The Badass Manifesto

This is a rework of something I posted on my blog a couple weeks ago. The Warrior Forum has been a central part of my marketing education and efforts, so after letting my readers have the first look, I thought I'd bring it in here so the good people here can benefit from it.

This is not a copy and paste, I'm rewriting the whole thing specifically for you guys, because you deserve that.

The entire point of the Badass Manifesto is to lay out the basic requirements of being a badass - not someone who goes around bullying people and beating them up, but someone who is strong and capable and very good at what they do.

There are just seven basic rules with a half-dozen words each. That's 42, which is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. This is not a coincidence.

Nobody is ever born a badass.

Seriously, it does not just happen. Nobody came out of the womb and jumped up yelling "hell yeah I am a marketer!" because that's not how it works. Being badass requires you to educate yourself and practice your badassery until you get there.

Everybody can become a badass.

Seriously, it doesn't matter who you are. There is something you can be badass at doing. Finding it isn't necessarily easy, but it is there and can be found. Be honest about your limitations, but even within those limitations, there is something you can do and be a badass.

People can become badass at anything.

This is the corollary to the preceding: be honest about your interests and your passions, too. There's not some tiny little collection of things you're allowed to be badass with, you can be badass at anything. Anything at all.

All badasses know they are badass.

Self-doubt is how you know you're not a badass. When you're badass, you know it, because you look around at what everybody else is doing in your field and you know you're better than they are at doing it. False humility is never, ever, ever badass. Accept and admit your badassery.

Badasses prefer doing their own things.

This is something a lot of people have trouble understanding. There's nothing wrong with doing something other people have done. But given the choice... a badass prefers to do something of his own. Given a method of making money with a Tumblr blog, he'll want to twist it around so it works with Pinterest or with a Facebook page, just to be different. Looking and acting like others is usually distressing to a badass.

Badasses know why they do things.

Another corollary: being different for the sake of being different is stupid, and a badass knows this. If he changes from Tumblr to Pinterest, he'll have a reason, and if it turns out to be a bad idea he'll go back to Tumblr because difference for the sake of difference is worthless.

All badasses have unique origin stories.

The way you personally became a badass is unique to you, so telling that story is something nobody else can do. You can get some real mileage out of just telling that story.

The real point of being a badass is that you stop being in the what-you-do niche and start being in the who-you-are niche. Tony Robbins and Brendon Burchard are not really in the personal development niche; they are in the Tony Robbins niche and the Brendon Burchard niche. A badass can do that.

A plain old marketer can't.