Some say “get good.” I say become badass. Badass is a mindset. It’s the idea you’ve gotta live with less fear and make a few courageous decisions.
It comes from an odd place.
See, most people wake up each day and snooze through life. They’re not stupid or lazy, they just think they’ve got a long time to live.
At 16, I got attacked by a gang of youths and watched my friend get stabbed repeatedly in the chest. We came within an inch of losing our lives.
Years later I had a shotgun pointed at my skinny body.
Someone was looking for someone and thought I might know. I didn’t. In 2015, I had a near-miss with cancer. It flipped my world upside down. With each near-death experience I learned to stop giving a f**k. To treat every day as the last. When you do, you become badass.
People stop ignoring you and start paying attention.
This leads to hidden opportunities that don’t require permission slips, money, or daddy’s connections.
Here’s how to flip the badass switch in your brain in 2023.
Embrace this stunningly rare trait most overlook
In 2016, I tried to meet one of the most famous Venture Capitalists in the world. He wouldn’t take my call.
I rang 100+ people in 3 months who were connected to him on LinkedIn.
Eventually I found a kind lady in Perth, Australia who knew him. She offered to introduce me.
After the intro he replied … then he ghosted me again.
I became so pissed off I used what little savings I had to fly to America and go meet him. On the first day in the US I couldn’t reach him. This pattern continued until 8 hours before my flight left to come back to Australia. I messaged him one more time.
“Mate, I’m flying out. I came all this way to see you.”
Minutes later he replied. It was a meeting that changed my life.
When your back is against the wall there’s always a way. It just comes down to whether you’ll be resourceful. Will you see the roadblock as a dead-end or a detour? Is the answer a “no” or a “not right now?”
Take your 10-year goal and ask this question
Most people don’t have 10-year goals. But many people live and act like they do. They have “someday goals” which is code for 10+ years (or never).
The average person’s timeline is slower than snails on their way to eat lettuce.
The problem: Long timelines allow for psychological manipulation.
That translates to YOU sabotaging YOU. Not the system or the man who’s sticking it to ya or racial injustices. You.
Badasses ask themselves “how can I do this in less than a year?” That’s not an end state either. It’s just another way of saying how can I get traction in a year on this goal. Once you have traction the rest is easier from there.
Lower the timeframe to increase the urgency. Urgency turns dumb-dumb dreams into goals backed by systems.
Ability to make money from anything
Some folks just cannot see opportunities.
All they see is hard work, effort, the chance of failure, gurus, liars, cheats, odds stacked against them, etc. It’s a sad reality when it doesn’t have to be.
A badass realizes they can make money from anything. It won’t be quick, or easy. But it will be fun as hell to figure out. Why?
Money is a game. Games are fun to play.
And all games have cheat codes if you take the time to learn them. Rather than figure them out there are people in every niche who’ve already seen patterns or found arbitrage opportunities.
Once the shift happens in your mind you can literally see money everywhere. If nothing else, never forget the internet gives you access to billions of people.
That alone is enough for any idea to at least make $100,000 no matter how weird or small it is.
Stay away from the default path of loneliness
I figured out many people’s big problem.
They try to do stuff alone. They work in silence. They tell no one what they’re doing. Why? They don’t want anyone to see them fail or get rejected.
The downside is finding success is hard without others behind you. It’s the secret sauce to every person you admire.
They’re not that smart they just had people around them who made them look clever. So where am I going with this?
Badasses build online communities.
They take an app like Discord and dump like-minded people in it. Then they show up every day to lead the conversation. With a team of people around you it’s hard to get ignored forever. A community allows you to do more with less.
Build a free community.
Unblock natural curiosity
A common question people have is “where do I start?” Or “I don’t know what to do.”
In 2023 these are hard questions to justify because you have ChatGPT and Google to get answers from.
The problem isn’t where to start. It’s that their natural curiosity has been accidentally switched off for years.
The place where you start any big goal is by following your curiosity. What do you give a crap about? That’s what matters. Because if you follow what’s important to you it’s harder to give up or get bored.
It’s for this reason I set aside a day a week to go down rabbit holes and follow my curiosity. I’m subscribed to all sorts of weird content, like Tim Urban’s “Wait But Why” blog.
Be led not by gurus or mentors. Be led by your natural curiosity.
Hire a freelancer in a leather jacket with a ponytail
Many of us live in email hell.
Our real day job is to babysit email and try to be at inbox zero. LOL. This is a mythical goal no one achieves on their own.
That’s why I’m about to bring in a productivity freelancer. These slick Ricks in leather jackets with long ponytails and leg tattoos can help you rethink your systems.
Because the way you use email is a system. And if you use it wrong it’ll waste your life. A productivity freelancer will gain access to your email and watch how things flow.
Then they’ll dissect it all, create folders, set up tags, and advise on whether you might benefit from a low-cost virtual assistant.
Email drains time. Badasses use productivity freelancers to get back time.
Rip apart your skill stack
It’s common to think you need to be a master at a skill or build a brand. No.
What you need is a collection of skills that, when combined, make you different rather than better.
That’s how you become a person who doesn’t get ignored anymore.
Some of you have reached this holy grail. The problem is many people’s skill stacks are past the use-by date and going moldy. The temptation is to learn one skill and then repeat it every year and call it a career.
But skills become outdated. Tech skills are the biggest trap.
I know people who call themselves social media experts, yet all they know is Facebook, which has become a car crash full of crazy political militia heading for a brick wall.
Pull apart your skill stack. Which skills are stale? What new skills should be added? Then it’s time to practice after hours self-education.
Make bad habits harder
If you put chicken soup in my pantry, I’ll skull it as if it’s tequila.
And I’m a no-life vegan with a bad haircut. Badasses make bad habits harder by changing their environment. If over the last three years you got damn lazy working from home, maybe it’s time to go back and work in a fishbowl office.
Sure, the commute will hurt and you’ll feel like a sardine packed into a public transport tin. But at least you’ll feel watched and therefore become productive.
Or if all your friends are couch potatoes, then maybe it’s time to hang out with a few deliciously fit avocados who hit the gym and eat clean. Bad habits are harder when your environment doesn’t contain them.
Make bad habits in 2023 harder to reach to defeat them.
