I AM A ROCKSTAR: An expert guide to Success by Uma Vanka: Book Review

Uma Vanka’s debut book, I AM A ROCKSTAR: An expert guide to Success, was the latest book on my reading list that I have finished recently. Let me tell the readers, at the very outset, this book is very different from the books that I have read in this genre – business, inspirational, corporate or self-help. Right from the names like Orison Swett Marden, Dale Carnegie, Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey to the modern ones like Shiv Khera and Robin Sharma, these authors have been active, extensively, in telling the readers what their lacking sides are. In a different way, if I may put it bluntly, these so-called motivational or inspirational authors have been harassing the readers by not empathising with them and rather intimidating them by telling what they cannot do and what might be impossible for them to do, with whom they have to compare themselves and how pitiable human beings (other than the author) in general are. I may sound exaggerating the concerns but they are original and you must have felt that at some point if you have read such writers. So, why is Uma Vanka’s book different? What makes I AM A ROCKSTAR commendable?

“You might have more strengths or fewer strengths in a specific context, that’s all. In the grand scheme of things, everyone is equal.”

As you must have seen in the line I quoted above, Uma takes it to you. He has tried his best to communicate to the readers that they are all-powerful and they just need to work on themselves – understand themselves, their strengths and weaknesses and use them both to their advantage. Teaching someone about their weaknesses should be done in a way that it does not harass the person being taught. Uma, wonderfully, has taken care of this. He has certainly tried to highlight that the readers of his book might have basic or other problems but they can overcome it easily and make wonderful things happen.

Talking about the content of Uma’s debut attempt in business writing, I can cut it short by saying that he has been to the point, sharply precise (do care for the emphasis) and simplified as well. Otherwise, what most of the authors in this genre, motivational of self-help, generally do is that they overdrive the ideas and complicated it in order to pose themselves as intellectuals or certainly something above and beyond the readers’ reach – just to look authoritative. Well, that does not make much sense as we often tend to overlook such works and ignore such writers. In the case of Uma Vanka, he has been simple, grounded and well-withing the reach of his readers so that they can learn from his experiences and make their own lives better. In the book, Uma has been constantly focused on the professional aspects of life. His words will mostly be helpful for you when you are inside your office chamber or on your work-desk. However, there are elements that will help you in the day-to-day events of your life. Decision making, target setting, making the communication skills perfect, understanding your weaknesses, identifying the right kind of criticism and learn from the critics’ opinions, ignoring the unnecessary or out of context criticism and moving ahead in life – this is what the book tries to tell you. There are 13 chapters in the book. Chapters are given their titles very aptly. However, the 5th chapter is entitled <blank> and the 8th chapter is entitled ‘Know What You Don’t Know’. Yes, this is it! You will find their secrets once you read the book.

“I have been inspired by my travels around the world and the eye-opening experiences that have led me to see how different cultures view leadership and success. I have travelled to over fifty countries…”

Well, you can expect that a person who has travelled to more than 50 countries will certainly come up with ideas that are based on multiple instances of the same kind but the conclusion is made on the basis of a certain process of churning the inputs and coming up something that is concrete and tested on various layers. The same has happened in the book as well. Uma Vanka will provide the readers with his own experiences in different circumstances in life and offer advice to the readers which will be ideally related to universal situations in anyone’s life.

Dear readers, who are interested in real-life motivation that works, you must read this book for the best parts and yes, there are certain critical sides in the book that I might call out but those are not so important which make things alarming. So, conveniently, I will advise you to read the book and get the lessons from the book as you may get those. You can buy the book from Amazon by clicking the link below. It cost just 50 RS!

Buy the book now – click to get a copy from Amazon

Review by Alok Mishra