Ep #352: On Being a Badass

You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 352.

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Hey, friends. I just got home. I’ve been traveling. I’ve been working, I’ve been celebrating with my family. It’s been amazing. I had an incredible Christmas in Colorado, at my home in Colorado with my amazing ex-husband, my two kids, and my new boyfriend and my friends Tonya and her daughter. And it was just a beautiful time.

And I’m going to talk much more about all of that and some of the work that I’ve been doing that I want to share with you all. Like, I just have a lot of cool stuff I want to share with you, and some of the work that I’m doing.

But today, we’re going to talk about being a badass. I am called a badass very regularly. And I take it as a total compliment and I love being called a badass and I think that I am one and I wanted to talk about it with you all. For those of you who would like to be a badass too, I thought it would be a fun topic for us to talk about.

So, let’s talk about the definition. So, I just looked it up in the Googles. And one of the definitions is, “A tough, uncompromising, intimidating person,” which I think describes me pretty well. The other, more urban definition is, “Does what she wants, when she wants, where she wants.” Which I think is kind of fun too.

So, when I was talking to some of my friends about this, who they thought of when they thought of a badass person and what they thought that meant and if they wanted to be that, the person that came to mind for me was Jennifer Lopez. And I think she is badass. I think Beyoncé is too for sure.

And the reason I picked Jennifer Lopez though is I’ve just seen her do so many amazing things and also have so many fails and is just relentless, going after it, creating greatness, putting yourself out there, working really hard, not apologizing, being who she really is. I really admire her as a woman, as a businesswoman, as an actress, as a singer, and just as a person, as a mother. And I’m curious with you all, who do you see as a badass person and does that person inspire you to create more in your life?

For me, being someone who is dedicated to evolving in my life and dedicated to becoming the best version of myself and making the biggest contribution, being a badass, someone that isn’t apologetic and isn’t compromising and doesn’t give up and goes for her goals is the way I see it, makes it easier to accomplish what my purpose is in my life.

And so, I like to think about myself that way and I want to give you all permission to think about yourselves that way. That’s one thing that’s so great about the human mind is you get to pick whatever it is you want to believe about you.

I got my financials sent to me and we don’t have – I didn’t get the exact final count. There’s like three days that I don’t have in here. But we finished at $37 million this year. My goal was 35. We beat it by two million. Last year, the goal was $25 million, we beat it by two, $27 million.

So, that’s some badassery, my friends. That is some work that we put in. That is a team that I compiled together. That is a lot of high-quality work and delivering and marketing and effort. And I think that is one of the things that helps me believe in my own badassery, being able to create and deliver results in my own life and see for myself what is possible with the Model makes me motivated to do more, to teach more, to show more, to really be in a space of creation.

So, I look at my business over this part year and I really do define myself before my business accomplishments and after as a badass. I think another piece of evidence there is how my ex-husband and I handled out marriage and also how we handled our divorce. I feel like we’re both badasses when it comes to that.

We did that amazingly well. And we’re able to work through all of the issues and talk about all of the things and show up for each other and for our kids in a way that I’m so proud of and so happy that we could do and glad that we didn’t have any drama or craziness around it. It was just something that we were able to handle like adults; like badass adults.

I am so proud of my family and one of the things that I think is important to remember when you’re stepping into this place where you want to have some badass results, you need to create some badass goals. And you have to be that badass person that goes after them.

And I think many times, we don’t set those goals because we don’t think about what’s possible. We don’t make those choices for ourselves. And if I was going to say that one of the biggest contributing factors to being a badass in your own life is to have badass goals. And even if you think you might fail at them, going after them with all of your heart, with all of your energy, with all of your mind in order to see what you’re capable of, to impress yourself, to blow your own mind.

So, that’s number one, I think, badass goals. Number two is not caring about what other people think about you. Now, if there’s one thing that I could teach the world, that I could teach women, if I could teach my students, it would be to care more about what you think than what other people think.

Unfortunately, we are raised in a way where we are constantly taught to be paying attention to what other people think about us, if we’re hurting their feelings, if they’re happy, if we have their approval, if we’re behaving, if we’re following the rules, they’re doing what we say, are we being good girls, are we being bad girls, are we behaving ourselves?

And as adults, we want to undo all that and care more about what we want and what we think than what other people think about us. And that’s one of the biggest challenges, as I’ve discussed many times on this podcast, as tribal creatures, as human beings that want to be in tribes, want to be in groups, want to be in community. It is very challenging for our brains to not care what other people are thinking about us because we want to be included in the group.

We see that as a very primal need for our survival, to be included in the group. And so, if we aren’t included, then we feel afraid. But in order to step out of the group, to be the badass that you want to be, there is a sense of not feeling like everybody’s agreeing and not feeling like everybody approves of you and to be judged. And that is part of the deal.

You have to be able to suspend and not care as much what other people think about you when you are trying to step out and do amazing things in your life.

I’ve talked about this before but I’m going to bring it up here. What makes someone a badass versus someone just annoyingly arrogant? Why is it that so many of us are able to talk about ourselves in really positive ways, in ways that celebrate who we are as humans, as women, and celebrate our accomplishments and people don’t hate us for that? People actually celebrate and enjoy us celebrating themselves.

And I want to tell you, the secret to this, in order to be able to do this, to celebrate yourself, to love yourself out loud, to be in the presence of other people and do this is that when you love yourself, when you celebrate yourself, it’s never at the expense of anyone else.

When it becomes annoying and awful is when somebody is celebrating themselves and trying to convince you that they’re better than other people, that they’re better than you, that they’re better than the other people in the room. That’s when it’s just awfully arrogant because it’s coming from a place of insecurity. It’s coming from a place of trying to prove something. I think that’s the opposite of badassery. I think that is just being afraid and trying to put other people down to make yourself feel better.

One of the things that I want to encourage you to do as you celebrate yourself is to recognize that there is nothing special about you compared to other people. We all have our own capability, our own capacity, our own ability to be that best version of ourselves, to use the Model to create what it is we most genuinely want to create in our lives.

And when you start getting into a competitive mindset with other people and trying to be better than or believing that you’re worse than someone else, you completely miss the plot of the journey of your own life. And so, I want to encourage you to focus on yourself and being the best version of yourself, and with the abundance mindset that as you do that, you evolve everyone.

You are an example. You show what’s possible. You are able to communicate in a way where other people can hear you and be inspired and not necessarily feel like you’re being arrogant or full of yourself or bragging.

Now, there will be some people that may think that, but I think overall, when you’re coming from a place of abundance and celebrating humankind and celebrating potential and possibility within yourself and within everybody else, there’s much less of a chance of people feeling like your wins are somehow at their expense.

I believe, when you’re a badass, you’re strong in your mind, in your spirit, in your body. And I love the word strength here because in order to stay strong, in order to be strong, you need to be practicing consistently.

Strength is not something that you create one time. It’s something that you work out to create. And so, using your mind, practicing with your mind, practicing with your body to keep yourself strong and aware and sharp is a huge part of creation.

And so, a lot of times, when I teach someone the Model, they’ll do the Model, they’ll learn about it, they’ll think it’s great, they’ll do it a couple of times, and then they’ll move onto something else and they don’t get the full benefit, the full strength of the practice.

This is why we notice such a huge difference between people who simply listen to the podcast and people who join Scholars and do the practices and the exercises and the consistent coaching and the consistent self-coaching.

When you are in a program that you’re committed to, your strength, your results, your creatin accelerates by so much more, by multiples than it does when you’re not. Practicing, when you’re just understanding something intellectually, it’s like the difference between understanding how to lift weights and actually lifting weights.

It’s the difference between going to the gym once and trying out all the stuff and having perfect form but then never doing it again, versus going every day and lifting and strengthening and being strong.

So, I think in order to be a badass, you have to keep showing up and keep showing up in a way that creates strength within your mind and within your body. And anything that is affecting your ability to be strong should be taken, as a priority, as something to work on.

Badasses don’t have a victim mentality. They don’t look at the world as happening to them. They don’t feel sorry for themselves. They don’t think that they’re doing something to themselves that is causing them to not get what they want.

They own what it is that they create, whether it’s good or bad, positive or negative. And they own the way that creation happens around them instead of waiting for it to happen, or talking about how it’s happening to them.

One of my friends that I was talking about this too was also saying to me that she thinks, on a consistent level, all the people that she thinks are badasses show up physically in a way that is confident and prepared. And what she meant by that is they’re usually very well-dressed. They usually have put some thought into how they look and how they walk and how they present themselves in a room and how prepared they are for meetings and classes and events.

And I thought about that for a while, seeing if I agreed with that, with the people that I think are badasses. And I do think there’s definitely a component of that.

I do think that’s an important consideration if you are someone that wants to show up in this badass way and be part of, like, this cutting edge, “I do what I want, when I want, where I want. I’m a tough, uncompromising person. I’m all in. I’m willing to go through and be relentless and go through what I need to go through in order to get what I want.” It’s that determination, that energy.

Being prepared for your life and being thoughtful about how you show up, the uniform you show up, the clothes you show up, how you present yourself to the world will create a reaction from other people that will be different if you don’t prepare.

And when you have that lens on you of being a badass yourself and looking for that energy, there’s a much higher chance that if you’ve been thoughtful about how you show up, that you will create that energy around you.

I think that that’s something that I have done very well. I’ve told you guys, like, a lot of times, I’ll go into a store and they’ll think I work there because of the way that I walk with confidence and authority in every place where I am. And I have people ask me a lot who don’t know who I am, like, “Are you on TV? Where have I seen you before? You look so familiar.”

There’s a lot of this, like, “Who is that person?” And these are people that don’t know my work. And I do think that’s – I’m always a little bit overdressed and I show up in a way that celebrates who I am as a person and who acknowledges my own self as a person. And so, I think that’s another really good tip that she had come up with.

If you want to be a badass in your life, you’re going to have to make decisions. This is something that I’ve talked to you before about. But all of your power is coming from the decisions you make and stick to. And remember, a big decision is also a bunch of little decisions as well.

So, you make a decision, “I am going to make this amount of money,” or, “I’m going to lose this amount of weight,” or, “I’m going to quit drinking,” or, “I’m going to figure out a solution to this,” or, “I’m going to create a program,” or whatever. That’s decision number one and that’s your commitment and you have your back.

And then, you have to make a decision about every single thing that you need to do in order to bring that to reality. And you have to make a decision about what you’re going to do when you fail. And the consistency behind your decisions is what makes you strong, is what creates your power in your life.

Now, what I love about this concept, I love that it doesn’t matter if you fail or if you succeed from the decision you make. You still generate the power and the growth. I’m going to repeat that because it’s so important. It doesn’t matter if you succeed or fail. You still generate the power from the decision and the growth.

So, if you fail ahead of time and you don’t take any action on a goal that you have set for yourself, you will not generate the power that comes from making those decisions. You will lose out.

But when you make the decision to do something and you fail at it, you don’t create that result that you want, you still get the benefit and the strength from having made the decision. And the more decisions you make that support the original decision, the higher chance that you’re going to have of creating more power and strength, which ultimately will lead to more success in the future.

Remember our example, falling down when you’re learning how to walk. The more you fall down, the stronger you get. The stronger you get, the better you end up walking. It’s not about the how. Nobody talks to us about the how, how to walk. We don’t sit down and get a book and read about it. we don’t get a play by play. We don’t get a PowerPoint. We don’t get an instruction manual. We just start trying to walk.

And that’s how we build it up. We make a decision to stand up, to walk, to fall. We make a decision to get back up, to walk, to fall. We make a decision. Every time we make the decision, we are building the infrastructure that we need in order to ultimately create the strength and success that we want.

Being a badass does not mean that you don’t fail. It means the opposite. It means you’re willing to fail; you’re willing to put yourself out there and take the risks and go after it and not give up and get pie on your face and keep going, keep moving forward.

I believe that if you want to be a badass, you need to take some risks. You need to be willing to put yourself in harm’s way, to make statements about doing things that other people may not be willing to do, to get up earlier, to workout harder, to show up longer, to study the stuff that other people won’t do, to be willing to put yourself, lay yourself out like other people won’t. That’s what will separate you and your results when you are looking at who is a badass and who isn’t.

I believe everybody has the potential to have some badassery, to show up, to be uncompromising, to be deliberate. One of the things that I think is interesting, in the definition, it talks about a person being intimidating.

And obviously, if you believe someone is intimidating, it’s all relative. It’s relative to how much you know them and what you think about them and what your thoughts are about yourself will create that energy.

But I do think that a lot of people will tell me that I’m intimidating because I say what’s on my mind. And a lot of people aren’t used to hearing someone be so direct to them. But I also think it comes from the energy that I put behind my cause and what I want.

There is a power to that that is big. And one of my biggest fears was, when I first started doing this work as a coach, one of my biggest fears was if I become too big, I won’t have any friends because I would be too intimidating, I would be too big, I’d be too powerful. And I always thought that would turn people off.

And the truth is that it does turn some people off. But it turns way more people on. There’s way more of us that want to be powerful badasses in the world than there are people who don’t. And I want you to remember that as you take risks and step out there and say your opinion and create your programs and do the things that you want to do in your life, that there will be people who do not like that about you. But that’s about them. That’s about their own perception of themselves and you and that has nothing to do with you.

One of the other things that we came up with that has to do with being a badass – and my friend Todd Herman had talked about this in some of the special audio that we have in the private podcast in Scholars, he was talking about discipline and how people who are badasses have an underlying discipline in almost every case.

They are consistent in what they’re willing to go after. They’re consistent in their work ethic. They’re consistent in how they show up, in their practice. They are consistent in how they run their day, how they organize their time.

I would say that most of the people who I have met that I think are badasses are people who plan. When I think about athletes who impress me and who I think are badasses, you look at their regimes or their regimens. You look at what they do to stay fit, to stay consistent.

And one of the things that I think you’ll hear from most of them is they don’t want to do it all the time. They set their schedule. They show up no matter what. They show up ready, prepared, and make the decision to do it every single day. And that level of discipline, that consistency is one of the secret ingredients.

And a lot of my students want to beat themselves up for not having enough discipline. And I just want to remind you, discipline is just honoring the choices that you made, even when you don’t feel like it. It’s knowing that you’re not going to feel like it, knowing that the emotion isn’t going to be there, the motivation isn’t going to be there and you’re going to do it anyway.

That is the most beautiful example of discipline, right? And it’s showing up consistently in order to serve your future self, to serve your highest purpose, to serve what it is, the result you want to create in your life.

Finally, I think one of the most important aspects of being a badass is understanding that life is 50-50 and that you have faults. I have a lot of faults. I have a lot of shortcomings. I have things that I’m not good at and I own them. I do not pretend that they’re not there. I do not try to downplay them. I embrace them. And where I need to, I strengthen them. And where I don’t, I accept them.

And I think there is so much power in knowing that you don’t have to be perfect and that you have areas of strength that you can build on and focus on and create and the areas where you’re not strong, you can certainly own and accept and maybe delegate if you need to, or develop them if you need those skills right now.

One of the things that I see a lot of are people trying to deny what they’re not good at. They’re trying to hide it and put it away and bury it in shame. And I just want to say, if you want to be a badass, people will say to me, “You’re just doing that because you’re not good at this,” or whatever. And I just say, “Yeah, absolutely. I agree.”

People try to attack me with their judgments. And most of the time, their judgments are true. And I just agree with them. Which is empowering to me and not to them. There’s so much strength in accepting all of you and all of the world that is 50-50 and riding that life that you’ve been given that includes that.

Listen, you’re going to go through life anyway. You’re going to go through your life for however long you’re going to live. And you get to decide, do you want to be a badass in your own life? Do you want to be someone that gets up, shows up, is disciplined, creates what they want over and over and over again by failing? Or do you want to be someone who just sits as a passenger on the train?

No judgment either way. You get to choose. But I want to be clear, there aren’t people in the world that are just born badasses. There aren’t just people that get ordained or get designated. When you look at the people that are creating badass lives for themselves, it’s because of the way that they’re showing up. No matter what their circumstances, they are changing their thoughts and showing up as the best version of themselves that they possibly can.

They’re doing it by making the decisions, dialing, having their own back, getting up, having badass goals for themselves, not caring what other people think about their life as much as they care about what they think. They own their life and show up in a way that represents the life they’re trying to create. They do not think they’re better than others and they do not degrade others.

They’re focused on strength. They’re focused on making decisions over and over and over again, whether or not they’re failing or succeeding in order to create their strength. They take care of business. They’re the ones that, when they walk in a room, you know they’re going to get it covered. You know they’re going to handle the situation. You know that they’re going to lead it. There’s a willingness to fail, a willingness to make the decisions.

I want to encourage you all to take on this persona for yourself, to step into it, to claim it as one of the characteristics that you want to have in 2021.

Look at your life like I did and say, “Where can I see where I’m already a badass? Where can I see where I’ve already created some badassery in my own life? And where do I want to do more of it? Where do I want to step into it and open my heart up and be willing to feel all the feels and show up in a way that is disciplined and focused and strong in order to create results that blow my own mind?” Ask yourself this question. Decide that this is someone you want to be.

Have a beautiful week, everyone. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

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