Work vs. Hustle vs. Grit
Hustle
It’s attractive to say the word “hustle.” You’re put in the same circles as people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Sean & Benji, Andy Frisella, and other miscellaneous people online. Originally, it meant to put your nose to the grindstone and get to work regardless of how tired you were. It meant to continue the struggle because you know in your gut it’s going to be worth it. However, not all hustle is created equal.
In recent times, “hustle” became as overused a word as “theory” or “literally,” and just as misunderstood.
Most people who use the word “hustle” and claim to be putting in the hrs are really just getting a taste of what it really takes. What I’ve come to know is that hustle is the cost of entry for entrepreneurship, and just because you have enough hustle to stay ahead of your “normal” friends doesn’t mean you’ll be able to survive the leaf-blower induced barbecue that is entrepreneurship. It’ll throw you to the ground and rip you a new one before you can finish the first syllable of whatever word you were about to say.
The word hustle has become glamorized and popularized to the point where it’s lost some of its initial meaning. It’s become a regular lyric in most D-Grade rap songs, a tattoo you get at the discount tattoo parlor, and license plates for people who just want to fit in to this current entrepreneur trend. That’s what this really is, a trend. A trend that has diluted the real meaning of hustle.
Note from the Author
From this point on, I’m going to refer to this popularized “SoundCloud rapper” hustle simply as hustle. That is not to diminish the importance of genuine hustle, but I’m fairly certain that this form of hustle isn’t as common as it’s made out to be.
Work
This is where the words work and grit come in to play. Work is hustle’s less attractive older brother. It may not insinuate images of fancy watches, fast cars, & getaway islands in The Bahamas. Heck, when I say work you probably think of that place with the demanding boss and idiot coworkers that are content living in the 9–5 lifestyle of get up, work, go home, party, repeat. It’s like the joke on how the computer programmer died in the shower.
However, work still holds its ground as the purest gauge of your progress. You can’t expect to get anywhere if you don’t put the work in. The cliché “the barrier between who you are & who you want to be is the amount of work you put into yourself” absolutely holds. If you want to get better, you have to put the work in to getting better. It may not be sexy, but it’s as necessary to growth as eating & breathing are to living.
Note from the Author
I can gaurantee that I haven’t blown anyone’s mind with this article so far. Just bear with me for the rest of this article.
Grit
Finally, there’s Grit. The compromise between hustle’s popularity & work’s anti-glamorus stance. There’s a reason why the word “hustle” conjures up images of NYC or Silicon Valley but the word grit makes you think of the Southwest.
By far one of the hardest professions you can ever get in to is the Agricultural Industry. I don’t care what anyone in Astrophysics or even Neuroscience has to say, if you can’t physically create the food you put on your table, you can’t survive. Fortunes were made & lost over the rights to arable land, and it took grit to make the land produce its bounty.
An aspect of grit that’s often overlooked is that, while it sounds attractive to say it, people with grit are quite possibly the most humble people on this planet. They keep to themselves, working on their skills, honing their knowledge, and aren’t afraid to roll up their sleves and manually remove a tree stump with their bare hands if they have to.
While hustle likes to brag about having a full house, grit keeps the poker face and knows that no one else deserves to see what cards you’re holding. Whether it’s a Royal Flush, or the worst hand on earth.
Conclusion
Of course each of these words have their place in the list of words an entrepreneur says on a daily basis, along with cursing Facebook to the eWaste bin. However, each word has it’s place. Hustle is the cost of entry, grit is what takes you through to the end, and none of it would be possible without the countless hours of work one puts into themselves or their business.

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I want to give a huge thanks to Nick LaToof for helping me hash out these ideas and teaching me what it means to have some Southwest Grit. The dude might talk like he’s got a chip on his shoulder, but there’s no one who can give it to you as straight as this man.
Click this sentence to check out Nick’s interpretation of this article.
