Book Review: "How Starbucks Saved My Life" by Malcolm Gates

"How Starbucks Saved My Life" is a Biography of Malcolm Gates, who was an Executive Vice President at the renowned advertisement firm, JWT for more than 30 years, before being shown the door at the age of 63, in order to make way for a younger and more aggressive generation.

In the book, Gates talks about his hollow, full-of-oneself and pompous existence typically observed in the filthy rich of America, who have no clue about the realities of life and its struggles, being faced at every moment, by the majority of ordinary citizens. He goes on to acknowledge the role of his new job as a Barista at Starbucks and the benevolent help of his African American Lady Boss, Crystal, to re-discover the basic joys of life such as experiencing the joys of growing up along with your child or bringing a smile to people's daily drudge routine life through small gestures of gratitude and respect to everyone or in understanding the real meaning of dignity of labor by becoming the best "Toilet Cleaner" or in re-affirming the belief in oneself that age is no bar for working hard and creating a niche for oneself.

The book is a fast read which is packed with several small instances which illustrate through examples, how Gates while working as the Barista, gave up his pre-conceived notions about several aspects of his past life and re-learnt new and joyful ways of giving and receiving love and respect from those around him - the colleagues, who were in their twenties, his boss in her thirties and the various customers of Starbucks, from various hues of society, across different age groups.

An engaging read especially for those of us who lead a cocooned life and are not aware of struggles of daily life of ordinary citizens. The book is written in easy prose and is instantly appealing to the rich of America. For those from the non-developed nations, the concepts discussed might sound a tad obvious, but they score bang on for the privileged Americans since the concepts come straight from Gates, who had been in their shoes and after losing his job and life, had regained both back through his new humble job at the Starbucks.