You Are a Badass

Publisher's Summary

Audie Award Winner, Personal Development, 2014

Best-selling author, speaker, and world-traveling success coach Jen Sincero cuts through the din of the self-help genre with her own verbal meat cleaver in You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life. In this refreshingly blunt how-to guide, Sincero serves up 27 bite-sized chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, life-changing insights, easy exercises, and the occasional swear word.

Via chapters such as "Your Brain Is Your Bitch", "Fear Is for Suckers", and "My Subconscious Made Me Do It", Sincero takes you on a wild joy ride to your own transformation, helping you create the money, relationships, career, and general all-around awesomeness you so desire. And should you be one of those people who dreads getting busted with a self-help book in your hands, fear not.

Sincero, a former skeptic herself, delivers the goods minus the New Age cheese, giving even the snarkiest of poo-pooers exactly what they need to get out of their ruts and start kicking some ass. By the end of You Are a Badass, you will understand why you are how you are, how to love what you can't change, how to change what you don't love, and how to start living the kind of life you used to be jealous of.

©2013 Jen Sincero (P)2013 Tantor

Critic Reviews

"Sincero brings a fun, feminine verve to now well-tread self-help tropes... The tone is far more feisty than academic, and there's humor on every page, all of which is exactly what her intended audience most needs." ( Publishers Weekly)

Title misrepresents tone of content

What disappointed you about You are a Badass?

With a stand-out title like "You are a Badass", I expected a down-to-earth, rough around the edges perspective on the self-betterment theme. The LAST thing I expected was more of the same new-age speak that tends to pervade this genre. While the book contains chapters titled like "Your brain is your bitch", the actual content veers into discussions of communicating with the "source energy" of the universe, and "raising your vibrations" through meditation to fulfill your visions. The dissonance between how the book presents itself and the actual content was enough to prompt me to write this review to help inform future potential buyers.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The book is not without its helpful points and uplifting message- I did enjoy aspects of it. However, I'm offended by what seems to me to be a manipulative marketing angle using "curse words" in the title and chapter titles as an attempt to set this book aside from the sea of other self-development books that have similar content and approach.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

The narration was great!

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from You are a Badass?

As editor, I would have strongly suggested the author remove or rework aspects that veer into new-age speak. "Raising your frequency", "vibrations", "source energy", "yoga", "mantras" are what a book titled "You are a Badass" should NOT contain. With as much time as this books spends on these topics, I'd suggest it be titled "Raising Your Vibrations: How to tap into the Source Energy of the Universe" - then readers would get what they paid for.

Any additional comments?

The title / cover marketing of this book was successful in that they convinced me to buy the book, but a failure in conveying the mood of the content.

1,462 of 1,623 people found this review helpful

Mostly new age garbage and bad financial advice!

While I prefer fiction to nonfiction, I require myself to read at least 10% nonfiction. As a result my two most recent books are of the motivational genre: Bluefishing by Steve Sims and this book You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero. I'll be 75 years old in two months. My wife of 49 years and I are parents of two girls and one boy and grandparents of 6. Our philosophy on money has always been simple: live below your means. (The book The Millionaire Next Door by Stanley and Danko explains the concept well but we practiced it decades before the book was released in 1996). The idea had worked extremely well for us. I write this to set up my discussion of this horrible book.

To those who believe they benefited from You Are a Badass I say good for you. My issues with it include the entire portion of the book about money. The author explains how she purchased an Audi Q5 rather than the much less expensive Honda CR-V when she had to have a new car but could not afford one. She explains that the debt made her work harder and have more faith in her success. She says that if you work hard and have faith in yourself the money will come. She gives examples of when she needed something and had faith it came, it always ddid. My guess is that more than 90% of people who followed her advice on money ended up bankrupt.

Jen Sincero is not the first huckster to make a fortune giving bad financial advice to others and she will not be the last. Her faith (in oneself) vs. fear message does sell books.

470 of 524 people found this review helpful

Not for those looking for practical advise

The title should really be shorter: "You are a badass, how to stop doubting yourself". Aside from that, there is no actual practical advice here. Sincero states that simply thinking you can make $150,000 a year will actually make you $150,000 a year.

What?!

While I agree we need to get rid of our limiting beliefs, there is a whole lot more to success than that. She then goes full Tropic Thunder and talks about the universe wanting to give it to you as long as you 'vibrate with the same frequency' and other completely non-practical, anti-scientific and complete bullshit "scientific" claims. Anyone looking for, oh I dunno, advise on skill development, strategy, planning, other resources, or will get nothing from this book.

However, if you are looking for a different perspective on how to overcome your limited beliefs, this might be your book: just be careful not to actually believe your success is dependent on some sort of mother energy just waiting for you to vibrate properly before money rains down from the skies.

20 of 22 people found this review helpful

Not much original insight

The book fell flat for me as it seemed as though the author was simply relaying stories and anecdotes she had collected from other sources. It was almost as though I was in a conversation with a marginally informed friend covering a host of topics but with no ability to bore down into meaningful detail on any one subject. Also a little too many F-bombs that served no real purpose other than as an attempt to convey edginess?

116 of 132 people found this review helpful

Best reminder I've read in a long time!

Every now and then we all need to be reminded just how much more we can be, and just how fast it's over. This book serves as a great reminder that you do as much as you can, have as much fun as you can, enjoy this planet as much as you can and love everyone around you as much as you can. Go do those things you love so much and do them now. Don't you dare look back in regret for what you didn't try...

90 of 104 people found this review helpful

Too first world for my taste

Would you ever listen to anything by Jen Sincero again?

No I don't think so

Any additional comments?

I tried to love this book. I did. But it was just not it for me. All the suggestions and the advice I feel were just applicable in first world culture. Advice like do yoga, join chanting group, be with the universe etc were just too pretentious for me. It was painful for me to listen to it again. The narration was good. I just don't like the content.

137 of 160 people found this review helpful

I wasted my money so you don't have to.

Exceptionally poor "spewer" of other work. Lude, rude, and crude regurgitation of Hill, Allen, Tolle, and many others. Although there were many of the greats quoted [ripped off], I was unable to get beyond the illiterate reading.
Etcetera... NOT Ekcetera.
Couldn't care less... NOT Could care less.
EKCETERA...
Terrible. Spend your money on other, more well-known authors, that had original thoughts, and were able to communicate them without vulgarity. And to illustrate just how vulgar: I'm a born-and-raised Chicago south-sider, and I found it too vulgar.

14 of 16 people found this review helpful

Finding your inner BadAss

What did you love best about You are a Badass?

This Book will inspire you to be better....reminding & guiding you to be better than where you are now....

What was one of the most memorable moments of You are a Badass?

"There is nothing more unstoppable than a freight train of fuck yeah"....(Yep, she throws a few "F" bombs around haha)

Which character – as performed by Jen Sincero – was your favorite?

She does a great job with the presentation of the material.

What insight do you think you’ll apply from You are a Badass?

So many....a few stand out moments for me where regarding time & money. Showing "respect" to these two very important life spokes....she presents material in a very "Real" way. It's not a lecture....It's a "Hey, get your ass in gear....& get the fuck on the fuck"...haha (whatever that means:). It's all the great material from all the good books rolled into one. It's good. You will enjoy....

Any additional comments?

I have read all the "Good Books"....This is the best....It's entertaining & inclusive of all the Good Lessons. She tells it to ya in a real way. I am a 48 year old Male. I loved it. Listening for the 5th time and don't ever plan to stop....it's a great resource.

104 of 128 people found this review helpful

Pretty Good, but Not Worth Reading Twice

Jen Sincero takes a very tongue in cheek, and enjoyable approach to finding your most badass version of yourself. All said and done though, despite it being a fun listen, it lacked a certain executable quality that I wanted to find. It doesn't quite fall into my mantra of audio books: if it wasn't worth listening to twice, it wasn't worth listening to once. Hope you enjoy if you do pick it up.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Fantastic Read

At first listen I didn't know what was happening. Jen's voice was so different from what you normally hear on Audible. But I returned a day later and I'm so glad I did. She's funny. And the material is, well, life altering. If you let it. Just finished and I'm excited to implement all these tips to start living like a badass.

34 of 42 people found this review helpful