Reviews.

Finally, a book that’s refreshingly honest about failure. Bob Sicina’s Dare to Reinvent Yourself! I Did. is a decades-long journey through twenty-one reinventions. It follows a Polish Catholic onion farmer’s son from his childhood in Florida, New York to the corporate boardrooms of Citibank and American Express, and finally to a late-in-life redemption that is both unexpected and deeply felt.

At age five, Sicina was weeding onions under a hot sun. His back ached and spiders crawled around him, but his mother taught him that people should be valued solely by “how hard one works.” This very lesson shaped his worldview long after he left the fields. But a defining moment happened when a white Cadillac drove onto their farm during harvest: “That’s when I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to be the driver of the Cadillac, not my father.” This hunger to escape his circumstances carried him through college at Syracuse University, a stint in the Air Force, and an international banking career that took him to Iran, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. In Iran, the adventure began with a classic case of culture shock. While in Rome, as a young Air Force lieutenant, he was immediately targeted by a local hustler in a scam that cost him a small fortune.

Meanwhile, Mexico City provided an entrance into the rarefied world of a corporate expatriate, complete with a stunning home in Pedregal de San Angel and a country club membership. Recounting his boss’s wry observation on the city’s chaotic traffic, he gives a glimpse of the cultural adjustments needed to survive in a bustling metropolis like Mexico City: “You Gringos are funny! Every time we come to an intersection, you look at the light to decide whether to stop or go. The light isn’t going to hurt you. It’s the cars that are going to kill you!” Then there’s an obvious turn in Brazil where the sheer scale of the city is overwhelming. This luxury is a clear contrast to his roots, serving as a powerful reminder of how far he has come. He describes a neighborhood so exclusive that his neighbor was Hebe Camargo, the “Queen of Brazilian Television.” Next is Colombia, where he is constantly under the threat of kidnapping by left-wing guerrillas. This phase is about survival. Indeed, this portion of the book is particularly gripping, with the armed guards and bulletproof offices, even the need for a safe room with a massive steel door.

Here, Sicina carefully paints a portrait of corporate life during the heyday of international banking — from his time at Citibank flying on the corporate jet with CEO Walter Wriston to pioneering asset-backed securities for credit card receivables and hosting clients at a Yankee Stadium box he kept for seventeen years. Further immersing readers in his time in the banking industry, he shares how he created a pro-form financial analysis for Michelin based solely on competitor data because the company refused to share its own financials. Of course, this mix of creativity and self-awareness made these business stories, which might’ve otherwise felt a bit complex to get through, feel very human while also being instructive. “I had discovered something important about myself,” he writes. “I’m good at making stuff up!”

Also, Sicina simply refuses to gloss over his mistakes. He admits to adultery over twenty-six years of marriage, his struggles with bipolar disorder, and seven failed entrepreneurial ventures in as many years. “Reinvention doesn’t happen despite our failings — it happens because of them. If I only shared the triumphs and glossed over the betrayals, this book would be dishonest.”

Perhaps the most surprising and affecting part of the book, though, is its spiritual arc. In college, Sicina left his Catholic faith behind and lived without it for more than sixty years. Yet in his eighties, after a hospital stay and a decision to quit drinking after sixty-five years of heavy consumption, he returned to the Church. He confessed to a priest that he isn’t sorry for his adultery. This is a rather brutally honest admission. Later, after his son, Nick, sends him a scathing email about the hurt his infidelity caused, he finds genuine remorse. “My prior sentiments were replaced with shame, regret, and repentance.”

Sicina explains that he belongs to the five percent of people with bipolarity who show no symptoms until their fifties. His manic episodes brought excessive confidence, overspending, career implosions, and his depressive episodes brought hopelessness and thoughts of suicide. His openness creates room for a better understanding of what exactly bipolarity is, allowing readers to identify similarities in themselves or their loved ones.

Challenging readers to keep getting back up again, Bob Sicina’s memoir Dare to Reinvent Yourself! I Did. shows that reinvention isn’t a single leap but a series of stumbles, detours, and, sometimes, miraculous recoveries. A lovely read for anyone facing a career change, struggling with personal failure, or simply wondering if it’s too late to start over. He explores the risks and rewards of change while offering readers a compelling example of how reinvention can open doors to new possibilities. Dare to Reinvent Yourself! I Did. is a powerful reminder: you’re never too far gone to try again.

I recommend this book to readers who enjoy inspirational memoirs centered on transformation, career reinvention, and personal discovery.

A candid chronicle of personal and professional transformation.

The opening chapters focus on Sicina’s childhood in a Polish, Catholic, onion-farming family in the “Black Dirt Region” of Florida, New York. The author was raised with a strong work ethic; his mother taught him that “serious people work hard. Frivolous people don’t.” Sicina rose through the ranks of the Boy Scouts, joined the National Honor Society, and attended Syracuse University on a scholarship. The author recounts alcohol-soaked fraternity misadventures, his stint on the National Ski Patrol, and summers working on the Ford Motor plant assembly line. Sicina became an engineer and was drafted into the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War. He later married a social worker and had two sons. He found his niche in international corporate banking, which took him and his family to Mexico City and Brazil. After returning to the U.S., he enjoyed landscaping, running, and riding motorcycles in his free time. The author confesses to cheating on his wife throughout their 26-year marriage — he filed for divorce when the couple’s sons were 11 and 17, then embarked on a “life of philandering.” A bipolar diagnosis and medication to treat it soon followed. Sicina’s later reinventions include quitting alcohol, returning to the Catholic Church after a 60-year absence, and remarrying. In this no-holds-barred memoir, the author surveys his life and its lessons, openly admitting his mistakes and demonstrating self-awareness in reflections like, “I look back on those years and see a man running, not walking, toward something he thought was better. Instead, he was running away from the wreckage he had created.” The text clearly connects Sicina’s personality traits to concrete experiences, such as the ways in which the manual labor of the onion fields “instilled in [him] the will to keep dragging [his] own doghouse forward.” However, the book’s treatment of infidelity is both crude and insensitive.

An incident-rich memoir of personal evolution.

While some people may appear to stay the same for most of their lives, most people go through several moments when something about them seems to change. Whether because of external circumstances like being fired from a job or falling in love with someone unexpectedly, or internal choices, like taking up a new hobby or learning a new language, many things can lead someone to change their life. These changes are a form of reinvention, or the process of redefining who a person is.

Reinvention is the cornerstone of author Bob Sicina’s Dare to Reinvent Yourself! I Did. The book follows the author’s life story and the moments which redefined him along the way. From the author’s early years and upbringing in the small town of Florida, New York, to the chance to move abroad for work and live in countries like Brazil, the book offers not a manual or educational tool, but more of an insightful glance into how the author’s life showcases the ways in which reinvention is possible at any stage in a person’s life.

The author does an excellent job of writing in a way that feels conversational and engaging, allowing the reader to feel immersed in the author’s life and their experiences with ease. The honesty and authenticity for which the author writes allows the stories from his life to feel tangible and heartfelt to the reader as the book progresses, and the pacing of the book gives the feeling of a full life well lived, and the way this plays into the concept of reinvention was perfect as it highlighted how each experience and moment in a person’s life can serve as a moment of reinvention, as people in general tend to grow and evolve several times throughout their lives.

Readers who enjoy nonfiction books, especially those written like a memoir and self-help motivational guide, will thoroughly enjoy this book. The chapter features the author’s 10th reinvention when they moved with their family to São Paulo, where they had to take on a guard service for protection and participated in dancing competitions during Carnival. These small moments completely changed the author’s life and marked a momentous time, showing how a simple choice to take a job could affect not only the author’s family but also who they are as a person. This book articulates and explores these moments with honest detail. His story reminds readers that it is never too late to pursue new possibilities, challenge old assumptions, and become the person they were meant to be. A motivating read for anyone standing at a crossroads and wondering, “What comes next?”