Unstoppable - Stew Darling
CoLab Book Club - May 2025
Our choice for May was Unstoppable: Living Beyond Our Limits by Stew Darling, a Scottish ex-pat who’s lived in New Zealand for over a decade. Ex-British military and now a consulting coach and speaker, Stew collects his lived experience into his book about how to self-improve by recognising what’s going on in the world around you, understanding how you are unique within it and tapping into that uniqueness to become unstoppable.
Overview
The book brings together lots of ideas that are surfacing in the modern world and is a mix of ‘back to nature’ advice and well-known leadership concepts.
The core framework has three steps:
⚡️ Be Unreasonable
⚡️ Raise the Standard
⚡️ Determine Your Sacrifice
It’s full of stories - both Stew’s and others’ - used to illustrate different learning moments across these three themes. It’s not necessarily designed to be read cover-to-cover, but more as a reference to dip into for inspiration in your day-to-day life. It’s a cross between a biography and a self-help guide.
Our Key Takeaways
✔️ Not as unreasonable as it could have been - we were expecting radical rebellion and got a badass’s life experience
✔️ Easy to read - each story is interesting and the tone is conversational.
✔️ Relatable - as coaches, it was a good reminder of things we already know and experiences we’re familiar with.
✔️ Solid - good advice, but nothing we’re rushing to use straight away.
✔️ How to use it - an interesting business model example, providing a consistent guide for messaging and a source of truth for his group of coaches.
Insights from Stew
Having Stew in person meant we got some great insights directly from the author:
🎤 What’s the most difficult advice to take? Consistency – not trying to run at full pelt all the time and then crashing, but staying just below peak and being consistent; being kind to yourself and letting yourself stop.
🎤 What was the hardest part? Getting on with it – it’s easy to take loads of notes, record soundbites and stories, but sometimes you need that person to say “just write the book!” to help you collate and make it useful.
🎤 What inspired you to write it? Stew committed to writing long ago, and felt there were bits missing from his first book that needed to be said.
Who is it For?
This is a great book for people starting out in life, stepping into a leadership role or looking for some inspiration. It’s a collection of solid advice soundbites with an easy-to-read style, making it a good place to start for anyone wondering “is this it?” or “what’s next?” and wanting to make a change.
Thank you!
Huge thanks to Stew Darling for popping into our discussion, being peppered with questions and answering them with humour, humility and candour!
Shoutout to this month’s CoLabBookClub crew - Allan Atkinson, Ceedee Doyle (host), John Allen, Peter Bink, Pete Tansey, and Toni Wilson. Thanks for another great kōrero.
#Unstoppable #CoLabBookClub #Leadership #SelfLeadership #BookReview