Embrace It While You Chase It

Book, 2017

Premise - Shaun Worthy, a motivational speaker, puts his speeches down on paper in this book he calls "a simple guide to help unlock student potential through personal development." Worthy speaks of his own experiences in juvenile and adult detention, and how he turned his life around, won full custody of his son, and now inspires other youth to make similarly positive changes.

Review - This is strange for me to review because I know this person and he gave me this book, so... I can't give it a numerical rating. That's too weird. It's only now that I think about how strange it is to put a numerical rating on a book that is someone's very personal work (which I do all the time...).

So instead I'll just discuss. Shaun is a master motivational speaker - charismatic, charming, and inspirational. He has very real lived experiences and struggles with adversity, and he uses that to his advantage by being able to talk about these principals with real authenticity, rather than using hypotheticals. He's not a writer by any means, nor does he pretend to be. But he does write very similar to the way he talks, which is down-to-earth and natural.

His entrepreneurship attitude permeates the entire book, something that makes him so vastly different than myself. The book is very "success" oriented - it's about capturing drive, ambition, even mastery. And I suppose I struggle with that because I don't have the same ideas of success as an entrepreneur might. I don't have the desire to become the best of the best at anything, which does not mean to say I don't have purpose. That is something I do agree with him on - combining purpose and passion. I just don't think you need to give it your 100% to make your life purposeful. You can have multiple talents, skills, hobbies, even purposes, and you can balance those you put forth into the world and those you keep to yourself.

We also vastly differ on our opinions around emotion. He understands the consequences of acting on emotion, and has lived through these consequences first-hand. I get it. But I also am someone who puts a lot of weight on how our emotions inform us of what our mind and body needs, so I am definitely pro-emotions. He's definitely got that "get to the grind, ignore your emotions, push through the pain" kind of mentality that most definitely has brought him success, but just simply differs from my own outlook.

Because our own principals differ so vastly, I do wonder about the universal applicability of the skills he teaches. The youth he works with likely have lived experiences similar to Shaun, and therefore benefit in that manner. But do these youth have similar life outlooks and opinions on whether or not they want "success"? Or what "success" means? Who knows.

Inarguably, Shaun knows how to get people to reflect on themselves and their own lives. He knows how to light a fire in you. He knows, ultimately, how to motivate. And he receives endless props for that.

Quote - "Happiness relies on much more than merely having a career (vocation) and getting a paycheck (Profession). Likewise, mission and passion aren't enough to sustain you financially if you don't know how to turn it into an income stream or business. Your ikigai lies at the center of those interconnecting circles. If you lack in one area, you are missing out on your life's potential."

He then includes a diagram of ikigai, in which passion, mission, profession, and vocation intersect.

What to read for - Clearly I like that ikigai section. Actually, I like all the portions of the book that reference traditional and global concepts, proverbs, and ways of thinking.

If you liked this book, I'd recommend looking him up to see if any of his motivational speeches are online!

Written by Shaun Worthy
Published by CreateSpace