Humble the Poet Turning Losses Into Lessons “Things No One Else Can Teach Us”

“Things No One Else Can Teach Us” by Humble the Poet offers a refreshing take on life’s challenges. This powerful book delves into the art of turning losses into valuable lessons, providing readers with a unique perspective on personal growth and resilience.

Ready to unlock the secrets of turning adversity into opportunity? Dive into this review and discover how Humble the Poet’s wisdom can revolutionize your approach to life’s toughest moments.

Genres

Self-help, Personal Development, Motivation, Inspirational, Philosophy, Mindfulness, Spirituality, Psychology, Memoir, Contemporary Literature， Biography, Counseling, Happiness, Poetry, Cultural, Canada, Personal Growth, Personality

Humble the Poet takes readers on a journey through life’s hardships, reframing them as opportunities for growth and self-discovery. The book is divided into chapters that tackle various aspects of human experience, from dealing with failure and rejection to overcoming self-doubt and fear. Through personal anecdotes, thought-provoking questions, and practical advice, the author encourages readers to embrace their struggles and learn from them.

Key themes include:

1. Embracing discomfort as a catalyst for change
2. Cultivating self-awareness and emotional intelligence
3. Letting go of societal expectations and finding authentic happiness
4. Developing resilience in the face of adversity
5. Practicing gratitude and mindfulness in daily life

The author’s conversational tone and relatable stories make complex concepts accessible to a wide audience. He challenges readers to question their assumptions, confront their fears, and take responsibility for their personal growth.

Review

“Things No One Else Can Teach Us” stands out in the crowded self-help genre with its raw honesty and practical wisdom. Humble the Poet’s writing style is engaging and direct, making even the most challenging concepts easy to grasp and apply.

Strengths:

1. Relatable examples that resonate with readers from various backgrounds
2. Actionable advice that can be implemented immediately
3. A fresh perspective on familiar self-help concepts
4. Encouragement of critical thinking and self-reflection
5. Balanced mix of personal stories and universal truths

Areas for improvement:

1. Some readers might find certain ideas repetitive
2. The casual tone may not appeal to those seeking more academic or research-based approaches

Overall, this book offers valuable insights for anyone seeking to transform their mindset and approach to life’s challenges. It’s particularly suited for readers who appreciate straightforward advice and are open to questioning their long-held beliefs. “Things No One Else Can Teach Us” serves as a powerful reminder that our greatest lessons often come from our most difficult experiences.

Introduction: Learn to live life on your own terms.

Things No One Else Can Teach Us (2019) is a part-memoir, part-unconventional self-help book. Full of revealing personal stories and philosophical musings, it will inspire you to question your beliefs about failure, success, and what really makes life meaningful.

Humble the Poet has experienced plenty of setbacks.

As a Sikh spoken word artist who wears a turban, he’s no stranger to racism and discrimination. He’s also had to put up with fierce criticism from members of his community, who felt he was disrespecting his culture and faith.

To follow his dreams, he quit his day job as a teacher and went into debt. Along the way, he’s been lonely and full of self-doubt. He’s put his trust in scam artists and had lousy performances. He’s also had his heart broken numerous times.

You could say that he’s an expert in adversity. But today, he wears each of those setbacks and failures on his sleeve, because he knows that none of the triumphs in his career could have existed without those difficult times.

Humble’s wise and raw revelations about living an authentic life on your own terms have inspired his millions of fans. In this summary, you’ll get insight into six key teachings from his book Things No One Else Can Teach Us.

In this summary, you’ll learn

• why accepting death is the key to living a fulfilling life;
• how ping-pong can save you from yourself; and
• why indulging in self-pity is like eating at McDonald’s.

Life is finite, so guzzle all the joy you can while you can.

When you’re born, you’re born with a finite number of breaths. That’s right. You have, in a sense, an “expiration date.” Does that sound terrifying?

Well, death scares most people. Hearing that you, too, will die could make you want to hide under the covers and refuse to come out.

But pretending you’ll be here forever can be even worse. The truth is that as soon as you accept that everything is finite – even your life – you’ll be able to value what you actually have in the moment. Everything is temporary.

But you’re here right now.

Here to love and connect and hold your grandmother’s hands in your own, eat delicious food, drink in the faces of your children, and feel sand under your feet or the swish of your skirt as you walk down the street. You’re here to admire that tiny flower growing through the cracks in the pavement and to swoon as you listen to a beautiful song. The fact that it won’t last doesn’t make it less special. It makes it even more special.

So, right this moment, take some time to think about what’s important to you. Let your life flash before your eyes. Which parts of it light you up? Who really matters? What really matters?

Embrace the freedom of letting go of people and things that don’t fit you anymore.

Now comes the hard part.

When you’re identifying the people who light you up and support you, you’ll also identify people who don’t show up for you in the way that you need.

That means that you need to let some people go. You know who they are:

People who drain your energy and leave you depleted after you meet up. People who you Whatsapp out of obligation, but your heart’s not really in it anymore. People who pour scorn on your dreams. People who sabotage you while pretending to support you. People who say one thing while doing another.

There’s no space in your one brief and precious life for those people. They’re taking up space, energy, and time. All things that you have in very finite quantities. They’re taking time from your family, your dreams, and the friendships that do nourish and support you. The truth is that you need to let them go. You can do that lovingly and kindly. But do it.

Just like those clothes in your closet that don’t feel right on your body anymore when you put them on, some relationships just don’t “fit” you anymore. And that’s alright. They may have fitted perfectly at one stage of your life. You may have lots of beautiful memories together. But your past isn’t your future. At least, it doesn’t have to be.

So, it’s time to ask yourself: What parts of my past do I need to let go of? What do I need to leave in the past?

Throw away the map and follow your internal compass.

Charting a new future for yourself can sometimes feel like being stuck in the middle of a fierce storm. Visibility is poor and you don’t know where you’re going. The map that you’ve been following doesn’t apply anymore. So you’ve thrown it away.

That means you’re free.

But you’re also lost.

Some days this feels exhilarating, but sometimes it also feels completely terrifying. Where the hell are you going to end up? You have no idea. Remember, you threw away the map. It was leading you where society expected you to go. But that doesn’t fit you anymore.

When Humble the Poet quit his secure job as an elementary teacher, he was throwing away the proverbial map. The map said that he’d teach for the next 30 years until he could retire, and maybe dabble with music on the side in his basement.

The map said he had to hold on to his safe and respectable job with both hands and make the best of what he had. The map said that his parents had worked so hard to give him that opportunity, that he couldn’t possibly throw it away.

But, the creative life called to Humble. And the cries only got stronger. He knew he had to take the plunge, to back himself 100 percent. Even if no one else believed in him, he had to believe in himself. So he decided to quit his job as a teacher. At that stage, he had no idea how he’d pay his bills. There was no map to the path to becoming a successful artist. He had no idea what awaited him. He just knew he had to take the plunge and see what happened.

Now, the changes you need to make in your life might not be so drastic. You don’t have to turn your life upside down to live authentically. All you need to do is to tune into your internal compass. That compass is so much more important than any societal map you were following. It’s more important than what your parents, friends, or that hot person on Instagram think you should be doing.

So throw away the map and start to feel where your compass is pointing. The only thing that matters is that you follow that arrow – wherever it leads.

Get back in touch with the delight of doing something for its own sake.

Living in Los Angeles, Humble the Poet had bought into the city’s hustle culture. Everyone was ambitious and hard-working. He admired their grit and was determined to emulate it. So he forced himself to write every day, make music, post on social media to try and grow his audience, and try to get meetings with important people.

As he became more successful, he also became more strung out. He kept track of how many times his songs were downloaded; how many people liked his posts. He compared himself to even more successful and established artists, like Pharrell. He was desperate to have a massive hit and everything in his life became about working toward that goal. In the process, he lost sight of why he’d set out to become an artist in the first place. He stopped having fun.

Do you know what saved him? Ping-pong.

Between work sessions, Humble and his housemate would play a game to loosen up and get their creative juices flowing. It was exhilarating and easy. Everyone who visited the house inevitably joined in. Humble became the reigning champion. Which confused him. How on earth had he gotten so good at the game without ever trying to become good at it?

But then he had a revelation. In fact, over the last year, he’d been playing ping-pong every day. He’d been just as consistent at ping-pong as he was at writing songs. But there was one difference. Playing ping-pong had never felt like work. He never had to bribe himself to play a game. He didn’t stress about it when he wasn’t playing. He didn’t look up ping-pong champs online to compare himself to them. He just had fun. He enjoyed himself. And, in the process, he became good at it. It was the by-product of the fun, not the aim of the game.

Making art had been like that for him once, too. When he was a teacher, he’d always made time for writing and recording songs after school. It was pure joy. Something he did for the simple reason that he enjoyed it in the moment of doing it. But, when he decided to pursue art full time, all the fun was drowned out by the seriousness of his ambitions, by his determination to make it. Whatever that meant.

Humble realized that he had to bring that joyful ping-pong energy back into his music and writing. He slowed down and stopped measuring success in likes on Facebook. The only thing that mattered was that he liked what he was doing.

When was the last time you played a game like ping-pong or table football just because it felt good?

So, here’s an exercise for later. When you’ve completed this summary, just take a few minutes to play. You probably don’t have a ping-pong table in your living room. But you can throw a ball against the wall, or chase your kid around the garden. And when you’re done, close your eyes. Feel your heart beating faster. Feel the exhilaration radiating through your body. That’s the way you should be feeling as often as you can!

Self-pity should be an occasional treat, not a default mode.

Are you familiar with the character of Eeyore in the story of Winnie the Pooh? Eeyore is the sad donkey who always looks on the dark side of life. No matter how much everyone tries to cheer him up, he always sees the glass half empty. Eeyore is convinced that nothing will work out for him. And guess what: it doesn’t!

We all have an inner Eeyore.

Maybe you’ve gone through a brutal breakup. Or a friend betrayed you. Or your career isn’t going the way you want it to despite all your hard work. Or your parents don’t support you like you need them to. When you’re experiencing something difficult, self-pity is a natural response. It’s a way of connecting with yourself when you’re feeling low. It’s also a way of trying to get attention from the people around you. It can feel good to get hugs and sympathy from people trying to cheer you up.

But are you ready to hear the blunt truth?

Nobody wants to be around someone who feels sorry for themselves all the time. The Eeyore act gets very old very quickly. So if you carry on that way, your friends will start to avoid you. Which, of course, will only fuel your self-pity even more.

Self-pity is to emotional connection what McDonald’s is to food. It’s quick and easy – but it doesn’t last and it might well leave you feeling a bit queasy.

The thing is that everyone goes through hard times. You’re not special. Everyone around you is dealing with shit too. But self-pity will keep you stuck in your head and unable to be there for your community.

This might all sound harsh. No one’s saying that you can’t be down in the dumps from time to time. Of course, you’ll have hard days and feel sorry for yourself sometimes. You just have to make sure that self-pity doesn’t become your default mode for dealing with tough situations.

Stopping by McDonald’s for a burger and fries occasionally won’t damage your health. Having lunch and dinner there every day probably will. The same is true for self-pity. Make it an occasional “treat.”

For example, the next time you feel sorry for yourself, you could listen to a sad song and, while the song is playing, you can allow yourself to feel really, really awful. Call to mind all the people who’ve been unfair to you. All the times you’ve failed. All your disappointments. Let yourself give in fully to your inner Eeyore and gorge on self-pity. And when the song comes to an end, give yourself a shake and snap out of it. The self-pity show is over.

Summary

Now that you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, it’s time for some good news.

Your life is your responsibility – 100 percent of the time.

This might sound heavy. But really, think about it. You can’t control what happens to you. You can’t control how other people treat you. But you can control your responses.

Welcome to the school of life. You were enrolled at birth and the tuition is expensive. You’re going to make big mistakes, fail, and get your heart broken. Those heartaches and disappointments could make you shut down. Or you could choose to treat them as compassionate teachers here to give you valuable lessons. You could let them open your mind.

So stop fearing failure. Stop living small. Allow yourself to follow your compass. Fail hard – and proudly.

About the author

HUMBLE THE POET, AKA KANWER SINGH, is a Canadian-born rapper, spoken-word artist, poet, international bestselling author, and former elementary school teacher with a wildly popular blog of over 100,000 monthly readers. He has over 930,000 social media followers and his first book, Unlearn, is a Globe & Mail bestseller in Canada. He has performed at concerts and festivals including Lollapalooza and been featured in major media including Buzzfeed and Huffington Post. Visit him at HumbleThePoet.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Fortunately/Unfortunately, Nothing Lasts Forever
Open
1. Everything Is Temporary, so Appreciate Those You Have While You Have Them
2. Patience Is Making Time Your BFF
3. You Are Going to Die, and Remembering That Can Be a Good Thing
4. Don’t Cry Because It’s Over, Smile Because It Happened
Close

Knowing Yourself Makes All the Difference
Open
5. We Can Survive a Lot
6. Service to Others Is Also a Great Service to Ourselves (Sewa)
7. When We Know Our Why, Our How Gets Easier
8. We Gotta Pay Tuition for Life Lessons
Close

Don’t Focus on the Pot of Gold, Enjoy the Rainbow
Open
9. Focus on the Fun, and Everything Else Will Fall into Place (and If It Doesn’t, at Least You’re Having Fun)
10. The Pot of Gold Rarely Makes the Journey Worth It
11. Give Yourself Permission to Dance on Different Rainbows
12. We All Have Different Rainbows
13. Often, There Is No End to the Rainbow
Close

Zoom Out
Open
14. Try to Relate to the Bad Guys in Your Story
15. Chapters End, but Our Story as a Whole Keeps Evolving
16. Judge Less, Understand More
17. You Aren’t That Special, Embrace It
18. We Don’t Own a Crystal Ball, so Stop Assuming the Future
19. Are You Being Pushed by Fear, or Pulled by Love?
Close

Zoom In
Open
20. Life Isn’t Black and White, There’s Plenty of Gray in Between
21. Don’t Be So Hyperbolic (That’s a Big Word for Dramatic)
22. Detach Your Self-Worth from Your Choices
Close

Limit Your Self-Pity
Open
23. Caution: Social Media Is a Playground for Self-Pity
24. Self-Pity Is Easy and Convenient like Fast Food (and Just as Unhealthy)
25. We Don’t Scream “Why Me?!” During the Good Times, so Don’t Scream It During the Bad
26. Turn Rejection into Invitation
27. Self-Pity Feeds Our Insecurities (and That Leaves Us Bitter and Angry)
28. Getting Offended Is a Form of Self-Pity
Close

There’s No Win or Lose, There’s Only Win or Learn
Open
29. Stop Calling Them Failures, Start Calling Them Teachers
30. Not Everyone We Lose Is a Loss
31. We Can Lose More Trying to Wi; n
32. Freedom Is Having Nothing to Lose
33. There Are No Time Machines, so Fix It Next Time
Close

Outro

Acknowledgments