Back From the Brink: Coping With Stress

by Nick Leeson

Nick Leeson explains how his remarkable story continued after his imprisonment for losing $187 million which let to the collapse of Barings Bank - including his four and a half years in a gang-ridden Singapore jail, the break-up of his marriage, dealing with cancer and recovering to begin a new life. Through a series of conversations with renowned psychologist Ivan Tyrrell, issues including financial worries, illness, addiction, relationships and work pressure are approached with realistic and inspiring mechanisms for survival. At the heart of Nick's experience was stress-induced pressure, something that millions of people in today's society - both at work and in their personal lives - are grappling with.

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 23, 2005

Reviews

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't what I expected.

I was hoping this would be more a focus on how to deal with stress and relating that back to what Nick Leeson did. There was some of that, but it felt like more of a pop psychology book in that sense. There wasn't a lot of substance driven by fact other than just common sense. I got a few insights from it, but nothing all that incredible. It also is aimed heavily at professionals rather than college students, so that might have contributed to part of my bias.

It's a good read overall though - reads somewhat like a deep biography of 5 years of his life as he talks through extensively how terrible Asian prisons are. I think it gives you a feel of just how bad it is and what we are really capable of when we are put into extreme situations.

Note: Large font and the text only filling 70% of the page also means this book feels more like 200 pages than the actual length it is. Quite a light read.

[Jerome · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read, but a pity nobody appears to have proof read it for spelling typos, grammar etc, very poor from that regard, especially the latter half of it.