Mark: Alright Michelle, I'm going to say a book title, and you give me your gut reaction. How to Be a Bawse. Michelle: Sounds like something a PowerPoint presentation would say if it came to life and started a multi-level marketing scheme. Mark: That is brutally honest. And you're not entirely wrong about the vibe, but the story behind it, and the person, is way more interesting than you'd think. Michelle: I'm listening. Mark: The book we're talking about today is How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life by Lilly Singh. Michelle: Ah, Lilly Singh. Also known as Superwoman to millions on YouTube. That adds a different layer. Mark: It adds many layers. What's fascinating is that she wrote this at the absolute peak of her YouTube fame, but it’s deeply rooted in her earlier, very private struggles with depression and her experience as a first-generation Canadian daughter of Indian immigrants, trying to forge a path her family didn't understand. Michelle: Okay, that’s already more complex than I expected. Mark: Right? The book became a number one New York Times bestseller and won a Goodreads Choice Award, but it also stirred up some real controversy that we have to get into. It’s a perfect storm of modern fame, self-help, and cultural identity. And it all starts with this core idea of mastering your own mind, almost like you're the hero in your own video game.

Mark: Singh’s foundational argument is that a 'Bawse' doesn't waste energy trying to control people or situations. That’s inefficient. Instead, you control the only things you can: your reaction to people and your preparation for situations. She uses this great analogy of life being a video game. You can't control the obstacles or the enemies, but you can learn their patterns and master your own moves. Michelle: That’s a powerful idea. It feels very stoic. Focus on your own domain of control. Mark: Exactly. And she grounds this in a really painful personal story. Before her YouTube career took off, she tried to build a professional Indian dance company in Toronto. She poured her heart, soul, and money into it. She converted her basement into an office, she had this grand vision. But the dancers… they just weren't on her level. Michelle: Oh, I know this feeling. The group project from hell. Mark: Totally. They’d show up late, or not at all. They’d wear unprofessional clothes to paid gigs. She was trying to control them, to force them to share her ambition, and it was driving her crazy. The whole thing fell apart. Her big takeaway was that she was playing the game wrong. She couldn't control their commitment. Michelle: So what did she do? Mark: She pivoted to a game she could control: YouTube. On her channel, she was the writer, director, and star. She controlled the content, the schedule, the entire vision. The failure of the dance company taught her to stop trying to control other people and instead master her own output. That’s what led to her becoming Superwoman. Michelle: That's a fantastic story of finding your power. But here's where I get a little skeptical. She talks about conquering your thoughts, but she's also been incredibly public and brave about her own battles with severe depression. Can you really just 'program' your mind to be a Bawse? Where does genuine mental health fit into this very controlled, engineered reality? Mark: That is the central tension of the book, and she doesn't shy away from it. She’s not saying it’s a simple switch you flip. Her other big example is how she dealt with the flood of hateful comments on YouTube. Early on, they devastated her. Comments about her race, her appearance, everything. She couldn't control the haters. Michelle: Right, you can’t. That’s the dark side of the internet. Mark: So she developed what she calls 'cheat codes' for her brain. It's a set of mental reframes. For example, one cheat code was realizing that the person leaving a hateful comment is probably just having a terrible day and projecting their own misery. Another was internalizing that her opinion of herself shouldn't depend on anonymous strangers. It wasn't about suppressing her hurt feelings. It was about analyzing them, understanding them, and then building a system to defuse their power over her. Michelle: A mental defense system. I like that framing. It’s less 'ignore your feelings' and more 'build better armor.' Mark: Exactly. It's about engineering your response. You acknowledge the attack, but you've already built the shield. Michelle: That makes sense. But I imagine that armor must get incredibly heavy to wear all the time. Which I guess brings us to the energy required to maintain it.

Mark: And building that armor takes a ton of energy, which brings us to the second big idea in the book: the hustle. Singh is all about what she calls 'taking the stairs, not the escalator.' There are no shortcuts to success. It’s about pure, unadulterated work ethic. Michelle: Okay, here come the hustle-culture alarm bells. I'm picturing motivational posters with eagles and people yelling about grinding 24/7. How is this different from the toxic productivity advice we're all trying to unlearn? Mark: It's a fair question, and I think she's aware of that critique. She tells this story about a collaboration she did with Seth Rogen and James Franco. They had exactly forty-five minutes to shoot a nine-minute skit. The set was chaotic, people were talking, time was ticking. There was no room for error. She and her videographer had rehearsed every single shot, every movement, over and over. They were so prepared, so dialed-in, that they got it done. For her, that's the hustle—it’s about relentless preparation meeting a high-stakes opportunity. Michelle: That’s intense. But that’s a sprint. What about the marathon? That kind of intensity isn't sustainable day in and day out. Mark: You're right. And she addresses that by tackling the biggest enemy of the marathon: FOMO, the fear of missing out. She tells this story about being on her world tour. They were in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, and she had a massive shoot for a YouTube campaign at 6 a.m. the next day. But that night, all her friends and dancers were having a huge party downstairs. She could hear the music, the laughter... Michelle: Oh, that's torture. The temptation to just go down for one drink... Mark: It was immense. But she asked herself, 'What will my future self thank me for?' She chose to close her eyes and go to sleep. Six months later, she was standing in Times Square with her family, looking at her own face on a giant billboard from that campaign. The joy of that accomplishment, she says, was infinitely greater than the fun of a party she would have barely remembered. Michelle: That’s a powerful payoff. The sacrifice had a clear, massive reward. But what about the day-to-day grind when the billboard isn't in sight? Does she offer a way to avoid just completely burning out? Mark: She does, and it’s probably the most important counterpoint in the whole book. It’s a chapter called 'Pause Out of the Blue.' She describes being invited to this exclusive camp in Italy with incredible people, including Pharrell Williams. On paper, it was the dream. But she had been working so relentlessly that when she got there, she felt nothing. She was completely numb, just going through the motions. Michelle: Wow, to be in a literal dream scenario and feel nothing. That’s the definition of burnout. Mark: It was her wake-up call. She realized she was working so hard to earn these amazing experiences, but was too exhausted to actually experience them. Her solution is to actively schedule inspiration. To treat pausing and refueling not as a luxury, but as a critical part of the hustle itself. You have to pause to appreciate the wins, or the hustle becomes meaningless. Michelle: So it’s a cycle. Hustle to earn the pause, and pause to fuel the next hustle. That’s a much healthier-sounding paradox. Mark: It is. It’s about managing your energy, your presence, and your public persona. And that leads to the final, and maybe most complex, part of being a 'Bawse': how you actually show up in the world.

Mark: Singh argues that a Bawse has 'presence.' They light up a room. And a lot of this comes from being, in her words, 'unapologetically yourself.' She tells this great story about trying to meet her childhood hero, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. She’d tried all the official channels—managers, agents—and got nowhere. So she just broke protocol and texted him directly. Michelle: That takes some serious guts. Mark: It does. But he responded immediately, was incredibly gracious, and they met the next day. For her, that was a lesson in cutting through the noise and making a genuine, authentic connection. That’s the kind of energy she encourages. Michelle: That's a fantastic story about authenticity. But this is where the concept gets really tricky in the real world. She advises readers to be 'unapologetically yourself,' but her own career has been marked by significant and valid controversy over cultural appropriation. Critics have accused her of using Black and Indo-Caribbean stereotypes and slang for humor, essentially profiting from a culture that isn't hers. How does that square with this advice on authentic presence? Mark: And that is the crucial conversation the book doesn't have, but that we absolutely need to. It was published in 2017, and the cultural conversation around these issues has evolved so much since then. The book highlights the immense pressure on creators, especially from diverse backgrounds. There's a constant tension between drawing on your own heritage, performing for a mainstream, often white, audience, and the very real risk of falling into harmful stereotypes. Michelle: It feels like a blind spot. Her advice is about building your own brand, but it doesn't really address how that brand impacts the communities you represent, or borrow from. Mark: Exactly. Her advice to 'be nice to people' is good, she tells a nice story about being kind to Scooter Braun and how it paid off. But the cultural critique is a much deeper layer. It suggests that being a 'Bawse' in today's world isn't just about individual success or personal kindness. It's also about the responsibility that comes with your platform. It's about being aware of the power dynamics at play. Michelle: Right. So being 'unapologetically yourself' is great, until your 'self' is causing harm, even unintentionally. The advice feels incomplete without that piece. It’s like she built this incredible engine for personal ambition but didn't include the steering wheel for social awareness. Mark: That’s a perfect way to put it. The book is a masterclass in individual empowerment, but the world is asking for more than that now. It’s asking for conscious empowerment.

Mark: So when you put it all together, How to Be a Bawse is really a blueprint for a very specific type of 21st-century, influencer-era success. It’s about building an internal operating system based on radical self-control… Michelle: …powering it with a relentless, but as we discussed, strategic work ethic… Mark: …and then deploying all of that through a carefully constructed public persona. But as we've discussed, that final step—the public performance of it all—is fraught with challenges and responsibilities the book doesn't fully grapple with. Michelle: It's a powerful guide for individual ambition, for sure. But maybe the 2.0 version, the 2024 version, needs a chapter on collective responsibility. It actually makes me think about one of her own key quotes from the book. She says, "Mistakes don’t exist just to make us feel bad about ourselves; they are opportunities that we should not ignore or shy away from." Mark: That’s one of the best lines in the book. Michelle: It is. And maybe the controversies that have followed her are a public version of that very idea. They're an opportunity for a broader cultural learning moment, a chance to 'mold the failure,' as she would say, into a more aware and responsible way of being a Bawse. Mark: That's a perfect way to frame it. The journey of a Bawse, like any journey, isn't a straight line to a perfect destination. It’s a process of learning, adapting, and hopefully, growing. Michelle: And that’s a lesson that’s timeless. Mark: We'd love to hear what you all think. Does being a 'Bawse' require a different kind of awareness today than it did when this book came out? Let us know on our socials. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.