Hustle

Hustle is defined as a decisive movement toward a goal, however indirect, by which the motion itself manufactures luck, surfaces hidden opportunities, and charges our lives with more money, meaning, and momentum.

To fully own your dreams, you’ll need three fundamental forces: money, meaning, and momentum. Your hustle aims to cultivate and amplify those three forces throughout your life, through all you do and all you are to become as a person. When done right, hustle is the proverbial gift that keeps on giving.

Renting our dreams means taking our current set of choices as gives, playing within the system, and never stopping to think about what might be genuinely best for ourselves. Because listening to the little voice inside you, the one that whispers to you about the “more” that’s out there for you to grasp, will only lead to trouble and turmoil.

Owning your dreams feels different, perhaps even strange. It involves living an engaged life; making your best, most decisive choices; not being afraid of the consequences; and correcting your course along the way. It means taking action and assuming rightful ownership of your destiny.

“Ditch the dream and be a doer, not a dreamer. Maybe know exactly what it is you dream of being, or maybe you’re paralyzed because you have no idea what your passion is. The truth is, it doesn’t matter. you don’t have to know you just have to keep moving forward.”

In the everyday battle we fight between getting ahead and getting left behind in life and work, we find our fullfillment and freedom distinctly tied to our risk appetite. The secret is that we need to make ourselves feel hungry enough to step into the ring and break our routine of meh.

Hustling is about shaking things up, letting go of the old patterns that suck the life out of us, and beginning anew.

Success = hustle x luck x your unique talents.

To get an accurate read on what you were born to do is to follow simple and ancient practice - before you start a new project or venture, write down your expectations about what you think that project will entail from you, and what you will be asked to give and do. After the project ends, record the results. Was it a success or a failure? What did you do well? What did you do poorly? what did you find yourself doing or feeling that you didn’t know you were capable of?

If you do this consistently - yes, you have to put in a little time for it, a distinct and unique pattern will surface. This pattern will reveal your strengths and your weaknesses, your unconscious behaviors and your true talents, talents that were equally as illegible to you as they were to others.

What is the smallest thing I could do today to reap a long-term benefit? No matter how small a pain, is always better than nothing. The point isn’t to punish or deny ourselves but to gently prod ourselves to grow a teeny, tiny bit every day so that one day we’ll be ready to save ourselves.

1. Random Luck: This is what many people call dumb luck, the kind that happens without any effort or influence on your part.
2. Hustle Luck: This is the kind of luck that’s created by your momentum and motion.
3. Hidden Luck : These are the camouflaged opportunities that silently tiptoe in and out of your life each and every day, unnoticed by the unlooking unlucky. “Chance favors only the prepared mind.” It’s the luck that is generated by creative synthesis of past experiences. It evolves into the realization that you are the only one who understands an open secret.
4. Quirky luck : This is the type of luck that seeks you out because of your inherent weirdness.

Before you can hustle , you must learn to see differently. Where most others see dangerous obstacles in their path, hustlers are like practitioners of parkour, viewing walls as springboards and obstacles as playgrounds. Where most people see fear and pain, hustlers see opportunity, oceans of it.

Is what you’re trying to do easy or simple? Here’s a clue: They’re not the same. Most of the time, people use the word easy to describe a situation that is actually simple. When something is simple, the situation has relatively few moving parts and can be easily understood by a newcomer. But something simple can still be hard.

To identify the hustler’s sweet spot :

• Simple to understand, easy to do: start a blog, respond to a job posting.
• Complicated to understand, easy to do: Learn how to play poker like a professional, code a gaming app, and fly an airplane.
• Complicated to understand, hard to do: learn to perform cardiac surgery, develop a lightning-fast electric car.
• Simple to understand, hard to do: write a book, launch a successful start-up, close new business, get a job promotion.

As a hustler, it is critical that you always design your own way from point B to point A, creating a path optimized for yourself. Everyone has different talents, skills, and experiences, and that means everyone has their own best path. Try to follow somebody else and you’re at the mercy of their skill set. You’re just oging to feel like they’re better, faster, and smarter than you, but that’s only because you’re not forging the path based on your training and innate abilities.

Reverse engineering outcomes, starting at point B to end at point A, is learned skill that will serve you in life, and it works in innumerable ways. Practically everything we think of or can accomplish, whether it’s a creating a new product, developing a new process, having a new experience, or even catching a cab can be approached obliquely and be made to work to our unique benefits. It just requires a subtle reworking of the accepted rules because sequences on the way from point A to point B are mostly social conventions.

The fourfold path :

1. Outside/Inside Hustle is getting a foot in the door. A launchpad to put you on the path toward owning your dreams. The key is doing what everyone else isn’t.
2. Inside/Upside Hustle is proving your value and earning a promotion. A pathway best described as an ascent, one characterized by growth and new challenges within an organization. The key here is that the organization you choose to commit to must be one whose values and vision align with your own.
3. Inside/Outside Hustle is diving into entrepreneurial waters. Requires that you leave the comforts of someone else’s company, allow your entrepreneurial gear to kick in, and absorb the terror as risk taking hits you like a ton of brick, which might mean beginning with a small consulting gig or side hustle, or a new entrepreneurial venture entirely, like a start-up. To this off, you’ll need courage, a firm belief that you can and will succeed, and confidence that you’re on the right track. Even if it means ultimately failing.
4. Outside/Upside Hustle is accelerating epic entrepreneurial and creative achievements. The route they follow is beset by oblique ascents that require a bigger energetic push than the other three pathways combined, and an appetite for even bigger doses of risk. To succeed here, one needs a firm commitment to action and manufacturing all four varieties of luck. And sometimes this way forward means working on the fringes of the rules, making them up, or even breaking them as you go, so that you can beat the odds and change the world in a positive way.

Three unseen laws of hustle :

1. Hustle in your heart - do something that moves you. This embues you with energy, enthusiasm, and excitement. Don’t worry about so-called passion, just set the wheels of possibility in motion.
2. Hustle in your head - Keep your head up and your eyes open. Embrace risk and look for hidden opportunity and ways to manufacture luck.
3. Hustle in your habits - seal the deal and make it real. Turn an opportunity into a valuable exchange. Concrete transactions generate growth and upside optionality and proof.

Benefit of the 10 minute rules

1. Rapid productivity: have something critical and essential or even annoying, to do? tackle it immediately, as in right now.
2. Unfettered presence - Ever felt distracted or even powerless agains the force of overwhelm and overload? Use the 10 minute rule to get undistracted and be present with one task at a time.
3. Friction free persistence - it’s been said that “ god is action” think of your 10 minutes session as a spiritual practice. It’s the zen like daily practice of mindful doing. It’s a meditation, a short burst of effective, non judgemental output. The short time required forces you into focused and diciplined bubble, after which you can decide if you want to pursue the question, problem, or pursuit of opportunity for a longer period.

Potential : It’s about being smart enough to be good enough. ESP experimenting, storytelling and pitching if you develop these, you will have a psychic advantage over the landlords as you will be able to better assess risk, communicate effectively, and persuade people to do your bidding.

Experimentation is the way we can predict how something works. but to make sure we’re right, we set up a situation to test it if something will work as we predicted. If it works, then it strongly suggests we have a useful understanding of that thing. If it doesn’t work, or not in the way we predicted, then we don’t ahve a good grasp about how that thing. If we don’t have a good grasp of a situation, then there’s a good chance that we’re about to eat hidden risk.

Experimenting as part of your skill set serves another important purpose: it helps you home in on your unique path. Experimenting with side projects, side hustles, honeypot, and with networking will be a 100x multiplier in finding your unique and oblique path.

Persuasion is about how you pitch something: An idea. A project.  A purchase. A date. Yourself as a solid investment. This is the most basic unit of commerce. It’s how you present something that you want in a way that makes others want it, too. Learning even just a few of basic techniques of persuassion will catapult you forward because most everyone else won’t or doesn’t take the time.

Keep in mind, that the first precept of the people piece is, unsurprisingly, that you need people and they need you. You need people to make a living. You need people in your life to advise, counsel, commune, console, guide, mentor, share, and teach. And, conversely, they need you in their lives for the same reasons, to help them make sense of their world, and to lead themm away from dangers of isolation, which hinder opportunity more than anything else.

When networking, instead of approaching a person while asking yourself “what’s in it for me?” approach them with the goal of expressing clearly and quickly what’s in it for them.

When you begin an interaction with a stanger, focus on their interests, their fears, and their challenges. For the moment, forget about what you need. People love talking about themselves, present company included, and when we do, hustlers will perceive the beginning of opportunity as a bridge emerges between two strangers. The bridge is made up of common experiences and interests. The best hustlers can build bridges with people from any social class, profession, or interest. So as you go into a conversation, allow the other person to talk about their interests and needs.

ABC: The key for strengthening your ties with people is always be collaborating/connecting. That is, you want to strive for collaboration, give and take. Instead of rushing in, look for ways to work progressively with others on your goals and project and theirs as well. Defind some wins you can create together over few months.

Proof Piece key attributes :

Discoverability - Are you “searchable”? the key here is to ensure the results are an authentic expression of you, and preferably not damning, maligning, or inaccurate in any way.

Experiential markers - These include the work you’ve completed, even as a hobby.

Positioning/image/story - This is the way you personally define yourself across virtual and real-world channels. It is how you present yourself to the world.

Quirky luck - These are the unique markers or identifiers that set you apart from others and frame your unique experience.

Track record - Your proof speaks to your performance, and often when you send someone to your website, they’ll look for evidence that encapsulates a few positive aspects of your journey.

Everyday Meaning :

Meaning through reciprocity - It helps to approach every situation and interaction with kindness, support, and openness as if it will have a positive, mutually beneficial outcome for you and whoever else is involved. If someone does something on your behalf or that benefits you, return the favor. Find small ways to give back to others. Even if only a gesture, ask, “What can I do for you”

Meaning through reflection - Practice meditation or yoga or find quiet time for reflection and “plugging back into yourself” each day. Even 20 minutes a day of mindful breating can have a profound impact on your mood, mindset and clarity. An easy way to do this is to sit and feel your breath move through your body. Let your mind unwind, try to envision any thoughts you have like waves moving through your mind. Don’t attach or react to them, just acknowledge and affirm them with a gentle, silent “yes”.

Meaning through Gratitude - Go out of your way to say “Thank you” when you normally wouldn’t. At work, at home, at the gym, at the cafe and so forth, why not give someone a nod of thanks and a compliment? And of course, accept compliments from others with wide-eyed smiles and vocal “Thank you” Small acts like these go a long way.

Meaning through relationships - spend time with people you enjoy and broaden your social circle. Stay connected with others and involved in their lives. Send someone a short letter or send a silly post-card. Cultivate friendships with wise people significantly older than you and those younger than you.

Meaning through community experiences - people attend events, these events provide a way to find like-minded people, enjoy shared experiences, and make unforgettable memories.

“Only when the brain is confronted with stimuli that it has not seen before, does it start to reorganize perception. The surest way to provoke the imagination, then, is to seek out environments you have no experience with” This is true even when you’re on vacation, where it’s more vital than ever.