Ten years ago, Jake Bailey got himself up and out of his hospital bed, into a hall filled with his cohort of Year 13 students at Christchurch Boys High School and delivered a leaver’s speech to end all speeches.
It made the 6 o’clock news and for a little while his name was on everyone’s lips. He had an aggressive cancer that was not yet in retreat, caught barely two weeks before it would have taken his life and he had a message about living for his classmates.
Fast forward 10 years and here is Jake writing a book about resilience, about what matters and how to figure that out in a complex world full of clanging cymbals and beating drums all vying for our attention. What does a 27-year-old whippersnapper have to tell a 59-year-old who has seen a few things? To be fair, I am not the target audience, my children and their children are. The young adults making their way in the world – Jake is still talking to his cohort, and he does it extremely well.
His story and what he has learned AND applied from the cancer features front and centre, but Jake is wise enough to draw on many other sources of knowledge about resilience. After all, it’s not something you can pick up at the supermarket – you can’t touch it, but you know when you see it or feel it. All Blacks to Concentration Camp survivors, Kiwis to international stars, Jake weaves wisdom with storytelling and some essential self-deprecating Kiwi humour resulting in a compelling, relentlessly positive read. Buy a copy and leave it lying around where your 16–30-year-olds will find it.
