The Middle Finger Project: Trash Your Imposter Syndrome and Live the Unf*ckwithable Life You Deserve - Hardcover

Ambirge, Ash

 
9780525540328: The Middle Finger Project: Trash Your Imposter Syndrome and Live the Unf*ckwithable Life You Deserve
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0525540326 ISBN 13: 9780525540328
Verlag: Portfolio, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

Fresh, funny, and fearless, The Middle Finger Project is a point-by-point primer on how to get unstuck, slay imposter syndrome, trust in your own worth and ability, and become a strong, capable, wonderful, weird, brilliant, ballsy, unfuckwithable YOU.

"Don't worry, this isn't a book about God, nor is it a book about Ryan Gosling (second in command). But it is a book about authority and becoming your own." --Ash Ambirge

After a string of dead-end jobs and a death in the family, Ash Ambirge was down to her last $26 and sleeping in a Kmart parking lot when she faced the truth: No one was coming to her rescue. It was up to her to appoint herself. That night led to what eventually became a six-figure freelance career as a sought-after marketing and copywriting consultant, all while sipping coffee from her front porch in Costa Rica.

She then launched The Middle Finger Project, a blog and online course hub, which has provided tens of thousands of young "women who disobey" with the tools and mindset to give everyone else's expectations the finger and get on your own path to happiness, wealth, independence, and adventure.

In her first book, Ash draws on her unconventional personal story to offer a fun, bracing, and occasionally potty-mouthed manifesto for the transformative power of radical self-reliance. Employing the signature wit and wordsmithing she's used to build an avid following, she offers paradigm-shifting advice along the lines of:

  •  The best feeling in the world is knowing who you are and what you're capable of doing.
  •  Life circumstances are not life sentences. If a Scranton girl who grew up in a trailer park can make it, so can you.
  •  What you believe about yourself will either murder your chances or save your life. So why not believe something good?
  •  You don't need a high-ranking job title to be authorized to contribute. You just need to contribute.
  •  Be your own authority. Authority only works as long as you trust that someone smarter than you is making the rules.
  •  The way you become a force is by being the most radically real version of yourself that you can be.
  •  You only have 12 fucks a day to give, so use them wisely.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ash Ambirge is an internet entrepreneur, creative writer, speaker and advocate for women being brave & doing disobedient things with their careers and their lives. She is the author of The Middle Finger Project®, which is both the name of her hallmark lifestyle blog as well the title of her forthcoming book. Her voice has been called, "the most memorable on the Internet," "original in a world with too little of it," "not safe for work at all," and also, "really kinda sweary," which is definitely her favorite description. She splits her time between Philadelphia, PA, and traveling the world.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

The Rules Were Made Up by Some Guy Named Ted Who Ate a Quarter Pounder for Lunch and Has a Dog Named Wedgie

Or: Surprise! Nobody Actually Knows What They’re Doing

GOD.

*puffs on cigar*

Now there’s a fun-­filled topic. If we were really ambitious, we’d just dive right into the most controversial subject imaginable, given that this book contains all sorts of controversial ideas and it doesn’t get any more polite from here. (Now might be a good time to fetch the vodka . . . and maybe a defibrillator.)

Don’t worry, this isn’t a book about God, nor is it a book about Ryan Reynolds—­second in command. But it is a book about authority and becoming your own. It’s not always easy to “follow your dreams”—   —­and ride off on a magical flying carpet made of SweetTarts and sugarplum fairies. It’s not easy to trust yourself radically, or make bold choices that other people will not agree with, or “live life on your own terms.” It’s not easy to roll up and be all, “Yayyyyyyy, I’m going to quit my job and be an artist!” or “Yayyyyyy, I’m going to open my own bookshop!” or “Yayyyyyy, I’m going to skip around the Swiss Alps and make cheese in a loincloth and yodel in the afternoons and tell my overbearing sister to shove it!” Even in an age when all of these options are more available to us than ever, most of us are basically just drifting along, trying not to get cancer. But even when we do dare break the mold and try something new, the world throws some serious side-­eye.

Who does she think she is?

It won’t last.

This is just another one of her “big ideas.”

In response to the world’s censure, we shrink. We second-­guess ourselves. And we secretly wonder if maybe they are right. Maybe we should “play it safe” and “bide our time” and “be grateful for what we’ve got”—­which, by the way, happens to be some of the world’s worst advice. Being grateful for what we’ve got is why so many of us end up staying in dead-­end jobs that have us licking envelopes inside a dimly lit, six-­person of­fice in suburban Philadelphia (been there); why so many women end up staying in relationships they don’t want to be in (ugh); why so many of us end up living lives that feel stale and dull and dreary and uninspiring (mmm-­hmmm); and why so many people end up resenting their every minute from the hours of nine to five, being mean to call center agents and rolling their eyes at babies and fantasizing about being hit by a tractor trailer and rushed to the hospital so they don’t have to keep doing this crap. (That was me, once upon a time.)

We’re all trying SO HARD to be these levelheaded, responsible, card-­carrying grown-­ups that we trade in our sense of adventure and curiosity and wonder and creativity in exchange for what we think is a secure and reliable future, assuming that the more constipated your face looks, the more seriously you’ll be taken. Now that I’m wearing this sensible pair of pantyhose, everything is going to be JUST FINE.

Back in the day when I was still a Very Good Girl™, I wore those same pantyhose and drank milk and never talked back to authority. In fact, I loved authority. What took me a lifetime to discover, though, is that authority only works as long as you trust that someone smarter than you is making the rules.

Take my first boss, for example. I worshipped the guy. I was young and hungry and he was supportive and encouraging and kind. When he spoke, it felt like I was receiving advice from the Dalai Lama. When he handed me my paycheck, he made me feel as if I’d just earned a gold medal. When I called in sick, he’d call and ask if I wanted soup. (I mean, it was probably from a can, but same same.)

Then, one day, I walked in and saw my coworker straddling his lap.

I ran out of the room as if I’d just seen a ghost. I knew that he was married with a wife and kids who all went to church and ate their Wheaties. But even more shocking, when I confided in my other coworker about what I’d seen, she fell to pieces. Turns out, she had also been having an affair with our boss . . . for years.

I KNOW: I’m hardly the first woman to discover that some guy who seemed so nice was actually The Duke of Douches in his personal life. Still, it was a defining moment for me, and soon I realized that maybe adults weren’t these profound, all-­knowing wizards after all. Maybe they weren’t these supremely wise, enlightened beings. And maybe their opinions about life, and what I should be doing with mine, were—­dare I say it—­fallible.

Over time it became overwhelmingly clear: everyone really was just making it up as they went along. (A mentor who pronounced “Sci-­Fi” like “Sky-­Fi” quickly cemented this notion.) The realization that no one actually knew what they were doing was terrifying—­you take out a mortgage for thirty years; no, you!—­but it also emboldened me: if the rules were made up by some dude named Ted who had a Quarter Pounder for lunch and a dog named Wedgie, then they didn’t really hold that much weight, did they? Who says my résumé needs to be kept to one page? Who says sitting at a desk for eight hours is the responsible thing to do? Who says happiness comes from settling down with a “nice young man” with a decent golf swing and a “good-­paying job”?

Not that good-­paying jobs aren’t delicious. They’re extra delicious. But I couldn’t help but feel like there had to be so much more to life than a 401(k) and a crockpot full of ham.

The truth is, I had always imagined that there was this high-­and-­mighty Committee of True and Actual Greatness—­the universal “they,” if you will—­bestowing us all with this series of carefully crafted guidelines according to what was best for humanity. Like the USDA, when they tell you to eat your greens, I had always just assumed that the collective wisdom was actually wise, and that more experience on this planet automatically equaled more knowledge. I assumed that “they” were hard at work advocating for the greater good. But as it would take me great pains to discover: there isn’t anybody out there advocating for you. Your own happiness is sold separately. And there’s no such thing as The Committee of True and Actual Greatness (or even a guy with a dog named Wedgie): it’s up to you to become your own.

As it turns out? Radical self-­reliance changed everything for me. I went from being a lost and confused stray—­the queen of late cell phone bills, uncertain about everything, flighty with my every move, trying real hard just to make a grilled cheese, perpetually consumed by a dumpster-­full of existential angst, and (eventually) even landing myself sleeping in a Kmart parking lot—­to learning how to trust in my own voice, say “screw it” to anything that didn’t resonate, believe that my own ideas were actually valid—­even if they were drastically different from everyone else’s—­have the courage to let my passions guide the way, start my own creative writing company, design my life the way I wanted to (which included choosing not to have kids or a goldfish or even an address in the United States), travel the world, and give the middle finger to so many of the normal ideals and expectations...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Portfolio
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0525540326
ISBN 13 
9780525540328
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Portfolio
https://www.wetones.co.uk/

105 Golborne Rd
London
W10 5NL
Vereinigtes Königreich
Verantwortliche Person
M.E.G Cards & Gifts
443000000000
paula@megcards.com

48 Cloyfin Road
Unit 4, 48 Cloyfin Road
Coleraine
Londonderry
BT52 2NY
Irland

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9780753553480: The Middle Finger Project: Trash Your Imposter Syndrome and Live the Unf*ckwithable Life You Deserve

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  0753553481 ISBN 13:  9780753553480
Verlag: Virgin Books, 2020
Softcover