 Hi, my name is Kwame and I'm a documentary filmmaker, photographer and voiceover artist based in Accra, Ghana. And you're welcome to my vlog. It's okay. And this channel is my attempt to make sense of life and the human experience in general that is learning, living and taking it one day at a time. Now today, I'm gonna be talking about this book which I think you should read, especially if you are creative, which I must say that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading for so many reasons, some of which I'm going to share with you. So please keep watching and I promise you that this will be worth your while. But before I go into the book, a little story. So this happened a couple of weeks. I was running a few errands and I drove past my favorite bookstore and I was like, I immediately remembered that I needed to get a book or I wanted to get a book at scene, get reviewed and recommended by Ali Abdul called The Unfair Advantage by Ash Ali and Hassan Kuba. I wasn't exactly sure I'd get it there immediately but I needed to try anyway because of the limited movements we're faced with now due to, you know what. So I immediately went to the business aisle of the store searching for this particular book, but well, I didn't get it, I was unlucky. However, I was rather determined to at least leave the store with the book. So I browsed further and came across another recommendation from Ali again that is the four hour work week. And the strange thing was I wasn't too keen on settling yet. So I looked and came across this one, things no one else can. It was at this moment that Kwame knew he fucked up. Teach us and I was instinctively drawn to it also because of the hard cover. And I love hard covers, so please don't judge me. So I read the back, shift your perspective, change your life. I was like, hmm, this author had written another book which I had made a video about on the topic and I thought, you know what, this was meant to be. I need to read this particular book. So I paid for it and I made reservations for the book I had wanted to get initially. The store offers that service. So I left the title and the details and that's how I came by this book and it wasn't a recommendation but I'm happy that I really got it. Now to the book. For me, I'll describe this book as more of a raw take on tough love and realness. Humble the poet. Yes, he tells it as it is. He uses his own truths and stories to make his point and I found it very, very engaging. It reminded me of what I had met about my two favorite YouTubers, Matt Diavella and Nathaniel Drew. They tell their own stories, they share their truths and they film it for us to watch and I think it's that kind of engaging storytelling that has most of their subscribers hooked and it's wonderful. If you don't know them, you should check them out. I'm happy the book wasn't one of those mantra chanting cliches but instead simple truths and stories of a real person in a real world. It was that easy. So don't tell people what to do. Share your story with them before telling them what you learned from it. They'll either take it or leave it. Now this book has been written in sections with chapters underneath them and every section has a broad theme and I'll do my best to summarize my key lessons from each of these sections in order to make this faster because if I dwell, I'll probably need three hours or more to do this vlog and honestly, nobody has time for that. So in the introduction, I discovered something that affects a lot of creatives including myself and that's overthinking. You are creating because you love it and you want to create value with your art not because they love it. It doesn't even matter, just share it, you know. A voice in my head continues to tell me that my stories aren't worth sharing and that it's egotistical to assume anyone would care to read them but another voice is emerging. A voice that reminds me that we are all in this together and that sharing my challenges and experiences and the lessons I have learned will contribute to a world beyond myself. After all, storytelling has been an essential tool for evolution as a species and that's exactly what this channel is about. It's about sharing my challenges and experiences and it's not even about me in the end. So let's get to section one of the book, section one. Fortunately or unfortunately, nothing lasts forever. And now this section is essentially talking about how we should not hold on to things, thinking that we can have them forever and how we also keep wanting more and more of everything. How ambitions and our need to survive can make us forget the most important things which are almost always right in front of us. This section also reminds us that nothing, nothing is permanent so we should enjoy our presence while it's here because everything will end at some point and there is nothing you can do about it and you shouldn't rob yourself of the good while you're chasing the better. So I find myself complaining about things I don't have and how happy I'd be if I'd have it. It happens with gear and it happens with projects and my excuse is to not start because I want it to be this way or that way and I fail my head with worry. And guess what happens? Everything becomes a chore and the truth is there will always be people who are better or the things which are better than what you currently have and you see that because the people worked for it and have some advantage with experience and individual creativity and it has nothing to do with what you have or not. If we're not happy with what we have, we won't be very happy with all that we get. Now the thing is ambition is good. To want isn't bad, but don't forget to enjoy life when you have it. Enjoy the people and the things that are here and now. Just enjoy them. Section two, knowing yourself makes all the difference. Now this section speaks about not allowing yourself to be defined by anything or anyone besides yourself. It talks about how life is governed by certain rules and principles and institutions, cultures, religion and everything that forms that template that this life has been presented to us over hundreds of years, if not thousands. And even though things have evolved, one thing stands which is society and we're judged by how best we fit in the societal norms and rules and it takes what's good and bad, what's ideal and what you should do to seem or come off as normal. As far as I've come to realize, our individuality will always cause problems with such a way of life. Granted, some are able to fit in and follow the format but what happens to those who are different and the thing is different is okay. And knowing that you're different and embracing what you are capable of will open you up to a way of life that will have you navigating this conformity based life not conforming but still living a happy normal life. Societal pressures puts us in positions where we overthink everything because we want to fit in. We live with a fear that limits us in so many ways. The worst one is not knowing why you're even here and all the while living in fear of being wrong and offending society. It's just BS. Our worst fears are rarely realized and even when they are, we're still standing. So we're only tasked to find out why we're here and live it out and also remember that as time passes, what means a lot to us now wouldn't mean a lot to us another time. So your why can change and it's up to you to embrace the change. Know your why and your how becomes easier. The more deeply we dive inward, the more clarity we'll have about what tickles our fancy and we'll quickly realize that purpose isn't one size fits all. We can survive anything. Knowledge of self is the most essential journey you will ever embark on and self-liked time is ever changing. Now let's go to section three. Don't focus on the pots of gold. Enjoy the rainbow. I found myself coming to terms with this section because of how increasingly difficult it has become to not concentrate on the end of things or how things end and go because for some of us finishing a task is a better way to keep going and no matter how small the task is finishing it feels more like the reward than anything and it has to be done. So I know why I'm doing it and finishing it will make me feel accomplished and satisfied. That's basically how I look at things. But this section poses that one question that you should or you must ask yourself after you've completed that particular task or something. Did you enjoy it? Especially on YouTube the videos you make and think that hey, yes you put in the work and so it deserves the views often doesn't live up to your expectations in terms of views and hard work doesn't always equal success and success is lived for a short while until you want more. Now what stays with you? What stays with you for longer is the experience of doing what you remember about the whole thing. Was it enjoyable or was it just another chore? So the experience is what you should be craving all the time. I'm almost always chasing the payoff and how it ends and what it will mean to me those are the things I look out for. But Humble The Poets says this about missing out on being selected for the TEDx fellowship program. He says that In the past, I hesitated dozens of times when presented with opportunities because I didn't know whether they would pay off in the end. I began to realize over time that opportunities themselves were the payoff regardless of whether they turned out to be the way I wanted them to. So always remember that. Opportunity itself is the payoff. Section four and five. Zoom out and zoom in. So I decided to merge section four and five because they come off as two contradicting ideas but they make a perfect fit. Kind of like a vertigo effect in filmmaking or what you may know as the Dolly Zoom. Now the reason why I'm deciding to merge these two is that they all talk about our judgment of things and people and even ourselves. But using two obvious techniques that's zooming in and zooming out. The first one, which is zoom out is trying to step back from situations and take a holistic look at it. There's a bigger picture that we are all existing in. The picture can be very small when we look at it with only where we exist in the frame and not past it. Now people do what they do due to their circumstances and people are what they are due to where they find themselves in this big frame and so you can't be judging. Personality, spirituality and choices are all as a result of something. Judging will limit you. Understanding will open you up to better experiences. Trying to understand someone or something requires much more effort than judging but it's so much more enriching in the long run. Zooming out also reminds us of how small we are in this big picture and that. We're not alone in figuring things out. We're not so special in the end and that if we stopped fretting and taking it easy on ourselves we'd realize that it's all okay and we're not alone. We're all so insignificant in the grand scheme of things and even the grand scheme we understand is insignificant compared to the grand scheme we don't yet know. So stop worrying so much. On the other hand, zooming in can also improve our perspective with deeper dive into situations and things that affect us. That's the people and the choices we make leading to the experiences that tend to live with us. We need to understand that trauma is an individual experience for everyone but let's also be mindful of how often we over-amplify the degree of our trauma while underestimating our resilience. Nothing is the end of the world until it's the end of the world and then nothing will matter anyway. Section six, limit yourself pity. I loved how this particular section even begun or even opened. The five S's we have to worry about are salt, sugar, sitting, social media and self-pity. All are highly addictive and will take a heavy toll on us if we consume them over a long period of time. Lord knows we all have our social media battles and the screen addiction that we don't even realize is hurting us in the long run. To be honest, I have never let perfect or the perfect lives of others affect how I thought about mine because most of the things that they show off were not things that I really craved until I started freelance filmmaking and got into YouTube and discovered there were YouTubers who seemed to be too good at this filmmaking thing and YouTubing and I ended up letting it work me up by not appreciating my own journey enough and self-pity will only rob you of the time you could have invested in doing what makes you happy ultimately. Ultimately. And what we have to remember is that sometimes we're gonna have a good and other times not so good and if we're not screaming why me in the good times then we should learn not to do that in the bad times because that's just what life is. Everyone, everyone experiences the good and the bad. So awareness will either motivate us to complain less or show gratitude more. Maybe both if we're lucky. Our problems aren't always our fault but they are still our responsibility. Overall, I was happy that this section didn't sell the idea of ignoring your emotions from disappointments and trauma which is something that I do very well because I don't think they serve any purpose and that time is being wasted. But rather to acknowledge them, understand it and move on without dwelling and using it as a way to justify your lack of progress. So I really, really liked this session for that. And the final section was section seven. There's no win or lose, just win or learn. Now this is pretty self-explanatory but it's not easy to put it into practice for most of us which is true to myself. Now it's quite a skill to be able to see through defeat and failures to find the lessons that present or that are presented to you. And this particular section basically presents us with the idea that the fortunate ones are the ones who can find lessons in their mistakes and we do, we do get better whether we win or we lose and it's up to you to see the good in the good and the better in the bad. The moment we can learn from a situation is the moment we win. Finding and creating shining gold in even the dullest and dimmest of places. All our lives are beautiful messes and no one else knows how it feels to have our experiences or how much we hold on to or how much longer we can go on. So I must say that I'm really happy that you stayed all the way to the end of this video if you did. I'm equally happy if you actually skimmed through because it was so long. I just wanted to share with you what I had learned and the most you can do for me now is to like this video if you got something from it and we'll most likely read this book for yourself. Looking forward to catch you again another time. Peace.