Bookstrapping: Happy Sexy Millionaire by Steven Bartlett

Happy plus rich anyone?

Who is the author Steven Bartlett? He is a successful entrepreneur and the host of UK's No.1 podcast 'The Diary of a CEO’. The reason he writes this book, is that as an 18 year old insecure dropout, he wrote in his diary that by the age of 25 he would like to be a 'happy sexy millionaire.' When he got there he realised that the world had lied to him. This book is about why he thinks so. He dismantles these lies over sixteen chapters, interestingly titled like ‘mum, stop asking me about love' and 'my assistant can't talk to me on Mondays’. Evidently, the book has a very young lingo- the author is just 31 years old.

Here are our five BookStrapping insights.

1 - The more I read books that guide people towards mindful productivity, the more I feel they should be made a mandatory part of high school reading. Can we help minds mature before the point of no return?

2 - Here’s a key idea from the book- ‘‘if you want to avoid making the same mistake twice, make more decisions based on your past memories and less decisions based on the current emotions." Worth thinking about.

3 - The author points out that ‘social media’ has become an ‘arena for status.’ Naturally, this has led to a decrease in meaningful connections with people underestimating the power of journalling but we cannot keep all the thoughts to ourselves writing them down provide the question for venting and a safe space to observe one’s emotions.

4 - To emphasise the importance of time management, Bartlett quotes Tom Stevenson, when he says "we can work harder or longer to earn more money. We can go to the supermarket to get more grocery. We can buy the latest and greatest gadgets, but no matter how hard we try, we are stuck with an ever diminishing amount of time."

5 - I read this book as a personal manifesto. The author is young, unmarried, has no children and has dedicated his life to the success he promised himself. He built a company from nothing to 200 million from his bedroom in Manchester. He could be seen as role model and therefore, can resonate with a young audience that looks upto him.

Many themes are touched upon in the book; such as loneliness, which is understandable as the author operates in the space of social media - which reinforces the unfortunate fact that people being trained from a young age to determine self work through comparison. The author reminds is that our imperfections are the very things that make us unique. Here’s to being able to handle differences in opinion and celebrating individuality.

Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’