The term “Hustle” gets thrown around a lot in the business world, but where does hustle fit into YOUR business? Some entrepreneurs will tell you that hustling means working longer and harder than your competitors. These entrepreneurs brag about working long hours, pulling all-nighters and never having any time to relax.…I am NOT one of those entrepreneurs.
If the only way to be successful is to work more hours, well… that sucks. I don’t know about you, but that’s not why I got into this business. I didn’t start my business to work more. In fact, I built my business so that I’d have more time for the things that matter to me, like spending time with my family.
What about you? Are you for hustle or against hustle? Actually, hold that thought. It’s not an either/or decision. We’ll come back to this in a second.
In my experience, there are TWO concepts of success.
Concept #1 is that…
Hustle = Success.
Concept #2 is that…
Priorities = Success.
I believe in Concept #2.
In business, you and I have the ability to design our business around our priorities, and this ability increases depending on what stage our business is in.
The Survival Stage
When we first start our business, we’re doing whatever we can to make a buck. This is what I call the “survival” stage.
When I first started my business, I’d been with my girlfriend Amy (who is now my wife… thank GOD!) for a long time, and people would often ask me why I hadn’t asked her to marry me yet.
The truth is, I hadn’t asked her yet because of where my business was at that time. Because, honestly, I was okay with surviving off of peanut butter and jam sandwiches but I wanted more for my family.
As new entrepreneurs we all start in the survival stage.
Stu McLaren
In this stage, you are closer to the first concept of hustle because your resources are limited so you need to do a lot of the work yourself.
You should think about your priorities during this stage, but you might need to make some sacrifices when you’re first getting started.
I was okay with surviving off of peanut butter and jam sandwiches but I wanted more for my family.
The Success Stage
The second stage of entrepreneurship is when you start making enough money to cover your living and business expenses.
We can call this the “success” stage (financially speaking, anyways).
In this middle stage of success, that’s when you and I have a really important decision to make.
The success stage is when we can start basing our business decisions around our priorities, so it’s important that we get clear on what our priorities are.
