You Are a Badass at Making Money

When was the last time you felt fully in command of your money instead of being at its mercy? In You Are a Badass at Making Money, bestselling author and coach Jen Sincero argues that financial empowerment begins not with spreadsheets or salaries—but with mindset. She contends that your relationship with money mirrors your relationship with self-worth, belief, and possibility. The difference between scraping by and thriving, she insists, has nothing to do with luck or talent. It’s about whether you give yourself unapologetic permission to be rich.

Sincero invites you to dismantle your inner stories about scarcity—the emotional baggage and inherited limiting beliefs that tell you wealth is greedy, that you don’t ‘deserve’ success, or that wanting more conflicts with being kind or spiritual. She mixes humor, storytelling, and spiritual principles (echoing Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich and Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret) to reframe money not as an evil—or even as an end—but as energy. In her view, money is currency, and currency is energy. It flows toward those who participate joyfully in abundance and flows away from those trapped in fear and lack.

The Core Argument: Money Begins in the Mind

Your financial reality, Sincero asserts, is a mental creation first. Everything you experience—income, opportunities, setbacks—stems from the beliefs you’ve absorbed since childhood. The subconscious mind, she says, acts like a seven-year-old ruler, running our adult lives with naive interpretations of experience. If you grew up hearing your parents fight about bills, your brain may have coded “money = conflict.” As an adult, you unknowingly recreate struggle to stay emotionally safe. In Sincero’s playful metaphor, your subconscious is the Little Prince running the kingdom while your grown-up self forgets it holds the crown.

Because money is fundamentally energetic, your thoughts, feelings, and words are its compass. “What you focus on, you create more of,” she writes. Focused gratitude draws wealth; complaint repels it. Shifting your inner narrative from scarcity to abundance, from fear to faith, realigns your frequency—the vibration that allows new clients, opportunities, and inspirations to appear seemingly out of thin air.

Faith, Action, and the Universe’s Role

According to Sincero, the Universe operates like a vast intelligence eager to collaborate. You don’t have to know how your wealth will appear; you simply have to decide that it will. Your role is to take brave, decisive action—even before you have all the answers—while staying open to the unexpected “Hows” the Universe arranges. When Sincero invested money she didn’t have in a coaching program, that very act of commitment drew opportunities she couldn’t foresee. The leap of faith itself shifted her from victimhood to power, from fear to flow. “Faith,” she writes, “is the rocket you ride into uncharted territory.”

Faith partners with gratitude to supercharge abundance. Feeling genuine appreciation, even during struggle, matches your energy with Universal Intelligence. To Sincero, gratitude is a magnetic frequency; it opens rather than constricts. Her motto: “Desperation repels, gratitude attracts.” When you bless what you already have—your talents, experiences, relationships—you prepare the space for more to arrive.

Why These Ideas Matter

Sincero’s message matters because financial struggle is rarely only fiscal—it’s spiritual and emotional. Modern culture often glorifies lack as noble (“money can’t buy happiness”) or demonizes wealth as greed. By redefining money as an amplifier of authenticity rather than a corruptor, she encourages readers to see getting rich as a moral imperative: a way to express their fullest creative potential and to contribute more generously to others. “Greed comes from lack,” she reminds us. “Abundance comes from faith.”

Throughout the book, Sincero weaves humor and candor to disarm fear. She talks about screwing up, living in a garage, rejecting the notion that spiritual purity equals poverty, and finally becoming a seven-figure coach. Each anecdote—from realizing her fear of surpassing her beloved father’s income to manifesting unexpected clients—illustrates that prosperity doesn’t depend on background or luck, but on mindset muscle. The moment you decide you’re unavailable for anything less than abundance, she argues, life rearranges itself accordingly.

What You’ll Discover in the Coming Ideas

In the sections ahead, you’ll learn how Sincero breaks her philosophy into practical steps: how to uncover limiting beliefs and “bust yourself,” how to build unshakable faith, how decisive action multiplies results, and how gratitude, patience, and environment shape success. You’ll explore why she believes desire is divine, how Universal Intelligence delivers your dreams when you stop resisting, and why you must let go of “How” to embrace “Yes.” Together these ideas form a bold invitation: to stop apologizing for wanting wealth and start treating financial growth as the natural expression of your most badass self.

Sincero repeatedly emphasizes that money isn’t moral, mystical, or complicated—it’s energy. It responds to the vibration you emit, which means your feelings toward it determine whether it flows toward or away from you. In her cheeky phrasing, money is your eager friend, not your enemy, but you must stop treating it like one.

Changing Your Definition of Money

In Chapter 3, she defines money as a medium of exchange, “a messenger” rather than the root of evil or source of stress. Seeing money as a neutral messenger frees you from shame. When you think about it as energy—currency that moves—you recognize how giving and receiving are part of the same flow. Tight-fistedness and guilt block circulation, while generosity and excitement accelerate it.

To illustrate, Sincero recounts how lowering her rates for friends killed momentum in her coaching business. By discounting her prices, she lowered the energetic value of her work and unconsciously told the Universe she didn’t believe in fair exchange. Conversely, when she charged full price—even if scary—it raised her vibration, strengthened client commitment, and upleveled results for both sides. What she calls “richus interruptus” happens when fear interrupts flow.

Give, Receive, and Rejoice

Her reframe echoes Wallace Wattles’s classic The Science of Getting Rich: giving comes from abundance, getting comes from lack. You must give first—time, value, appreciation—because generosity signals belief in sufficiency. She recommends daily acts of giving money, even small amounts, for twenty-nine days straight to rebuild faith in flow. When you pay others or tip extravagantly, think, “Money loves me and always returns.”

Key Principle

Desperation repels because it vibrates at lack. Gratitude attracts because it vibrates at abundance. To change your finances, change your frequency—from fear to expectation.

Trusting the Exchange

Sincero compares money’s behavior to electricity: invisible yet predictable. It flows to those who respect it and handle it consciously. Avoiding your bills or treating payment as painful sends resistance; celebrating bills as proof that you have things worth paying for opens channels. She even advises picking coins off the ground, saying yes to payments, and rejoicing when others get rich—because these small acknowledgments mirror the mindset of abundance.

If you’ve ever noticed that wealthy people often seem relaxed about spending, Sincero explains why. They understand circulation. They trust that outflow creates inflow. The moment you fear depletion and hoard resources, you stagnate. Practical takeaway: act as though money is infinite, but channel it toward joy, creation, and growth instead of anxiety or status chasing. In her worldview, money appreciates for the appreciative.

One of Sincero’s central insights is that wealth creation is an act of faith—faith in yourself and faith in the Universe. In Chapter 7, “Faith and Gratitudinal Gold,” she speaks of faith not as passive belief but as fierce partnership, like riding a “fiery rocket” through chaos toward your desires. Without faith, she warns, we settle for mediocrity and miss miracles.

Faith Liberates You from the How

Her personal story illuminates this. As a struggling writer, she joined an entrepreneurial think tank though she had no business idea and felt ridiculous spending money she didn’t have. Trusting intuition over fear led her to discover her coaching talent—a decision that eventually made her rich. Had she fixated on how success would happen, she’d have missed the unexpected path. Faith shifts attention from control to curiosity: you act confidently even when “the how” is invisible.

Faith Raises Your Frequency

Faith transforms fear into excitement. Expecting victory instead of failure changes your vibrational frequency. You start noticing opportunities, people, and ideas that were invisible while worrying. Sincero compares it to stand-up comedy—you lob jokes (bold actions) into the unknown. If they land, you celebrate; if they flop, you learn. Either way, the leap strengthens the faith muscle that distinguishes the successful from the stuck.

Faith Trains Resilience and Trust

She recounts passing on a television deal that felt wrong financially—trusting that a better one would come. Days later, it did. That self-trust forms the bedrock of prosperity: “The Universe wants you to grow,” she writes. It will test faith through friction—flat tires, missed opportunities, delays—but each challenge is “cosmic rock tumbler” polishing your character. Just when you think you can’t stand another setback, the reward arrives.

Faith also deepens your relationship with Universal Intelligence. When you declare, “I may not know how I’ll double my income, but I will,” you step beyond logic and into creative possibility. Your courage tells the Universe you’re ready, and it responds with synchronicities—a phenomenon echoed in Deepak Chopra’s concept of “quantum intention.” In practical terms, faith means acting before evidence, giving before guarantees, and remaining steadfast when results seem delayed.

Faith alone isn’t enough; Sincero insists that wealth demands decisive, uncomfortable action. In Chapter 8, she tells the gripping story of a climber in Touching the Void who survives impossible odds because he decides—not hopes—to live. That level of resolve, she says, is precisely what financial transformation requires.

Decision Eliminates Plan B

The Latin root of “decide” means “to cut off.” When you decide to get rich, every other option falls away. Sincero warns that backup plans dilute focus; you end up half-assing many things instead of kicking ass at one. Commitment generates obsession—your thoughts and actions realign, your faith strengthens, and the Universe mobilizes behind you.

Chunk Time and Focus

To fight overwhelm, she advises “chunking.” The climber broke his journey into twenty-minute segments to survive. Likewise, break your financial goals into bite-sized victories. Focus sharply on one goal at a time—this builds momentum and faith. “What you focus on, you create more of,” she repeats. Narrow focus maximizes accomplishment and grants urgency without panic.

Leap Even When It Terrifies You

Sincero stresses that action must precede certainty. She borrowed $85,000 for high-level coaching before having a plan to pay it back, then forced herself to expand enough to earn multiples of that amount. Similarly, she describes a client who hired staff she couldn’t yet afford, triggering growth instead of collapse. When you act “as if,” you call forth capability. She calls fear the compass—pointing exactly toward the step that will evolve you.

In essence, decisiveness is wealth’s secret sauce. The instant you stop negotiating with doubt, you shift from wishful thinking to leadership. As in Mel Robbins’s “five-second rule,” momentum begins with immediate movement. Riches come not to the perfect planner, but to the imperfect doer who keeps leaping.

Gratitude is the emotional twin of faith and the highest frequency you can tune into. Sincero calls it “gratitudinal gold,” a state that magnetically attracts prosperity because it matches the Universe’s vibration of love and abundance. Instead of seeing gratitude as moral nicety, she treats it as energetic fuel.

Gratitude Activates Flow

In her most vivid metaphor, she compares abundance to baking cookies for neighborhood kids: the grateful child receives more because their appreciation amplifies joy. “Wealth appreciates for the appreciative.” By thanking money for existing—even before it arrives—you align with receiving. This practice turns frustration into openness, failure into learning, and waiting into faith.

Gratitude in Hard Times

Perhaps most powerfully, she urges gratitude for obstacles. Car accidents, missed interviews, or job rejections might hide blessings yet unseen. Be grateful instead of victimized, she says; resentment attracts more resentment. By choosing appreciation for every experience, you escape cycles of negativity. This echoes Viktor Frankl’s insight in Man’s Search for Meaning: we can’t always control events, but we can always control our perspective.

Practical Gratitude Practices

She prescribes nightly gratitude lists, finding reasons to be thankful for things that annoy you, and writing directly to money (“I’m grateful to money because…”). Instead of desperate wishing, cultivate “grateful expectation.” Visualize future clients or opportunities with thanks, as her designer friend does by driving through neighborhoods imagining homes she’ll decorate. Gratitude transforms waiting into celebration—it’s emotional investment in inevitable success.

When you’re grateful, Sincero reminds us, you stop resisting. You remember that the Universe already has what you asked for; you’re simply catching up energetically. Gratitude, practiced daily, is the bridge between desire and manifestation.

In Chapter 9, “Movin’ On Up,” Sincero explores how surroundings shape success. You can’t transform your finances while living in an environment that anchors you to smallness. The people, places, and objects around you reinforce beliefs about what’s possible. Upgrading them upgrades you.

Physical Environment: Where You Live Affects What You Earn

Sincero recounts moving from an inland neighborhood she disliked to a tiny converted garage near the beach—a symbolic leap toward the lifestyle she desired. Though modest, it placed her amid inspiration. Hearing ocean waves raised her outlook and productivity. The shift reminded her that “beauty can grow from the muck” once energy changes. Even small upgrades—plants, fresh paint, lighting—signal to the Universe that you’re ready for better.

Social Environment: Your Money Tribe

Equally crucial are people. “Take the average income of your five closest friends,” she writes, “and you’ll likely find yours.” Surround yourself with wealth-positive, enthusiastic allies who cheer you on rather than fear your growth. Negative acquaintances who warn, “That’s risky” or “I’m just worried about you,” infect progress. If necessary, create new circles—seminars, coaches, mastermind groups—where belief is contagious. Like energy fields in quantum physics, high-frequency people elevate your vibration.

Letting Go of Lower Frequencies

Letting go of fear-based relationships isn’t cruelty; it’s evolution. You must be willing to lose old tribes to grow new ones. Sincero likens it to shedding lower nature to make space for higher nature—something lighter, freer, aligned. Whether or not friends follow, the decision reclaims sovereignty over your energy. “Focus on what makes you hop back and forth from foot to foot in excitement,” she writes.

Ultimately, your external environment mirrors your internal one. Dress, decorate, and associate like the wealthy version of yourself—and watch reality catch up. As James Clear suggests in Atomic Habits, environment is the invisible hand shaping behavior; Sincero makes it the invisible magnet shaping prosperity.

By the book’s final chapters, Sincero grounds her spiritual philosophy in grit. Success, she insists, demands tenacity—the stubborn refusal to give up when everything seems impossible. She tells stories of entrepreneurs, mountain hikes, and historical examples to show that endurance separates dreamers from achievers.

Push Through Your Threshold

Echoing her Grand Canyon hiking ordeal, Sincero says everyone has a personal “stop point”—where discomfort feels unbearable. Growth happens only by crossing it. You will tire, doubt, and want to retreat; those moments mark the doorway to transformation. When you push past, you prove capability to yourself and the Universe simultaneously.

Ignore the Trixters

She identifies subtle traps called “trixters”—temptations that appear right after you commit to a goal, designed by your subconscious to lure you back into safety. You quit a job to start a business and suddenly receive a comfortable offer elsewhere. Resist settling; these are tests. Holding vision amid opposition builds power.

Form Habits and Adjust Your Course

Tenacity depends on habits: daily discipline, spiritual fitness (“go to the spiritual gym”), and refusal to negotiate with mediocrity. Sincero teaches habit hacking—link new behaviors to existing ones, find accountability partners, and expect discomfort. She also emphasizes course correction: flexibility when plans fail. Through the tale of Miller Brewing surviving Prohibition by shifting products, she reminds you to adapt, not quit. “Never give up, course correct when necessary, and have faith,” she says.

Persistence transforms identity. As you stay resilient, your financial growth ceases to be a goal and becomes who you are—a badass who simply doesn’t stop until the goal is done.