How Starbucks Saved My Life (Book Review)

How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
by Michael Gates Gill


The title does a good job of briefly summing up the book.  Michael Gill was born into an upscale family, grew up in a mansion, attended Yale and mentioned meeting such famous people as Hemingway, Muhammed Ali, and Frank Sinatra.  He was given his first job at the ad agency J Walter Thomson (JWT) where he rose to the very successful position of Creative Director.  Along the way he made some mistakes.  He devoted most of his energy to JWT and was too quick to jump at any assignment they given, no matter the consequences.  After 25 years he was fired by his mentee.  His consulting firm went nowhere, his life became complicated by family and health matters and he was in a pretty sorry state until an accidental encounter led him to accept a job at Starbucks.  His time and experiences at Starbucks dramatically changed his life for the better.


This book has many themes including, status, social-economic class, family, confidence, regret and redemption.  It was hard for someone of "privilege" to find himself work at Starbucks and his and his peers reactions are very interesting.  Additionally, he was exposed to a more diverse set of people than he was used to and he was far better off for it.  One great line from the book regarding one scene is "my former entitled and arrogant self would have been appalled."


I thought the book was great, it was very well written, a quick read (200+ pages) and carries with it many important life lessons.  While it felt over the top at some points or too sweat it was not a serious drawback.


A few main points I took away:

-It seemed to me he was far happier at Starbucks than he ever was in his former high powered career.  Part of this is greater appreciation for what he had as he had it easy before in many ways, and part of this because based on the book Starbucks treats its employees well, as opposed to many ad agencies.

-Take pride in your work no matter what you do.  He took more pride in cleaning the bathroom than many people do in much more glamorous tasks and it showed.  (this has an impact on customer service - see my post on that topic)

-Treat people well in work and in life, there's really no excuse not to.  As you'll read with him, guilt can come back to haunt you.

-Find a balance in life - while he was very successful at work, he neglected his family and that regret caught up to him.  As he writes early discussing his time with his children "You only have one life; take it from me, live it wisely.  Weight your priorities."

-Focus less on the past, more on the future.

-Finally, things don't always go as you plan, nor can you plan your life.  The irony of this story in many ways is the guy went from (in his opinion) a very high status job to nothing only to become happier, plus write an extremely successful book which will be turned into a movie starting Tom Hanks.  So, you never know what one door will lead to in life.

Below is a CNN video about the author and the book (click here for link)

Readers of this book might also be interested in Howard Schulz's Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time which offers context about the type of workplace he tried to create.  For more book reviews visit Apellicon's Book Recommendation website.