If your total score was higher than 235, then congratulations!!! Money and opportunities are surely aligning themselves to your path. You are a force to be reckoned with. The sections on Tailoring your Presentation and Identifying Opportunities may of most value to you.
You have taken the first step to mastering The Academic Hustle! Continue to use this assessment as a guide to measure how well you are taking advantage of this system.
The Foundation of The Academic Hustle
If you know exactly what you want and are determined to achieve it, all you have to do is put in the work.
Set The Foundation: Identify What and Why
Anything you wanna be you can be it
If your mind can perceive it
And your heart really believe it
Then you half way there and all you got to do is do it
And if you give it all you got there ain’t really
Nothin to it
—Dead Prez, “The Game of Life”
This chapter’s objectives are designed to:
🖊Help you figure out what you want out of life.
🖊Identify your motivation to do it.
🖊Create a plan for your career.
🖊Provide you with the tools to understand where you are.
🖊Define the steps to get you where you want to be.
Although life can be challenging, we are blessed to operate beyond the world of common animals that react based on mere circumstance. We must secure our basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter; however, we can also craft a life that will fulfill our needs, wants, desires, while realizing our dreams. Unfortunately, society is organized in a way that diminishes our unique and powerful individuality. We are socially and culturally brainwashed into being mindless consumers focused on clothes, likes on social media, money, and the latest goofy attitude or saying for the sake of popularity. The idea of looking into and understanding ourselves is considered “deep.” We have such an unconscious fear of looking inside ourselves to uncover what truly inspires us because of what others may think. Living with this fear causes us to dismiss those who are on the journey into greatness. We become lazy spectators of life and view the work needed to realize our dreams as too draining because, honestly, we really don’t feel we are worth it. “Oh well,” we say. We choose what we thing are more important things to do and experience.
People on the path of discovery are on the move, even if they seem to be completely still and meditating; after all, they are inwardly moving toward something. Such movement draws excitement, just as inaction would attract the unambitious. When you understand what inspires you and why, you just do it. This shows others what you’re about in your speech (“closed mouths don’t get fed”) and in your actions (“lazy hands don’t count bread”). Such activity builds reputation. It attracts those with similar interests, those who link up with you to upgrade their own dreams. This attraction pushes the dead weight out of your life and can unlock your potential to attract money and other resources beyond your wildest imaginations.
Understanding what you want out of life and why you want it will give you a certain amount of focus in life that very few people have.
Find the Motivation: Personal Mission Statement
A man with money is no match against a man on a mission.
—Doyle Brunson
Your purpose must be established before you can be about the money. If you have lots of money but no true aim in life, then you have resources without direction. You attract nothing but a lazy entourage willing to kiss up to you to get at your money. That’s a sad situation. A man such as Barack Obama, with little money and a mission, can inspire those with money, influence, and connections to make all kinds of things happen.
We all go through life with a need to do something fulfilling, something that can change the world, our community, our families, or ourselves. Some of us want to create new things or improve on what is already out there. Others want to make money, gain recognition, or just excel. Whatever it is, we want to be fulfilled by what we do. We want to be proud of our actions and creations, and we also want to make our friends and family proud. One of the most rewarding things you can do in life is find and pursue what fulfills you. It will give you the motivation to do whatever it takes to be the best at what you want to do.
As I said earlier, having long-term goals and a vision for my life were not considered cool when I was a teenager. It was only cool to mumble about life with friends. Having pride in my hood and the streets was a way of placing a romanticized veil over the misery, poverty, and neglect of my community. Making money illegally was a buck against the system, which built up our street cred. Being a Black male from a low-income community in South Florida kept me from seeing my future past high school. For many of us, our options for making money, being celebrated, and being successful are limited to three worn-out choices: becoming an athlete, an entertainer, or a hustler. My childhood dream was to become a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. That dream came to an end when I seriously injured my knee in an epic touchdown play during my last year of Optimist (youth athletic league) football. My dreams of breaking into the big leagues (high school football at the time) were crushed. I then had dreams of becoming a rapper. But…that was in my sleep. I thought I had a speech problem as a child and knew I couldn’t be big time. Therefore, I turned to the only other option I thought I had.
I didn’t go into much detail about it earlier, but since you’re this deep into it with me, I might as well – I smoked blunts and sold ganja. My teenage mind was focused on having money, being “The Man” among my friends, and impressing girls. I was pretty good at it, too. Between 14 and 16 years old, I was making more money than most kids my age. I was The Man. I was having fun. I had money, women, and plenty of ganja. Life was good, from what I could see. Then, as you may remember, I got caught up…
Yep, that was two days after my 16th birthday when I found myself in a courtroom hearing the felony charges against me. I was sentenced to living the rest of my childhood on probation with a 9:00 p.m. curfew. No more family gatherings, hanging out with friends, or going out at night to a movie.
My curfew also meant I could not go out without “prior approval.” I was stuck at home a lot, and I became bored. A person can only play so many video games or watch TV (we had the extremely slow dial-up version of the internet, so that was not an option). My mother saw me and handed me the book that changed my life!
It was crazy…years later when conducting my national award-winning research, I asked Black men at the top of their career, “What was the most powerful book you’ve ever read?” The book that ranked right above the Bible was the same book my mother handed me: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. EVERY teenager should read that book, especially 16-year-old Black boys. It tells the story of a young man who hustled on the streets of Harlem, got locked up, and transformed into the most powerful Black leader of the 20th century. One of the most pivotal things he did to change himself was read. So, just like Malcolm X did when he was locked up, I started reading…and my life transformed…
I began to hang out in the library. I gobbled up books for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I had books for snacks, too. It was crazy how much I was reading. I was not a book person. I thought I hated reading. I barely touched the books assigned in school and would fall asleep when I had to read. However, I found subjects that caught my attention, like the self-help genre. I was hooked! I could not stop feeding my desire to learn how to transform myself. I would put a book down after finishing it and feel my skin tingling. I was outgrowing a dislike for books. My mind would buzz with a wider range of thoughts and I felt myself changing.
I probably read almost every self-help book in the Broward County Public Library. The people at checkout desks called out to me when I came in like they were