1 Share the Badass Manifesto on The Badass Manifesto Live Like You Have a Pair

By Lisa Creech Bledsoe The Glowing Edge | Fight For It

Dallas: Well... some of you may have figured out we're not home yet, we're only half way there. Mother's interrupted the course of our journey. She's programmed to do that should certain conditions arise. They have. It seems that she has... intercepted a transmission of unknown origin. She got us up to check it out. Ripley: A transmission? Out here? Lambert: What kind of a transmission? Dallas: Acoustical beacon. It, uh... repeats at intervals of 12 seconds. Kane: S.O.S.? Dallas: I don't know. Ripley: Human? Dallas: Unknown.

– Alien, 1979

2 Share the Badass Manifesto on Shit you should know before you start First of all you may be asking yourself, could I write this book without swearing? The answer is yes. But I didn't.

I don't plan to coddle you in other ways, either. There are plenty of websites and gurus who will give you the message that everything's fine, you're okey-dokey just the way you are, don't worry about those mean people – they don't understand you like I do, the timing isn't right, wait for your prince or ship or winning lottery ticket, etc.

I hope you're sick of that shit. I know I am.

The reason I wrote this is because I think you've been coddled for too long. You have a sneaking suspicion that there's waaay more to life, love, art, relationships, health, and work than you've gotten so far. The world isn't a perpetually sunny utopia filled with unicorns, with cupcakes and juice boxes for all.

A call for badass warriors The truth is that the world is filled with opposing forces, battling for supremacy. I don't care if you're a dedicated pacifist (and some of these are the greatest badasses of all), our world needs warriors. People with inner zen and outer bad who never back down from a fight worth having. Badasses.

Yes, a badass is a sinner (which makes you a candidate!), but they are also absolutely ordinary people. Authentic. They live on the edge, act despite their fears, and they don't tolerate bullshit.

Sometimes they look isolated, and in fact that's part of what is hard about being a badass – people are glad to have you around so long as you're saving their bacon, but they also hope you'll go away so that they don't have to take responsibility for their own lives or feel bad about the busted crap everywhere. Badasses are not good to have around if you're trying to maintain the status quo. But they don't act alone, no matter how it appears. They have a posse. Mentors, trainers, a tribe.

3 Share the Badass Manifesto on And yes, there are lots of fun, lighthearted ways to talk about badassery. Jackie Chan is supreme at this; he has serious skills (Hapkido black belt, operatic vocalist, stunt man) but isn't afraid to make a goofy comedy. Facebook is filled with funny comments about being badass. If you haven't seen any of the badass puppy meme, you better check it out now, because it's epic.

There are also plenty of people who will go down in history as being crazy motherfuckers who left a trail of bodies and destruction in their wake and never gave something wonderful to the world. That's not badass, that's just criminal. You don't have to be a felon to be a badass.

But it IS in the nature of badassery to be destructive. Because there are a lot of things in this world that need to be stopped, broken, put an end to. If that makes you cringe, good. This book may serve you well in the same way that learning to be bad served me. Some things need to be torn down before they can be rebuilt.

Where this is going My reason for writing this is to share a little bit of my journey (more coming on that below) and more importantly, show you how you can become a badass, too.

The first section is a warning. Because this isn't for everyone, and it isn't necessarily pretty. I'll tell you what your three choices are, and you can decide what to do about them. And I'll tell you where I began this journey.

In the second section, I'll explain to you at least 7 reasons why the odds are stacked against most people. You may find yourself on this list. It's my hope that you'll decide to forcibly rip your name off of it. Forever.

I'll also give you a bit more about me, then share the 15 characteristics of a true badass. This is the first beating heart of the book. (There are two beating hearts.) (I know, that's a bit weird.) (You ain't seen nothin' yet.)

In the third section, you'll hear what's possibly the most painful piece of my story. Don't worry, it

4 Share the Badass Manifesto on doesn't get gory. And it has a good ending, but the lessons definitely are not what you might expect. Then I'll tell you the single big thing you need to know before you decide you want to be a badass. And then you'll get right into the second beating heart of the book: How to become a badass and live like you have a pair. Thirteen principles to make you an ass-kicker like no other.

The last section will ask the single most important question of the entire Manifesto: What are YOU fighting for? There's also an invitation to join the fight team I'm a part of, and a little taste of the Fight For It program.

Here's what that looks like in Table of Contents form...

The Badass Manifesto, Part One Warning A badass is made, not born Your three choices This is not an S.O.S. How I became a badass (part 1)

The Badass Manifesto, Part Two The odds are against you How I became a badass (part 2) 15 characteristics of a true badass

The Badass Manifesto, Part Three How I became a badass (part 3) So you wanna be a badass? How to become a badass and live like you have a pair

The Badass Manifesto, Part Four What are you fighting for? Join the fight team Learn to fight for it Share the badassery

5 Share the Badass Manifesto on Who the hell am I? And how the hell do I know anything about this? Well, that's part of what I'm going to tell you. But for now you should know that I didn't start out asking to be bad. I used to think, “I'm not badass. Lieutenant Ellen Ripley is badass.” Which is why I let Sigourney Weaver's famous character from the Alien movies describe the way the fight comes to you, like it came to her and it came, eventually, to me.

I'm not a huge fan of the “all you need is positive thinking” camp or the “manifest your way to inner peace or a million dollars” group. I didn't meditate my way into boxing. I love rainbow-wielding peaceniks but I tend to find my toughest problems impervious to their impact. My life has needed a 12 pound sledgehammer with a 36 inch fiberglass handle and a rubber grip more frequently than happy thoughts.

Which is not to say I'm not positive-minded, or creative. I'm intensely both. My degree and career are in the fine arts; I've been a writer all my life. It's just that bad cultural training poured a layer of slow- hardening concrete over my soul and secured it in hard plastic clamshell packaging. That shit will kill you.

As we go, my story will come out – most of it, anyway – and maybe yours will too.

Why should you care? We are in the middle of a cultural, personal, corporate, communal, [insert your descriptor here] shitstorm, and somebody needs to tell it like it is and call up others to do the same. And more than that, we need to learn to bust a few heads and kick some butts.

It's not complicated, I'm not writing a master's thesis here. Just a couple of quick notes about the warning signs all around you, the forces hoping to eat you alive, the lies you're telling yourself, the characteristics of badassery, and how you can live like you have a pair (balls, ovaries, you choose).

6 Share the Badass Manifesto on More fight power Also, I'm building a tribe of like-minded badasses, and I want you to be a part of it. If you're reading this book because you got it free on Amazon or Kindle or just forwarded by a friend, I hope you'll come join a fabulous group of fighters I'm connected with.

Who do you give a wider berth to, when you're walking down the street: a lone badass or a whole freaking pack of them? Right. That's why we want you in the pack. There's fight power in numbers, and you may just find you could use somebody who has your back. We hang together (most of us virtually, some in real life), share fight tactics, and give each other shout-outs, catcalls, and genuine respect and encouragement.

You can join us by clicking the link below. You'll get an email from me about once a week with links to stuff you might find useful. It's not a stream of sales pitches, swear.

→ Join the Badass Crew

NOTE: Clicking the link above will open an email and all you have to do is press the “Send” button. Easy, right? If for ANY reason it doesn't work for you, go to this page and sign up. Yeah, you'll get another copy of this book, but you'll be on the list!

If you're already a part of the tribe, fist bump to you, badass...

Enough of that, let's roll.

7 Share the Badass Manifesto on Ripley: Ash, that transmission... Mother's deciphered part of it. It doesn't look like an S.O.S. Ash: What is it, then? Ripley: Well, I... it looks like a warning. I'm gonna go out after them. Ash: What's the point? I mean by the, the time it takes to get there, you'll... they'll know if it's a warning or not, yes?

Warning I know you've been told that there's all the time in the world to become who you dream of being. To be rich, ripped, successful, epic, legendary. To walk like a winner because you are one – a big, badass mofo. You can do that, maybe. Later.

There's no rush, because you have 177 channels to sample first, as well as twelve brands of toilet paper to decide between. You have a boatload of work to get done. There's the lawn to be mowed and your shower tile is growing pink mold, and when are you going to buy that composter? It would be nice to get over to the tanning salon (you paid for that package, after all), and it's probably time to refinance your mortgage, too.

But don't worry about all that you've been told. You should be grateful to have so much! Besides, you're not insanely skilled at business, or interested in yet another hour on the elliptical machine, and frankly, why should you be? There's always tomorrow.

In fact, you can get a program on it! You saw a great infomercial just last night on the quick route to making a million, finding a soulmate, eradicating cellulite, and making killer smoothies. Tomorrow you can look it up on the interwebs. Or just troll Facebook for a while.

But for today, says that soft voice, just relax into your stasis capsule, and let the mothership take care of

8 Share the Badass Manifesto on you.

Thus you sleep away the days, the months, the years... and you know what? Nothing changes.

Which should be no great surprise to anyone, but it's also one of those truths that is so obvious that most people never actually recognize it for the powerful negative force it is.

A badass is made, not born Look, that ship Ellen Ripley woke up on was a standard commercial towing ship hauling a refinery, twenty million tons of rock and seven people. (And a cat.)

It wasn't a big boss Humvee, or even a sexy little Aston Martin DB85. It was the equivalent of a battered old piece-of-shit dump truck, with a few grunts on board to crew it. No genius playboy billionaire philanthropists on board, amazingly.

Which feels about right, wouldn't you say? (I mean, minus the space travel, which for us has a pretty badass feel since it's not generally something we do every day.) But it feels about right for our lives, our jobs, our co-workers and general situation.

The armpit of the universe, a few dozen junkyards'-worth of battered metal filled with rocks, and a handful of ordinary people. Mission: dump the rock back home, spend the weekend with the fam, get your laundry done and report back on Monday to do it all again. It's a paycheck, and maybe it's even preferable to other paychecks, or other jobs, or other lives.

You might think someone in a position like that would be left alone.

And they might, except...

The signal comes, the mothership wakes you up, and everything goes straight to the ninth circle of hell on a one-way drop. There are forces out there that have every intention of obliterating your life and

9 Share the Badass Manifesto on leaving nothing behind but a smear of mostly-digested protein.

You have 3 choices... Now. Everybody gets a choice.

1. You can ignore the warning signs, pull the covers over your head, and sleep through the adventure.

2. You can cower and cringe and whine and be an annoyance to everyone around you.

3. Or you can suck it up, turn your fear into jet fuel, and live like you have a pair.

The best kind of badass is an otherwise ordinary person who, despite the overwhelming odds, antes up and gets in the game. No, they may not know what they're up against, or have the training and the background to take on the job of kicking some hostile and highly aggressive alien's ass, but they do it anyway.

Badassery is a state of mind (more on that later), but above all else, it's a state of action.

This is not an S.O.S. When you look around you – and not just at the movies, either – you see a certain type of person who doesn't seem to be just another ordinary hack, sleeping their life away. They are much the opposite. They don't fit in. They are not a part of the Matrix. They are calm and confident, a little bit mysterious, and pretty damn hardcore when it comes to a fight. They live like they have a pair.

In fact, that's the person you want on your side when bad shit goes down.

When Air Force One is hijacked by terrorists and crash lands into the maximum-security island of

10 Share the Badass Manifesto on Manhattan, Snake Plissken is the guy you need.

Skynet is no match for Sarah Connor.

Ellen Ripley, Dirty Harry, Yu Shu Lien, Rambo, Trinity, Indiana Jones, Bruce Lee... The list of cinematic badasses goes on and on. And there are the real-life badasses from Boudicca the warrior queen to Muhammed Ali as well.

And none of them – NONE – became a badass because, you know, it was just kind of a nifty fun thing to do. Whether in real life or on the big screen, they earned that title because something got fubar'd, the regular plan didn't work out, the mothership cut off the happy gas, and they deciphered the warning message.

The message isn't a call for help. It isn't an S.O.S. It's a warning. The message is run or be destroyed. There are forces arrayed against you, a hostile alien life form who intends to feed you and everyone like you to her voracious, horrific progeny.

If you intend to live, sleep just isn't an option any more.

Running might be an option, but it's not that much different from sleeping. You're likely to buy it in the end. I can pretty much guarantee it, actually. You won't live forever.

So, when the hostile forces of the universe offer you the options of running or being destroyed, a badass knows there's a third way, one that no one has mentioned. And that's to gear up, go out, and fight.

How I became a badass (part 1) I never expected to be a badass. I was a middle-class suburban girl raised to be polite, helpful to others, and resolutely undemanding. My predetermined goal in life was to make other people happy. I said stupid shit like, “If it changes the life of even one child...” as if the greatest thing I could imagine was to meekly hand over my Big Wheel to the older kid next door who wanted it.

11 Share the Badass Manifesto on I brushed my teeth, sat on command, left the area when told to clear out, and gave my all for anyone who seemed to need anything, no matter how random or trivial or wrongly-ordered it was. Anything. Really. They could have it, because that meant I was being good and fulfilling my purpose in life.

With such small goals and small thinking, I didn't take up much space at all. I was tiny and shrinking daily. I survived that way for years, until I was about as substantial as the gray static hiss on a television station that has gone off the air for the night. By that time I was married with three small boys at home, working full time in the corporate universe, and miserable in my life.

But I got a warning. I'd had quite a few, as it happened, but finally the poltergeist emerged through the television screen, vanished into the wall, and shook my house to its core. Run or be destroyed was the message. Those were the options I felt I'd been given.

It didn't take me long to decide I would run.

I was ready to leave my husband and three young sons, drive to the opposite coast with nothing more than the change in my pockets and start over, and never see anyone from my old life ever again. I was burned out on every single level.

And that was when I walked into a boxing gym for the first time.

Which is when things really went all to shit.

Dude, if you plan to stay in a house that was built on a graveyard, if you plan to let the guy with the alien life form attached to his face come onto the ship, there's no need for you to go looking for a rumble.

The fight will come to you.

12 Share the Badass Manifesto on Ripley: Ash, can you hear me? Ash? Ash: [speaking in an electronic, distorted voice] Yes, I can hear you. Ripley: What was your special order? Ash: You read it. I thought it was clear. Ripley: What was it? Ash: Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded. Parker: The damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch? Ash: I repeat, all other priorities are rescinded. Ripley: How do we kill it Ash? There's gotta be a way of killing it. How? How do we do it? Ash: You can't. Parker: That's bullshit. Ash: You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. Lambert: You admire it. Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. Parker: Look, I am... I've heard enough of this, and I'm asking you to pull the plug. Ash: [Ripley goes to disconnect Ash, who interrupts] Last word. Ripley: What? Ash: I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies.

The odds are against you Look, I can't lie to you about your chances. There are many powerful forces arrayed against you.

The company wants the buck above all. There are powers that intend to use your life force for their own purposes. You're a long damn way from home, and there aren't a lot of resources for you to call on. Mostly just yourself.

13 Share the Badass Manifesto on That pretty much strips it right down, doesn't it? No wonder it's so easy to identify with badass Lieutenant Ellen Ripley and her quest for life in a hostile environment. The world could use more heroes like her.

I know, I know – Ripley isn't a real person, she's a character in a movie. But others are real, and you could be one of them. But it won't be easy. The deck is stacked against you. Here's at least seven reasons why.

1. You're not sure what you really want. Most people can name what they don't want more easily than they can name what they do want. You don't want to lose your house, or get a divorce, or feel sick and out of shape all the time. You're dissatisfied with your work, but you're not sure what would be better. After all, it's a paycheck and you can mostly count on it, assuming the economy isn't tanking. You know something's wrong, you just can't figure out what would fix it.

2. You're living a life someone else has told you to live. A potentially more insidious problem than not knowing what you want is living toward someone else's goals for your life. Your parents pushed you toward teaching, but it doesn't nourish your soul. Your buddy got you in over at the big tech company, but you feel drained every day you work there. You feel like big things, both good and evil, are afoot in the world, but you don't know what they are, and no one is telling you. You're stuck in your own life because you haven't ever grabbed the controls and set a course of your own. Or figured out who you can trust to send you in the right direction.

3. You think you don't deserve a big, badass life. Maybe you've been taught from childhood to be satisfied with what you have, and that to expect more would be greedy. You've been told to keep quiet, be nice, and behave. You conform rather than risk upsetting the status quo. Rather than thinking about what you want, or what would serve a greater purpose, you think about what you probably “should” do. When the going gets

14 Share the Badass Manifesto on rough, you suffer quietly and hope for rescue.

4. You don't believe you can do it. You're scared, you're afraid of failure, and you spend most of your time thinking about why your badass plans would never work. It's also possible that you struggle with self-esteem issues, and can't imagine doing something powerful, shocking, or counter to everyone's expectations of you. In fact, you're suspicious of others who have broken out of the mold and dared to turn the world on its ear. When they do it, it seems like magic or colossal good luck, rather than plain old hard work.

5. You're not fully committed. You're willing to put some effort for a little while toward living life to the fullest, but truthfully, you are waiting to win the lottery, or otherwise magically achieve what you dream of. You're half-hearted at best, and mostly only talk about your big, badass plans.

6. You don't really understand what's at stake. Maybe you're okay serving out your days without fighting for and winning the life you secretly dream of. Without ever feeling like the biggest, baddest, sexiest man or woman in your corner of the planet. Maybe you've never actually had a taste of badassery, and hungered for more. You're convinced that the staid, sleepy life you have now is all there is, and you're fine if it stays that way. And yet here you are, reading this and wondering if maybe you've made a miscalculation somewhere, and things are more serious than you want to acknowledge...

7. You think you have all the time in the world. I'm just going to jump on this one and tell you that you don't. I've already said it once, and it bears repeating. The world isn't a safe, insulated nursery school play yard. If you don't grow a pair NOW, you are actively, knowingly putting at great risk all the good gifts you've been given and the future you deserve to have.

15 Share the Badass Manifesto on You will die. I guarantee it. And the less intentionally, aggressively, and wholeheartedly you seek to fulfill your purpose and make a place for yourself and the people you love, the higher your chances are of losing it all to the forces that will benefit if you keep on sleeping until you die. Until they eat you.

I'm not telling you all this just to be a moldy old wet blanket.

But I'm not here to give you candy to keep you happy, either. I don't do that any more. There's just no benefit to me in keeping people sedated, and I'm not particularly skilled at or interested in diplomacy or political correctness. The forces that opposed me nearly ate me alive, and I no longer intend to go down without a fight. I don't think you should, either.

You deserve magnificence, not misery. You were born to fulfill an enormous destiny, and to ignore the greatest call of the universe for your life is a poor misuse of the gift. To roll over and allow the energy, power, and beauty of your potential to just drain away into the sand would be more than sad. It would be tragic.

How I became a badass (part 2) I had a lot of misconceptions about boxing before I walked into a boxing gym for the first time. I assumed it was simple brutality – two men beating the crap out of each other with their fists. I had never seen nor heard of women’s boxing, and I had absolutely no idea how many complicated skills and mental abilities the sport demanded.

A few weeks earlier, my husband had hung a heavy bag in our garage for our three boys, and while they weren’t all that interested in it, I found myself drawn to it in a way I couldn't explain. I'd never, ever hit something in my life.

Like most southern white bread suburban girls, I was brought up to be nice. I had a sense that I was tougher than the face I had to put on in public, but I felt like I was being told that the reason I had to be so nice and so careful was because the world was a very fragile place. Like if I bumped up against the

16 Share the Badass Manifesto on world as a teenager or an adult, the world might be damaged. People would get hurt. It was a long, long time — decades — before I learned that this was a lie that would damn near wreck my life. Meanwhile I carefully kept my knees together and my elbows in and tried never ever, ever to brush against other people. Certainly never to body check, smack, chuck, hip sling or head butt, or careen wildly like a bumper car at the State Fair into trees and chairs and china cabinets.

Believing that the world was unbearably fragile held me back on a thousand levels. I was naturally curious, naturally energetic, forever wanting to dig in, turn over, unpack, dismantle, and understand things. But I didn’t. I was careful. I was so careful I barely shifted the air currents with the weight of my longing. I held my breath a lot.

People everywhere were falling off bikes and getting black eyes and eating juicy peaches straight from a neighbor’s tree while I carefully tried not to take up any space that was not explicitly allotted to me. It was like all my psychic clothes were a few sizes too small. I got good at barely moving, so that none of the metaphysical seams ripped.

The heavy bag changed that in ways I would never have predicted.

It had come with a single pair of paper-thin leather mitts, and I didn’t know I needed boxing gloves for a serious punching workout. As a result, my hands were covered with bruises and abrasions, and my wrists, elbows, and shoulders were sore and swollen. I was pretty sure there was a lot I didn’t know about boxing, which is how I found myself wandering around in a boxing gym looking for someone who could teach me.

What's crazy about this part of the story is that in all my life, I'd never taken the initiative to do something purely for me. Every moment of my days and nights was spent serving my family or was work-related. If I didn't have something specifically to be doing, I was on call; available and waiting to be pulled into service.

I'm shocked now when I look back at that. But at the time all I knew was that my marriage was in shreds around me and I was so miserable that I was in danger of throwing away my life in the most

17 Share the Badass Manifesto on literal sense. I had been utterly unsuccessful in communicating my desperation to anyone. Not my husband, my friends, no one. I returned again and again to the idea that my best option was running away. Divorce was almost a given, and I couldn't even imagine parenting any more. I would leave everything behind, everything.

Hitting the heavy bag woke something up in me.

I was stunned at my desire to punch and bang. I was shocked at the energy and life I felt, whaling away on that bag. It had been so long since I felt alive like that, humming and electric. There was anger, yes, but below that there was a crack opening to something deeper, something ferocious and explosive. Like a river of lava running under high and increasing pressure, miles beneath the surface of my life. The bruises, swellings, and angry red abrasions were like burns all over my hands and arms. Indicators that I had tapped into to some kind of dangerous power. I wondered if I could control and use that power, or if it (like everything else in my life) would consume me for its own purposes.

Which was how I found myself in a boxing gym talking to a world champion professional fighter – the woman who would become my trainer.

Of course I thought I was there simply to learn to hit a heavy bag. Fitness only. So long as it would fit in on my lunch break and not inconvenience anyone who might want me to do something for them.

But that changed, too.

15 characteristics of a true badass Some of the things listed below I've already mentioned, but before I share the real heart of this manifesto – which is HOW to live like you have a pair, we should agree on (or at least discuss) WHAT we recognize as badass...

18 Share the Badass Manifesto on 1. A badass never backs down from a fight worth having. This means you have to become skilled at knowing when to fight, and when to walk away. You don't think “I should try to ______.” You go after it with everything you have, because you don't intend to be demolished by the heavily-armed line of power players mowing down the opposition. You have dozens of sneaky work-arounds and so-called “dirty” fight tactics in your arsenal. And you also know when to walk away and fight a different battle on a different day.

2. A badass is an ordinary sinner. You don't try to hide that in order to appear better than you are. You've been trespassed against, and you've done some trespassing of your own. But your heart is good. You know you've been screwed up, but you don't dwell on it, and you don't waste a lot of time on blame.

3. A badass lives on the edge. You are completely, utterly willing to walk out to where no one else will go, and peer over the edge. You live where other people are barely willing to visit. Badasses don't unquestioningly accept other people's limits, and you never wait for someone else to tell you that something is possible. You explore the edge. You hang out there. You are a trailblazer. You are willing to take risks that would make others cringe.

4. A badass is absolutely authentic. A badass may have a flare for the dramatic, but they're by no means counterfeit. Sure, you tell a great story and you have incredible showmanship, but you keep it real.

5. A badass is not a jerk. You can call something like it is without hesitation, but you have self control, you don't prey on the weak, and you stand up for others who can't stand up for themselves. You don't constantly brag about how badass you are, either.

19 Share the Badass Manifesto on 6. A badass acts despite fear. This is the heart of courage – not that you don't have fear, but that you act despite it. Badasses are accustomed to accepting uncertainty without letting it power and direct them. You're audacious. You initiate. You do, when others only watch.

7. A badass is a little bit mysterious. You don't say everything you know. You feel no obligation to justify your values or convictions to anyone. Instead you simply live into badassness. From the outside, it may look like you don't care, but the truth is that you don't care about things that don't matter. See #8 below.

8. A badass doesn't tolerate bullshit. Bullshit qualifies as something that doesn't matter. Which is why being a badass is so liberating. More people should try it. This is also why it's easy for you to ignore the haters. Haters try to get you to submit to the status quo, but you don't listen. You just do your thing and walk on.

9. A badass has a tribe. You have mentors, trainers, a people, a posse. You may work synergistically within your tribe, but your sense of self does not depend on it. You watch each other's backs and acknowledge each other's accomplishments. When you need to call on someone, these are the people who will unfailingly answer.

10. A badass accepts that blood happens. If you plan to live, you will get hurt. Black eyes, bloody noses, busted ribs, torn muscles, and even serious ass kickings do happen to badassses. But you know what it feels like to be punched in the face and you don't let that stop you from doing what you're here to do. You know your body and you trust it. You're ready for anydamnthing.

20 Share the Badass Manifesto on 11. A badass gets what they want. You aren't ashamed to go after the things you desire. You never manipulate others to get it, but you're not going to be stopped from reaching your goals. You accept your unique gifts (strengths) and weird malfunctions (flaws), and put them both to work for you. You figure out ways to get paid to exist.

12. A badass has swagga. You walk like you know where you're headed, and you don't expect anyone to mess with you. You don't have low self-esteem. You got badittude because you believe in who you are and where you're going. You do shit without looking. You're confident. Your swagger reflects the fact that you aren't embarrassed or apologetic about what you're good at or what you know.

13. A badass is a natural leader. Your confidence creates trust in others. But the real reason you're so valuable as a leader is that you are intensely creative, disruptive, and challenging. This is what the world needs more of. You say “yes,” then you figure out how to deliver. You believe there's a solution for all of the most important problems.

14. A badass speaks with confidence and power. For a badass, there is no “try” or “should.” You use the language of “will” and “absolutely.” You also don't dumb down your language. When you're ready, you speak your mind without waiting to be asked. You say what you mean, but you aren't argumentative. Or an asshole.

15. You're not Skeletor. You are not 100% whip, chains, and snarl. You have a place of playfulness inside you, and it never makes you feel weak or stupid to roll on the ground with a six year old (and let him beat you), or hand feed a nest of abandoned bluebirds. These things restore your soul.

21 Share the Badass Manifesto on Ripley: That's amazing. What is it? Ash: Uh, yes, it is. Umm. I don't know yet. Did you want something? Ripley: Yes, I, uh... How's, uh, how's Kane? Ash: He's holding, no changes. Ripley: And, uh, our guest? Ash: Umm. Ripley: Hmm? Ash: Well, as I said, I'm still... collating, actually, but uh, I have confirmed that he's got an outer layer of protein polysaccharides. Has a funny habit of shedding his cells and replacing them with polarized silicon, which gives him a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions. Is that enough? Ripley: That's plenty. What does it mean? Ash: Well, it's an interesting combination of elements making him a... tough little son-of-a-bitch.

How I became a badass (part 3) About the time I started learning to box, my life was falling to shreds. I had screamed and cried and manipulated and argued every way I knew with my husband and still couldn't seem to win any change in our relationship.

For nearly 20 years I had almost never been away from home during an evening for a reason not directly related to work or serving a need of my family. I worked full time and my husband was home full time, but I still carried all the domestic and child-related responsibilities. I had no hobbies. If I had a moment to myself I read or poured out my misery in ink on page after page of journal entries. We didn't take vacations and we almost never went out. It was a bleak, spiritually spartan existence.

I was debilitated with emotional fatigue and depression, and would spiral into long, black periods – days and sometimes weeks at a time – where I found myself unable to speak or interact in any way with my family. I felt consumed by their constant and overwhelming demands, and empty of fuel and

22 Share the Badass Manifesto on purpose. I kept a good social face on it, because it was easier than drowning in an ocean of shame.

And before you write off my husband as a cruel, self-centered sonofabitch, I should tell you that he's the quietest, most mild-mannered math nerd you could ever know. And here's a lesson it took me a while to learn: it takes two people to agree to a fucked-up relationship; same number as it takes to support and feed a smooth, enriching one.

Our problem was that one of us was somewhat satisfied with the arrangement, and the other one was miserable but didn't know how to fight.

Then I met a world-class, top-ranked badass professional fighter, and she began to train me.

My very first lesson wasn't at all what you'd expect The first lesson I learned began when I made the decision to go beyond fitness boxing and get in the ring. And the lesson isn't the one you might have expected. It's wasn't because I threw or took my first punches.

It happened because the boxing team trained at night.

I had been fitting in my sessions during lunch breaks at work. Suddenly, I had to decide to be gone during an evening, something I'd never done before unless it was for work or family.

Holy shit, that first one was hard. Because I had 20 years of habit piled on one side of the teeter-totter, and it was a damn bear trying to put something on the other side and get the thing to budge.

I announced my intent and gave everybody a few days' warning. My family protested, I waffled, and my life got worse. Then I just did it anyway. The alternative was to drive to the opposite coast and start over with a different life, and when I thought of it in those terms, I got clear.

23 Share the Badass Manifesto on My second lesson wasn't at all what you'd expect, either Once again, it had nothing to do with throwing a punch or feeling one bang into the side of my head, either (although those had lessons to teach). It was about focus.

Once I made the decision to get in the ring, there was absolutely no room in my brain to think about ANYTHING except how I would survive in that 20' by 20' space.

I couldn't think about my rotten life, the marriage I hated, the children clamoring for me, or the physical and emotional devastation I'd find when I got home. Suddenly I had one aim, and one aim only. That was to somehow take care of myself in that ring.

I had no clue how to do that in my life, but I began to learn it in my boxing. I had no idea what it took, what it was going to cost me, or how it would end, but in the ring, I had no other choice but to figure it out. Fast.

Fast forward The end of the story – or at least as far as I've gone to date – is a hard but good one. Two years after I walked into a gym I had my first official boxing fight, and won. A year after that my husband drove 7 hours in order to see me fight. It was my second fight, but his first time to see the new badass me in action.

By then I was 20 pounds lighter, much stronger, faster, and tougher, and away from home three nights a week for serious training, including sparring every Friday night.

I was finally able to start to transfer some boxing lessons to my life. My marriage was in a painful but necessary renegotiating phase. I knew I was eventually going to quit my corporate job to follow my freelance writing dream. I had started teaching my family how to do their own laundry and cooking, and insisted that they clean up after themselves. My husband began looking for a full time job.

Today we are finally back on track.

I'm telling the story and sharing those life-altering lessons and principles for the first time in this

24 Share the Badass Manifesto on manifesto, and in the new program called Fight For It. Because I'm guessing there are lessons in fighting that you could benefit from, too...

So you wanna be a badass? I think this next part is why you're really here, right now, reading this. It's because on some level you know you've stayed busy doing things, but they weren't the right things. You've suspected for a long time that being told to be “good” was code for “stay out of the way.” Maybe you don't know exactly what you want, but you're sure what you currently have ain't it. Or not all of it, anyway.

The good news is, you're in a great position to start down the path of becoming a badass, and you may just be pissed off enough, or dissatisfied enough, or hurting enough to motherfucking do it.

And before I lay the list on you – oh, hell, scroll down and see it for yourself, badass, but come back – I want to tell you one thing. The first step is a bitch. Here's why.

Pain is a great (but tricky) motivator. Have you seen that awesome video about Michael Jordan's motivation to become the monster superstar roundball machine that he is? Here's the text from it [the emphasis is mine]:

Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I led you to believe it was easy when it wasn’t. Maybe I made you think my highlights started at the free throw line, and not in the gym. Maybe I made you think that every shot I took was a game winner. that my game was built on flash and not fire. Maybe it was my fault that you didn’t see that failure gave me strength, that my pain was my motivation. Maybe I led you to believe that basketball was a God-given gift. And not something I worked for every single day of my life. Maybe I destroyed the game.

25 Share the Badass Manifesto on Or maybe you are just making excuses.

Either you're running toward what you want, or you're running away from something that hurts.

If you've seen the 2004 movie 50 First Dates (Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore), you know the power of pleasure as a motivator. That dude was so totally smitten with the woman of his dreams (whose memory didn't reach beyond the past 24 hours) he was willing to overcome unbelievable hurdles every single day in order to win her love and presence in his life.

But pain works, too.

There are two kinds of pain in the world. The appropriate and legitimate kind is the pain you feel when someone you love dies, or the pain you feel when you're working insanely hard to reach a powerful goal.

The second is illegitimate pain, which you shouldn't be suffering. Life is difficult (legit pain), but when you are so jealous of your neighbor's Porsche (or Honda) that you can barely speak politely and you're developing ulcers (illegit), that's pain you bring on yourself that you have no business wallowing in. It also makes you a dumbass.

In my experience, pain, rather than pleasure, is more frequently the motivator in getting people to change their lives. They do it because the alternative sucks. The alternative hurts. It makes their lives smaller, worse, uglier.

The reason I'm mentioning this at all is that you probably should know that pain will factor into your badassness; I've found it to be a normal part of badass life and I've made some amount of peace with it.

But make your choice knowing there's a fair amount of risk involved. Because it's tricky and wears different faces. Pain can be a great motivator, but it's also a great excuse for staying where you are. Because, you know, you're in pain. No one expects the sick person to jump out of bed and do fifty push-ups.

26 Share the Badass Manifesto on You can also become addicted to fear and negative emotions. Ebeneezer Scrooge did it, and you can probably think of several real-life examples in the people around you. But bitterness is ugly and unattractive, so you feed your pain at the risk of living a bitter, ugly, and unattractive life, and maybe losing everyone around you.

Pain can be potentially useful but it can also cause your life to implode. A true badass handles it with care.

How to become a badass (and live like you have a pair) So here it is. I've boiled down the 13 lessons I've learned in the ring and transferred them to life. When I look over the list, I wince and smile, remembering specific events in boxing that shaped the principles, in more or less painful ways. If you'd like to hear some of those stories, come join me on my blog, The Glowing Edge, or at Fight For It.

1. Get off your ass. You gotta move. You can't piss away all your time just thinking about rescuing yourself from your shitty life or situation, you have to do it.

This is where Franklin Planners, iCal, and any number of expensive time management courses are simply there to trip you up and keep you numbly wandering around in the Matrix. Long-term old habits and known patterns will also keep you from doing it. Past failures will rise up to haunt you, promising you that you Just. Can't. Succeed. Family, well-meaning friends, bosses... people don't like change and they'll work to stop you if they possibly can.

To break out of the anesthetized haze of forever dreaming about what you could do, how you might approach the problem, the possible routes up the mountain, you have to get physical. Possibly even rough or brutal. You have to DO something.

But what are you going to do, specifically? Levitate the X-wing out of the swamp? Defeat the kraken?

27 Share the Badass Manifesto on You feel clueless, completely unprepared, utterly incapable of knowing how you're going to climb the ramps, avoid the barrels and rescue Pauline from Donkey Kong. You don't know what to do!

Which is perfect.

And I'll tell you why. Because to have no plan whatsoever – and setting sail anyway – is the biggest, most counterintuitive secret of becoming the badass hero of your own life... See below.

2. Ready, fire, aim. Quit worrying about the fact that you've never played this complex, intimidating, (and in my case, painful) game before. Put the quarters in and push the damn start button. Studies show that people who spend a long time in the decision-making process, trying to ensure they make the best possible choices, are far unhappier than people who choose quickly and make the best of things. Do, don't stew.

When it became clear that thirteen dwarves and a magician intended him to journey toward a dragon's lair and steal it's treasure, Bilbo Baggins announced in very Hobbit-like fashion, “I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth..." Tolkien goes on to elaborate, “By which he meant: What am I going to get out of it? and am I going to come back alive."

A badass doesn't necessarily get the luxury of learning all about the plan and the dragon before having to actually sneak in and burgle it.

Set out. Then set goals. Set new goals as needed.

3. Do the hardest thing first. This principle is also known as Eating The Frog, after Mark Twain's infamous quip, “If you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, that will probably be the worst thing you do all day.”

The idea being that you could spend all damn day in fear and anxiety, thinking about doing something you'd rather not do (but which has to be done) OR you can suck it up, DO IT, and have the rest of your

28 Share the Badass Manifesto on day relatively free from anguish.

It wasn't that hard for me to walk into a boxing gym for the first time. What turned my guts to water and slime was the thought of rolling under those ropes and having to fight. This is why I now think it's far better to start getting actual ring experience with a trusted coach or sparring partner very early on in your fighting journey. The longer you wait, the more time that monster has to grow fat, mean, and poisonous.

4. Learn to fight. This one is easy to say and hard as hell to do.

When should you fight for something? When is it right to be defensive? Offensive? When are you fighting to prove yourself, practice a skill, defeat someone/something else, win something, or simply for the joy of fighting?

There are so many lessons in fighting that you need to learn, and the only way to begin is to stop running from the shit that scares the daylights out of you and turn around and face it dead on.

Learn to fight dirty and fair. Learn discipline. Become part of a fighting community.

This single item on the Badass Manifesto is the reason I wrote the program Fight For It. It takes a badass to learn to name, fight for, and WIN the life you've always dreamed of. It takes audacity. Chutzpah. Guts.

Wanna get summa that? Come over and join the badass posse at Fight For It (more fighting-in-life- related), or hang out with us on The Glowing Edge (more fighting-in-boxing-related). And read on.

5. Build a constellation of mentors. My all-time favorite cinematic mentor quote is from The Mask of Zorro (1998, Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas):

29 Share the Badass Manifesto on Don Diego de la Vega: Do you know how to use that thing? Alejandro Murrieta: Yes. The pointy end goes into the other man. Don Diego: This is going to take a lot of work.

Everyone needs a Professor Charles Xavier. Or Yoda, Gandalf, Dumbledore, or Morpheus. (Interestingly, few cinematic mentors are female. Why is that?) None of them are perfect, but they are most assuredly badass, and so are their students.

Spoon feeding just teaches you the shape of the spoon. If you want to learn to be great, seek out, learn from, and imitate the great masters. A good teacher or mentor tells, explains, and demonstrates. The great ones also inspire, demand accountability, and build character.

6. It's okay to suck. This is the one I know the most. This one is my bestie. My soulmate. So let me give it to you straight. It really is okay if you are filled with doubt, don't feel like it, are unclear about your priorities, question your capabilities, feel overwhelmed, get down on yourself, are uncertain whether you'll ever reach your potential, resent other people's success, can't say the right thing, want to stop, and screwed up the first second and third times around.

Some days you're an anxiety-ridden emotional cripple trying to fill a planet-sized interior black hole of need, and you're also shitty at yoga. E'erbody been there, done that.

Claim your suckage. Honor your charter membership in the Clan of Suck. Keep on sucking, my sisters and brothers! 'Cause you're allowed to suck.

You just aren't allowed to quit.

7. Discover what drives and fuels you. When I was very small, my family had three board games: checkers, TwixT, and Mastermind. Once in

30 Share the Badass Manifesto on a while I found myself playing a game with one of my parents. I don't remember ever winning; I only recall the intense boredom and misery of a “sit-still” game I didn't enjoy that always, always, always ended in loss.

For years I associated those miserable hours with all games of every description, so I was particularly slow to discover how much I actually thrive on competition. I still dislike board games, but give me something where I can test some of my physical skills against others and my engine is fired and ready, and I plan to kick your ass and have a great time, too. I get tremendous joy out of teaching others something badass and watching them win, as well.

Think about times and situations when you were/are at your very best. What puts the rocket fuel in your tank during those times? Build up a solid store of that magic mojo and put it to work to fuel your journey toward badassery.

8. Get rough. Push, shove, test the materials of yourself and the world around you. Glove up and punch the side of that barn. Climb over that railing. Forget the sidewalk, walk on the wall. Why? Because you and the fabric of the universe are tough and durable, and the world wants you to come play.

Of course you should learn to bend and break rules. If the company had its way, you would live at the office, do what you were hired to do, and never cause a creative or disruptive ripple. Fuck that. Who wants that career? No badass I know of.

Get off the trail. Unleash your inner mad scientist. Be controversial. That's how every single powerful movement of life and history has begun. It's how relationships are formed, empires are built, and new movements in art and culture are spawned.

It's how badasses are made.

31 Share the Badass Manifesto on 9. Find your tribe. Boxing looks like a solitary sport. But the truth is that behind every successful fighter is an incredible coach, a great corner, and a yelling, screaming, fabulously badass community – mostly made up of other fighters, but also including plenty of friends, fans, and supporters.

Up above I wrote “find” your tribe, but once you name and start fighting for your passion or the change in life you want and the causes you believe in, your tribe will begin to find you. Because you'll be in different places, working on new things, talking to new people, and making connections among others who are working on the same things you are.

You NEED those people, not only because you'll learn from and be energized by them, but because there will be plenty of times when you lose heart, get discouraged, or royally fuck up the whole thing. And they'll be the ones who pull you up off the canvas, remind you to shake it off, and tell you to get back to work.

10. Measure growth. After my team is finished sparring I’ll ask some of the newer boxers:“How did you do tonight?” And I’ve found that many of them have trouble answering in a way that satisfies themselves. They’ll say, “I didn’t do as well as I wanted,” or “I think I did okay,” but they have trouble defining it further. Or else there are so many things that need improvement that they’re overwhelmed by it all. A lot of people think it will go like it did when they first picked up a football, or a basketball, or a frisbee. They messed around with it for a day or so and pretty quickly they could get in the game. Not so with boxing, or any other major life change or cause.

The best way to know if your boxing is improving is to set small, clear, achievable goals for every sparring session. Things like “Don't look away from my opponent,” “Throw two excellent left hooks in every round,” or “Don't get pinned against the ropes.” When you put it like this, you can measure your success, and know that you're making forward progress a little at a time.

Changes in your fight game, like changes in your life, happen as a result of hundreds or thousands of small, repeated steps taken over a long period of time. My friend Johnny B. Truant calls this “get rich

32 Share the Badass Manifesto on quick slowly” method, and truthfully it's the only one that really works, I don't care WHAT the internet gurus promise. You gotta make big changes with small steps.

And if you fail to measure, you risk losing sight of the fact that you ARE moving the damn mountain, a shovelful at a time.

11. Practice balance. It would have been easy for me, when my marriage was in shreds and I wanted to end it and leave my family and home, to simply throw myself into my new passion for boxing and let the rest all go to hell. It would have been easier than the alternative. That would have been a one-sided, unbalanced, deadly pattern, but it was one I was already familiar with. It was the devil I knew.

Fortunately for me, one of the early lessons I learned in the ring was how to pace myself and balance my weight in the mad chaos of a sparring round. Sounds easy, but when fists are flying and people are moving quickly with intent to destroy, you damn well better be balanced or you will quickly find yourself gassed out and beat up, or flat on your back on the canvas.

Start balancing yourself. Physical balance exercises. Translate them into life balance. How can your head be a balance to your gut? How can your work be balanced with your home life? How can you balance your weight and your eating habits?

No badass can go without supreme balance. Otherwise they flame out and are forgotten.

12. Spread gratitude. Does this sound contrary to to your notion of badassery? Mine too.

This is probably the single key to badassery I can explain the least, but am learning the most from. Every day I'm grateful that I'm in incredible fighting shape; that I have the physical capacity to do this thing, and that it helped me win back my marriage and life, and pushed me to quit my job and pursue my dream career. Every day that gratitude seems to multiply in ways that don't make mathematical

33 Share the Badass Manifesto on sense. Gratitude feels like a central tenet to badassery, yet I can't pinpoint why. Maybe that will have to be my next book.

Meanwhile, I know that gratitude makes us more optimistic, less materialistic and envious, healthier, less self-centered, happier, and (swear to Elvis) I think it... makes people LIKE us. WTF with that? Dunno. But there it is. Dammit if I don't even believe it makes me more productive and improves my decision-making.

Go figure!

13. Learn from losses, celebrate wins. Every badass loses. Every single one. Just like the tenet “blood happens” (see #10, Characteristics of a True Badass), so does loss. Sometimes you go up against the mountain and the mountain grinds you to a bloody pulp.

It's not something you can hide, either. People see it, sense it, hear about it, know. They may not know the details, but it will be clear you got your ass kicked.

But who do you want on your side, when you need a badass backup? You want someone who has been enough damn rounds to not be stopped by a mean look and the threat of fists. You want someone who's not scared of a little blood or a hard shot, who knows the feel of the ropes on their legs and canvas against their face. You want someone who understands what it means to lose, as well as what it means to win.

Learn from your losses and put them to work for you when you're fighting again.

And celebrate the hell out of your wins. A badass wins fights worth having, and if it was a fight worth having, you deserve a moment to pump your fist in the air with a fierce grin and a growl of triumph. It isn't about gloating, or bragging. Even a quiet moment of reflection, to let the stress of a hard fight drain away will lift your heart and inspire your tribe.

34 Share the Badass Manifesto on Parker: I hate to bring this up but, uh, this a commercial ship, not a rescue ship... Brett: Right. Parker: ...and it's not in my contract to do this kind of duty. Now what about the money? If you wanna give me some money to do it, I'll be happy to, uh, t-to, you know, oblige. Brett: The man's right. Dallas: Parker... Parker: Let's go over the bonus situation. We haven't -- Can we just talk about the bonus situation? Ash: I'm sorry. Can I say something? Parker: Let's talk about the bonus more. Ash: There is a clause in the contract which specifically states any systematized transmission indicating a possible intelligent origin must be investigated. Parker: I don't wanna hear it... Brett: We don't know if it's intelligent. Parker: I wanna go home and party. Dallas: Parker, will you just listen to the man? Ash: On penalty of total forfeiture of shares. No money. Dallas: You got that? Parker: [chuckling] Well, yeah. Dallas: All right, we're going in. Parker: [to Brett] Yeah, we're going in, aren't we?

What are you fighting for? Some people only fight if there's a crisis. A fire, a disaster, a mess, a pain. Or if they're backed into a corner (and decide they don't want to to be demolished).

35 Share the Badass Manifesto on But plenty of people give up without ever fighting at all for the things they desperately desire or believe in. Why do they give up? Because fighting is hard. Because they might lose. Because they're prisoners to their own fear. Because they have been told over and over again that they can't do it, shouldn't do it, and are bound to fail.

You've read the Badass Manifesto: Live Like You Have a Pair.

What are YOU going to do about it?

Here's what I think you should do, right this minute. It's not complicated or arcane or hard to understand, but it's also definitely not easy.

1. Name what you want to fight for in your life.

2. Learn to fight and do it.

3. Repeat as needed.

Almost everybody can do #1. But very few go on to #2 and #3. Those who do invariably become the best kind of badass.

Those are the people who win the relationship of their dreams, find their way into the career that fully satisfies them on every level, achieve the level of success they desire in finances, health, and spirituality, discover their calling in life and rock the world by answering that call and rising to the forefront with its banner.

Quick. What have you desperately wanted, believed in, or dreamed about, but never gotten? Name three things...

Now, hold those three things in your mind. What have you done about them?

36 Share the Badass Manifesto on Anything?

Yeah, that's where I used to be, too. And it damn near cost me everything I hold dear.

Yes, you might fail. But you can't fail if you never start. Now this next part is totally optional, but I'd be crazy (and lying) if I told you this was the end of it, thanks for reading the book, good luck with your whatever, see ya later loser.

Join the fight team The reason I wrote this is because I wanted to tell my story and give other people a chance to start telling theirs. To build a whole community of fighters, in fact. A fighting posse. A group of people determined to • figure out exactly what they're fighting for • learn to fight for it, and • WIN the life they've always dreamed of.

Every single week (okay, MOST weeks) I write and send out an email to the team of people I fight with. Some of them are people I actually get in the boxing ring with, but most are a different kind of fighter. They are fighting to overcome the great (or small) odds to lay their hands and hearts on the things they want most, and it inspires me to hear their stories, or to simply know they're out there in the universe with me, fighting.

→ You can click HERE to join up with us.

NOTE: Clicking the link above will open an email and all you have to do is press the “Send” button. Easy, right? If for ANY reason it doesn't work for you, go to this page and sign up. Yeah, you'll get another copy of this book, but you'll be on the list!

No, it doesn't cost anything to join that group. No, I don't sell shit day and night. Although some stuff in life isn't free, and if I mention something like that, you can be damn sure it's not a frivolous thing. I

37 Share the Badass Manifesto on always tell you when there's money on the line, and if I expect to get a share of it.

I send out a truthful (sometimes raw, sometimes funny, but always bare-naked true) account of where I am on the journey, the things I'm fighting for, the lessons I'm learning, and some others are learning, too. I point you to resources, inspiration, and try to give you a heads-up when there are hazards in the way ahead.

Learn to Fight For It I also have created a powerful program called Fight For It, that is designed to help people exactly like you figure out what you're fighting for, and how to wage a winning battle for it.

That may be how you got this Manifesto, or you may still have questions about Fight For It – you'll be able to learn more by clicking the Fight For It link below.

Fight For It is a more serious investment, and yes, it will cost you something. Just like most things worthwhile do. But if you are serious about winning the changes in life you've always dreamed of, this may be the plan you're looking for.

→ Go HERE to learn more about the Fight For It Program

Share the badassery Did you get something good out of reading this? Did it make you want to ratchet up your badass factor and go after the things you want in life, regardless of the acid-dripping alien standing in your way?

Then please PASS THE BADASSNESS ON to others! Use those tiny icons at the bottom of the page and spread the guts, baby. Only takes a click. Not even very messy. Hah.

And hey, thanks for reading. I hope to see you on the list, where we can shoot the shit, swap stories, and support each other... Meanwhile, stay strong. Go after what you want, and make it yours.

38 Share the Badass Manifesto on About the Author

Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a professional writer and a competitive boxer, as well as a wife and mother of three boys. She has trained in numerous gyms in North Carolina and elsewhere, and believes that boxing saved her life. She's the author of 37 Reasons to Take Up Boxing, and that book along with The Badass Manifesto are the first two eBooks she's written under her own name.

You can reach her at [email protected], join Lisa on Twitter, check out her professional work at LisaCreechBledsoe.com, or just show up, hang out, and join in the conversations at The Glowing Edge, where she's been writing about boxing, rock, and laundry since 2006.

39 Share the Badass Manifesto on