the old way of working is dead.
Often it takes a crisis for us to wake up.
Unknown
This book is a happy accident. It was never intended for public consumption.
You see, at the same time my publishers were gently nudging me and asking, “What is book number two going to be about?,” the team at Business Chicks tasked me with a couple of jobs. The first job was to sharpen up our values and vision, and the second was to reshape our company playbook: a resource our team members—old or new—could pick up at any time to get more from their work and understand “the way things are done around here.”
You might think it’s strange that a founder is given these projects. Don’t we have marketing teams and writers and public relations execs and communications experts who can do this for us? We do. We have plenty of them. And they’re really smart, talented people too.
But for me, rewriting the company playbook was the most important job I could undertake at the time. Over the years, I’ve learned that a lot of companies make a mistake when they try to outsource this kind of work to someone else. They think the founder or CEO’s time should be reserved for strategy and finance, when in reality the biggest gains for a business can often be found in getting back to the original reason a business was started. That reason needs to be extracted from the founder’s head so that everyone understands what’s important to the founder, whose rules—written or unspoken—become ingrained in everything they do.
The two tasks that the team gave me quickly became a happy distraction. While avoiding emails from my publisher, I got into flow and could write about our way of working for hours on end without looking up or needing a glass of water. The renewed focus on vision and values became like a North Star—lighting the way and guiding us forward—and the company playbook . . . well, this became a treasure trove.
Revisiting the pages of our own playbook brought me back to why, as a young and hopeful entrepreneur, I’d started businesses in the first place. It re-engaged me to our purpose and got me excited again about our future together. It was a reminder of what I wanted for the business I’d built, but also what I wanted from and for the people who brought my vision to life every day.
You see, for a while there I really felt we’d lost our way. We were just getting too comfortable. Complacent even. We were doing things the way they had always been done, instead of interrogating the way we worked and questioning if it was really serving us. There were too many meetings creeping into everyone’s calendars, and I was listening to my team complaining that they didn’t have time to do their actual work. Sick days started to rise, and we had one or two resignations. All of these signs were clues that something was amiss. Something had to change.
And then, bam, Covid-19 came along and slapped us right across the face, delivering the message that we couldn’t ignore these issues anymore. We couldn’t afford for our people to be passive anymore. Now, more than ever, we’d have to open up our playbook and get back to what it was that made us great in the first place. We’d have to throw ourselves into the task of saving our company by making decisions we’d been putting off, and I knew the way to do this was for us to show inspirational leadership and be values-led.
The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way we work forever. We packed up our desks at the office, set ourselves up at home and had to become ring-light aficionados so we’d be well lit for our Zoom calls. We scrambled for toilet paper rolls on supermarket shelves while sporting bad hair regrowth (well, that’s how my 2020 went anyway), and in doing so, the virus shook us out of our collective comfort zone. And while the tremendous suffering and hardship will never be forgotten in our generation, the virus also created an opportunity to study how we can live and work better.
Suddenly, companies that had forever said that “work-from-home doesn’t work” were proven wrong. People stopped commuting, thereby gaining hours back in their day. Parents stopped having to sneak out of the office to go pick up the kids, and less important projects were put on hold.
Yes, I saw the challenges in all of this, but I saw the opportunities even more clearly. The future of work had arrived, and this was our chance to shake things up and say goodbye to an archaic system that had only really gotten us so far and left us burned out and stressed. Here was our chance to take the best parts of office life and discard the parts that had stood in the way of us truly being effective for so long: things like unrealistic working hours, unproductive meetings and all those other outdated systems of bureaucracy.
As the world changed, the way my team worked changed too. We went back to being scrappy and cutting a few corners. We became more intentional with every piece of work we did because time mattered and where we focused mattered. We forgot about roles and titles and processes. We challenged each other. Tough decisions that once would have taken weeks or months were made in minutes. We tried things just because they felt right. And you know what? We were all happier and more fulfilled for it—and not just because we didn’t have to commute to an office anymore.
During the months of saving my business, The New Hustle was born. What started as a guide for my team gradually morphed into what I hope will be your professional bible for navigating this new world in which we find ourselves. It’s a book of stories and strategies learned from my own years in the business trenches, with a side of advice from the entrepreneurs and leaders I’ve been lucky to spend time with over those years.
What I’ve learned over the years of building my companies has given me a lot to share about culture (again, “the way things are done around here”) and how to get the best from your people: which, through studying and talking with our tens of thousands of Business Chicks members each year, we know is still the number one business challenge for most companies. It’s the thing they bemoan across the globe each and every day. How do you find and keep amazing people? How do you get your people to be doing work that engages them each day, and how do you create an environment where people want to work? How do you get them to a point where they appreciate all you do and are grateful for having a seat on the bus? And if you’re one of those people occupying a seat on that bus, how do you put forward the best version of yourself? How do your actions contribute to the business so it thrives as a supportive place for everyone? What can you do to make tackling work a pleasure and not a chore?
In his book Start with Why, Simon Sinek said: “over 80 percent of Americans do not have their dream job. If more knew how to build organizations that inspire, we could live in a world in which that statistic was the reverse—and over 80 percent of people loved their jobs. People who love going to work are more productive and more creative. They go home happier and have happier families. They treat their colleagues and clients and customers better. Inspired employees make for stronger companies and stronger economies.”
It seems to me an important web to weave. When we work out how to build companies that engage their humans positively, then that impact has a flow-on effect to almost everyone else too—their colleagues, loved ones, customers, communities, and so the list grows.
It’s my hope that The New Hustle becomes your handbook for how to do all this, and more. Whether you’re a business owner, a team leader, or a team player, it’s my aim that The New Hustle becomes a guide to transform the way you work and that it brings you more fulfillment and fun in your life. And as with any good game, I hope it challenges you into playing all-out, getting as absorbed and inspired as I did, and that you ultimately emerge a happier human from it.
It’d be easy to reduce The New Hustle into four words—work smarter, not harder—or classify it as a guide for working in a post-pandemic world, but that’d be over-simplifying it. This book is so much more than that. The New Hustle is the start of a movement for us all. It’s reimagining everything you know about what it means to work well so that at the end of every day, you can look back, smile and say, “Yep, that mattered.”
I truly believe a revolution has begun. This is our chance to see that there is an easier way to do things. There are shortcuts to be made. There is time to be saved. There is more fun and fulfillment to be had. The way we used to work is dead, and it’s been replaced with a new way of working that can reinvigorate us all if we let it.
What this book expects of you and what you can expect from this book
Mostly, expectations are entirely shitty things. They can leave you bereft and disappointed. But every now and then, life demands you to lift your game a little, get out of your own way, do something you’ve never done before and be grateful that you were called to do it.
I wrote this book to provoke something in you. When you’re done with it, it should be dog-eared, highlighted, written on, underlined. There should be coffee stains on some of the pages. Your bookmark might be an airline ticket because you’ve bought this on the way to somewhere. My hunch is that you’re a person always going places, which is how this book found itself into your hands in the first place—perhaps someone recommended it to you because they know you’re a seeker, always looking to improve and grow. Or perhaps it just spoke to you and you listened to that voice and bought it. Go you!
This book expects you’re going to be a little or a lot changed by the time you get to the last page. It also expects you not to be lazy: that you’re going to do some things along the way so that you can be a little or a lot changed by the end. I’ve made parts of this book super practical, so you’re going to find lots of useful info within these pages to pick up and start using straightaway. Please do that.
I expect parts of this book to be a little bit confronting. It should make you a little uncomfortable. If you’re reading this book and thinking, “That’s amazing, but it isn’t possible for me or the place I work,” I hope it encourages you to step up and make the changes you want to see, or look elsewhere and find the workplace or role that’s right for you. And by this, I mean that if you’re not happy in work or in life, it’s ultimately up to you to make a change. Remember you always have choices—you can leave a job if your employer is not supportive, or you can choose to stay and work out a plan for how you’re going to get what you need. You can also allow yourself to choose finding happiness outside of work, whether that means moving, leaving a relationship, picking up that hobby you love again or just not putting so much pressure on yourself to always get things right.
If I know one thing, I know this: action is everything. Getting into action is a sure-fire way to combat most anything: being broke, being lonely, feeling funky, having your career stall, not knowing which way to turn, seeing your business plateau and so on and so on. I expect you to get into action while you’re reading this book, and I expect you to be just that little bit further ahead by the time you’re done.
What exactly is the new hustle?
Everywhere we turn, we’re told to hustle.
Hustle until you don’t have to introduce yourself. Hustle until your haters ask if you’re hiring. Hustle beats talent when talent doesn’t hustle. Hustle until you’ve built the muscle, blah blah blah. The signs on the walls of co-working spaces tell us: “Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you’re done.” Our coffee mugs remind us to rise and grind, and Instagram tells us that good things come to those who just keep going.
And that they do! Great things come to those who work hard and apply themselves to their goals. These days, though, we’re glorifying the wrong hustle and expecting humans to work as hard as we expect our laptops and phones to work. We’re high-fiving the workers who are only living for work, and that’s not cool. Being stretched, burned out and racked with stress is not a condition any human can sustain for long. There should be no gold medal for working yourself into the ground.
The problem with the traditional sense of “hustling” is that it measures input and not necessarily output. Hustling enthusiasts would have you believe in excessively long hours and limited play time, whereas I’m more interested in what you’ve achieved, not how much sleep you didn’t get.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve hustled hard at many points in my life. Long nights. Early mornings. Twenty years of building and running businesses when you know no better will do that. I’ve been guilty of working myself into the ground, my depleted adrenals begging me to slow down on many occasions.
These days though, with six young kids, I’m simply too tired to hustle in that traditional sense. Sure, sometimes a few long nights and early mornings are still required, but for the most part, I’ve gotten really good at doing the right stuff quickly so that I can be present for the times that matter more than my inbox.
The life choices I’ve made mean I don’t have the time available to me to rehearse things over and over. No matter what the project, I always try to make my work mindful and focused, rewriting my own rules about what it takes to be effective.
For me, that means less natter in the office kitchen, no long lunch breaks and turning down as many coffee catch-ups as I can get away with. I don’t have the luxury to write and rewrite emails as I’d like to, or sit in a two-hour meeting and debate an issue that doesn’t need to be given that amount of airtime. It also means working hard for short periods of time and having something to look forward to at the end of that period of intense work.
This kind of hustle has nothing to do with hours worked. It’s about being intentional with the work you do and the way you do it. It’s making soulful choices at every turn, and always gently asking the questions that make the difference—Is this filling me up? Am I growing now? Am I good at this? And the kicker—am I making life better for others?
The New Hustle is about cutting corners. It’s about being spontaneous. It’s about bringing more fun into your work and more life into your life. It’s about being effective in everything you do, and not striving for what others want because you’ve become detached from what it is you really want. It’s not spending a second longer on a task that won’t really change the ultimate outcome. It’s knowing when to step into hard work (and there will be times) and knowing when you can pull back and rest well.
The New Hustle is about being values-led in what you do and not being coerced or influenced away from those values. It’s trusting your instincts. It means being your true self and not watering yourself down just because that’s more comfortable for everyone else. It’s an effort that produces the results you want and pays the dividends you deserve.
This is the kind of hustle I’m interested in, and this is the kind of hustle I want for you. And while of course we don’t all have the luxury or privilege to dictate our own hours or choose exactly how we work, there are some strategies we can all learn to make life better.
Let’s jump right in!
RULE #1: IS IT WORKING OR NOT WORKING?
If whatever you’re doing isn’t working, don’t do it harder.
Martha Beck
My friend Belinda Fitzpatrick ran a super successful events business for more than seven years. She hustled in the traditional sense to get it going; her goal was always to build a business that would allow the control, creativity and flexibility she didn’t think she could get from a traditional workplace. And it worked—Belinda became known in her hometown as the go-to for weddings and corporate events, and she had a long list of clients that would make anyone sit up and pay attention.
“I knew that building my business to that point was going to take a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears, but I was up for it. I was hands-on, knee-deep, and knew no other speed than a million miles per hour. I wore the frantic pace like a badge of honor.”
But after an extreme case of morning sickness left her hospitalized during her first pregnancy, followed by the premature birth of her son, Belinda was challenged to make some tough calls and change the hustle she’d become accustomed to. “My ability to simply get out of bed took a battering most days, let alone my ability to run a business, lead a team and meet obligations to clients across the country,” she said.
“I finally accepted that the picture of success that I had once painted for myself needed to change to suit my new circumstances . . . I understood that sharing my best self at work and at home was only going to be possible if I gave myself the space to truly be present in each setting—no more running at a million miles per hour and rushing through life.”
Belinda took a long, hard look at what she wanted from her life and her work, and decided to close the business and go back to working for someone else. And the best part? She found a role with one of her most-loved clients.
“The new scenario allowed me to continue the work which brought me so much pride and fulfillment while also providing increased value and improved results for the client,” she told me. “But perhaps most importantly for me, the new role allowed me to realize a new sense of happiness. I was now able to switch off once the working day was done and be truly present as the mom and wife I so desperately wanted to be.”
Isn’t that cool? It’s a story we don’t hear enough, really. There can be a lot of unnecessary shame that comes along with closing a business, and I often hear of people who consider themselves failures if it didn’t work out. It takes guts to admit you need to sidestep when something isn’t going the way you intended, and we need to let go of this shame and notch it up to experience, just like Belinda did.
There’s a great tool I use in business and my personal life all the time. When I’m stuck with something, feeling stressed, feeling tired or feeling confused, I stop and ask myself: “Be honest—is it working, or is it not working?”
This black-and-white question takes all the emotion out of the situation and gets you into problem-solving mode. When you’ve got to “Nope, it’s not working for me,” you’ll soon find yourself asking, “Okay, great, what needs to be done about it?”
Think about any areas in your life right now that may be causing you some pain or angst. Your relationship? Your performance at work? Your health and fitness? The stress of your business? Stop for a second and ask yourself honestly: “Is it working, or is it not working?”
If your answer is “No, it’s not working,” then make like Belinda, and do something about it.