When it comes to hustling, there is nothing more important than your mindset. You can understand this idea intellectually without really knowing what this means. Unfortunately, we have an example. A non-hustler posted a comment on a post on my Facebook page. His comment had nothing to do with what I posted, but here it is in its entirety”
“Why don’t y’all take some time off from trying to get ahead and help someone else along? Y’all the ones making money off broke people doing all the work. Don’t get me wrong, I could sell thongs to a nun and then talk her out of them. I just don’t have the conscience to make money marking up somebody else’s work.”
Let’s unpack some of this non-hustler’s infections.
By trying to get ahead, you aren’t helping other people.
The non-hustler believes that people who are striving to get ahead aren’t the kind of people who help other people. This is a classic example of the infection of envy. Hustlers create business, and as they grow, they need to hire people to help them create the value that they create for the people they serve.
In one college economics class I took in college, the liberal professor was railing against trickle down economic. A young girl very innocently asked, “If trickle down economics doesn’t work, can you tell me how trickle up economics works?” She meant no harm, and she wasn’t being political.
People with the means to help other people often do. Some people with the ability to help people don’t. But the non-hustler is infected with envy.
Capturing value is difficult.
The non-hustler doesn’t understand how value creation and value capture works. Each of us is paid exactly what we are worth. We are paid for the value that we create. If you want more money, you create more value. Different outcomes are worth more or less based on how other people value them.
Non-hustlers suffer the infection that causes them to misunderstand fairness. You can do what you love, but you can’t make the rest of the world value it.
Selling is something you do to someone.
I’m hard pressed to find a better version of this belief than what our non-hustler offers us. Nuns don’t buy thongs, and salespeople don’t sell things to people who don’t want or need them. The non-hustler makes a crude remark intended to prove that he is every bit as persuasive as any salesperson.
Hustlers know that selling isn’t something you to do somebody. Selling is something you to for and with somebody, and something from which they benefit. The non-hustler is infected with the belief that one who sells is supposed to be taking advantage of someone else.
There is inherent honor is being broke.
The non-hustler reveals another infection when he says he is uncomfortable making money “marking up somebody else’s work.” The non-hustler has negative beliefs about money and how it is made. Minus a few people in the financial sector, no one creates real wealth stealing from other people.
The non-hustler believes there is honor in being broke. This is an infection designed to protect the ego of the one infected. In their minds, it is better to be broke than to engage in the activities that generate money.
I was broke until I was 13 years old and started working full time. I promise there was no inherent honor in not having money.
If you would be a hustler, then examine your beliefs carefully. Do your infections serve you? Or are are they preventing you from producing the results you are capable of?
