When you’re trying to build an online business on your own there is this invisible weight of stress that hangs over you.
This stress is caused by the belief that you need to hurry up and do all of the things all of the time. If you don’t then you’re doomed to fail.
It gets worse when you read success stories by others where they talk about how they had to sleep on the floor of gas stations and eat the remains from the coffee pot just to keep going.
You know, true Hustle Culture type of shit.
Are you supposed to do that?
Are you supposed to hustle and if you aren’t succeeding is it because you aren’t hustling enough?
Basically, if you aren’t where you want to be is it because you just need to try harder?
You very well might not succeed in building your business because you don’t work hard enough, but that usually isn’t the case. Instead, it really comes down to finding the right path before you burn out.
Is All Hustle the Same?
First, I need to provide you with some context of my life so you know I’m not speaking about this from an Ivory Tower.
I have 3 young kids that all demand my attention and a wonderful wife who needs help with them because they are balls of energy. They are constantly banging down on my door wanting to see Dad.
I’m in my 40s and just don’t have that stay-up 37 hours a day type of energy that I did in my 20s.
I don’t want to be a recluse hiding away in his office pretending that it’s what I need to succeed.
What I’m saying is my hustle is different from your hustle. And your hustle is different from their hustle.
This begs the question though of what is hustle? Everyone will have their own definition but I like mine.
To understand my definition you need to understand iteration and paths.
Success Is Finding the Right Path
Before you succeed with your business you need to find the right path and you only find the right path by taking action.
What is the path?
The path is when you find the right message to hit the right person at the right time so they buy the right offer. That’s a lot of things that need to fall into place and for many people it takes time.
It’s following the Pocket Business Framework and getting through each step as quickly as possible (you decide the timeframe).
But how do you get there?
You try a lot of things.
I don’t mean you try a lot of business ideas, but you do get on some platforms and you push out a lot of content until the right message is found. You want that message to finally hit the right audience so that you know you’re going in the right direction.
You can plan ahead as much as you want and make educated guesses about what people need, but you can’t be sure until you get out there with the content.
This is the iteration phase of business building and this is where Hustle is important.
Why?
Because Hustle determines how long it takes to find the right path.
You Are Thomas Edison
Let’s say you are Thomas Edison. I go back in time to have a talk with you and I tell you that you’re going to invent the lightbulb.
You’re super happy about that and ask if I can just tell you how it’s done.
Of course I can!
You need to run 10,000 experiments. That’s all.
What?!?!?!
Can’t I just tell you which experiment is the one?
Nope. But at least you know now that if you do 10,000 of them you’ll get to the right one.
With that knowledge what do you do?
- Take your time.
- Go through the experiments as quickly as possible.
Almost everyone goes with #2.
And that’s Hustle.
Why Hustle Is Necessary
Hustle is simply the speed at which you want to go through your iterations until you find the right path.
So if you plan to be on the right path in 6 months then you know you need to Hustle harder than if you gave yourself 3 years BEFORE finding the right path.
The goal is to simply go through as many iterations as possible and for most people, an iteration is simply testing a message and getting it out there.
Unfortunately, this also means that you have to build up some type of audience to know if the messages are working.
For example, if write a beautiful twitter thread but only have 2 followers (thanks Mom!) then how will I truly know if my message is working?
So that means another part of the Hustle is building an audience which means getting content out the door. Thankfully, that content is where you test your messaging.
This is the process of building a successful online business.
Getting the right message to the right people so they know you can help them with whatever problem they have.
And what happens when you find the right path?
The Hustle Eventually Stops or Restarts
Let’s say you’ve found the right path. Now what?
Well, the Hustle can slow down if you decide. Maybe you don’t need to churn out as much content because you’ve built such an audience and your past content continues to bring in enough business that you aren’t stressing.
From there you can fine-tune your message. Figure out what are the 20% of the things that bring in 80% of the revenue.
Or you can decide to expand your business. Maybe you try to reach a new audience which means the Hustle restarts. And that’s okay if you’re prepared for it.
But each time, you should be able to get systems in place where the Hustle isn’t a drain.
Find the Hustle Culture You Belong To
As you can tell, Hustle looks different for everyone.
To the outside world, it might not seem like I’m hustling because I’m only at my computer for a couple of hours a day but in my life, I’m the hardest worker around.
The important thing to keep in my with Hustle is that you decide your goals and what timeframe you wish to reach them in.
From there you can decide on how much Hustle you can invest to find the right path.
But never fall into the trap of thinking Hustle isn’t needed. This isn’t a hobby.
The faster you’re able to go through iterations, the faster you’ll get to the path that will lead you to success.