Let’s face it. Achieving what we set out to do can be one of life’s greatest challenges. From botched New Year’s resolutions to dreams and aspirations that never came to be, setbacks are a common albeit discouraging or disheartening occurrence in our lives. However, as many often say, the road to success is paved with failures. With the right knowledge and some inspiration, anyone can turn things around and savour success in a quicker and easier manner.
You Don’t Suck explores the realities of what it takes to achieve one’s goals and lead a more purposeful life. It introduces readers to three general phases in their journey to success—setting up, sustaining, and reflecting—and guides them through:
- timeless truths
- unconventional perspectives
- well-known studies
- light-hearted and serious examples
- personal and second-hand anecdotes
- practical approaches and advice
- simple wisdom for thought
In doing so, the book motivates readers to relearn the As to Zs of life, thereby renewing their mindset, recognizing their strength, and realizing their power of choice so they can see their ambitions through in their personal and professional pursuits.
Quinabuangan and the glorious marching band.
Cembo, Makati and the burning Ship.
Baclaran, Manila at night, for the lost and homeless.
In these ten personal essays, a father confesses in gripping narratives his coming of age without a father, of working at an early age, of finding love in hopeless places, of losing a son to leukemia, and of accepting the language of pain. In Six Saturdays of Beyblade and Other Essays, bestselling author Ferdinand Pisigan Jarin brings us back to memories of being a tennis ball picker in a lavish country club, of achieving his dreams as the smallest member of a countryside marching band, and of drinking Michael Jordan and Olajuwon as breakfast juice inside a walk-in freezer with fellow service crew members. He also introduces us to his exes and lost first loves. He lends us a list of his fist fights, those he knocked down during drinking sessions or brawls, his antics in the field of love, and the truth behind escaping the convent. Sometimes he is a son, sometimes a father, and sometimes a friend who vividly shares without beating around the bush. Written with a cinematic eye, Jarin bares it all, fair and square, no more or less. Most of all, no entrance fee.
When you’re born into this world, you aren’t born knowing you are different, till someone points it out. And makes a bigger deal of it than he or she needs to.
Uma Rudd Chia was different for a few reasons. She had clinical ADHD which was only diagnosed when she was sixteen, because of a tragedy-but even when she found out, she desperately tried to keep it a secret because there was no worse crime than being different.
The reality is we are all different. But we live in a society and go through an education system that defines what normal looks like. This may prepare you to be an obedient member of society-one that’s predictable and easy to control.
But does it make you the best version of you?
This book contains her life learnings from being different-how through a turn of events and life changing encounters, Uma learned to embrace and accept her differences and become all that she is-wife, mother, keynote speaker, author, cofounder of Singapore’s coolest women run advertising agency and a notorious rule breaker.
Whether you are reading this book hoping to be a better person or to simply have a good laugh, the one thing it will definitely help you do is embrace what makes you unique and use that to conquer your world.
A sound mind, body, and soul is a balanced state we all aspire to have.
In this book, award-winning serial entrepreneur John Aguilar interviews twentyof Asia’s top entrepreneurs, athletes, and icons in his podcast of the same name to learn valuable insights-and test some of them out for himself.
What John learns is that these greats are no different from the rest of us. They, too, come from all walks of life. They have bad ideas. They doubt themselves and are insecure. They fail time and time again. Somehow, against the odds, they all found their voice and paths to greatness.
Methods to Greatness offers a rare glimpse into the mindset, habits, and methods that have helped these individuals find success in their professional or personal lives. Through interview excerpts and John’s personal refections, we get to know how they turned their lives around, created a positive impact in their communities, or made a name for themselves in their respective fields-all while navigating the trials and tribulations of life.
In a time of tumult when the world is looking to Asia to usher in the future, we look at lessons from the past and present to help us find greatness, whatever that means for each of us-and this guidebook of wisdom is here to help any and every one do just that.
Our world is changing in unprecedented ways and those who can foresee these challenges and reinvent themselves emerge successful. In Unlock Your Hidden Potential, Sindu Sreebhavan presents the Three Gates framework to help you reinvent yourself and solve the biggest puzzles in your life. In it, you will find the Secret Codes to systematically unlock your Personal, People and Universal Gates. Sindu presents a compelling narrative on how we need different sets of skills and behaviours at each stage in our life to succeed. She draws on psychological and neuroscience researches and true stories to provide us with systems to succeed in each of these stages. Using the Drivers for the Secret Codes, you will be able to charter a detailed roadmap to tap into the powers inside you to reinvent yourself in each stage. Unlock Your Hidden Potential offers practical advices to:Discover why you are designed to expand your skills, talents, and behaviours to achieve your goals and dreamsDiscover the science-based Drivers to identify the roadblocks you have been battling on your path to success, and the strategies you can use to solve those challengesDiscover time-tested and practical Drivers to create momentum and find success by managing yourself, others, and leading changeCreate your own roadmap, the Development Plan, to remain unbeatable in the face of personal and global challengesUnlock Your Hidden Potential is perfect for anyone who wants contentment, success, and seeks to live their life to the fullest.
Far From My Hospital Bed is a collection of non-fiction essays that were assembled over two years, starting from the author’s twenty-five day stay in a Singapore hospital recovering from COVID-19. It is a book that is part story-telling, part autobiography, part meditation, part memory, part history, part sociology,
and part manifesto.
There are many tones in each of the essays: sorrow, grief, fear, anxiety, enthusiasm, admiration, celebration, remembrance, humour, sarcasm, admonishment. There are chapters on gardens, noodles, toilet paper, God, Twiggy, sex, Zoom, and the Apocalypse.
Finally, this book is big on hope for a redemptive future for humanity and a plea to remake our world.
Singapore and Mental Health zooms out to take a bird’s eye view of the mental health landscape in Singapore. The author speaks to psychiatrists, psychologists, politicians and community leaders to find out how we are dealing with mental health as a nation, and what we can do to better support each other as a collective.
Weaving Between Light and Shadows, Said and Unsaid talks about mental health being an invisible force-we cannot see or touch it, but we certainly can feel it within us. It sometimes catches us off-guard, and we wonder why we feel the way we do, or what, where, in our environment, can we encounter these frictions or triggers to our mental health?
The author speaks with individuals from different personal and professional backgrounds in Singapore to learn how their environment shapes their mental and emotional well-being. They each bring a unique perspective on how our external circumstances shape our internal experiences, and shed light on the unexpected and less known areas of mental health.
‘Why am I like this?’ If you’ve asked this question to yourself quietly time and again… get ready to unpack and process like never before. Embark on a textured journey that will illuminate the hidden, unspoken and often unconscious experiences of the traumatized self. Chapter by chapter, you’ll make sense of your emotions, body, nervous system and relationships.
Through concept, vulnerable story-telling and self-inquiry, author Natalia Rachel ignites a shift towards self-compassion and the dissolving of shame. Like the brilliant formations of a kaleidoscope, your awareness will continue to morph, crystalize and clarify until you make the utmost sense. Natalia’s life journey as a patient turned therapist opens an incredibly special doorway to trauma recovery, healing and post-traumatic growth.
Stories We Don’t Tell consists of a series of heartfelt and moving repositories of conversations with people who have lived experiences of mental health challenges. These candid talks revealed not just the challenges these individuals faced, but the immense amount of courage and strength and self-love they carried throughout their mental health journey.
While the mental health conversation was elevated in 2020, people have always been navigating mental health issues, whether it be through major life changes, relationship difficulties, financial struggles or more. Understanding how life’s challenges affect our mental and emotional states is crucial if we want to become a society that is more compassionate towards each other. An unexamined life is not worth living, and an unlived life is not worth examining. These raw transcribed stories from dialogues that were taken in real time will take you through the personal journeys of those who lived, and are still living, with mental health-and hopefully allow you to better understand what mental health truly is, beyond the hearsay.
