WHAT I WOULD TELL MY YOUNGER SELF
By Dewayne Sims
IndieReader Rating: 4.8/5 · IR Approved
Self-Help · September 6, 2026
Thoughtful, accessible, and refreshingly down-to-earth, Dewayne Sims's WHAT I WOULD TELL MY YOUNGER SELF: Life Lessons I Wish I Had Known Earlier combines personal experience with practical advice in a compelling reflection on the lessons learned through a lifetime of successes and mistakes.
Drawing on decades of hard-earned experience, Dewayne Sims reflects on the lessons he wishes he could share with his younger self—exploring character, personal responsibility, relationships, finances, education, and what it ultimately means to live a meaningful life.
After years of meditating on both his successes and failures in life, Dewayne Sims set out to write a list of lessons he would tell his younger self. The result is part memoir, part self-help book that makes for a compelling read.
WHAT I WOULD TELL MY YOUNGER SELF: Life Lessons I Wish I Had Known Earlier is divided into three parts. The first section revolves around building a foundation of character, and here Sims discusses the importance of being a good person with a good attitude, the weight of spoken words, the value of reflecting before speaking, and the power of setting and working towards goals. The second section focuses on choices that shape one’s life, as Sims considers which opinions should matter and how each person is ultimately responsible for the life they build for themselves. In the final section, Sims ruminates on what it takes to live a life that matters. He discusses the importance of education, financial matters, habits, friends, and family.
In each chapter, Sims explains the lessons he has learned through a personal anecdote, recounting what happened to him when he was younger, how the incident shaped his life, and, sometimes, how he wishes he had reacted differently. Each chapter ends with a bullet-point list of the things he would tell his younger self, which helps reinforce the lessons and acts as an easy reference (should readers wish to return to Sims’s key points).
Following his journey and seeing what realizations time and wisdom have brought him lends his advice an authenticity that a more conventional self-help approach might lack. Rather than presenting himself as an expert dispensing wisdom from on high, he allows readers to see how experience (and sometimes poor decisions) led him to the conclusions he now draws.
Many of these conclusions are familiar, but this is part of what makes the advice so useful. His lessons come from experiences that, although particular to him, reflect universal concerns and are therefore easy to understand and apply to one’s own circumstances. There is little here that feels controversial or prescriptive. Instead, Sims offers sensible advice grounded in the benefit of hindsight.
The chapters dealing with family and the finite nature of time are among the book’s most affecting, which makes the decision to end on financial matters seem slightly anticlimactic. Either of the more emotionally resonant chapters might have provided a stronger conclusion.
WHAT I WOULD TELL MY YOUNGER SELF's conversational tone and fairly short, easily digestible chapters make it particularly accessible and well-suited to reading amid the rush of everyday life. For readers looking for a little hard-earned wisdom to help them reflect on their own choices and priorities, Sims’s lessons are well worth taking the time to consider.
Thoughtful, accessible, and refreshingly down-to-earth, Dewayne Sims's WHAT I WOULD TELL MY YOUNGER SELF: Life Lessons I Wish I Had Known Earlier combines personal experience with practical advice in a compelling reflection on the lessons learned through a lifetime of successes and mistakes.
~ Suneé Jones for IndieReader