How to Be Confident
James Smith
“From two times number one Sunday Times bestselling author, James Smith, comes HOW TO BE CONFIDENT – the third instalment in James’ no-nonsense guides to gaining the tools to empower your decision-making and change your life. Now, more than ever, we are so often lost within a cycle of negativity – from comparing ourselves to others and doom scrolling on social media, to a paralysis of choice and chasing external gratification that does nothing to nurture authentic happiness. We need confidence to master our true ambitions, realise our genuine strengths, and achieve the life we need, but might not know we want. Luckily, with his candid, no-nonsense advice, experience, and passion, James is here to lead the way.”
I didn’t expect this book to be amazing, or to teach me brand new techniques on how to be confident. But I did expect it to be a bit more motivational, something that would actually get me in the mood to feel more confident in myself. I don’t think it really nailed that.
There were quite a few times where I just felt disinterested. A lot of the examples focus on dating, Jiu Jitsu, personal training, exercise, etc. I get that this is the author’s background and that these ideas can be applied to other areas of life, but it still felt flat and disengaging. There wasn’t much I personally felt I could take away from it.
A lot of the scenarios also felt irrelevant to me. They were informative, sure, but nothing out of the ordinary. And the author talks a lot about their own life, their progress, what they did and didn’t do, which started to feel more like a personal story than something that was actually helping the reader.
When I first picked up the book, I honestly thought it would be written by a female author. When I realised it wasn’t, it kind of changed the vibe for me straight away and felt like a let down. I really think this book would have been better coming from a female perspective and probably would have gone in a completely different and more relatable direction.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend it. 3 stars.
I was so excited to pick this one up, but unfortunately it ended up being a bit of a letdown. The book felt scattered and all over the place, without a strong through-line or clear point it was building toward. Each section felt quite segmented, and none of the ideas or stories were explored with much depth. Instead of developing concepts meaningfully, it jumped quickly from one example to the next, which made it hard to feel invested.
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This book promises to help you succeed in remote work, but honestly, it doesn’t deliver much that’s new or useful. The advice feels really basic and, frankly, outdated. The author talks about things like staying productive, keeping in touch with colleagues, and making the most of working from home, but let’s be real, that’s all pretty obvious at this point. It doesn’t really bring anything fresh to the table.
Zero to One promises a fresh perspective on building groundbreaking startups, especially coming from someone like the author, a Silicon Valley veteran. The book is visually appealing and I had high expectations, but unfortunately, I found the content somewhat underwhelming.
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I absolutely loved this book! From start to finish, it kept me hooked. The author writes with the perfect balance of detail, enough to paint a vivid picture but never so much that it bogs you down. He sprinkles in just the right amount of humor and storytelling, and you can tell there are still plenty of stories he left untold.
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