Book Review- A Survival Guide for Life: Bear Grylls

When it comes to success, you can learn a lot from others who are playing at a level where they are doing what they love and creating massive value for the world.  When I was asked to review A Survival Guide for Life by Bear Grylls, I was more than happy to give it a read.  The book itself is a quick read.  I think it took me a few hours to finish which is always good for the busy business owners that follow this blog and work with me.

Overall Impressions

The book itself is a quick read.  I think it took me a few hours to finish which is always good for the busy business owners that follow this blog and work with me. I enjoyed the book.  As I mentioned earlier, you can get great insight from success people on how they think and behave.  Bear Grylls has had a lot of success up to this point in his life and he has an interesting story that includes achievement and failure.  If you are looking for a book that has a lot of new content, however, this is not the book for you.  Literally one of his chapters is called “If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade”.  This is about as cliched as it gets.  I will be the first to admit that I have worked in the self development space for so long that it’s going to be difficult for a self development book to really knock my socks off.

Despite the material not being fresh, I do find that a lot of the stories and his take still inspired me at some level and are good reminders on how to approach your life in a successful way.  In this way, I think this a great book for people who haven’t spent a lot of time in the self development space or just want a good reminder on what you should be doing.  While the content was not fresh, it was still accurate and applicable.

3 Specific Takes on the Book

1.  One great use for this book is during your morning ritual or what I call a power hour.  Reading one of these chapters per day is a great way to start your mindset off on a positive journey.  This book is a great resource for that.  

2. Another way you could use this book is by giving it to your employees as a gift.  The book is positive and it’s not overly heavy.  This is a great pick me up for people on your team. 

3. As a main of faith, I love to hear other people’s story on their own faith and how their faith has helped them in their own journey.  If that happens to be you also, you will appreciate that aspect of this book.  

Rather than being a “survival guide”, I would call this book a “thrival guide”.  There are plenty of people in this world that are surviving. What’s missing are more people with a positive mindset who are ready to thrive.  If more people followed Bear’s advice, they would see the world differently and be more powerful for it.

PS…. Here’s a video of Bear talking about the book for those that want it straight from the horse’s mouth.