Career Hustler 7: How Robbie Abed Hustled to 250 Coffee Meetings in a Year
This is the seventh interview in our ‘Zealify Career Hustlers’ series. To learn more about the series and why we are sharing these interviews, have a read of the series launch post.
Our seventh interview is with Robbie Abed. We actually first found out about Robbie’s hustle in a post from James Altucher, The 250 Coffees A Year Technique And The Get Your Dream Job Technique. For someone like James Altucher to write a post about you, you have to be pretty special and make quite an impact, so we’re delighted to have Robbie as an official career hustler. After reading about his Robbie’s story, I had a feeling it might take some hustle myself to get him on board, and I was right. However, after my 5th(!) email, he finally agreed! (Thanks Robbie!)
Here’s Robbie’s own post on how he got to meet James, and here’s a more general one talking about his hustle.
In this interview we talk about how Robbie hustled his way to become a successful author and LinkedIn coach, advice he was given by James Altucher and a game changer in how to look at success.
Hi Robbie. Let’s start with a bit of background about yourself?
I’m a former over-worked tech consultant turned content marketing and career advancement expert.
I’m also the author of the book Fire Me I Beg You and this video on LinkedIn does a great job of explaining who I am in just about a minute :)
Can you give us a brief outline of what you did to hustle in your career?
My resignation letter was sent to over 20,000 people by the CEO of a major consulting company because of how good it was.
I took 250 coffee meetings in 400 days to build my network.
I wrote 200 articles in one year after I quit my job.
I have personally broke down many barriers and ceilings that weren’t allowing me to advance my career.
Were there any unexpected outcomes from your hustle?
I wouldn’t say that they were “unexpected”, but basically I started to notice how far I was advancing with my skills while many of my peers were standing still with their knowledge.
So many doors have been opened and I get presented with opportunities all the time from various sources.
Why do you think it’s important to hustle your way to a job?
I agree hustle is the way to go, but not the only way to go. There are several techniques and systems you can use to consistently be exposed to more opportunities and better jobs.
The jobs aren’t going to come to you if you don’t hustle obviously. But working 60–70 hours a week at your current job is not “hustling”. It just means you don’t value your time and don’t know how to get out of working so much.
Have you started any other projects or initiatives that might help your career in the future?
Yes, I’m relaunching my “Summer of Quitting” series which gives you the exact steps to quit your job in 7 weeks. I’m pretty excited.
Do you have a plan or a strategy for future career growth?
Yes. That’s always to be pushing the limits and creating new content and new ideas. Most of the stuff I create fails, but will ALWAYS create new opportunities.
Creating things from scratch allows others to see you in a different light and gives them different ideas on how they can work with you.
How important do you think your personal brand is to you / your career?
Extremely important. It’s the only thing we have! It’s probably the last thing left to advance your career.
What is the one best tool you would recommend to a job seeker?
LinkedIn hands down. It’s the only tool I use.
What are the steps you would recommend to someone currently looking for a job?
Besides joining my ‘Fire Me I Beg You’ email list? :)
Always start from the top, never the bottom up. Start with who you know. Then go to who knows who you want to know. The best is to target people you’ve worked with in the past and who have moved on to other companies.
Do you have any daily or weekly routines that help keep you productive / focussed?
I started taking cold showers in the morning on Tony Robbins advice in an article I saw online. That has actually helped quite a bit!
Who inspires you most and why?
James Altucher probably has had the biggest influence on me since I started “hustling”. He taught me how to bleed on the page when writing and that piece of advice has single handedly changed how I write.
I don’t write content that’s in the middle. I usually go for the jugular and always write about personal experiences. He taught me that it’s OK to do that and you shouldn’t be afraid of writing about yourself.
What would be your biggest piece of advice to someone starting off in their career journey?
Use LinkedIn every single day. Don’t just browse aimlessly. Use their publishing platform to create new content and show how smart you really are. This will easily get your brand out there and connect with other interesting people.
What does a successful career look like to you?
Doing your job on your own terms. That’s it.
So many people are out there doing jobs they hate. What I realized is that I can do a job I hate as long as I do it on my own terms. It’s a complete game changer.
It makes everything so much better.
Robbie can be found at firemeibegyou.com. You can also email him at robbie@firemeibegyou.com.
<< Previous Career Hustler | Next Hustler >>
