The key ideas

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life

Jen Sincero, 2013

In her early forties, Jen Sincero lived in a converted garage and barely made ends meet. This book is her account of what changed when she began examining her beliefs and making serious decisions. Bold, funny, and sometimes controversial: it contains practical ideas about fear and decisions alongside the author’s belief in the “Universe,” which deserves to be read as her outlook rather than science.

Who it is for

For anyone who has long known what they want but keeps putting it off, and is ready to examine exactly what is holding them back.

If you really want to change your life, you will find a way. If not, you will find an excuse.

What the book is about

In her early forties, by her own account, Jen Sincero lived in a converted garage. She had written books, played in rock bands, and worked at a record company. Money was almost always scarce. A few years later, she became a coach, and this book sold more than five million copies.

What changed? Sincero herself links the changes primarily to what she thought about herself and how seriously she made decisions.

Let’s establish the framework immediately. This is a coach’s book rather than research: personal experience, client stories, and her view of the world. Ideas about the “Universe” and energy are her beliefs rather than science. But underneath lie practical matters: notice what holds you back, make a serious decision, and start doing things.

Idea 1. Other people’s rules in your head

Sincero starts with a question: why do adults know what they want and still fail to do it?

Her answer is that we did not choose many of our beliefs. We absorbed them in childhood from parents, teachers, and our surroundings, and now they run quietly like default settings. “Most people live in an illusion built on other people’s beliefs,” she writes.

This is her model rather than a neuroscientific description of the brain. But it makes a useful question to ask yourself: where did my “that can’t happen” come from?

A family used to say, “You can’t make a living from creative work.” The grown-up daughter draws beautifully but does not even try taking commissions.

“I’m not that kind of person” may be someone else’s words, heard long ago and now unnoticed, rather than a fact about yourself.

Read in Livria

About the author

Jen Sincero is an American writer and coach. She worked at a record company, played in rock bands, and wrote several books. You Are a Badass (2013) became a New York Times bestseller; follow-ups include books about money and habits.

All books by this author: Jen Sincero

Terms from the book

  • Perfectionism
  • Comfort Zone
  • Law of attraction
  • The Big Snooze: An image from the book, called “The Big Snooze” in the original and rendered in Livria’s Russian translation as “the great hibernation”: the part of us that, the author believes, prefers the familiar and resists change. Not a scientific term.
  • Millions of mirrors: The author’s image: our reactions to other people may tell us something about ourselves. A coach’s observation rather than a psychological method.

All terms

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