The company Airbnb struggled to pay its bills for years before hitting its stride. At one point, Brian was selling branded cereal boxes as a way to make extra cash.
Hustling is about bending the rules. Hustling is also about grinding. It’s about doing whatever it takes.
Jamie Foxx used to be called Eric Marlon Biship. He wanted to be a standup comedian but nobody called his name. So he changed his name to Jamie Foxx
If you happen to be hustling, you might find yourself doing a job on the side, or working on a non-traditional project, or freelancing, or temping for an unknown company, or veering off from your main goal in some way. While it can feel like an admission of failure, it’s not. It’s what I call an in-between moment. The best hustlers hustle all the time. Whether they’re in the valley or atop the mountain, they’re hustling
When you take action and put things out into the world, stuff happens. Eventually, there are results. The more you move, and the quicker you move, the more results you get.
Momentum is easiest to gain when you have nothing to lose. When your back is against the wall, and failure doesn’t matter, you don’t have to be careful.
A frighteningly large percentage of the world is just pushing papers around―stuffing envelopes.
Confidence is a choice. Want confidence? It’s yours. Take it.
Surround yourself with people who support you, and deliberately disengage with people who doubt you
It’s not about being famous or rich or powerful. It’s about making a difference in the world―doing something that matters.
We should always be asking, “What’s the one thing I can do this week such that by doing it, everything else would be easier or unnecessary?”
The best way to achieve such a mentality is to surround yourself with people who already have it.
Life is an amusement park. Fear happens to be one of the best ways for us to feel alive. There’s immense joy in that. Do you really want to be the person who never rides the roller coaster?
It’s no longer what you know, or who you know. It’s what you create.
Getting a degree, getting hired, and working your way up the corporate ladder is no longer the quickest, safest, or smartest way to ascend into a position of power. In fact, it’s a bad approach.
People will tell you your idea, or your project, or your dream won’t work. That’s fine. Let them worry. That’s their job, not yours. You can’t worry. You have to produce.
Hustlers always need to be learning and self-teaching. You never know when dormant information will come in handy.
When you realize breaking the rules is allowed in the game of life, your opportunities widen significantly. You’ll be able to move more swiftly and overcome barriers you once thought were insurmountable. Why don’t more people live this way? Fear.
Very few people actually care, and the few who do don’t matter.
You have to constantly fight the natural tendency to belong. Instead, question the world’s assumptions. Learn to ask, “why?”
One of the masters of trendspotting is Rohit Bhargava, author of Non-Obvious. He curates the biggest trends each year and packages them up into a book.
The best hustlers find shortcuts, but then accelerate through them. They have an engine that rarely turns off. There’s a delicate balance to this. Efficiency does not equal effectiveness.
Reading is the great equalizer. It turns hopeful dreamers into doers. It turns amateurs into experts.
TOOLS
- Feedly
- Podcasts such as entrepreneur on fire
- Medium as a blogging platform
- Product Hunt
Processing Hacks
Develop the power of habit
Set constraints on yourself
Have a minimalist working space
Have intense focus on the one thing that you're working on
What not to do when you're working on something:
- Look at your to-do list
- Look at email
- Think about what you have to do next
- Open a bunch of tabs on your computer
- View social networking sites
You can get meaningful results from exercising in twenty minutes or less. If you can’t find twenty minutes, you need to figure out how to regain control of your life.
A clean home is a clean mind
Build routines, not schedules
Hustlers do all kinds of crazy things. That’s because they’re not afraid of experimentation, failing, being laughed at, or making a mistake.
Stop talking about creating something awesome. Instead, go and do it. Release it to the world. Didn’t go viral? Try again.
Getting creative means finding the single most important thing to be working on to keep you going in the right direction, even if that means working on something besides your number one goal.
If an idea is doubted by most, it’s a big idea. If it’s accepted by most, it’s too common to be valuable.
When you create a life plan, you set yourself up for disappointment and frustration. Your life will undoubtedly take unforeseen twists and turns that will send you off course.
You have to be able to Reject authority
You have to think differently
Assume you’ll be able to do whatever you want. Operate in that mindset. When you fail, learn from your mistakes and put your next foot forward
Just like anything else, it takes time. It has its ups and downs
Embrace the fear. Let go of perfection. Allow yourself to fail. Welcome the obstacles. Forget the results. Give yourself over to your passion with every fiber of who you are.
More often than not, hustling isn’t fast or showy. Most of the time it’s slow and unglamorous―until it’s not.
Doing a project quickly doesn’t mean it will be half-assed, sloppy, or unworthy. On the contrary, it often leads to a more inspired and higher-quality output.
When you give yourself ridiculous deadlines, you find a way to hit them. In scholarly terms, this is known as Parkinson’s Law. “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
What to know about hustle:
- The rules can be re-written. When you set ridiculous constraints, you can achieve ridiculous things. It forces you to get organized and act.
- It's NOT overwhelming
- Working Faster = More focus, more passion
- You'll still have time for breaks
- It's invigorating
- Sometimes gems emerge from full immersion
- You have to make sacrifices
- Working fast affects the aura of your product
Three phases:
- Outline, write, small edits
- Major Edits, book design, launch
- Publish
Phase 1:
- Track your pace; Check your wordcount as you write
- Use dictation in google docs
- Make only minimal edits
Phase 2:
- Read it aloud over and over, making updates if it sounds awkward
- Rework your intro. This is the most important section
- Go back and write transitions between chapters and sections to improve flow
Book Design:
- bookdesigntemplates.com for interior book design
- 99designs, fiverr, or createspace for exterior cover design
Launch Prep:
- Set up gumroad and amazon
- Create thunderclap campaign
- Compile all contact lists
It’s better to build a story around a product launch over time, vs. launching with one big announcement and no warning.
Production and promotion aspects of the product lifecycle are far more challenging and time consuming than creating the product itself.
If you want to hustle, you have to live your life as a hustler. You can’t just want it, or do it once or twice. You have to be doing it all the time.
If you can identify relationships that are contributing to your self-doubt, you’ve taken the first step in fixing the problem. The second step is to eradicate those relationships. There’s no room for self-doubt in your life. It is the single biggest threat to your growth and happiness.
If you’re questioning a relationship, it’s likely bad. If you can trust your gut and take action, you’ll usually be glad you did.
Hustlers have a laser focus. They know what they need to do next.
Take a moment to identify a task you’re scared of doing. It should be something you know could help you a lot, but you’re nervous about doing it. We all have those things on a list inside our minds. Why aren’t you doing them?
Work hard. Celebrate your victories. Embrace the day. And don’t ever give up.
The only things that matter:
- Well-Being/Freedom
- Passion
- Love
Ask yourself, "Why do you hustle?"
Organization and product management
- Asana
- Basecamp
- Toggl
- RescueTime
Marketing
- Leadpages
- drip
- convertkit
- unbounce
- appsumo
- sumo me
Designing/Prototyping
- Invision
- Sketch App
Books
- The End of Jobs
- The Personal MBA
- The startup of you
- Ready, aim, fire
Self Learning
- Udemy
- Team Treehouse