“You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life” by Jen Sincero

Now I can see why Sincero’s books are bestsellers. She’s so inspiring and motivating that after reading this book I was even more energized to work on attaining my goals.

I wasn’t interested in Sincero’s books at first. I’ve read some self-help books, but they aren’t what I often gravitate to unless the subject is art/creativity. But I needed something to listen to at work while doing dull tasks, so I decided to give You Are a Badass a try since it was available on my library’s Overdrive app.

I was so hooked, I almost completed the book in a day, and as soon as I was done, I went out and bought a physical copy of this book and You Are a Badass at Making Money.

Genre:

Nonfiction – self-help

Series:

N/A

Pubbed:

April 2013

Quick summary:

You Are a Badass is a hilarious self-help book about building faith in what you want to achieve to manifest your goals. Sincero uses her experiences to show us that it’s possible to attain whatever we put our minds to. If there’s something we really want to achieve and wholeheartedly believe we can achieve it and work toward doing so, then we will get it. (Goodreads)

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“Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert

My thoughts:

Though I’d like to wax poetic about how this book stuck with me, I can’t. Sometime has passed since I read it and much of it has since faded from memory. Though it’s message resonated with me and was something I needed to hear/read, it didn’t have as hard an impact as I wanted it to. Why was that? Well, I’ve read a lot of articles and books on getting started on creative projects, creativity in general, and on motivation so the message in Gilbert’s book wasn’t new.

Also, being a major fan of Gilbert, though I’ve read only two books by her books counting this one, I was so excited when I heard she would write a book on creativity that I dived into all the talks and articles and reviews she and others did about this book when it was published and I think I overindulged. By the time I read the book, I already knew much of what it contained. (Does that mean I was spoiled for a nonfiction self-help book? Is that even possible?) However, that didn’t lessen my excitement. When I started reading it, I read it quickly but in spurts and so didn’t allow the book to take hold.

some insight on how bad moments influence our identity, from Andrew Solomon

“We don’t seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences.”

“Forge meaning and build identity: Forging meaning is about changing yourself; building identity is about changing the world.”

“We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it’s purposeful.”

“Ease makes less of an impression on us than struggle.”

“We could have been ourselves without our delights, but not without the misfortunes that drive our search for meaning.”

“Identity itself should be not a smug label or a gold medal but a revolution.”

—Andrew Solomon, from his TED Talk, “How the Worst Moments In Our Lives Make Us Who We Are.” Solomon is a writer on politics, culture, and psychology. He is a regular contributor to NPR, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications. His book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2001 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.

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a line from Apoorva Mandavilli

“You can never overestimate how empowering it is to see someone who looks like you—only older and more successful. That, much more than well-meaning advice and encouragement, tells you that you can make it.”

—Apoorva Mandavilli, from her article, “Alone in a Room Full of Science Writers,” on Medium.com. Mandavilli is a science journalist and adjunct professor at New York University. Her article discusses her experience as a minority in the field of science journalism.

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