Wearing Her Grandmother’s Fighting Pants, Luvvie Ajayi Jones Faces Her Fears — and Yours

What happens when one of pop culture’s most incisive observers mourns her grandmother, marries her beloved, and witnesses four years of hate under “Cheeto Satan”?

Luvvie Ajayi Jones, the #ProfessionalTroublemaker who wrote the world a slam bestseller on its bad behavior is back — and this time she’s turned that side-eye on her Self. 

You’re invited.

If her first book, “I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual,” was a cannonball leap into public discourse, with “Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual,” the author who goes by Luvvie wades into an ocean of introspection. It’s deep, y’all.

“This is a book from me to me that I’m letting other people read,” Luvvie begins. The resulting conversations with herself and the reader are sometimes raw, often funny as hell, and, always, heartachingly candid. When Luvvie emerges from the book, she’s achieved a philosophy of life, and she owns nearly every reason why everybody needs one. Muscle up for this read.

For, even as Luvvie hangs with Oprah, works with Queen Bey’s team and crafts a record-setting TED talk, the author admits, she is…afraid. Why is the granddaughter of her “tough, fierce, take-no-shit and loving with all her heart” grandmother, Funmilayo Faloyin — whose early life story will indeed give the reader “heartbreak whiplash” — experiencing fear? 

Turns out, socialization, the patriarchy, being an outspoken woman, being Black, and just plain growing up — ALL are a thing. With that, Luvvie peels the onion of her life. Sharing a growing awareness of her powerful pen and candid personal interface — “my face is basically an outside voice” — she works through fear, friendship, shame, love, mistakes, apologies, appreciation, and her humility upon facing, realizing and feeling enormous responsibility for the power of her personal platform (“Luvvnation” reaches millions).

“I’ve been scathing in the past in my critiques of others, and it was a necessary heart check to chill on that,” Luvvie writes. “Growing up looks like being kinder.”

At the same time, she wonders, how do we stay us — when we are forever under pressure to shrink ourselves down to a size where we are palatable to the outside world, at home and at work? Classically Luvvie, she’s holding society and loved ones as accountable as she holds her Self (perhaps sung to the tune of “This is America” by Childish Gambino in a dance mix with “We are Family” by Sister Sledge).

Witness her essay on how we make ourselves less threatening, even to family and friends:

“Being audacious enough to dream means discovering the courage to think your life can be bigger than you can even imagine. But often we don’t get there because we are afraid of what happens when hope doesn’t pan out. We fear how disappointed or heartbroken we will be.“

And that, Luvvie warns, is terrible for a world that desperately needs leadership — especially that of beautiful, brave, and, especially, Black, women. She is struggling to own her own power and she wants you to do the same:

“And if you don’t want to do it for you, do it for the young child in your life who is seeing you apologize for your vitality. Stop saying sorry for yourself so the young person can know that they are also not supposed to be apologizing for who they are. That their existence does not warrant apology but warrants celebration.”

Boom. This inner monologue struck me as an incredible act of accountability and love toward the reader. As a woman struggling with and embracing growth, sharing her own deep fears of being hurt — and, indeed, getting hurt — while learning that only by being brave enough to expose her vulnerability will she be able to form the kinds of relationships that will support her in fighting said fears and accomplish what she wants to do in the world? THAT IS LEADERSHIP. Hashtag that shit.

And yes, white allies, there’s absolutely room for us, too, and explicit advice woven throughout. “Even a whisper of truth makes an difference in an echo chamber of lies,” Luvvie writes in one chapter, before dropping advice on how anyone in any culture or language can extract the oxygen from any racist comment. She adds later: “Nice is the saltine cracker of adjectives; it’s tasteless.” Read. Repeat.

Throughout, Mama Faloyin is the guardian angel on Luvvie’s shoulder. From dramatic throw-downs with her third daughter (Luvvie’s mom) during annual visits to the U.S., to donning fighting trousers for a set-to with her preacher (guess who wins).

Luvvie Ajayi Jones owns her birthright gorgeously in these family anecdotes. And it’s just logical that her grandma, queen of “Team Smell the Roses While Here” would celebrate a life philosophy steeped in the courage to be vulnerable and admit one’s own struggle with fear, while questing toward integrity and…kindness. 

“Being fearless is committing to not doing less because of your fear,” writes Luvvie. “What might happen when we realize that ‘NO’ won’t kill us but ‘YES’ could change our lives?”

To find out, I recommend you read “Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual."

Where to pre-order for March 2, 2021 ship date: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Penguin Books, Bookshop, Audible, Target.