Book tackles lessons from school of hard knocks

Nineteen tales, two tellers and one tome. What I Have Learned So Far… And How It Can Help You illustrates how you can never count on life to unfold as expected.

The collaborative work by Al Emid, a seasoned journalist and occasional Advisor.ca contributor, and Paul K. Bates, a financial services professional, is a tribute to power of the human spirit and its capacity to adapt.

The book’s goal is to help the reader prepare for life’s curveballs by studying how others have coped with them. The authors believe the book has the potential to be a meaningful gift that advisors can share with clients. The inspirational value of human interest stories, in turn, can provide additional glue to an advisor-client relationship.

The book’s 19 chapters plumb the personal lives of 50 people who share their brutal experiences as “graduates of the school of hard knocks.” Each short story depicts a life that changed in the blink of an eye.

The subjects – from Dianne Buckner to Evelyn Jacks and Colin Mochrie to Jim Ruta – have all lived to tell the tale of life’s cruel ways. Their measure of success altered forever. What I Have Learned is a gripping journey – like those of the “graduates” – that hauls the reader through hell and back with clues for succeeding in crisis at every unexpected twist of fate.

A mini-memoir of those out of luck but not out of pluck, this is not a self-help book, but a pick-me-up for the down-on-heels nonetheless.