Sample Book Report: “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20′

A book report on ‘What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course in Making Your Way in the World’ by Tina Seelig

This book covers not just creativity and risk-taking, but it also tackles passion, drive and learning. What I like about this book is the author’s generosity in sharing provocative yet inspiring thoughts mostly on personal as well as business ethics. Personally, I strongly believe that young entrepreneurs today lack in this fundamental aspect. This is a painful truth. However, this is something I know is processual, which means students, including me, can learn this gradually.

The book affects me strongly that I had to rethink my priorities. The author emphasizes the need to know your own priorities. However, it is not enough that you know them. Rather, you have to regularly change your priorities. I thought of having a regular priorities auditing so that I can align what I want to achieve and when I want them to be achieved and how I want them to be achieved. In this way, I can create an easy roadmap to my success. Indeed, just like what Seelig said, how can you miss a fabulous opportunity? And no, she is not talking about dress rehearsals. It is about doing your best and doing it now. You can be good; there is no doubt about it. However, you can be great always, and it is a decision, an opportunity.

It’s an otherwise quick-read, but the learnings will stay with you. Learnings that you may carry anywhere you go, may it be revisiting your past or planning for your future. I find the passages on the stories very appealing especially for students like me who are dreaming of owning a business someday that I can be truly proud of. Actually, I am planning to put up my own boutique hotel in not-so-distant future, perhaps after completing my Business Entrepreneurship degree.

Of all the things that the book has thought me, the most outstanding would be the fact that problems are opportunities, and that the bigger the problem is, the bigger the opportunity. The only limit to what you can do is actually your reticence. Aside, it is not enough that you have the drive or the passion. What’s more important is you have the passion/or drive and the know-how to actually profit from it. The cliché that ‘do what you love and money will follow’ is no longer applicable today. There should be other people who will find your passion for being a solution to their problems.

Inspired and moved is how I felt after reading the book. So, it will not be a surprise if I am going to recommend this book to my fellow students. I believe that every student studying business-related courses should read the book. More so, the insights shared by the author are not really taught in schools. For instance, when it comes to empowerment, you need not wait for others to empower you. You have the sole responsibility of empowering yourself. You create this for yourself and in the end you will reap the rewards for doing it.