This book is exactly what I was looking for in a personal development book. I discovered Mel Robbins on You Tube and after watching her talks and interviews this book did not disappoint. If you feel stuck in a rut or frustrated with moving ahead with aspects of your life, this book is for you! Mel uses a wide variety of real life situations to illustrate her points and I found I saw myself in several of them. ( )

This book starts off with stories that will surely resonate with a great many readers: stories of lives half-lived, regrets about roads not taken, and that horrible realization that the little that you have in life is "all there is." Who wouldn't want to get out from under all that that and start really living?

Unfortunately, after grabbing you by promising to help you find fufillment, the body of the book becomes repetitive and trite. The author exhorts us to "just do it!" and "lean in!" over and over again.

While encouraging us not to let our brain sabotage us, she seems also to be encouraging us to be irresponsible both to ourselves and to those to whom we've made committments. She fairly berates those who refuse to be irresponsible because they don't have faith that "everything will work out fine." Got kids to feed and a mortgage to pay, but dying a little day by day in your high-paying job? Long to sell cupcakes off a cart? Quit your job and buy a pushcart! Don't let the monthly bills, the fact that you don't know how to bake, or your kids' hungry faces bother you. Don't stand in your own way! Everything will work out! What's the worst that can happen?! Geesh.

This book would have been vastly improved by continuing to encourage people to go for their dreams, but in a realistic way. Remind them life involves choices. What do you want: that big house, which requires a high paying job of some kind, or a pushcart for cupcakes? Do you have a way of having both? If not, which do you want more? How can you make the transition without hurting those to whom you have previous committments (like those hungry kids)?

It's not the concept I object to in Robbins' book, it's her constant insistance that we throw caution to the wind and "just do it." Her insistance that you can't achieve your dreams without risking everything is too black and white to be practical. The idea that it's okay to run out on committments to your community, your employer, and your family in search of your own self gratification is not a life philosophy I can admire.

I imagine the author would characterize this review as a textbook example of the kind of person that wallows in an unfulfilled, half-lived life. Perhaps by her standards, she's right. But at least I can go to bed every night with the satisfaction that I stood by my committments, and that makes my unfulfilled life a little more worth living. ( )

Listened to the audiobook. DNF'd after an hour and eight minutes. Took 40 minutes to actually start giving any advice. Then it got far more interesting, but by that time, I'd discovered that I did not like the writing style or the fake examples that the author was giving to illustrate her points. ( )