TL; DR: If you have neither the time nor patience to read the words of renowned finance gurus like Napoleon Hill and Robin Sharma, this book is for you.

Chinese New Year is around the corner, and backed up by a tantalising cover page boasting some of the words most loved by Chinese - Prosperity! Wealth! Abundance! - this book stood out from the rest on the shelf. I had initially assumed it to detail a ladder of 12 steps, with each step building up on the previous step, that one can use to attain financial success. Turned out that each chapter is a standalone unit, so you can either dive headlong first into a topic that is bothering you or read it leisurely from front to back.

So what are the chapters? I list all 12 for you so you can see if this book is your cup of tea: Goals, Dreams, Taking Action, Growth, Self-Confidence, Gratitude, Positive Self-Talk, Master Mind, Positivity, Decision, Perseverance and Giving Back. Any of these topics that pique your curiosity?

Chris Gentry has read tons of financial wellness books and extracted inspirational and motivational words of wisdom from them. Just nice for the harried knowledge worker! Lest you think this is another one of your mundane self-help book, I actually derived a lot of insights from this book. Part of it is due to Chris Gentry's logical dissemination of ideas. He starts each chapter with an introductory portion, presents the reader with a judicious selection of quotes to whet his/her appetite and then elaborates on the theme with thought-provoking passages.

I found it interesting how different authors from different time periods could come to similar conclusions in regards to the same theme. So some quotes sounded quite archaic while others came across as New Age. I think reading how an insight is expressed in so many different ways helps to raise my motivation level. There's bound to be something that you particularly resonate with. For me, it was something about "do you want to be woken every morning by your enthusiasm than by an alarm clock", for it really helped to steel my resolve towards going for my side hustle.

Another way Chris Gentry does to elevate the readability of his book is to suggest various activities the reader can take up at the end of each chapter. I have never come across some of his suggestions before and find them quite novel. So this book is no "All Talk No Action". I won't list down his suggested activities for you here because I believe part of the joy of reading is the element of surprise, in which something you unexpectedly read fires up your neurons and even makes you want to take a particular action. But let's just say that I will be reminding myself of my goals more intentionally this year.

Enjoy reading!¹