Hustlers focus on opportunities. Non-hustlers focus on problems.
Hustlers make things happen by focusing on the opportunities and activities that produce bigger, bolder, and better results. They continually seek new ideas and new ways to create value. And hustlers always believe that they can do things that produce breakthrough results. That’s what hustlers do.
But hustlers aren’t firefighters. They don’t spend their time and energy on the urgent and important. They focus instead on things that are important—even though they are not urgent. Hustlers know that the opportunities that produce the best results are never urgent, even though they are important. Opportunities are always important and non-urgent, so that is where the hustler focus their time and attention.
Non-hustlers, on other hand, focus on problems, issues, and challenges. Non-hustlers are excellent firefighters. They look for the opportunity to make a difference by dealing with “issues,” the things that are urgent and important. Non-hustlers love the sense of accomplishment they get when they handle “problems.” They love it when their clients have problems; it makes them feel significant and busy. But this makes non-hustlers reactive, and it prevents them from being proactive. It’s the wrong kind of busy.
Hustlers are proactive. They know that better results are produced through real, transformative, breakthrough opportunities—not problems.
This doesn’t mean that hustlers don’t deal with problems; they do. But they don’t allow their problems to dominate their agenda and prevent them from focusing on opportunities. And they solve problems in a way that prevents them from having to solve the problem over and over again.
Questions
Where do you spend most of your time and energy, on opportunities or on problems?
How addicted are you to fighting fires? What do you need to do to solve problems in a more permanent way and allow you to move your focus to opportunities?
How much better would your results be if you worked as hard on opportunities as problems?
