I have a question for you: do you consider yourself a hustler?
According to dictionary.com the definition of a hustler is: “an enterprising person determined to succeed; go-getter.”
Seems legit.
Seems like something we should identify with as business owners trying to make something out of nothing. (Because, although it’s not often said aloud, making something out of nothing is FREAKING HARD!)
But what if we’ve been thinking about it all wrong?
Hustling.
Striving.
Working our little tails to the bone.
Its something that is celebrated among startups and upstarts alike. We are incredibly proud of how hard we are willing to work and how much of our lives we are willing to give up in order to grow our companies. We will make it happen because we won’t quit until it does ← I have literally said that on social media like a hundred times over the last five years (possibly, with the hashtag: #cantstopwontstop).
What if “your hustle” is just a big, giant distraction from doing the stuff that will actually grow your business?
Do you know what happens if every workday is a 12 hour workday? You spend most of the day doing utter bullshit and the last 2 hours actually moving the ball forward.
Do you know what happens if you work every weekend? You never have time to go for a walk, to splash at the beach with your friends and family, to go out for brunch and gossip about nothing. To read a book that has nothing to do with building your business.
And not having that down time, means that you are not giving your brain the rest and recuperation it needs to get back to it on Monday. It also means that you are preventing those creative ahas and those epiphanies from entering your brain. (Hint: that’s where the BIG THINKS that are crucial for the growth of your business come in).
What’s more? If you have to be in a non-stop hustle in order for your business to stay afloat then your business model is broken and/or it may be a sign that your business isn’t viable. Non-stop hustle is unsustainable. Period.
So excuse me but I am not at all impressed with your hustle.
I am impressed when you close the laptop at 4 pm. I’m impressed when you take off every Friday over the summer (it’s called “Summer Fridays” and even big corps do that). I’m impressed when you take off the entire month of August to rest, relax and spend time with your family. And then come back and absolutely KILL IT with your new strategies/plans/ideas.
That’s what impresses me.
Let me be the first to say that I have been guilty of the #cantstopwontstop hustle for far too long. So I want to announce it here and now to several thousand people:
I AM OFFICIALLY OVER HUSTLING.
What you and I should be doing instead of hustling is whatever scares the living sugar honey iced tea out of us.
- Call that influencer and ask her to share your new program with her audience.
- Waltz over to that cute boutique downtown and ask them to start stocking your product.
- Figure out those confusing analytics so you can increase your conversion rate.
- Write the damned book already.
We all know exactly what we need to do to make our business grow. We’re just scared to do it. I would bet my bottom dollar that if you did nothing (and I mean, nothing!) each day in your business but those things that scare the crap out of you and then closed your laptop and watched Netflix for the rest of the day, your business would grow at twice the speed it is growing right now.
Stop hustling. Start moving the big rocks.
What ‘big rocks’ do you need to move? What’s scaring the crap out of you? I challenge you to do the one big thing that you know you need to do to move your business forward today, rather than all those little things that you have on your to do list right now.
