Author: Franco Arda
Publisher: Smarter Comics. 49 pages
Book Review by Ramu Nakliba
This book, written by the founder of Smarter Comics Franco Arda, is highly inspiring to say the least. But more than arousing our emotions and appealing to our hearts, it really makes us think back about our successes and failures, and appeals to our minds.
Think of your past successes and what led you to make the decisions that brought you those successes. In some cases, someone believed in you and told you, in spite of your fears that “you can do it.” Whereas others stopped you from doing what you wanted. They told you “don’t do it….do be a fool…think of how embarrassed you would be if you failed.”
Many times, we have to make our own decisions, especially during our youth and thereafter in adulthood. When you are an orphan for example, oftentimes you have no one close enough that can help you make that major life-changing decision.
Fortune Favors the Bold means that if you are not bold enough to make a decision to take the first important steps to turn your dreams into reality because you fear negative outcomes, you will then you will simply remain unfulfilled.
“Dreams are the fuel that drives the engine of our life,” says Franco Arda. How do we find meaning in our lives? Arda answers this question that it is found by having “a thrill we can feel every day if we pursue something that gives us real meaning.”
Just yesterday, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer passed away. He found meaning in his life by creating so many devices that improved the lives of millions.
Life is not fun if we do not do what we want to do, but rather do what others, such as our parents, brothers and sisters, relatives or friends, influence us to do. Do what you want to do, when a youngster confronts me with his or her dilemma.
There was a time when I had a fair amount of success in a business – which I developed a love for, due to the opportunity to make unlimited amount of money. But I had not fulfilled my wish and intention to be in the profession I had studied and prepared myself for. So I decided to get into that profession. Why regret later in life that I did not do what my heart desired?
The chapters in this book evoke different feelings, but they make us think and realize that we ought to do the things we want to do, so as not to have regrets later. The chapters themselves are self-explanatory lessons we ought to act on, such as:
Live your dreams – quoting Oprah: “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.”
Your days are numbered – quoting Marcus Aurelius: “Don’t act as though you’ll live to be a thousand years. Your days are numbered like everyone else’s.
Life is risky – quoting Gary Mack: “Be willing to take a risk. Remember, there is no security in life. There is only adventure.
Accept your fears, but do it anyway – quoting Tom Hopkins: “If you don’t control your fear, fear controls you.”
Bold action or no action – quoting Yoda in the movie Star Wars: “Do or do not. There is no try.
Life lessons from poker – quoting Aaron Brown: “You can’t play poker no to lose. You have to play to win.
Life lessons from skiing – quoting T.S. Eliot: “Only those who will risk going too far possibly find out how far one can go.
Franco Arda has read the works of a lot of successful people and shared with us their sayings to make us feel that we can be bigger and better than we think of ourselves. In fact he tells us that no dream is impossible to attain.
This reminds me of a very short but very powerful quote I read that one graduate had posted in my high school yearbook: “Where there is a will, there is way?”
