The moment most entrepreneurs think of hustle, they almost immediately think of Gary Vaynerchuk. He’s working 18 hours each day on expanding his brand, and he’s not the only super successful entrepreneur who recommends a strong work ethic. He, Grant Cardone, and Daymond John all commented on how much time you should be working, and the article is amazing.
Grant Cardone suggests working 95 instead of 9-5, and I absolutely love that phrase.
But most of us aren’t working that long, and productivity usually dips if you’re working too long. For these three entrepreneurs and others, that rule doesn’t apply because they literally love every part of their business. They enjoy business like athletes enjoy playing their favorite sports.
How do we increase the hours we spend doing the work that we love? How do we develop that drive? That’s what I’ll share right now:
Daily Actions Will Get The Ball Rolling
It has never been this easy for me to write new content. That’s because I recently decided to write one blog post per day. Not at least one blog post per day. Exactly one blog post per day.
When I first began this goal, it was somewhat hard for me to write a blog post every day. Now it’s become effortless. For you to hustle, the work needs to feel effortless. That’s part of the secret.
Sure, writing the blog post takes 30 minutes, and it takes a little more time to schedule it, but with this task accomplished, I can move onto other tasks knowing that I just finished writing my blog post for the day.
I’m working on ways to integrate this type of effortlessness into other areas of my brand such as video creation so I can then create several videos in a given day.
The more you perform an action every day, the easier it gets. I don’t have to think twice about whether It’s easy for me to run 10 miles every day because I’ve ran almost every day for several years (with the exception of necessary breaks that allow the body to recharge).
When I found myself in inconsistency, it took me longer to write each blog post and schedule them to get published. Sometimes I would completely forget because inconsistency keeps your goals out of mind and out of sight.
I still batch my podcast episodes for just two days each week because I schedule the interviews to occur on those two days. I don’t have to worry about producing the content because the guest is keeping me accountable.
Even on days when I don’t want to interview someone for my podcast (i.e. a really long day), I do the interview anyway because telling a guest, “I’m really tired so I can’t do the interview today,” isn’t who I am, and it’s very disrespectful of the time they committed towards your podcast (they could have been on another podcast during that time).
If you find yourself struggling to get it done, do it daily without exceptions. Performing a task every day makes it an effortless habit, and all you have to do at that point is keep the chain going.
Exercise, Family, and Friends
I get it. If you work for 18 hours every day, you need to sleep for six of those hours. Where’s the time for exercise, family, and friends?
You can exercise right before work every day (it gets easier the more often you do it), and also use some of your breaks to exercise. For instance, if I feel mentally fatigued from the work I’m doing, I take a 1-2 hour break to exercise (almost always a run). Exercising puts me back in my game.
I get in the exercise when it’s harder to hustle so I can come back to my work feeling more refreshed.
I’m in a different situation with family since I’m 20 (that felt weird for me to write, especially since I finished writing this blog post before I turned 20). I don’t have a spouse or kids. With that said, I’ve paid attention to how successful entrepreneurs with a family find time for the ones they love.
Gary Vaynerchuk takes the weekends off which he uses to spend most of his time with his family and relaxing on beaches. This weekend break gives him the ultimate recharge for the ultimate work ethic.
You could hang out with some friends during that break. As a college student, I am constantly with my friends unless I’m writing a blog post or something like that on campus. I know I won’t have that luxury when I graduate, but what works for some people is penciling in a time on the calendar when it’s okay to hang out with friends.
Don’t make yourself available every single day. Choose a day or two of the week. It helps if you have freelancers and/or employees who can help out with the work while you’re taking your breaks.
Without Sleeping On Your Computer’s Keyboard…
Some of us have the image of a workaholic who uses his/her computer keyboard as a pillow. While I’m sure that won’t be us, we also need to think about our sleep. While some people are fine with only six hours of sleep, Neil Patel gets 9 hours of sleep every day, and he wrote a fascinating article about why sleeping more will boost your productivity.
You need to create a clear schedule for yourself so you know when it’s time to close shop. Set a bedtime and set a close time for your business where you won’t respond to any additional emails, create additional content, or do anything else for your business.
When you hustle, you hustle harder than anyone else. But the hardest hustles are also the hardest resters. Even though Gary Vaynerchuk works 18 hours on some days, remember that he takes two days off every week. That’s a luxury very few have.
In Conclusion
Embracing a small hustle is easy. The more you challenge yourself, the more demanding the hustle becomes. Your hustle is the biggest indicator of your success. Even if you don’t have the skills or talent, you can hustle your way to acquiring all of the skills and talents you could ever need to achieve your biggest goals.
Have you embraced the hustle? Do you have any advice for continuing to build upon the hustle? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.
