50 Great Lessons from Life: Self-Improvement Advice Born of Experience by Tony Spollen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I remember reading a book a few years back detailing Cortes and his exploits against the Aztecs. One thing I noted was that before an important Battle, he was consistently reported to give his troops the most basic, simple instructions such as ‘strike the enemy’s chest with the pointy part of your sword”.
At first I found this puzzling. Why give such basic obvious information to trained soldiers? Surely they know this all already, why would they need to be told such basic instruction?
But as I saw this pattern repeated again and again, I realised its purpose and its effectiveness.
Battle is chaos, and when soldiers are about to enter into it, most of the plans, strategies and techniques they may have devised beforehand fly out of the window. What is of the utmost use to them therefore, is to be reminded and have drilled into them the basics. When in the heat of the battle, it is the basics that will result in victory, or their abandonment which will lead to defeat.
So why am I mentioning this here?
Because this is exactly the format of this book, and when you understand that for many people their day to day life is a battle, it is easy to see why it is so effective.
Tony Spollen provides us with the wisdom he has gained over the years of his life in a simple, concise manner. Certain chapters resonated with me infinitely more than others but all of them contained benefit.
This was also an easy read, I finished it in 2 sittings and will remember its lessons fondly.
Sometimes we don’t need complex, convoluted advice in order to set ourselves aright. From time to time, simple, concise advices like the ones contained in this book will do.