AWAKEN YOUR INNER LION

An inspirational guide focuses on finding your inner drive.

Akinyemi’s book is a short collection of his thoughts on various aspects of the world today and the ways his readers can navigate them toward a richer fulfillment of their dreams. More than simply dreaming is required, a fact that the author asserts is often overlooked. “Many times, people envy your result,” he writes. “They want the product, but want to bypass the process.” He frequently concentrates on the process in the course of his manual, stressing the need to overcome the tendency to just dream: “We must go beyond being dreamers to becoming action-takers.” Along these lines, he advocates that his readers rid themselves of what he calls parasitic relationships, comparing unhealthy bonds to a virus in the body. He asks his readers not to be afraid of their mistakes but rather to embrace them as potential learning opportunities. He also underscores the value of staying focused and avoiding distractions in the pursuit of goals (“There are times I want to go out and have fun or just watch Netflix,” he confesses, “but I don’t, because I have to write or invest my time in something more beneficial to my career”). Akinyemi’s persistent note of encouraging optimism will be a boon to many of his readers, who will find some useful nuggets in these pages. But much of his advice will be intensely familiar to readers of self-help and motivational books of this kind. In addition, they will often encounter blandly written truisms conveyed as deep insights: “Evaluating our dreams from time to time will help us determine if we could achieve them either in the short term or in the long term.” And the author’s railings against “woke culture” and his frequent allusions to his own greatness (“People like me…are not celebrated enough”) feel like distractions from the guide’s central thesis of self-actualization.

A forceful but at times muddled call to prune the weeds from your life.