The 12 Traits of Unbelievably Unf*ckwithable People
Fuckw*t advice between us friends to upgrade your life.
She got fired on the first day back from paternity leave.
No baby shower. No “congrats on the baby!” Yep. That’s what happened to my friend. She works at one of those consulting giants that preaches “we are family” while simultaneously laying people off when they need them the most.
But firing someone because they had a baby and took time off is a new low.
She’s lazy, apparently.
Doesn’t work hard enough because, you know, she’s breastfeeding and changing dirty diapers. A**holes. She rang me to chat. I expected her to be pissed about getting fired. She was calmer than a monk after 365 days in exile.
“Well, it’s fun. I get to have coffees with everyone and catch up. One of them will have the perfect role for me.”
She knew she could take her employer to court and probably sue their ass. But it was too much drama. She said it wasn’t about being right or getting an ego boost.
It was about moving on.
The next day they asked her if she could use her connections to help them land a new client (the nerve of them, right). So she did catch up with their dream client.
Except instead of pitch her ex-employer to them, she pitched herself for a new job and got it. 40% pay bump. Large sign on bonus. 6-figure bonus if she hits KPIs.
An absolute dream. You bloody beauty, mate.
The whole time she was at peace. She didn’t get flustered. She didn’t fling poo from the peanut gallery. And she remained a 10/10 mother. She is an unbelievably unf*ckwithable person.
Official unf*ckwithable definition:
“When you’re truly at peace and in touch with yourself. Nothing anyone says or does bothers you and no negativity can touch you.”
— Vishen Lakhiani, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind bookHere’s how you, too, can become an unf*ckwithable person.
Challenge the status quo. F*ck being normal.
The status quo is where dreams, creativity, and imagination go to die.
Yet this is the place where people live by default without mindlessly realizing. Unf*ckwithable people run from the status quo. In fact, they challenge the heck out of it like they’re a soldier in a war fighting for freedom.
Author Tim Ferriss says this:
“Realize that bosses are supervisors, not slave masters. Establish yourself as a consistent challenger of the status quo and most people will learn to avoid challenging you, particularly if it is in the interest of higher per-hour productivity.”
He advises us to stop being people-pleasers and become challengers. Not in a rude “I’m better than you” way. But in a “I’m fired up and nothing can stop me” way.
When you become known as a challenger, people don’t walk all over you like a dead body. They get out of the way. They make sure they have a bloody good reason to disturb your peace.
Say the quiet bits out loud
In my last banking job, I lived this mantra every day.
I challenged the need for every meeting. I questioned every revenue conversation and provided solutions no one else would dare present such as…
“Perhaps we’re not relevant anymore. Perhaps our work quality is bad & needs a 360.”
It scared people. No one dared say this even though we all thought it and said it around the water cooler. I kept getting promoted and offered more leadership opportunities, even though I was trying to get the hell away from 9-5 life!
The same happened in court. I said the “pedo” word in front of the judge even though I was advised not to. Apparently it was a distraction. An unnecessary detail. But it was the freaking truth. The creepy bad neighbor stood outside my house for three nights.
He has a history of abusing his power.
Facts are facts. State them. People will admire your courage and you’ll get a reputation for becoming unbelievably unf*ckwithable.
Be assertive without being an a-hole
Assertiveness is a superpower.
It’s where you assert your position and don’t let people easily convince you of their opinion. It’s where you stick up for your beliefs and see problems through to their logical conclusion.
I met a guy at the public pool who showed me the way last Saturday. He had a brand new Tesla. I told him it looked amazing. I asked him about the battery life.
Then I said…
“Mate, you must have waited ages to get ya Tesla.”
He said it took 5 days. My neighbor ordered the same car and waited 6 months. I asked the stranger how that was possible.
“Well, I just called Tesla customer service and told them I have a newborn baby and need a car to transport him quick smart.”
They told him they couldn’t deliver early. He called them 3 days in a row. Tesla grew impatient and just took a car off another sucker and gave it to him. His wife was happy and made love to him that night.
It pays to be politely assertive.
Build your investment account like Warren Buffman Buffett
All it takes is one rogue medical bill, layoff, or recession to blow up most people’s lives.
The average person has zero savings, and spends more money each week than the gambling CEO of WeWork with an Amex Black credit card. As soon as they see an ad, they spend. Zero self-control. Zero understanding of the future.
These people are desperate and fragile (and I don’t mean to insult them).
If I blow some wind out my mouth, they’ll fall over and go bankrupt. It’s sad. Why? Because if they focused their energy on building their investment account (not savings account or number of possessions), they’d have money for when curveballs get thrown at their face.
Financial freedom isn’t about retiring early or saying F U with a Lambo and cigar poking out your mouth. No. It’s about being unf*ckwithable.
Money can solve a lot of problems.
It can make a lot of dumb stuff go away. Can it make you happy? Not sure but it can sure prevent a lot of unhappiness that comes from being desperate and needy because of preventable money problems.
Guard your time like a navy seal on coke
Navy seals are special army personnel that get the hardest missions.
Example: Find Osama-Bin-911 and assassinate him. Not easy, right? But navy seals get the gig. They’re given all sorts of “supplements” to help them win hard missions. Some say they do drugs like coke. I don’t know.
The point is, unf*ckwithable people don’t guard their time with a prison guard who eats donuts and watches cable news. They guard their time like a navy seal. They’re ruthless. They’re overly protective.
Their default answer to every request of time is no.If you give your time away the way a circus clown gives away free balloons in the shape of sausage dogs, you become weak.
You become busy. Because of a lack of time, you sh*t all over yourself trying to make pigs fly with nothing but a paper airplane my 1 year old made in daycare.
Busy people are prisoners to their calendars.
They have no time for important things like family or holidays. They’re just on a hamster wheel to nowhere quietly screaming in their sleep “help me, god.” And by god, I mean Madonna. Tragic.
Steal back your calendar.
“Can I have a meeting with you about strategy?” NO!
Treat opinions like buttholes
People love to tell me how to run my online business.
As a home builder I once met said: “Tim, opinions are like buttholes – everyone’s got one.” That line stayed with me.
Just because someone has an opinion, it doesn’t make it valuable. One guy yesterday wanted to fight me with an axe because he says I should give him last year’s Black Friday pricing for a course he’s already completed and loved.
You can bend over and give in, or do what is right for yourself.
Appreciate opinions, sure. But also interrogate the heck out of opinions the way the IRS does when you lodge your tax return and show $5 of income from selling a book.
Work for yourself
(And walk around in a g-string if you choose)
The fastest way to lose control of your life is to work a 9-5 job forever.
A job is a great place to start, but a terrible place to finish. The most unf*ckwithable people I’ve ever met work for themselves. You might assume that means they’re a #entrepreneur and have an MBA and unicorn startup.
Actually, no.
They’re normally consultants, coaches, one-person businesses, freelancers, or contractors. The difference is they get paid for the outcome, not for time worked (or worse, showing up for 40 years with one specialized skill and calling it a career).
Try working for yourself. Part-time first, then full-time later.
Know your value and don’t discount it like Costco
Asking for discounts and haggling is a sign of low intelligence.
It’s what people (even my former self) do when they don’t understand the secret to financial success: make more money.
When income isn’t a problem, you don’t obsess over price. No. You obsess over ROI (return on investment).
People who are unf*ckwithable know their value, like my friend at the start of this article. Critics and strangers will try and cheapen their value, but they’ll just say no because they know there are plenty more fishies in the sea.
You only need a few whale customers to make 6 or 7 figures a year. Focusing on people who see your value is the fastest way to obtain F U money.
Talk to people in 5th-grader language
Sounding smart is for jerks. Also known as experts.
Unf*ckwithable people are decent communicators. They get to the point. They use simple words and short sentences.
I asked a fellow writer what they thought of Twitter right now. They summed it up in two sentences which told me more than the hundreds of gurus out there.
If it’s complicated, it’s bullsh*t.
F*ck around and figure it out
The average person needs a plan written as a 100-page Powerpoint deck that has guarantees and a full money-back refund policy.
They don’t just want the steps. They want someone else to take the action for them, too. Seriously.
Unf*ckwithable people are a different breed of human.
They know that plans are overthinking and procrastination in disguise. They know experience is the real teacher. And as soon as you write the plan, you find out you’re having a baby and the whole damn thing goes up in flames.
Because you can’t predict the unpredictable.
Like the bat virus. Did you guess that would happen? Me neither. Thanks Mommy Nature for screwing us and shutting businesses down.
By being resourceful you can find the solution to most problems. Here’s the deal: the solution is often the option you never even thought of.
Do good through your actions, not sugar-coated nice words
Corporate life is like the “Friends” TV show sitcom.
Everyone’s an actor playing a part. You don’t know whether they’re serious or taking the piss like Chandler loved to do.
Corporation employees love to pretend to do good. “It’s all about the customer.” The CEOs love to do fake charity, and change their profile pic to a country’s flag when a cruel war breaks out. Their words are sugar-coated in kindness and love.
But their actions often show the opposite.
They say they care about people or nations. But when it comes to making donations or having a real impact, they’re nowhere to be found, lost at sea on their super yacht with Jeff Bezos and his bikini babes.
Unf*ckwithable people do what they say. Their actions speak louder than flaky nice words and “thoughts and prayers” social media posts.
Learn and grow from every experience (even a stab wound)
Most people are victims.
Something bad happens, then they look for an external person or organization to blame. They want life to be fair when entropy, the law of the universe, makes that impossible. At 16, I learned this lesson the hard way.
My friend and I were attacked by a gang of 20 youths. I got hit repeatedly with a baseball bat into a bloody pulp. My mate got stabbed with a machete until he was covered from head to toe in blood.
He taught me to seek meaning from this horrific event, making him unf*ckwithable.
We eventually made contact with our attackers. We understood what happened. It was a case of mistaken identity and too much alcohol. Later, we became friends with our attackers. One of them is now an amazing human who is a volunteer paramedic in war zones.
Every experience can teach us a lesson. The question is, will you listen?
Bottom line
The story of the big bad wolf is the moral of this unf*ckwithable story.
The big bad wolf blows down the houses made of straw and sticks, but he can’t blow down the house made of bricks. It’s unshakeable. Its foundations are too strong.
The big bad wolf is life. The three pig’s houses are the three ways to live. Are you going to be unshakeable, or get blown down by a mouthful of air?
Do you know a story of an unf*ckwithable person? If so, share it in the comments section below.
Quick note before we finish here.
I’ve gotten over 4M views on X/Twitter in the last 30 days.
Part of this is changes I’ve made.
But part of it is changes X has made (that anyone can take advantage of).
Next week, I’m hosting a free masterclass to spill the secrets for both.
Click here to reserve your seat.
(Seats are extremely limited)
I have an unfuckwithable cousin who gets up stronger each time she takes a hit. Teen pregnancy, shotgun marriage, special needs daughter, divorce, single mum all before 21. She’s now 30 and thriving. Created her own profitable SMMA, constantly learning and hitting goals. Takes a hit, gets up stronger. She used to look up to me, now I think it’s the other way around. Grateful to have an unfuckwithable in my corner.
Tim, the point about doing good through your actions resonated. I got a new job in 2022 and learned that my new boss had provided financial help to Ukrainian refugees here in Germany without telling anyone. I learned accidentally three months later. I respect the man.