Professional Troublemaker Quotes

“When I really give it thought, I realize I got a generation’s worth of courage from Grandma.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“I am calling on us to challenge ourselves to be more truthful, to be more outspoken. Be kinder, speak louder. Use your voice and don’t let people silence you or make you feel bad because they don’t see what you’re doing as civil or nice. Fight for people who are not you. Insist on being uncomfortable and taking yourself outside your usual space to fight for other people who might not have the right to fight, or the voice, or the money, or the stature, or the positioning. That’s kindness.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“We gotta check our motives when all we do is give without knowing how to receive. How can we allow people to fully show us love if we don’t allow them to be generous to us? We love the feeling that we get when we’re like, “Hey, I just did this thing for somebody.” So then why don’t we allow others to get the same feeling when they give something to us, whether it’s a compliment, a gift, or their time? When you are only handing out without receiving, you might be unknowingly leading with your ego. Maybe deep down, you love being thanked. Maybe subconsciously, it feeds your ego to always be Captain Here You Go. We love how good it feels to give. Generosity also helps us hide our vulnerability. Always handing out help but never asking for it is ensuring we aren’t seen as weak.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“Brittany Packnett Cunningham, introduced me to the phrase “Spend your privilege.” She got it from disability rights advocate Rebecca Cokley. It is the concept that the privilege we have in this world is endless. It doesn’t run out. You don’t use your voice today and have to re-up the next day. Power is limitless, and using ours for other people does not diminish it. We have to utilize our influence, capabilities, and MONEY for the greater good.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“We fear honesty because it exposes the rawness of life and our flaws, which we are too willing to ignore. It calls us to the carpet, because once you know, you can’t unsee the ugliness of what was exposed. You might even have to do something about it. The truth challenges us to change and be better, and those are all tall orders. We are also afraid of rocking the boat, which often comes with speaking the truth. We don’t want to disrupt harmony in our spaces, and that tends to happen when we challenge what feels comfortable or expected. This is why I believe that one of the biggest forms of courage is being radically honest and transparent.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“To know thyself is to know your core, and for me, to know my core is to feel rooted in something outside myself. It is to know not only who I am but whose I am. WHOSE WE ARE Whose I am is not about belonging to someone or being beholden to people. It is about the community you are tied to that holds you accountable. It is about knowing you are part of a tribe that is greater than yourself. It is about feeling deeply connected to someone, and knowing that no matter where you go, you have a base.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“To know thyself is to not take all the praise to head or take all the shaming to heart. To know ourselves is to write our values in cement even if our goals are in sand.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“Maya Angelou when she said: “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“Spend your privilege.” She got it from disability rights advocate Rebecca Cokley. It is the concept that the privilege we have in this world is endless. It doesn’t run out. You don’t use your voice today and have to re-up the next day. Power is limitless, and using ours for other people does not diminish it. We have to utilize our influence, capabilities, and MONEY for the greater good.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“There are systems in place that are actively working against us in every way. The world is unfair to everyone who is not a straight Christian white dude. It is set up for their triumph, their comfort, their wealth-building. It is designed for the rest of us to be born poor, live poor, and die poor. It is also designed to gaslight us, by teaching us to be afraid of what happens when we want the piece of the pie that belongs to us, but they’ve hoarded.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“We’re so afraid of charging what we’re really worth because we fear that people will walk away. I say good riddance to bad rubbish. People who want to pay us pickle juice for champagne work have to get used to hearing no. Don’t come to undergrad with elementary expectations.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“Speak of yourself and your work with exclamation points, not question marks. When someone asks you who you are and what you do, speak definitively. “I write.” Not “Well, I kinda write, sometimes?” If you don’t know, they don’t know. We must honor ourselves in a world that doesn’t want us to, and we will wait for nobody’s permission.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“A lot of people think they have no platform. You do. Your platform is your kin, squad, colleagues. Do the work close to home so you can have far-reaching consequences. We are most easily moved by the words that come out of the mouths of our loved ones. —”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual

“am confident because I am constantly doing work to ensure that I do not lose sight of me, so I never have to go looking for me.”
― Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual