The Art of the Hustle: 5 Sites You Need to Know!

When I first sat down and began working on this site, my intention was to pay homage to the Urban Hustler, the part of the black community that produced the Mike Barber’s,Kwame Jacksons , Diddy’s, and Swisha House’s of the world with a site that revealed the who, what, why, and how behind the hustle. When I use the word hustle, there are a few standouts that come to mind. The producers of these sites are real life examples that walk the talk and give great advice to the rest of us in the process. If you havent heard of these sites or their creators, Im sure you will very soon.

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Dedicated to the aspiring mogul, maker, and doer of things, 21st Century Hustle provides us like minded individuals with a community to exchange ideas, hear from those of us who have made it to “street level success” (financial independence attained by hand producing, self-hustling, and urban-marketing ones own products or services). One of the things I love about this site is they give you a daily dose of motivational quotes with well placed images to match (one of my favorite quotes found on the site is from Will Smith – “I  will not be outworked PERIOD.”)

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. -Conrad Hilton

I have featured this site several times recently in my Daily Kick in the Ass posts on Twitter, because these “Go-Getters” do just that on the daily.

Dezmon Landers has done an outstanding job with Startup Hustle, a site dedicated to the art of the business startup. What caught me about this site was his pure practicality with posts like Patience Is A Virtue But Impatience Pays The Bills…, and the way he easily breaks down complex concepts (like Angel Funding, or Pay Per Lead Affiliate Marketing…I didnt know what the hell any of this was prior to stumbling across SH!)

…the next time someone tells you to “Slow Down”, look at them and evaluate where they’re coming from. Do they have your best interest in mind, or is your pace just faster than theirs?

If you find out the latter, keep it moving and be successful!

Educated and street smart, Dezmon is the true embodiment of a corporate hustler.

Two words: College swagger. For those people still fumbling around trying to figure out the “ebay thing”, Michael Booker has been “finding electronics (laptops, cell phones, accesories, etc) that are either partly damaged or all out broken and selling them online.” If every college kid was as resourceful and net savvy as Mike (ahem, excuse me, Mr. Booker), parents would have no worries! With his clean and intelligent writing style, and great advice (as well as “What Im Up To” posts that you will actually want to read) you will forget that TGT (Time Greater than Money) is the brainchild of a 22 year old (some stuff I read and Im still like “Where does he learn all this?!”)

Mind of a Hustler caught my eye with his post titled Start that $20 Hustle and make a million dollars. I also like his down to Earth money making ideas (becoming a tow yard broker, genious!) that just go to show you that with the right perspective, you can really increase your income. The downside of this site is the author has been MIA since January, but I will give him a pass, since apparently he has been in the process of opening a bar/restaurant.

OK, This site isnt so much a how-to (but it seems thats gonna be the direction LeGo is going in) as it is a motivational site. Alot of the time, those of us in less than magnificent living conditions find it hard to envision life beyond poverty, but doing so is essential to your success (thats why your homework for Success Model Part 1 was to collect images of your future success, remember??). Hustle Strategy gives us good, clean design, well written rants, and some aspirations to work with…

I had heard about the guy on Craigslist trying to hustle a paper clip. His goal was to trade up to a house. The idea was to see if he could start with a paper clip and trade with enough people, until he ended up with a house. This is a crazy hustle that he was actually able to pull off. If you hustle with a strategy there is not much you can’t do…- LeGo, Creator of Hustle Strategy

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With these top shelf sites, there is no excuse for you to not put your hustle into overdrive. Check out these sites, let me know what you all think, and go get your hustle on!

Success Model Part 2: Knowledge

So you’ve read Part One of this series, as well as my soapbox sermon on losers. You’ve done your homework, and you’re all fired up now, right? Well if not, rewind and get it done. If so, you’re ready to continue your climb!

The Importance of Knowledge

It is better to be unborn than untaught: for ignorance is the root of misfortune. -Plato

Meet your new best friend: Amazon! The importance of knowledge to your success cant be understated. With knowledge, you can foresee problems, recognize and create opportunities, and add value to the lives of others. Without knowledge, you cannot advance. When I talk about knowledge, I mean the kinds of knowledge that are directly or indirectly applicable to your field. This includes people, places, trends, and practices along with “core knowledge” or subject-direct knowledge. From here on out, the only way that you can continue your progress is by continuously acquiring,applying, verifying, and updating your knowledge in what I call…

The Knowledge Cycle

Acquire

You must acquire the kind of knowledge that is useful and applicable to your field of endeavor. For instance, if you wish to become a lawyer, then you would need to know how to write correspondence, general knowledge of all areas of law, and specific knowledge as far as your field of practice is concerned. Generally speaking, it doesnt help an entertainer to know how to assemble an engine any more than it helps a lawyer to know how to fly a plane, but dont pass up the chance to gain familiarity with anything that has anything to do with your field of pursuit. As you dig through piles of research papers and gigs of data, you may feel overwhelmed at the amount of information at your hands; dont pressure yourself to become an overnight expert! Expertise is developed over many years. At this point in the game, you are aiming for familiarity.Remember that picture of the road to success city in Part 1 of this series? Think of every little bit of knowledge that you gain as fuel that will get you further down that road.

There’s no better source of knowledge available to you than the people that are in the position that you want to be in, so don’t limit yourself to books and text online for the bulk of your knowledge. Proverbs says “A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years study of books”, and that wisdom still holds true today.  With some maneuvering and networking, you can align yourself with people that can open doors for you faster than a college degree or an entire library worth of information can.

Apply and Verify

Its not so much what you know as what you can do with what you know that matters here. There is an old Chinese proverb that goes like this: “To know and not to do is to not yet know”

“Arthur, wtf is that supposed to mean?” Glad you asked! Simply put, it means that if you think you know something, but have never done it, you dont know shit. It is easy to go through courses or read books on a subject, but until you actually put that information into action, your knowledge is missing a critical dimension. Dont confuse studying with progress! The only thing that facilitates progress is action! You are not in the business of collecting information.

Verifying the truth of the knowledge that you have gained is easy, and necessary, since some of your sources wont be as good as others.

Update

Updating your knowledge is absolutely critical. If you are entering a field that is full of competitors, he who has the most up to date information will lead. Stay up to date on changes in your industry by reading magazines, newspapers, and trade publications, and using online tools like twitter and Google trends.

Homework

In part one of this series, you wrote down goals in specific areas of your life. Now you must acquire the knowledge that is relevant to those goals. Go to LinkedIn and participate in discussions, use Myspace to network with pros instead of hoes, and use the power of the internet to facilitate your knowledge cycle.

Losers

Warning: This post is a deviation from the normal themes of this blog, and is an example of what happens when I go off on a rant. For actual examples of this blog’s posts, see the previous entry. Or the one after this one. Thanks!

Most of human society consists of losers. The progress of the human race is carried by 20 percent of the population while the other 80 percent provides the sweat equity to impliment that progress. The Great Pyramid of Giza was the vision of one man, but the pyramid was built by 10,000 losers (slaves or low paid indigenous workers depending on your intellectual bias on the subject). Wal Mart consists of only a handful of directors and Chief Execs, but thousands of losers stand at Wal Marts doors to greet you or scan your cans of baby formula. Hundreds of thousands of losers have played high school sports, but only a handfull get scholarships and play in college, and even fewer become professional atheletes.

Think back to high school. My freshman class was 600. My graduating class was 200. Where did the other 400 go? They dropped out, got GEDs, got killed, got pregnant, or moved. In every aforementioned case (save ‘moved’), they are the losers. I am a college graduate. When I first enrolled my projected graduating class was 150. 35 of us actually graduated. The rest now work at Speedway, Wal Mart, or are garbagemen, etc. They are the losers.

This 80 percent that I have been beating up on is a product of nature. One of natures most enduring policies are the survival of the fittest and the process of elimination. If an organism was unable to adapt, it ceased to exist. Now in the case of humans, us being the peculiar animals that we are, have free will, intelect, and self-awareness, unlike any other organism in Earthly existence. Some people use their free will to eat McDonalds and pig lard most their lives, or smoke cyanide laden cigarretes, or stress themselves out over factors that are perfectly within their control,  then they die. Nature obliges their destructive ways. Many people are bogged down in poverty because they choose to use their free will to purchase every peice of crap that tickles their fancy, rather than exercising one of the most Godly of traits (discipline) to provide a stable future for themselves and their families. Those debt laden, or Kentucky Fried Chicken stuffed losers then complain about their lot in life, and say things like “I wish”…when in reality THEY CAN.

Once you deny discipline and self control, your destiny defaults into natures hands, and you will die. And rightly so. It is the way of nature.

Dealing with Failure

by Arthur Pledger

This article comes right behind A No Shit Success Model:Follow or Fail for a reason. Inability to deal with and move past failures is a huge reason for perpetual (enduring) failure. On the way to greatness, you will make many mistakes and run into what some would call failure, but if you plan to continue moving towards the top of the success model, you will have to face some failures both on the front and back end. Its no secret that I have been the subject of some hardship and controversy in the past. But dwelling on past shortcomings is like sitting in a puddle of mud and complaining about being dirty. You must choose to move beyond your current circumstances.

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.-Barack Obama

The choice to either fail or succeed is made with every decision. Oftentimes, people will chose to fail or abandon their exploits for fear of failure or the guaranteed safety of “the way its always been”. They would rather stay in low paying jobs, read blogs like this about success, and see others around them succeed instead of doing what they know would get them better results. If that describes you, then you have one of two choices: utilize the knowledge and resources that are available to you here and in other places, take some risks and move forward or accept your mediocrity and abandon all exploits. You can choose to accept or reject your circumstances. But understand this: the moment you speak out and declare that you will acheive this or that, the universe will test your commitment to making that statement true with as many problems and adversities that it can conjure up.

Thoughts are Things!

This saying comes from the Napoleon Hill classic Think and Grow Rich, which is required reading for all members of this blogsite!

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

The way you talk to yourself and the scenes that you allow to flash across your mental screen influences how you deal with and overcome failure. Dont say I will be a success (future tense) because that will remain a “future” , unattained. Instead, mentally repeat to yourself  “I am a success” in present tense. At first, your conscious will reject what it perceives to be a lie. It may actually work against you (“How can you say youre a success when such and so“). But your subconsious is listening, and as you truly begin to internalize that statement your subconscious will start to adjust your outside reality to your inside reality, and your thoughts will become things.

If you are constantly replaying embarrassing moments, or failings, then you will be doomed to either repeat them, or you will sit still for fear of failing again. The good news is that you can make this work in your favor. By imagining yourself in moments of triumph, or by regularly envisioning your goals as if they were already achieved, your conscious and subconscious mind will both work towards seriously making that vision a reality. Envisioning success will motivate you to the point that you wont be able to sleep.

Dont measure your success by the achievements of others

You cant compare your success with that of another person, because no two personal situations or conditions are the same. Successful individuals have identified elements that are unique to their situation and have capitalized on them, and you must do the same. The best athletes, salespeople, entrepreneurs and so on, don’t compete with others as much as they compete with themselves. Besides, once you’re better than all your competitors, how can you continue to improve if your focus is simply about ‘beating the others.’You are in competition with only one person, yourself.

Changing How You See Failure

I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. Ive lost almost 300 games.  26 times Ive been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. -Michael Jordan

Failing is human. The only thing wrong with failure is how you see it, and how you react to it. Had I allowed my incarceration (failure) to influence my goals and dreams, I would have never reached the heights that I have since my release. Failing can cripple your progress, or it can be a tool. What most people dont realize is that failing at something doesnt mean its the end of that venture, it simply means you had a lesson to learn. In basketball, losing a game doesnt end a player’s career, unless he doesnt learn from his repeated missed shots and opporunities. If you go to a job interview and arent hired, call them back to find out what you can do to make yourself more employable for the next company, and make the neccessary changes. If you failed at a business, analyze why you failed, change your strategy, and get back to work. This mind frame can be applied to weight gain, weight loss, business, hustle, negotiation, and spittin game to females.

1. Analyze and identify the causes of failure
2. Change your strategy based on new information or expert council
3. Implement a new strategy

Lets say youve been going to the gym trying to get your weight up. After two months you havent gained weight. A failure would give up (“I must not be meant to be big” “Why cant I gain wheight?! i give up!”). But youre no longer a perpetual failure (since you read my blogs). You take a look at your workout and eating habits and start doing research on bodybuilding.com, where you get diet and exersice tips that you use to change your strategy. You put together a new routine, go to the grocery store, get back in the gym, and start packing on muscle.

Learn from your mistakes and fail forward.

Your Network is your Net Worth

That is an observation that I made that literally changed my outlook on success and how I was going about attaining it. This saying is in direct relation to the old “its not what you know, its who you know”.

As a kid, my mother would tell me to watch who I hung around, because they could rub off on me. I had no idea what she was talking about at the time. I thought that I was completely in control of my thoughts, actions, and circumstances. But like all teenagers, I was naive.

Guilty by Association

People will oftentimes associate your behaviors and thoughts with the people you hang out with. If you are in a group of individuals who look like ex-convicts or drug users, people will automatically judge you to be an ex-convict or drug user. Why else would you be in such a group if you all werent like minded? Law enforcement calls guilt by association “accomplice liability”. If you are driving your car and your passenger was in illegal possession of drugs or a firearm without your knowledge, the police could nail you for their actions. For one person to “judge a book by its cover” is unfair, but to do so is built into our socio-evolutionary design. As we go through our day, we come across hundreds if not thousands of people. Our brains are hardwired to make snap judgments based on compulsive evidence (“he’s in a really nice suit and on his cell phone, must be somebody important” or, “shes wearing a really short skirt and her breasts are popping out of her top, she must be ‘easy'”). We do the same when it comes to group identity.

Group Identity

The best place to see how group identity works is a high school lunchroom. Each group or “tribe” is separated by similarities in thought, activity, and interest. All the nerds, the football, basket ball and Lacrosse players, the “preps”, the “goths”, and the “thugs” all share qualities and traits that are associated with the group as a whole. For the nerd to leave his tribe and join another, her must take on the qualities of his new tribe (assimilation), or he wouldnt be accepted. Thats why we automatically judge others based on the group they are in; because if he didnt possess qualities similar to the rest of the group, then he wouldnt be a part of that group.

Frottage

The good news about group identity is that it works both ways. In other words, by associating yourself with the rich, famous, or important, others will bestow the same admiration and access upon you.  In Gretchen Rubin’s book, Power Money Fame Sex: A User’s Guide, she uses the term “fame frottage” (to get fame, rub up against somebody famous) to illustrate this point.

But theres more to achieving success and building your net worth than just hanging around people who have done so. The value in your association with the powerful and the successful comes from your access to their formula for achievement. You are able to consult them for advice, pick their brains for knowledge, and gain access to places, events, and their network of even more influential people. How valuable would it be to be mentored by a millionaire?
Or to be able to call up Donald Trump and ask for advice on an investment real estate purchase? Or to practice with Tiger Woods? Or to shadow the CEO of a large company? You get the idea!

Just as I talked earlier about assimilation, you will have to change some of your characteristics in order to sit at the power player’s lunch table. Make a list of characteristics that people share in the field that you wish to be successful in, and align yourself with those things. For instance;

• Where do they eat lunch?
• What books do they read (hint: see Required Reading)
• What do they do in their free time?
• Where do they shop and how do they dress?
• How do they get their news and information?

If you know that golf is a favorite passtime of your desired network, learn to play the game and ask for advice from them! They will take you under their wing, since you have given them an ego boost by acknowledging their “talent”. While they are coaching you, you can bring up last night’s CNBC special on India’s emerging economy proving to your new network that either you are one of them or a qualified to be one of them. Now youre being invited to join them for drinks at their favorite watering hole and BAM!, youre in.

In a Nutshell:

• If you want to improve your chances of success, change your social circle
• To be, you must become
• You can either control your network, or it will control you image and destiny
• Remember the Law of Attraction: Like Attracts Like!

Successful people have learned to define their place in the social order. Whether you wish to become a CEO, or writer, or dancer, or entrepreneur, this formula will help you align yourself with the people who can make your desired outcome a reality.