Fear prevents us from achieving our goals.
As someone who prides themselves on “hustling”, I have been thinking about what the term truly means. The basic definition of hustling is getting shit done. Nothing should be in your way to get shit done. If its 10pm in NYC and you need to present your product to a potential partner in LA tomorrow morning, you will be on a 12am flight to LAX. If you want to meet someone, you will do everything in your power to get that meeting. I’ve noticed one obstacle that prevents people from doing this: Fear.
If fear is taken out of the equation, you are able to do anything. If you can live without fear, there is nothing stopping you. Getting rid of fear eliminates the embarrassment and anxiety you possess.
The simple question I ask myself when I am scared is what is the downside?
I would always get nervous when I wanted to get a meeting with someone. It was something I struggled with as I started college. I was scared what they might say. I had 0 experience and figured it was a waste of someones time to meet with me. They might think poorly of me and tell person X, who might tell person Y about my lack of knowledge. I knew I needed to stop this train of thought and the only way to do this was by engulfing myself in these situations.
I made a list and tried to meet all of those people. I did not get to meet a majority of the people but I it helped me conquer the doubt and fear.
The person may say no. In fact, they will most of the time. But it would be even worse if you sat there at your computer and did not send that tweet asking to chat. Instead of a 5% chance of a meeting, you have a 0% chance.
The opposite is true about what the receiver of your message will think. If you take a small amount of time to do research and offer something they would find valuable in return for a meeting, they will usually be impressed that you actually made an effort to reach out to them.
There may be more that goes into “hustling” but I believe 95% of people have the skills to hustle if they weren’t afraid. It is the same feeling as the kid who is afraid to raise his hand and talk in front of the class. I write this being completely honest that I was once that kid and its not impossible to change. All it takes is effort to rid yourself of the fear.
An exercise I have done that I found to be very helpful in achieving this is to send an email or tweet at least once a week to someone you would like to meet. My current success rate remains low but had I not sent any, I would never have been able to meet the people I look up to. Additionally, it will help you learn how to craft better emails and messages making sure they are concise and yet offering value to the receiver of the message, which is another incredibly important skill.
