"Hustle" vs "Lifestyle" Business Concepts

Hustle UNTIL Leverage.

Hustle until leverage. 

What I think most people get wrong about this idea.

There's always an argument between the “hustle all the time” people and the “live your life” don't grind bunch. 

I've been both.

There’s pros and cons to both as well.

But it's always felt like at one point the “hustle crowd” was right, grind for 14 hours a day if you want to build something big. 

But then the month later I'd hear a really good argument against this and more on the lifestyle business side, because even if you hustled 24/7 you’d just move the goalposts anyway and never be happy, even if you achieve all your goals because that's just not how humans work.

Recently I’ve been building something big and thinking about this idea and think I’ve found a cleaner way to make the distinction and why these “camps” have such extreme views.

This argument also goes alongside another common point regardless these concepts that’s related to age. “Hustle in your 20s” for example is common for a number of really reasonable reasons; no kids/responsibilities, more time, better health in general, more energy, less to lose.

Agree with all that.

But I think this age argument never quite made sense.

Instead I think age is just used as a proxy for leverage.

The most successful people I know hustled in a business almost exclusion their 20s. But that wasn't for the sake of hustling it was for the sake of creating that first 100k or 500k.

This first £100k is what Charlie Munger refers (referred, RIP) to as the most difficult sum of money to make.

This is something I massively agree on.

It took me years to make the first 100k (3 years of “hustle” I think) but it only took 8 months to make the next 100k.

The reason is you just know what you are doing and also you have leverage.

Even if it’s not a massive amount, having £20,000 in the bank to start a business vs £500 is such a monumental difference that it can literally save you years of time and energy.

This is also why, when people fast track or "cheat" the first part, they get very little praise, despite sometimes being successful after that point anyway.

For example, think about a person who had nothing and with just £500 built a business that makes £100k profit a year, people like that.

They respect it.

Vs someone who was given or inherited £100k and turned that into a £100k a year business. 

Same outcome, both impressive.

But one is seen as far more impressive and respectable than the other.

“with just blood, sweat and tears” is the common phrase.

But in reality one person may have got lucky and the other unlucky, we don’t know the full stories and never will.

So I think this leverage conversation matters for that reason.

That’s why we knee-jerk the “small loan of a million dollars” despite turning a million into a billion as an impressive feat.

It's something I do as well, if I know someone built something from scratch that had no outside investment and no “daddy's money”, I'd find that 100 times more impressive than something that is worth the same amount but had either of those steps skipped. 

This is why the hustle until 100k point is needed in my opinion, not just because it's the hardest to make but it proves if you did it from absolute zero then you could do it again.

You've literally created value and wealth from thin air.

Which is a hard thing to do, hence why people don't tend to do it, or try to fake or cheat this first step.

It's also easier to ridicule the hustle crowd, to fight against the “hustle porn culture”.

Although in my experience the people who tend to be fighting against this culture and promoting the “work life balance” are the exact people that need to work on their work ethic… The same people who tend to have no money or success from which to sit on their high horses…. But that’s a rant for another day.

So, when it comes to the argument around hustle Vs lifestyle, my thoughts are the following. 

You should "hustle" all in, every day, until you have leverage.

In most cases that'll be at least your first 100k/yr. Maybe £300+ depending on who you are.

Once you have leverage,

The decisions you make matter far more than the volume of action you take.

This is where the "skill of business" comes in. But it's also where a lot of people try and start, instead of starting from zero.

From here you have the choice of continuing to go all in and both hustling as well as utilising leverage, but the latter is far more of an important crank than the former. 

Also beware of fake hustle, that's probably the worst camp of all 3.

Fake hustle is painfully easy to spot if you've been around for any amount of time. It simply involves a lot of talking and not a lot of just doing when no one is looking.