Book Review – Do Epic Shit By Ankur Warikoo

 

Source – amazon.in

'3 relationships that define almost everything that happens to us in our lives. The relationship we have with money, the relationship we have with time, and the relationship we have with ourselves.' – Ankur Warikoo

Do Epic Shit by Ankur Warikoo is a uniquely written and put-together self-help book, that reflects more on learnings from failures rather than the joy of succeeding. The book has been dedicated by the author to his failures and roadblocks, saying that no one wishes for them but makes us who we are in the long run.

About The Author

Ankur Warikoo is a famous Indian entrepreneur and content creator. He is one of the most loved India’s top personal brands. His brutally honest yet deep thoughts on success and failure, money and relationships, self-improvement, and struggles have made him a popular personality among the audience.

He has written two books till now, both discussing different dimensions of the same concepts; success and failure. He takes on a positive note of everything that a common man might perceive as negative. For example, our reality not matching our dreams, numerous roadblocks on the road to success with a non-guaranteed actual success.

Source - biographyinsider.com

His opinions and thoughts range from shifting importance from goals to creating long-term habits, accepting and embracing the unavoidable failures in one’s life and so.

His books are usually read and reread, to embrace the focus points in his work. The book might be perceived differently by different people, making his work an absolute delight to have an open discussion about.

Contents Of The Book

‘Do Epic Shit’ by Ankur Warikoo is divided into six parts, discussing every element that exists and affects our lives in one way or the other. While some books tend to sugarcoat reality and represent success as a beacon of a solution to every problem one might face, the author tends to take a different approach.

Here, the author focuses on and embraces the importance of failures on one's road to success. And that is where the book starts.

Part-I Success (And Failure)

The very first line of this section catches the reader off-guard when the author says that his relationship with success is defined by his multiple failures. If read between the lines, we can see that he says that success is a one-time thing while getting there requires facing numerous failures.

He focuses on the fact that success is not the absence of failures, rather success is what we get when we go through those failures and reflect upon them for improvement.

Also, he says that rather than failure, the fear of failure is what keeps one away from success. The concept of ‘starting today’ is precisely focused on, signifying the importance to let go of the fear of failing and starting to embrace those failures.

Part-II Habits

Personally, this section was the most interesting one for a reader. The perception change of a reader is unavoidable in this section. Here, the author focuses on building habits rather than accomplishing goals. The author says that he has been a student of habits for a long time.

According to the author, when one is driven to achieve a goal or a destination, one tends to do it merely for the goal and not for personal growth. They seek to achieve a mere goal, rather than becoming someone better in the process.

Also, he says that one tends to jump from one goal to the other, making it a constant circle of chasing goals.

Goals might be mistaken for growth, but habits are what build us.

Part-III Awareness

In this section, the author says that the decisions made by one should be made with awareness and not ignorance. Decisions are not supposed to decode success; they are supposed to provide us with the path that we want to continue walking on.

Making a decision is not about knowing right and wrong; it is about knowing what you want to pursue and what you don't.

One of the famous ways of breaking the indecisive cycle is discussed by the author here; the worst-case scenario. Knowing that you will able handle yourself if the worst happens, is the biggest boost to one's confidence and decision skills.

Part-IV Entrepreneurship

Most youngsters will skip to this section in my personal opinion. Personal advice, avoid doing that. This section makes more sense when read chronologically than individually.

The author bursts the bubble of dreams for every aspiring entrepreneur in the first few pages. He makes the reader realize that only he/she will be responsible for his start-up, not anyone else. He says, entrepreneurship is not a profession, but a state of mind. An entrepreneur is not a person who has every answer, but he has the capability of finding every answer. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t have a job description.

Part-V Money

Here, the author limits the importance of money in one's life. While he affirms that money stands important, he also says that constantly running after it is a mere waste of the beautiful life one has.

In the first few pages, he emphasizes the mistakes he made with money. Common ones, but a reflection on those lead to important learnings for the readers in the further pages. Those learnings seem to be more real than others, as the prior list of failures makes the learnings more believable and acceptable.

One of my favorite learnings from this section – use the money to earn your freedom.

Part-VI Relationships

This section focuses on interpersonal relationships and how it affects our day-to-day decisions and gives a rise to most challenges we face. While one tends to look forward to the definition of a relationship with others, this section mostly focuses on the relationship with ourselves.

Identifying one's strengths and acceptance of one's flaws is what makes our relationship with ourselves stronger and fonder. If this one relationship is not sorted, no other will be either.

Overall rating- 4.6/5

Written by – Simran Mahon