[00:00:00] Hey guys It's Melissa. I'm back with another book review. And today I'm going to surprise you and do, "Why Not Me" by Mindy Kaling. And if you're like OK this girl is not going to review a book by a TV comedy writer and an actress. Yeah I am. Because here's something that you might not know about Mindy Kaling. She's hilarious and she's awesome.
[00:00:26] Honestly when I decided to read this book, I was expecting something different. You know "why not me." It's such a powerful statement. Personally, it sums up a mantra that I've had my entire life. The thing I love about Mindy Kaling is that she is so confident and it's something that she addresses in this book. She told this great story about this little girl who asked her at an event, "Mindy, where do you get your confidence?"
And Kaling admitted that she gave the girl a really bad answer because she was tired and that was the end of the day or something like that. And she talks about in the book about how much she regrets that moment. And she wishes that she could have given her better better advice. So she gives her the advice in the book and it's advice that I think everyone should hear.
And of course of course she put the you know this amazing part of this book is at the very end. So you've got to read everything to get to it... "Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled. If you do that you will be fine."
[00:01:24] I love that so much because there's just there's there's so much to it but I think the biggest thing, and she talks about this in the book a lot. It's this idea that everybody wants her life. Everybody wants to be famous. Everybody wants to like work on a TV show...all those things that are really exciting but people don't want to work for it.
And if you're like yeah, Melissa, I'm willing to work for it! Let me rephrase it. People aren't willing to practice for it. And a lot of you know writing or working in film or being on the stage or anything like so much of it is practice and practice isn't always fun. Practice sucks sometimes.
I know personally I'm in a play right now. It's a community theater production. And I have to do this cockney accent and let me tell you it's one of the most difficult things I've ever done my life is to do its cockney accent and I know it's bad like that's the hardest part of it. I know the accent is bad. I know my accent is bad and it's kind of those things that where it's like...All right.
Well we've accepted that you kind of suck at this and now you're going to have to practice to get better and practicing part isn't fun. It's really humbling. It's humbling to read lines that you've read over and over and over again and listen and say OK what what about this sounds crazy.
And I did that for a couple weeks leading up to the actual show and then I found out that on opening night someone in the audience said my accent was terrible.
[00:02:51] And I mean it hurt my feelings. I worked really hard on the accent but it's just that bad. I went from being atrocious to terrible and that's how it is with anything like you could you could totally suck at something and it's going to take you a really long time to be good at it.
I was sure if I kept working on the accent throughout the show which I plan to, and after the show... Like some day I could have an amazing Cockney accent. But right now it's bad. But it's like that with anything in life, you know you can't you can't necessarily go into something just thinking about the end result and having that be your only motivation.
You have to practice. You have to show up. You have to humble yourself. You have to make yourself really uncomfortable. And that's the strongest part of this book is that Mindy makes a point. You know people don't want to practice. They don't want to be bad at something for a long time.
And I get it. You know there's a lot of things that I would just keep up with the hard parts and be great. But that's not how life works. And that's on how success works. So I thought that was really great. Another awesome point that Kaling makes in her book and I talk about this a lot on my blog, Driftyland -
[00:04:04] Anything great or to start anything like you have to be brave. First you have to admit to yourself that you probably won't be great at it at first. You can be terrible but you have to be very brave and you have to do it for yourself because people and I'm going quote Mindy,
"People get scared when you try to do something especially when it looks like you're succeeding. People do not get scared when you're failing. It calms them. Because when you're winning it makes them feel like they're losing or worse yet that maybe they should have tried to do something too but now it's too late. And now since they didn't they want to stop you, and you can't let them."
Personally, I've had a lot of really strong support systems in my life. My parents have always been really supportive of the things that I've wanted to do, even when they sound insane. I have a really supportive team at work, I have a really supportive boss so but I've definitely been there have been times in my life where I've been around people that aren't really supportive.
[00:05:02] And I have said I want to be a writer and I'm gonna travel and I'm going to do these things and they've been like... Really? Like you? But you just have to remember that people have their own things going on.
They have their own lives they have their own feelings. And sometimes when you tell them you're going to do something they make it about them, and you know and it's just human nature. But that's the thing. There are some people in life that will try to stop you when you try to do something. When you try to do something great they'll try to stop you. They'll tell you it's a bad idea.
[00:05:29] And I've done a lot of things in my life, some of which were really bad ideas. I've taken risks and they haven't worked out. But you got to keep going and keep trying.
So those are all the most critical points that I got from, Why Not Me? If you love Mindy Kahling, if you love to just laugh throughout a book. This is the book for you. Thanks guys.