See Yoong
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- Latest Review: How To Be Successful by M. Curtis McCoy
Review of How To Be Successful
[Following is a volunteer review of "How To Be Successful" by M. Curtis McCoy.]
In 2015, M. Curtis McCoy started a blog named 'Success, Motivation, Inspiration' to share his ideas on success and entrepreneurship. The blog helped him to achieve two things. First, it enabled him to come into contact with and learn with other like-minded people that included aspiring entrepreneurs or those who were already successes in their own right. Second, as the blog gained in popularity and people started reaching out to him for guidance on how to succeed, the idea for a book germinated, resulting in How To Be Successful: Think Like A Leader.
In the book, there are chapters in which McCoy shares his own life lessons about succeeding. There are also chapters which consist of interviews with individuals on their perspectives, struggles and journeys towards success. These interviews are presented in the form of interview transcripts in which the interviewees answer a list of questions using their own words thus giving the reader an insight into their personalities besides their lives’ lessons.
Among the book’s many strengths are that the lessons are easy to understand, unlike certain tomes where you have to plough through whole chapters before you can arrive at any idea on how to achieve success. The book inspires partly due to the many heartfelt anecdotes that the writer draws from his own struggles in life. For example, to emphasize the principle of 'don’t let hardships or setbacks determine what you can accomplish', he relates how brain cancer and other health issues did not set him back on his ambition to be a successful entrepreneur. What makes his story truly inspiring is that he tells it in a matter-of-fact and unpretentious manner.
It is easy to get absorbed into the book because many of the things written have an immediacy for the reader. For example, when reading the chapter on delayed gratification, I was struck with the ugly reminder to not give in to immediate gratification! Happily though, the book offers some interesting and doable ideas on how to practice delayed gratification.
The interviews are another one of the book’s strengths. Most of the people featured in the interviews may be deemed ordinary people like us, one of them being the writer’s own mother. In reading her interview, we learn that she is no ordinary mother, for she was the pillar that stood by her son during his health struggles and is also the Chief Managing Officer of his company and therefore a success in her own right. The interview transcripts make for interesting reading because each and every one of these people have different styles and ways of putting their stories and wisdom across. I like one particular interviewee’s words on perseverance, which are to “push at it one second a time until you build enough tenacity to push to a minute...then 5 minutes...then 10 minutes...until it becomes a lifetime.”
If there is any weakness to be found about this book, I would like to put it forward as a suggestion - to put a face to each interviewee in the form of photographs in future editions of the book. Since the interviews play an important role in the book, knowing how these people look like will add an extra dimension to the quality of reading the book.
I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars for all the strengths mentioned above and because I enjoyed reading it. Besides, it has been meticulously edited. I did not detect any errors.
I will recommend How To Be Successful: Think Like A Leader to just about anyone who is looking for an interesting and easy-to-read book on success, motivation and inspiration. I will especially recommend it to my college-going son because he needs to be reminded that the key to success is hard work, hard work, and more hard work. This is something that the book keeps reminding us in one way or another throughout its pages besides other important components for success. I hope that once he picks up the book, he will not want to put it down until the final page.
******
How To Be Successful
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
In 2015, M. Curtis McCoy started a blog named 'Success, Motivation, Inspiration' to share his ideas on success and entrepreneurship. The blog helped him to achieve two things. First, it enabled him to come into contact with and learn with other like-minded people that included aspiring entrepreneurs or those who were already successes in their own right. Second, as the blog gained in popularity and people started reaching out to him for guidance on how to succeed, the idea for a book germinated, resulting in How To Be Successful: Think Like A Leader.
In the book, there are chapters in which McCoy shares his own life lessons about succeeding. There are also chapters which consist of interviews with individuals on their perspectives, struggles and journeys towards success. These interviews are presented in the form of interview transcripts in which the interviewees answer a list of questions using their own words thus giving the reader an insight into their personalities besides their lives’ lessons.
Among the book’s many strengths are that the lessons are easy to understand, unlike certain tomes where you have to plough through whole chapters before you can arrive at any idea on how to achieve success. The book inspires partly due to the many heartfelt anecdotes that the writer draws from his own struggles in life. For example, to emphasize the principle of 'don’t let hardships or setbacks determine what you can accomplish', he relates how brain cancer and other health issues did not set him back on his ambition to be a successful entrepreneur. What makes his story truly inspiring is that he tells it in a matter-of-fact and unpretentious manner.
It is easy to get absorbed into the book because many of the things written have an immediacy for the reader. For example, when reading the chapter on delayed gratification, I was struck with the ugly reminder to not give in to immediate gratification! Happily though, the book offers some interesting and doable ideas on how to practice delayed gratification.
The interviews are another one of the book’s strengths. Most of the people featured in the interviews may be deemed ordinary people like us, one of them being the writer’s own mother. In reading her interview, we learn that she is no ordinary mother, for she was the pillar that stood by her son during his health struggles and is also the Chief Managing Officer of his company and therefore a success in her own right. The interview transcripts make for interesting reading because each and every one of these people have different styles and ways of putting their stories and wisdom across. I like one particular interviewee’s words on perseverance, which are to “push at it one second a time until you build enough tenacity to push to a minute...then 5 minutes...then 10 minutes...until it becomes a lifetime.”
If there is any weakness to be found about this book, I would like to put it forward as a suggestion - to put a face to each interviewee in the form of photographs in future editions of the book. Since the interviews play an important role in the book, knowing how these people look like will add an extra dimension to the quality of reading the book.
I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars for all the strengths mentioned above and because I enjoyed reading it. Besides, it has been meticulously edited. I did not detect any errors.
I will recommend How To Be Successful: Think Like A Leader to just about anyone who is looking for an interesting and easy-to-read book on success, motivation and inspiration. I will especially recommend it to my college-going son because he needs to be reminded that the key to success is hard work, hard work, and more hard work. This is something that the book keeps reminding us in one way or another throughout its pages besides other important components for success. I hope that once he picks up the book, he will not want to put it down until the final page.
******
How To Be Successful
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: How To Be Successful by M. Curtis McCoy
