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How to Get Back Up: A Memoir of Failure & Resilience
We all fail. We all fall. We all need to know how to get back up. Few know this better than New York Times best-selling author Neil Pasricha. For the first time, he tells his story and shows you how.
Before selling over a million copies of his Book of Awesome series and touring the world to teach Fortune 500 CEOs, Ivy league deans, and members of the royal family how to unlock a positive mind-set, Pasricha's life hit rock bottom.
He flamed out of his dream job and then racked up $300,000 of debt as a failed entrepreneur. He lost his best friend to suicide and his wife to divorce - in the same week. And then there were his own demons - the hang-ups, anxieties, and bouts of self-doubts that plagued him from adolescence.
And yet, inch by inch, Neil learned how to get back up. And you can, too.
Before selling over a million copies of his Book of Awesome series and touring the world to teach Fortune 500 CEOs, Ivy league deans, and members of the royal family how to unlock a positive mind-set, Pasricha's life hit rock bottom.
He flamed out of his dream job and then racked up $300,000 of debt as a failed entrepreneur. He lost his best friend to suicide and his wife to divorce - in the same week. And then there were his own demons - the hang-ups, anxieties, and bouts of self-doubts that plagued him from adolescence.
And yet, inch by inch, Neil learned how to get back up. And you can, too.
Audible Audio
Published October 9, 2018
2 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
About the author
Neil Pasricha
29 books883 followersHey Goodreads peeps,
Pass me a drink. Let's chill on the ripped couch at the back. I love this place. Book lovers are my favorite people. (And my favorite lovers.)
My name is Neil Pasricha (pass-REACH-ah) and I'm the New York Times / #1 int'l (blah blah blah!) bestselling author of ten books on living an intentional life including THE BOOK OF AWESOME (gratitude), THE HAPPINESS EQUATION (happiness), TWO-MINUTE MORNINGS (habits), and the poorly-titled YOU ARE AWESOME (resilience.) My books are published in a lot of languages I can't read and sold a couple million more copies than anyone was expecting.
My background? Well, trust me: Nobody expected me to be writer. Least of all me. My parents aren't jazz trumpet players and watercolorists who raised me in Manhattan. They're hardcore Indian immigrants from Punjab and Nairobi who arrived in Canada scraping to get by. I was supposed to be a doctor! That was the life plan. But after my wife left me and my best friend took his own life in my late 20s I started a blog to cheer myself up. That blog was called 1000awesomethings.com and basically turned into everything else I've done and am doing.
If you want to hang out without social media algorithms in between us (no offence, algorithms! please don't punish my search results!) then join the thousands and thousands of good-hearted kindred spirits globally who get my newsletters. I put a lot of work into my newsletters -- they're sort of my weird digital babies -- and they contain my book recommendations, my new articles, my podcasts, and, of course, my daily awesome things (which I've been writing for 15 years now!). Sign up at www.neil.blog/newsletters
Hit me up if you wanna be friends! I love this clunky old site because it feels like my old hometown library somehow.
Shall we both get back to reading now?
XOXOXO
Neil
neil@globalhappiness.org
Pass me a drink. Let's chill on the ripped couch at the back. I love this place. Book lovers are my favorite people. (And my favorite lovers.)
My name is Neil Pasricha (pass-REACH-ah) and I'm the New York Times / #1 int'l (blah blah blah!) bestselling author of ten books on living an intentional life including THE BOOK OF AWESOME (gratitude), THE HAPPINESS EQUATION (happiness), TWO-MINUTE MORNINGS (habits), and the poorly-titled YOU ARE AWESOME (resilience.) My books are published in a lot of languages I can't read and sold a couple million more copies than anyone was expecting.
My background? Well, trust me: Nobody expected me to be writer. Least of all me. My parents aren't jazz trumpet players and watercolorists who raised me in Manhattan. They're hardcore Indian immigrants from Punjab and Nairobi who arrived in Canada scraping to get by. I was supposed to be a doctor! That was the life plan. But after my wife left me and my best friend took his own life in my late 20s I started a blog to cheer myself up. That blog was called 1000awesomethings.com and basically turned into everything else I've done and am doing.
If you want to hang out without social media algorithms in between us (no offence, algorithms! please don't punish my search results!) then join the thousands and thousands of good-hearted kindred spirits globally who get my newsletters. I put a lot of work into my newsletters -- they're sort of my weird digital babies -- and they contain my book recommendations, my new articles, my podcasts, and, of course, my daily awesome things (which I've been writing for 15 years now!). Sign up at www.neil.blog/newsletters
Hit me up if you wanna be friends! I love this clunky old site because it feels like my old hometown library somehow.
Shall we both get back to reading now?
XOXOXO
Neil
neil@globalhappiness.org
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 30, 2019
4.5 stars.
Good storytelling, particularly the immigrant story of his mother at the beginning, the wraparound family bit at the end, and the personal stories of being a 1st generation son of immigrants.
Not a lot about resilience, though the author is a good example of resilience in action.
The self-help topics are all over the place, but pretty solid and well illustrated by a 38-year old man who has learned a lot of life, success, and business lessons in a short period of time.
Good storytelling, particularly the immigrant story of his mother at the beginning, the wraparound family bit at the end, and the personal stories of being a 1st generation son of immigrants.
Not a lot about resilience, though the author is a good example of resilience in action.
The self-help topics are all over the place, but pretty solid and well illustrated by a 38-year old man who has learned a lot of life, success, and business lessons in a short period of time.
October 26, 2018
I've been following Neil for awhile after stumbling onto his 3 Books podcast, which I listen to religiously. What I got from this book is similar to what I get from his podcast: meaningful life experiences that provide some background into the useful advice that can I can implement into my own life.
To me, this book is about self-discovery, persistence, and finding your own place in the world. Neil boldly tells us about his personal experiences struggling with his culture and heritage, and how he faced professional adversity and used the lessons learned from those failures to build the life and success that he has today.
Neil gives us a rare look behind the curtain as he shares the details about his experiences that led to the creation of his wildly popular blog (and book), 1000AwesomeThings.com.
When I finished this book, I felt like I'd had a warm, personal conversation with Neil about his life and the valuable lessons he's learned from his experiences. I wish there were more books that were this sincere and touching, as well as being enlightening and instructive.
Neil personally challenges us to be the best version of ourselves, and gives us valuable advice based on his own experiences. A truly impactful work.
To me, this book is about self-discovery, persistence, and finding your own place in the world. Neil boldly tells us about his personal experiences struggling with his culture and heritage, and how he faced professional adversity and used the lessons learned from those failures to build the life and success that he has today.
Neil gives us a rare look behind the curtain as he shares the details about his experiences that led to the creation of his wildly popular blog (and book), 1000AwesomeThings.com.
When I finished this book, I felt like I'd had a warm, personal conversation with Neil about his life and the valuable lessons he's learned from his experiences. I wish there were more books that were this sincere and touching, as well as being enlightening and instructive.
Neil personally challenges us to be the best version of ourselves, and gives us valuable advice based on his own experiences. A truly impactful work.
April 6, 2019
The book was mainly an auto-biography and tried to generalize lessons, in hindsight, (mainly) from personal decisions.
There were however, some good parts that I made sure to remember:
- the three B approaches to tackle tasks: bucketing, batching, bridging.
- The three questions we’d ask when faced challenges: 1.would it matter on my death bed 2. Can I do something about it? 3. Is it the story I want to tell.
In chapter 8 there was a section on big fish little pond. He gives an example of not going after the hot girl on beach but the nerd at the library!! This was just to much and made me to pause and never want to continue (I did however while rolling eyes)
One more thing that he said that was just too much was when he said his father left India and never went back because he was always going forward, not backward. As someone who also went through immigration, comparing going back home to going backward is just insulting to those who do and those who are living in those countries. I do think someone having to move to a different country to be able to build a better life is going forward, but you cant make someone going back home to visit and reconnect with the culture analogous to going backward!
Audio book comment:
The performance was different from what Im used to hear, in a good way!
There were however, some good parts that I made sure to remember:
- the three B approaches to tackle tasks: bucketing, batching, bridging.
- The three questions we’d ask when faced challenges: 1.would it matter on my death bed 2. Can I do something about it? 3. Is it the story I want to tell.
In chapter 8 there was a section on big fish little pond. He gives an example of not going after the hot girl on beach but the nerd at the library!! This was just to much and made me to pause and never want to continue (I did however while rolling eyes)
One more thing that he said that was just too much was when he said his father left India and never went back because he was always going forward, not backward. As someone who also went through immigration, comparing going back home to going backward is just insulting to those who do and those who are living in those countries. I do think someone having to move to a different country to be able to build a better life is going forward, but you cant make someone going back home to visit and reconnect with the culture analogous to going backward!
Audio book comment:
The performance was different from what Im used to hear, in a good way!
June 13, 2023
С огромным удовольствием прослушал эту книгу.
Читать ее категорически не советую - беспомощный бред.
Понятно, что автор успешен и за год зарабатывает больше, чем я заработаю за свою жизнь, так что в какой-то степени моя критика смешна.
Но я все же имею право на свое мнение, что у автора тот самый один на сто тысяч успех, который, конечно, приходит к умным и талантливым, но умных и талантливых сотни миллионов. А крупных успехов просто не может быть много, иначе ведь они не будут крупными - денег в экономике не так много, чтобы много успехов стало реально крупными..
На основании конкретно одного такого в общем случайного успеха потом давать рецепты, как выиграть в эту лотерею - это просто способ дополнительно заработать деньги. Не надо думать, что их советы вам помогут, или даже просто не навредят.
Но почему же я прослушал с удовольствием?
Читает автор и читает великолепно. С театральными паузами, с правильным выделеним слов, эмоциональной игрой голоса, но без натужной театральности, создавая иллюзию живого общения. Хотя, конечно, это серьезная работа, научиться так говорить.
Наверно, даже из телефонного справочника он смог бы сделать захватывающую историю.
Читать ее категорически не советую - беспомощный бред.
Понятно, что автор успешен и за год зарабатывает больше, чем я заработаю за свою жизнь, так что в какой-то степени моя критика смешна.
Но я все же имею право на свое мнение, что у автора тот самый один на сто тысяч успех, который, конечно, приходит к умным и талантливым, но умных и талантливых сотни миллионов. А крупных успехов просто не может быть много, иначе ведь они не будут крупными - денег в экономике не так много, чтобы много успехов стало реально крупными..
На основании конкретно одного такого в общем случайного успеха потом давать рецепты, как выиграть в эту лотерею - это просто способ дополнительно заработать деньги. Не надо думать, что их советы вам помогут, или даже просто не навредят.
Но почему же я прослушал с удовольствием?
Читает автор и читает великолепно. С театральными паузами, с правильным выделеним слов, эмоциональной игрой голоса, но без натужной театральности, создавая иллюзию живого общения. Хотя, конечно, это серьезная работа, научиться так говорить.
Наверно, даже из телефонного справочника он смог бы сделать захватывающую историю.
October 13, 2018
Neil is still a young man and I am not a young woman but we share, as I'm sure many mortals do, when we felt like we didn't belong, when we wished to be different, when our cultures were more millstones than anchors and when failure defined us. This presentation was simply done, with no editing that I could discern. It's Neil at a music stand by himself, reading his own words. We hear him shuffle the pages and he provides live snips of some relevant musings. And, why you should listen is for the honesty, the ultimate pragmatism and systems he came to organically to keep moving forward. Although How to Get Back Up... offers solutions and suggests practices I'd call it a memoir to learn from. Yes, even this OG Millennial has something to teach us.
October 15, 2019
We all fail, we struggle, sometimes more than once. When we are down and feel like giving up what should we do? Here we have a personal story as Neil takes us on his journey, ups and downs, and how he learns to leave the beach.
THis was a good read and Neils story is one I am sure many of us can relate too.
THis was a good read and Neils story is one I am sure many of us can relate too.
November 26, 2018
A pretty good listen on resilience. I found myself slightly annoyed by his cultural references and assumptions that "everyone" knows them, but in all N. Pasricha's book communicates well the skills and learnings he's amassed so far.
May 23, 2019
In a sea of so many self help books that leave me feeling like I wasted my time, this one actually left me with a few incredible things to ponder. The authors mindset is one that if adopted, could bring great peace.
August 16, 2019
Nice memoir of a first generation Canadian Indian, and the adaptations he faced culturally and professionally. In it are several examples of resilience and disciplines that helped. It resists large pronouncements of what will work for everyone and simply states what worked for him.
October 24, 2018
Honest, Practical & Inspirational
December 23, 2018
Neil's Story is great. Loved it💯👌
March 7, 2021
The idea in the book has been succinctly stated in every chapter with the buildup accurately mapped. Insightful & Honest portrayal of facts and experiences linked to the author's life.
April 8, 2022
Really enjoyed this Audible book and the author read it himself. An honest rendition of the ups and downs of life and his thoughts and advice to combat the downs.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews