Hustling Isn't Entrepreneurship

Hustle culture has democratised entrepreneurship. You don't need to be an innovative visionary with world-shaping influence to qualify as an entrepreneur. Anyone with a side gig or a startup can claim the same.

While this has had the obvious benefit of making entrepreneurship more accessible, it has also emphasised hustling as a default strategy for success. And that's problematic because hustling can only take you so far.

The hustler creed is simple: grind relentlessly and pivot continuously. To be fair, these are essential disciplines for any aspiring entrepreneur. You can't build a successful business, let alone scale it into a giant company, without working incredibly hard and adapting rapidly.

But there's another critical ingredient that hustlers overlook: focus. Entrepreneurs play the long game. Everything they do is focused on having an impact at scale, even if it takes years or decades to achieve.

Hustlers, by contrast, can't see past the short game. They are opportunists who sacrifice sustainability and scalability in the pursuit of  making as much money as possible as fast as possible.

If you truly want to turn your business into a legacy, then hustling isn't enough. At some point, you need to focus and turn down opportunities that aren't aligned to your end game. Otherwise all of the grinding and pivoting that got you to where you are today will hold you back from where you could be tomorrow.