Book Summary - You Are a Badass (Jen Sincero)

Most people cruise through life. They earn enough to make pay their bills and occasionally dream of a better life. Yet, they don’t actually do what it takes to realize their dreams and goals. This book by Jen Sincero explains how you can embrace your greatness, unlock your potential, and start living the life you’ve always wanted. In this You’re a Badass summary, you’ll learn the insights that helped Sincero to move from broke to a millionaire living her best life.

What is You Are a Badass About?

The author, Jen Sincero, was broke despite being a published author. She wanted to start living to her full potential, so she embarked on a self-improvement journey and immersed herself in self-help books, courses and programs. This book, written in 27 chapters, captures the best of what Sincero learned, including how she overcame her limiting beliefs, built her confidence, reached for her dreams, and multiplied her income.

Her main message is this: You are a Badass. You can conquer any challenge and achieve anything you want, if you truly set your heart and mind to it. However, don’t just wish for change. Make a real, non-negotiable decision to start living your best life.

The book focuses a lot on the Law of Attraction and your subconscious mind, but it also includes other success principles and tips. To achieve results you’ve not achieved before, you must be willing to get uncomfortable and do what you’ve not done before. Sincero asks that you keep an open mind, and at least apply the ideas to truly appreciate how they can work for you.

What are the Obstacles in Your Way?

Sincero starts by exploring some of the factors holding us back from our best life:

Limiting Beliefs and The Subconscious Mind

Our beliefs determine how we perceive and respond to people/events around us. If you believe “I should accept my lot in life” and “I’m not good enough”, you will behave very differently from someone who believes “I’m in control of my life” or “I’m learning and growing every single day.”

Most of us cling to our beliefs as if they’re hard truths. In reality, they’re just subjective ideas from other people. We are born without any preconception of what’s good or bad, easy or difficult, possible or impossible. Everything we believe (e.g. what’s “scary”, “affordable” or “embarrassing”) comes from the people around us. They, in turn, learned their beliefs from others around them.

We’re free to change our beliefs—to drop the unhelpful beliefs and adopt helpful ones. Unfortunately, we’re not always conscious of the underlying beliefs behind our decisions and behaviors. In our full 17-page You are a Badass summary, we’ll explain more about the conscious vs subconscious mind, and how your subconscious beliefs can work for you or against you.

[Check out our summary of What to Say When You Talk to Yourself for more insights on how to manage your self-talk and subconscious beliefs.]

The Law of Attraction

Everything in this universe is made of energy, all of which is interconnected. You can refer to this infinite pool of energy as God, the Universe, Source Energy, Higher Power, or any term you prefer.

Molecules vibrate at specific frequencies and attract other molecules vibrating at the same frequency. The Law of Attraction says that you attract more of what you think/feel persistently. When you focus on problems/complaints and feel overwhelmed, victimized, or angry, you vibrate at a low frequency to attract more of such people/events. When you calm your mind, focus on what you want, and take joyful action with confidence and gratitude, you vibrate at a higher frequency to attract more of what you want.

Learn to think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration, and learn to adjust your frequency like how you tune in to a radio station.

Often, what we want already exists, but we just can’t see it. Consider this: electricity existed long before humans discovered it and learned to tap on it through light-bulbs and other inventions. When you become fully present and connected to the Source, you too can discover new paths to the life you want.

[Check out The Secret summary: the book that first popularized the Law of Attraction.]

Negative Self-Perceptions

Whenever you try to step out of your comfort zone, your Ego or shadow self will throw up mental, emotional, and physical barriers. This is the inner critic that restricts you with fears and limiting beliefs. It’s the voice in your head that says you can’t succeed, you shouldn’t take risks, or you’re unworthy of love and success. Sincero calls it the “Big Snooze”.

By contrast, your higher self embraces new possibilities fearlessly because because it has faith in the Universe’s abundance, and in your abilities to grow and overcome any challenge. It takes as much energy to put yourself down as it does to lift yourself up. Why plague yourself with negative self-perceptions when you can celebrate and develop your strengths, talents and potential?

Unleashing Your Full Potential

Sincero goes on to explore a range of solutions and tips to help you unleash your Inner Badass. These are organized into 4 main parts, each with a series of insights and practical tips: (i) embracing your inner badass, (ii) tapping into the Source Energy, (iii) stop sabotaging yourself, and (iv) start moving toward your best life. We’ll dive into a few examples in this free summary. Do get our complete version of You are a Badass summary for a breakdown of all of these ideas!

EMBRACING YOUR INNER BADASS

Jen Sincero addresses how to (i) love and accept yourself, (ii) stop worrying about others’ opinions, and (iii) discover your calling.

Example: 3 tips to Discover your Calling

To figure out your unique gifts/talents and start living on purpose, you can:

• Look at yourself from a third-party perspective. What talents, resources, possibilities, and opportunities would you see?

• Get ideas from people around you. What aspects of their work or lives interest and excite you? Are you excited by the freedom of working alone, or by the joy of collaborating with a team? Do you like the idea of doing something physical with your hands, or using your senses to create something new?

• Just take a first step and keep moving in the direction that feels right to you. You’ll progressively learn about yourself and your calling as you grow and evolve.

TAPPING INTO THE SOURCE ENERGY

This section zooms in on detailed tips to: (i) change your thoughts to change your reality, (ii) reconnect with your inner child, (iii) give and receive freely, (iv) practice meditation, (v) practice gratitude, and (vi) practice gratitude.

Example: 3 tips to Change your Thoughts (and thus Change your Reality)

Everything we create in reality must first exist as a thought. For something to happen, you must first believe it can happen. Don’t insist on seeing the evidence before you believe in something. It’s ok if you don’t know how to achieve your dreams and goals yet. Your job is to know what you want, then allow the Universe to guide you on the “how”.

• Quieten your mind, so you have a clear, uncluttered space to focus, visualize, and ask for what you want.

• Create a vision board that captures the details of your vision. Place it where you’ll see it daily to freeze the image in your mind.

• Live your vision as if you’ve already achieved it. If you want to become a Presidential aide, then imagine yourself working in the White House or attending meetings alongside the President. Gather information and pictures about the role and put yourself in situations where you must act the part and meet with people you’d work with.

STOP SABOTAGING YOURSELF

This section addresses how you can: (i) change your stories, (ii) stop procrastinating, (iii) stop feeling overwhelmed, (iv) overcome your fears, and (v) see others as your mirrors (and learn from them).

Example: 3 tips to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

When we work ourselves into a frenzy, it only hinders our own performance. Tackle 3 common illusions to regain control of your time/energy.

• Not enough time: You can always find time if you want or have to.
(i) Respect time to have more of it. Turn up for appointments on time, honor your deadlines, and stop wasting others’ time.
(ii) Identify your biggest time-wasters (e.g. social media, emails) and make them as inaccessible as possible.
(iii) Chunk down a big project into bite-sized tasks. Work for focused periods of up to 60 minutes, take a break, then resume for another 60 minutes.

• Too much to do: Do what you can with joy, rather than drown yourself trying to do everything.
(i) Stop saying how busy you are. Focus on the time you do have, and how it feels to do what you enjoy.
(ii) Focus on the things that must be done now, and allocate your prime hours to tackle your most important tasks. Delegate the tasks that are trivial or that you’re bad at (or do them during off-peak hours). Focus on the things that must be done now, and use your prime hours to tackle the most important tasks first. Then, delegate or reschedule the rest.

• Too tired: You can’t perform optimally when you’re exhausted. Take time to rest, recover and recharge to protect your health.

START MOVING TOWARD YOUR BEST LIFE

In this final section, Sincero urges you to: (i) make a real decision now, (ii) make money your new best friend, and (iii) surrender and receive. And above all, to love yourself.

Know exactly where you want to be, then take joyful action to make it happen, all the while feeling grateful and confident that what you want is already on the way to you.

Getting More from “You Are a Badass”

The ideas in this book cannot be fully grasped at a logical or conceptual level. You can only experience them through real-life application. So, be open-minded enough to just try out the concepts and strategies above. With each epiphany, you’ll uncover even more things to learn/grasp in order to move to the next higher level. Ready to live your best life? Do check out our full book summary bundle that includes an infographic, 17-page text summary, and a 27-minute audio summary.

This book is written in an upbeat, “go-get-‘em” tone with lots of personal anecdotes, humor, and the occasional curse words. You can purchase the book here or visit jensincero.com.

About the Author of You Are a Badass

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life was written by Jen Sincero–an American writer, speaker and success coach. Before becoming a writer and starting her own coaching practice, she worked as a marketer at CBS/Epic Records, and co-founded/played in several rock bands. You Are A Badass is Sincero’s 3rd book, which became a bestseller and led to several spinoffs including You Are a Badass at Making Money, You Are a Badass Everyday and Badass Habits.