Hustle: The Power to Charge Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum

300 Pages·2016·1.32 MB·English

by  Neil Patel

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR HUSTLE
“An important book that will show you how to build the bridge between your potential and the
opportunities that are waiting for you—if you choose to go after them.”
—Bernadette Jiwa, bestselling author of Meaningful and Difference “If Love Is the Killer
App, Hustle is its operating system. Read this book and drive exponential success, starting
today!”
—Tim Sanders, bestselling author of Love Is the Killer App and Dealstorming “Why follow
the herd and force yourself to fit into ‘their system’ when you don’t have to? Instead, use this
book to hustle your own way to success. On YOUR terms.”
—Claire Diaz-Ortiz, author and entrepreneur
“What’s the best way from Point A to Point B? Wrong question. Read Patrick’s book to discover
why the best hustlers always succeed by working backward from Point B to Point A.”
—Eric M. Jackson, author of The PayPal Wars
“All you have to do is hustle . . . you hear it all the time. It’s a trendy word where the action
related to it is easier said than done. Here’s a reference guide to make hustling productive and
actionable.”
—Brian Solis, digital analyst, anthropologist, and bestselling author of X: The Experience
When Business Meets Design “Sometimes we all fall into a Cycle of Suck, where our talents
remain obscured behind a wall of misfortune. And that is precisely when you need to get off your
ass and hustle, unearth hidden opportunities, and change your life. This book will tell you how to
recharge your life with more money, meaning, and, perhaps most important of all, momentum.
Read it. You’ll be glad you did.”
—Adam L. Penenberg, journalism professor at New York University and author of Viral
Loop “If I had the insights of Hustle before I became an entrepreneur, I would have a lot less
sleepless nights. Powerful, promising, and practical.”
—Sunni Brown, chief human potentialist and bestselling author of Gamestorming and
The Doodle Revolution “In life, you have no choice but to hustle—to pursue that which feeds
your spirit and fulfills your dreams. This book is a must-read.”
—Pat Hiban, New York Times bestselling author of 6 Steps to 7 Figures, serial
entrepreneur, and philanthropist
“In the near future, algorithms will tell us what to do. They’ll choose the safest, the best, the most
predictable life. But inspiration and greatness is found on the road less taken—and that’s why you
need this book. Neil, Patrick, and Jonas show you, with powerful examples and concrete tools,
how a blend of subversiveness, creativity, and simple grit can get you to your dreams. This should
be on the bookshelf of everyone who has an idea that keeps them up at night.”
—Alistair Croll, entrepreneur and coauthor of Lean Analytics
“Even amidst the chaos of the world, there’s more opportunity than ever to succeed. The
traditional ways of doing so (get a job, stay in it, retire comfortably) are being actively disrupted
faster than ever before, which means we need a new framework for winning. Hustle is that
framework.”
—Benjamin Yoskovitz, coauthor of Lean Analytics
“Hustle is the blueprint I followed to land three dream jobs in a row. Stop trying to convince
people to hire you, and show them what you can do.”
—Charlie Hoehn, author of Play It Away
“Tired of looking at other people winning and thinking they are just lucky or come from
privilege? Turns out that they actually have a different key ingredient in common: They hustle.
Read this book and create your own blueprint for success!”
—Sean Ammirati, author of The Science of Growth
“To get ahead, above all else, respect yourself and your talents. Hustle is a manifesto for doing
just that.”
—Jordan Harbinger, host of The Art of Charm
“We live in a time more rife with possibility than any preceding point in history. The difference
between those that take advantage and those that remain in the Cycle of Suck? Hustle. Inspiring,
educational, and fun, Hustle is essential reading for anyone looking to do work that matters.”
—Taylor Pearson, author of The End of Jobs

WELL, WELL. WE'VE FOUND YOU.
Trust us, it wasn’t by luck or coincidence, though we believe in both.
Our Hustle book did what we had intended for it.
It grabbed you, pulled you in, and spoke to something inside of you.
Now it’s your turn.
There’s something left unfinished. Something big.
The sooner you get through this book, the sooner you can get started.

CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
NOT YOUR DADDY’S HUSTLE
OVERVIEW
PART ONE: HEART
CHAPTER 1
DON’T RENT YOUR DREAMS, OWN THEM
CHAPTER 2
REPAIR THE MEH IN YOUR HEART
CHAPTER 3
FIND THE HEART OF YOUR TALENTS
PART TWO: HEAD
CHAPTER 4
SMALL DOSES OF PAIN
CHAPTER 5
MANUFACTURING LUCK
CHAPTER 6
THE THREE UNSEEN LAWS OF HUSTLE
CHAPTER 7
YOUR INDIRECT PATH: UNIQUE AND OBLIQUE
CHAPTER 8
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
PART THREE: HABITS
CHAPTER 9
MAKE YOUR FUTURE POP
CHAPTER 10
POTENTIAL MAKES YOU POWERFUL
CHAPTER 11
PEOPLE MAKE YOUR HUSTLE WHOLE
CHAPTER 12
PROJECTS MAKE YOU STRONGER
CHAPTER 13
PROOF MAKES YOU BULLETPROOF
CHAPTER 14
MONEY: THE MEANS OF MOMENTUM
CHAPTER 15
DEFINITE MEANING
CONCLUSION
INFINITE HUSTLE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
RESOURCES
ENDNOTES
GLOSSARY
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
PREFACE
“To be honest, I don’t believe you.”
It was the fall of 2012, and Neil had just come off a conference stage to
rousing applause after delivering the keynote on the latest trends in digital
marketing to 2,500 enthused marketers. He’d ended his talk encouraging his
audience to embrace entrepreneurial “hustle” as paramount to success and had
been feeling good about his performance.
Startled, he turned to face his accuser, a petite dark-haired woman, and asked,
“Excuse me?”
“C’mon on, Neil,” she replied. “You know the best way to be successful is to
be born to rich parents. Look around you, all the winners come from privileged
backgrounds.”
Shaking his head, Neil responded, “Well, with my first job I had the privilege
of mopping up bathrooms at the amusement park near our home. I’m living
proof that hustle works.”
His voice faded as he saw his answer obliterated by his accuser’s seething
disbelief. She rolled her eyes and jabbed the air between them with the pen she
had been using to take notes.
“It’s rigged. Look at Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg. Chelsea Clinton. If you
didn’t go to Harvard or Stanford, you’re locked out of the club. No club, no
connections. No connections, no opportunities. No opportunities, no chance at
real success.”
Unwilling to wait for further explanation from the former theme park
bathroom attendant turned Internet marketing icon and start-up founder, the
dark-haired woman stormed past Neil down the long convention center hall.
Irritation at his inability to convince his accuser trailed Neil the whole evening
as he navigated the conference after-party, his frustration snapping at him like an
overzealous border collie amid back-slapping beer-breathed colleagues, overly
loud music, and unlimited free cocktails.
As much as he tried to shake it, he knew he had to prove that dark-haired
woman wrong.
Yet like her, there are millions of frustrated people among us: professionals
and students, artists and entrepreneurs, moms and dads, to name a few. We know
these people well. They’re our friends, our coworkers, and our family members.
Every Sunday evening, those of us who have fallen for the normal rules of
work and social convention sink into a mild depression as the Monday Blues set
in. Our children, our spouses, our hobbies—life’s little gifts—fade into the
background as we are overwhelmed by the sheer drudgery that awaits us the next
day at 8:00 a.m.
Nearly 90 percent of our fellow workers feel emotionally disconnected from
their jobs, and their dreams remain far afield or fleeting memories. Were we
uniquely privileged Masters of the Universe, we could easily bypass the slog that
provides our daily bread and butter.
But let’s be honest: Most of us aren’t exactly “special.”
We don’t boast an Ivy League education like Sheryl Sandberg, a political
pedigree like a Kennedy, or a wealthy father like Donald Trump. We’re stuck
behind our steering wheels each morning, bound by our commute, unable to take
shortcuts like the privileged few. The best we can hope for is to occasionally
take the carpool lane.
The reality is that we’re more like Rocky Balboa than Luke Skywalker—the
Force isn’t strong in us. We have no special advantages. In fact, we face a world
of disadvantages—at best, we’re underdogs fighting a system that stacks the
odds against us and squeezes the life out of us.
Today, what the three of us, Neil, Patrick, and Jonas, see going on around us
is a small group of people doing well, and this is troubling. Some of these people
are doing exceptionally well—some are even our close friends and clients,
people we respect. And an ocean of others, some of them insanely talented
people, are struggling to move beyond paycheck to paycheck and keep the
promises they made to themselves and their families. We see too many people
repressed by irrational and incessant fears, stifled by an unwillingness to take
more risk, trapped by tough choices about their futures.
What’s happened to their dreams? Why are so many good, hardworking
people going nowhere so fast while so few prosper? What’s the difference
between the successful and the unfulfilled? Something is broken here. We want
to fix it and in the process help thousands of people the world over become
better dreamers and more confident doers.
So how do we possibly find a way to break free and achieve lasting success
and fulfillment on our terms?
One way: We hustle.
In a world of boundless abundance, the only thing standing between us and
fulfillment of our dreams is self-imposed friction, a poison that saps our