No one wants to be hustled. To be pitched and pushed and most of all, pressured into buying something. Hustle culture has been around for a long time, but the internet–and new forms of it in particular–seems to amplify the feeling.
Three elements of hustle stand out for me:
- The reality of what’s on offer can’t match the hype, and so it feels false.
- The pitch can’t succeed on merit, so social pressure is used instead.
- The pitch is made in the wrong place at the wrong time, without earning permission. We wouldn’t miss it if it weren’t there.
The folks at Akimbo (an independent B corp) have been quietly building a series of interactive workshops that help people build value and show up in the marketplace without hustle. By doing good work that you can be proud of.
Here’s what they’ve got coming up:
The flagship altMBA has already helped more than 5,000 people transform their careers and their lives. The Regular Decision Deadline is tomorrow, May 4th for altMBA’s July 2021 session.
Ramon Ray’s The Small Business Workshop starts tomorrow, May 4th, and you can enroll now. It’s back for its third session.
Real Skills, a one-day non-conference is happening on May 14th (tickets available now). No speakers, no Powerpoints, simply small-group interaction designed to change the way you and your team create possibility. This is the fifth session, and many people have done it more than once.
The Creative’s Workshop, session four, starts in a few weeks and enrollment is open now. In this workshop (which led to my book The Practice), you’ll learn to find your voice and ship work you care about. Now in its fourth session, participants have been amazed at how deep and wide this work can go, and how powerful the connections created within cohorts can be.
And bestselling author Bernadette Jiwa is back with the seventh session of the Story Skills Workshop. This is an essential foundation for anyone seeking to be heard, to make a difference and to engage with people to make change happen. Bernadette’s breakthrough approach is proven to be effective. You can check it out today.
When you’re ready to level up, it’s possible to learn to make a bigger impact.
May 3, 2021
Possibility has a flipside.
We need possibility to do our best work. To believe that it might work. To understand that if we do our best work and bring our full selves to the project, we have a shot at achieving our goal. Hope is fuel.
Perhaps we’ll make the sale, be admitted, create a hit, change someone’s mind, invent a breakthrough, play the notes beautifully, open doors and create magic…
But we might not.
And if we don’t, what then?
The first opportunity is to learn from what happened. That possibility was there, but we guessed wrong, or missed a cue or need a new skill. Perhaps we have to find a way to get the benefit of the doubt or simply need more practice and experience.
But, with apologies to Gödel, maybe there is no solution. Maybe the thing we thought was a problem wasn’t a problem to be solved (because problems have solutions) maybe it was simply a situation or even a dead end. Given who you are, what you know and what you’re dealing with, there actually wasn’t the possibility for success, even if it seemed there was.
Or perhaps there was luck involved, and this time, the luck wasn’t on our side (perhaps 20% of the applicants who are qualified get in to famous colleges, which means that kids who do their best still have just a 1 in 5 chance of admission).
If there was no acceptable solution, or there was more bad luck than we hoped, then there’s no room for shame or blame or recriminations. All we can do is honor the situation and work to find the next thing, another opportunity to contribute or grow. Spending cycles on blame (of ourselves or others) is time we can ill afford to waste.
May 2, 2021
Organized sports, particularly for school-age kids, present a real challenge. The results are easily measured and are on just one axis. Points scored. Winning vs. losing.
If we teach a child to identify with the outcomes in this way, we might create arrogance. If you win, after all, you must be better than the others.
This is where the big man on campus comes from, the push for dominance and the brittle self-worth that can lead to bullying.
And of course, it’s not just sports, and it’s not just high school.
But in any scarcity-driven competition, sooner or later, you’re not going to win. You’re not going be state champ, national champ, world champ… Sooner or later, if you’re honest, you’ll need to acknowledge that winning isn’t going to happen.
And then what happens?
Economic utility almost always occurs when we’re good at things that aren’t easy to measure. And when the things we’re good at are additive, infinite and generous it can be something we embrace for the long haul. Because in those areas, it’s possible to be useful and skilled and make a contribution, every single time.
If you have a chance to play a game that’s based on scarcity and winner-take-all, perhaps it pays to play a different game instead.
May 1, 2021
