How To Be A Bawse, by Lilly Singh

“You’re a Bawse now, and you need to spend less energy stalking your ex on Instagram and more energy making phenomenal first impressions. Plus, there are so many famous puppies on Instagram now who are way cuter than your ex. Get your priorities straight.”

I’ll always fondly remember the evening I was introduced to Lilly Singh aka Superwoman’s YouTube videos. The reasons for that are beyond the scope of this post, so I won’t elaborate further and bore you. That said, I confess that I’m not a regular viewer of her videos. In the three years that I’ve known about her channel, I’ve watched only a handful of them.

However, the book, How To Be A Bawse is delightful enough to revisit every once in a while. Going in, I assumed it was going to be another celebrity memoir (a genre I quite enjoy), but right at the beginning, Lilly says, “I’m not that old or wise, so this is not a memoir. Instead, this book is an accumulation of lessons I’ve learned that I want to share with you.” Fair enough.

So what is How To Be A Bawse? It is, as the name suggests, a kind of work that borders on Self Help. So what am I doing reading it, given that I despise the genre? Because it felt so positive and uplifting as soon as I started reading it. I won’t call it motivational (cos that makes it sound boring) or funny (which it most definitely is, but that’s so incomplete and dismissive if funny is all I called this book). God knows we could all use more positivity in our lives.

And what then is a Bawse? In Lilly’s own words, “A Bawse is like a boss, but so epic that I had to change the spelling.” Tell me you don’t wanna be a bawse after reading that definition. I’ve only just finished reading this book, and I already feel like taking on the world.

In this book, Lilly talks about the stairs and ladders she climbed rung by hard rung to reach where she is. At the end of each part, she’s included a section titled “Out of the blue”, where she compares who she used to be years ago, suffering from depression, and who she is today in comparison. As someone who has been going through the relapse from hell since the beginning of this month, I found strength from these portions (and wished Lilly was my therapist, but life is not that kind).

She talks about meeting her idol, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (and makes some… um… puns on the way) and how the most important thing is to visualize your goals and work towards making them happen. Now, a lot of what Lilly says isn’t something we don’t already know, but it’s the way she says it that makes a difference. The positivity, the sense of hope. Something that calls out to us, asking us to believe in ourselves. That is what I enjoyed the most about this book.

The reason why I mentioned in the beginning that I haven’t watched a lot of her videos is to point out that you don’t have to be a huge Lilly fan to enjoy this book. You don’t have to be familiar with her brand of humour to like it (Ellen DeGeneres’ Seriously I’m Kidding is an example of the opposite of this). It’s great and stands well on its own.

One of my main takeaways from this book is that if you have accomplished something in life, be unafraid to be proud of it. You achieved something, you deserve all the good things that come with it – pat yourself on the back for it.

I’d recommend How To Be A Bawse for the happy vibes alone. Whether you want to follow her advice or not, or whether you think you already know the lessons she has to offer, read it for how her story makes you feel. You will definitely not be disappointed.

Goodreads | Amazon

 

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