“An oppurtunity may come your way, and that will be your chance to make a huge difference.”
Anchal Singh
If you’ve followed The Writer Chick for a while, you know I love self-help books. I enjoy using them as a way to learn more about who I am and how to show up as the best version of myself in every part of my life.
I had the pleasure of reading Rise and Fall: The Unpredictable Life by Anchal Singh over the past month and I definitely have a lot of thoughts! But before we get into that, I think it’s important that we learn a little more about the author in question. Below is a snippet of what she wrote about herself:
“I always had a dream to get my work published in a book and to hold it in my hands, I had no idea how to do it. I just had to do it and it finally came true from being an aspiring writer to a published author. I had been curious to try more stuff and to do something for this world, to bring something that would change lives. Two years before, I started writing, and then I sent it to a publication. The work was selected and I guess there were only 10 people from all over India. Soon, after seeing my works I got requests to be part of the various anthology books. Some of them were from international publications too. I worked as a co-author with alcove publishers and quail keepers publications, where India writes publications, publicave publications, nlhf publications, notion-press publications, etc. Although I have been writing for the last two-three years I feel like it has become a part of my life. I just hope that my work enables the reader to be hopeful and to see life with a different perspective if the things don’t turn out the way they have imagined…just the thought of how the future is going to turn out to be, keeps me going. Because I believe this is just the beginning.”
Isn’t that beautiful? One of the things that I love about writing is the fact that we have the ability to change someone’s life. That’s something that keeps me going so I can understand Singh’s own desire to do the same. You can definitely feel that in her debut book, Rise and Fall: The Unpredictable Life.
If you’re interested in hearing some of my thoughts on the book or you’re interested in a new self-help recommendation, feel free to keep reading. The audio version of this blog post will be available on May 18th, 2022. In the meantime though, feel free to listen to the rest of my podcast episodes on your listening platform of choice or by clicking the ‘Podcast’ tab on my website.
And if you’re a self-published author too, head over to the ‘Meet The Author’ tab and click ‘Book Review Sign Up’ for a free review on my blog!
Let’s get into it, shall we?
NOTE: Rise and Fall: The Unpredictable Life is available everywhere. Feel free to follow her @iamanchalsinghrajput on Instagram to stay up to date on her life or other new projects!
So…what is it about?
SYNOPSIS
The journey is more beautiful than the destination. Rise and Fall: The Unpredictable Life is a gripping self-help book that will allow you to transform the areas of your life that you feel need more improvement. This book explores the idea of failure and success, following your dreams, achieving your goals, following your heart, and so much more.
GENRE: Non-Fiction/Self Help
PAGE COUNT: 100
Positive Vibes Only
Now we’re getting into my actual review! This section is pure positivity, so I’ll just go through some of my favorite topics and add a couple of quotes. Because this is non-fiction, I will just expand on some of the ideas Singh highlighted in her book.
Failure: The Cousin To Success
QUOTES TO LIVE BY:
- “Successful people talk about failure just as much as they talk about success and it’s because they respect how important it is to embrace it.”
One thing that Singh consistently spoke about was the concept of failure and how it isn’t a bad thing. I think this is a good lesson for all of us to remember because success doesn’t happen overnight and you need those failures in order to grow. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to just this phenomenon alone and I could tell that Singh was really passionate about the subject.
I can’t count the number of times that I’ve failed in life. I’ve told countless stories on this blog and my podcast about my mishaps with my business, my books, and life in general. But guess what? I never gave up even when I faced adversity.
Failure is the cousin to success because you need it in order to learn and pivot accordingly. If I didn’t “fail” with my previous books then I wouldn’t be in the position to write a blog or learn the necessary things that I need to do differently to make sure that my fifth has more success. If I didn’t “fail” with my candle business, I wouldn’t have started to perfect the formula or continue building on it. And you know what’s crazy? I’m still “failing” which means I’m still learning. And that means I have a whole world of possibilities at my fingertips.
So don’t be afraid to fall short. Most of the time it’s just preparing you for something better.
Follow Your Dreams
QUOTES TO LIVE BY:
- “An opportunity may come your way and that will be your chance to make a huge difference.”
- “A human being is as big as his dreams. And the bridge between dreams and reality is work.”
Another big topic in Rise and Fall: The Unpredictable Life is the concept of following your dreams. But the difference in Singh’s conversation about it is that she highlights the importance of working towards it. Having dreams is amazing, but if you don’t do the work to make them a reality then that’s all they’ll ever be.
For example, my dreams have always centered around writing. I always found myself wanting to be a published author and help people with my words. Fast forward ten years later and I’ve achieved the published author part (because I put in the work to get there), but as for helping people with my words, it’s changed shape over the years. Now I’m writing this blog and expressing myself with my podcast, so now I’ve made my dream a reality. But it only came from discipline and hard work.
And now I’ve had a lot of opportunities that are allowing me to expand my reach so that I can achieve the dreams of twelve-year-old Kae who just wanted to change the world.
Celebrate Yourself, Sis!
QUOTES TO LIVE BY:
- “Learn to celebrate yourself, when nobody else celebrates you.”
I was actually really glad that Singh brought this up in her book because this is something that I struggle with and I think a lot of other people do too. I don’t know if this is true for everyone, but I feel ashamed to celebrate myself because I think that I’m being arrogant by doing so. That I’m not being “humble” by acknowledging my own accomplishments, so I’m constantly downplaying everything that I do. I know my mom always says that I’m humble to a fault, which is true. But the thing is, I shouldn’t downplay my success. I shouldn’t be afraid to celebrate myself. And neither should you. Being humble and being proud can be in the same universe.
If nobody celebrates you, then that’s okay. Learn to celebrate yourself because you deserve to feel proud of what you’ve achieved. Your hard work shouldn’t go unnoticed because other people hate to see you shine.
This subject was definitely a sprinkle in her book, but it packed a punch when it showed up. So this is why I felt the need to expand on this subject in particular because I’m always talking about this in my blog and podcast.
Life Is Hard, But It Doesn’t Have To Knock You Down
QUOTES TO LIVE BY:
- “Life has a lot more to offer and the best part is that there are no fixed levels.”
- “We have things that happen to us, and yes, they shape us, they mold us. Because in the end what defines you is how you react and the decisions that you make.”
- “Even the bad experiences can teach us a lot. In fact, sometimes they are the proponent shaper of our destiny.”
Life is tough and it isn’t fair. I know that’s cliche, but that’s the truth. It’s one of the main lessons that Singh talks about in her book, but she highlights how important it is to take those lessons and help them propel you forward instead of keeping you stagnant.
I actually had to relearn this lesson recently. Do you know the boyfriend I always mentioned in previous posts and podcast episodes? Well, that relationship ended a little over two weeks ago. And needless to say, I was crushed. After so many failed relationships, this was the first one that made me feel like someone could truly love me and it hurt to have that snatched away so fast.
At first, I thought it was me. That I was the problem. That I was unlovable. Those are thoughts I’ve carried with me ever since I started dating people. Every relationship I’ve had has been tumultuous, with some being better than others, but still, the core of it was painful. And this was the first one that was peaceful. So in my head, if I couldn’t make this one work or any of the other ones, then I have to be an unlovable person.
But that thought process made me terrified to be close to people. And I’m tired of letting myself be too terrified to express my love because other people don’t know how to receive it. That’s not my problem. And the more I thought about the relationship, I realized that it wasn’t me. I wasn’t unlovable. I did the best that I could. There were just a lot of different changes happening all at once and our relationship just didn’t fit into that anymore. So by deciding to see this in a different light, I’m able to accept that it’s over and I’ve been trying to meet new people ever since. Changing your reaction to a situation can really make a huge difference.
I would say that this lesson in particular came at the right time and I think more people need to reframe how they think about life. Yes, those experiences suck, but what really makes a difference is how you let them shape you going forward. Are you going to let it destroy you or are you going to let it help you?
Uh Oh…What’s the Tea?
I got into the positives, which were quite a few, but what didn’t I like? I want to reiterate that these are my personal opinions so you’re allowed to disagree with me when you read the book for yourself. I won’t be offended.
Going Back To The Basics: Formatting
This was definitely a minor problem with the book so it won’t affect the readability, but I think Singh would have benefitted from updating the formatting or getting a second opinon. Sometimes the chapters blended together so I found myself having to go back a lot because I wouldn’t remember where Ieft off. I also just think it would be helpful for marketing purposes because I know some readers focus on that pretty heavily.
Grammar Police
Now this was probably my biggest gripe with the book overall. There were quite a lot of grammar errors that definitely made it a little difficult to follow along with everything, but that’s always something that can be fixed if Singh ever did a second edition or used this advice for future works. I think a second pair of eyes or an editor would have minimized some the errors and improved the readability.
Spring Cleaning: Let’s Talk About Organization
I would say that Singh had some organization, but I would have loved to have more of a central theme and then branched off with other topics. I felt like the book went all over the place in some parts and I would get confused on where Singh was going with the topic at hand. So a little more organization on what needed to be said would have strengthened the book and would have made it easier to follow along.
I think it’s important that self-help books stay as organized as possible so that the reader can digest the information and still stay on track.
Same Ol, Same Ol
My last thought on Rise and Fall: The Unpredicable Life is that I felt like it got a little too redundant in certain areas of the book. Singh would be repeating the same thing in a different way so it just felt like the chapters dragged on longer than they needed to. I think cutting out some of those parts and incorporating some form of organization would have helped to minimize some of the redundancy that I was witnessing. Definetely not a bad thing to repeat what you said (like bullet points for example at the end of the chapter) but it has to be done tastefully in order to be effective.
Final Thoughts & Rating
Overall, I would probably give it a solid three stars. I enjoyed a lot of the ideas that Singh brought to the table, but I think a lot of the formatting and grammatical errors made it difficult to truly enjoy.
But I am excited to see Singh’s future work and I think that you guys should still show her some love by following her on Instagram (all the information is at the beginning to scroll up!) and taking the time to check out her book.
Feel free to show me some love too by commenting down below!
Until next time,
-The Writer Chick
the-writer-chick.com 