Hustle - critical summary review

Do you find yourself craving something “more” in your life, but you don’t quite know what it is or how to get it? Look no further, since “Hustle” answers exactly that question. Hustling will get you where you want to be, and help you discover your true potential. This New York Times bestseller provides you with concrete tools to define and achieve your dreams. So, get ready to learn how to hustle!

Don’t rent your dreams!

Originally, the word “hustle” had a negative connotation since it was often used as a word “steal.” This has changed in recent times, however, and the authors say “hustle” can now be 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 hustle means to confidently navigate the ever changing, highly technologized, and globalized world. It means to finally achieve everything you ever wanted. To follow your dreams, you need three fundamental forces: money, meaning, and momentum. We need money to achieve our dreams, but without meaning, money simply creates a vacuum. Combining the two in the right proportions gives rise to momentum which will make you unstoppable.

You probably know the feeling – you are working hard, trying to save money, trying to buy a house, but you never seem to get anywhere. No matter how hard you try, you are crushed by student loan debts or credit card bills, and you might not even like the job you are doing.

Perhaps like many others, you have followed the traditional path - finishing high school, then graduating from university - always believing that education leads to a stable job and a sustainable income. Well, it does not always work out that way. In the course of achieving such a degree, you have probably incurred quite a few debts and now could be stuck with a job that doesn’t pay well and that you don’t even like.

If you are thinking that the proverbial American Dream is not well and truly dead, you would not be alone. In a 2015 study, the Institute of Politics at Harvard University found that 49% of 18 to 29-year-olds believed the American Dream was still alive, while 48% believed it was dead.

Do you rent or own your dreams? Do you make the big choices in your life or do you opt for the path of least resistance? You are renting your dreams if you are playing according to the rules of the system and taking your choices as  given. But if you truly want to own your dream - if you want to hustle - you must be willing to take risks. Otherwise you will be stuck with the Mediocrity of Meh and will forever be chasing that intangible feeling that there is something “more” to life.

How to escape the cycle of suck

How do you break out of what the authors call the “Cycle of Suck”? How do you manage to escape the treadmill of always going around in circles, but never getting anywhere?

If you are stuck in one of those cycles, such as continuously being passed over for promotion, or earning just about enough money to get by for another month, this will eventually translate into a different view of yourself and lower your expectations in life. Even worse, the cycle becomes a bad habit. But hustling means shaking yourself free from established habits, thought patterns and starting fresh. 

The first step is to learn about your talents. Take some time to look into the mirror and ask yourself, what are your talents? What makes you unique? Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to put in your 10,000 hours of work to become world-class at something. What you need is a combination of hustle, success, and unique talents.

The second step is the process of hormesis. It means exposing yourself to small doses of stress or risk and slowly increasing them, to eventually achieve your dreams. Facing small amounts of stress will ultimately strengthen you as a person.

Consider learning a new language as an example. You are likely to encounter difficult words or phonology and maybe you will struggle to understand and remember foreign grammar structures. But despite these short-term struggles and difficulties, learning a language gives you the rewarding experience of speaking in a foreign tongue, and even helps build neural fortitude which can delay the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The doses of pain don’t need to be big. To have a lasting impact, small tweaks are enough. For example, if you want to be less narcissistic, set yourself the goal of never mentioning the words “I,” “me,” or “my” in your next conversation with friends. Or, if you want to become more of an extrovert, how about going to the movies by yourself one Friday?

Manufacturing luck

Part of your hustle is based on luck. And if you are thinking that luck is an unreachable, uncontrollable entity, you would be wrong – there are ways in which you can make luck more likely. Hustling allows you to manufacture your luck.

When you choose to own your dreams, you will run out of “unluck.” There are four kinds of luck: random luck, hustle luck, hidden luck, and quirky luck. Random luck is also known as dumb luck – it is the kind of luck that you have when you are looking for an empty parking space and you manage to get one right next to the entrance.

Hustle luck is created by your momentum and motion. This allows random ideas to come to the surface and combine in unforeseen ways which will lead to the solving of problems or new opportunities. Just consider one of the authors, Neil, who would start conversations with random people in elevators. He managed to close business deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to those conversations. He could not help being enthusiastic about the job he loved, and that convinced the people he was talking to to make an investment.

Hidden luck happens to you every single day, and is the culmination of all your past experiences. These hidden opportunities are only visible to those who are sensitive to the changes in the world around them, and those that are prepared in the field in which they are hustling.  

Finally, quirky luck is something unique to you. It comes to you because of your inherent weirdness. If you have odd habits or quirky interests, as they may help you create some luck in your life. Armed with this knowledge, you should not continue to see luck as some mysterious, random force but you should start embracing the fact that luck is a constant, and that every day offers you new opportunities to embrace your luck.

How to hustle

Now that you know the first steps to take towards having more success, consider the three unseen laws of hustle. These refer to your heart, your head, and your habits. The laws are, respectively:

1. Do something that moves you. 
2. Keep your head up and your eyes open. 
3. Seal the deal and make it real. 

First, find something that your heart tells you to do, not your head. Something that truly moves you emotionally and forces you into action. The emotion that moves you does not have to be noble or positive. It just needs to have an effect on you. It is important to start moving, even when you are not exactly sure where you are going yet. Once you have started hustling, clarity will come to you.

Second, you need to keep your eyes open to discover unexploited opportunities. There are different kinds of opportunities in the world, and the authors describe the Hustle Sweet Spot as something that is simple to understand, but hard to do, such as writing a book, or getting a job promotion. You can charge ahead with only small doses of stress, remember. Give yourself a deadline, because there is no momentum without closure. 

Third, you must actually do what you have committed to doing. Don’t keep circling in the same habits, but make a concrete commitment. If your goal is to write a book, make it your aim to write 10,000 words each week. Then, sit down for a couple of hours every day and get those words on paper. Always keep the wheels turning to create momentum.

Remember, there is no such thing as a straight path to success. There are common paths dictated by conventional wisdom that are supposed to get you from A to B, but the collective does not know you. You are unique and so is your path to success. Simply look at the resources you have, your talents, and use those to hustle.

Creating your POP

So, now that you know how to hustle, how do you utilize your hustle in the best possible way? Don’t aim for perfection! Be flexible and take the chances that come your way. The thought of doing something is usually worse than the actual task. The good news is that there is a simple rule for overcoming this hurdle. Do 10 minutes of something you love, and then think about it. Act first, then evaluate the experience. Doing this will help you keep focused and create momentum.

To keep on track with your hustle, create a POP - a Personal Opportunity Portfolio. This is a summary of all your achievements, your contacts, and your professional credibility.

It helps you to answer the question, “What should I do?” since it gives information on where you have been, where you are going and what you are doing right now. 

There are four parts to your POP, and to your career: potential, people, projects, and proof. Potential is what you can do in the future, your potential for growth, as employers often call it. This is where you highlight your capabilities, strengths and talents.

In the second part, people, you address the relationships in your life - both in real life and online. How can you be of help to the people you know? How can they create new opportunities for you? 

The projects part of POP summarizes all your projects, past and present. Everything you do will have created some sort of profit, so make sure to highlight this.

Finally, of course, you must make yourself credible. That is what the proof piece is for: these are the references to your projects. This can be anything from links to blog posts to photos or copies of artwork. Through your POP, you let your hustle take visual shape.

Final Notes

Most of us are caught in Cycles of Suck. We are so used to what we are doing that our everyday chores have become bad habits. If you truly want to own your dreams, you must take a step back and find out what it is that you truly want. And once you know that, don’t wait, start acting now!

Use your heart, head, and habits to create money, meaning, and momentum in your life and finally own your dreams!

12min Tip

Create your own POP – what projects have you done? And what connections do you have?