MBA1858 Must Read: Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson

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Hey, welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show helping you build a better business every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is a must read episode on our must read Episodes. I share with you a book that I've read that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you some of its takeaways, its insights and why you should read it too. Today's must read is Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by Curtis 50 Cent Jackson. Yep, 50 Cent the wrapper. I too was surprised that 50 wrote a book and I actually just stumbled upon this book looking for a new book to read on Amazon and I noticed that this book has nearly 20,000. That's tremendous for any book. I read some of the reviews and thought I gotta give this book a listen. Looks like it's a gem and it did not disappoint. In a lot of ways this is a really good business book. A book that could help you even as a professional moving up in your career. 50 Cent shares the lessons he learned along the way becoming a successful musician, actor, TV producer, investor and overall business mogul. I can't wait to share with you some of my favorite takeaways from this book and share with you why you should read it too. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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Today's Must Read Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by Curtis 50 Cent Jackson is one of the surprise books of the year for me. I always knew that 50 Cent was very successful as a musician, but also as a businessperson. It is known that much of his net worth, over hundreds of millions of dollars worth, was made from one investment deal that he made investing in vitamin Water. But this book goes beyond the business deals, the negotiations he went through. He does share a lot of that in the book, but it actually goes into the mindset that he's built over the years. Some of the things that he learned growing up through the music industry, through the TV production industry, and just some of the demons also that he had to battle to become better at what he does. One of my favorite things about this book is that early on in the book, 50 points out that most people don't read. He recognizes that most people find it difficult to read, so that when he decided to write a book, he wanted to write a book that anybody could read, that was in plain English, that spoke to people directly, that shared, you know, interesting stories, anecdotes, and yet was very practical. And the book reads exactly like that. It's probably one of the easiest reads you could find in the business genre, and if you like the sound of 50's voice, then you can grab the book on Audible. Because he narrates the book himself, the first chapter of this book is worth the book itself. Even if you just listen or read the first chapter, it would be worth the purchase. The chapter is titled Finding Fearlessness and it's about how you need to face your fears, that anybody that achieves anything in life of any significance had to conquer some fear or had to actually move forward despite their fear, had to do things that they did not want to do, that they were scared of, that they had doubts about this is a rite of passage. You have to do this if you want to succeed. And he really dissects this point in a really elegant way. He actually gives you some practical exercises or even some mental exercises you could do to face your fears, to move forward despite your doubts. I've learned in my life that most of the time, when I don't achieve something or I don't succeed to a level that I am really happy with, it's because I was holding myself back, because I was afraid to expose myself. I was not really pushing myself because of some internal fear. And every time I did things, despite being terrified, it ended up being a success. It ended up either being successful in the traditional sense, but also successful in terms of I learned a ton about myself and about business. The second chapter is all about hustle. It's called Heart of a Hustler. And he talks about his work ethic. And, boy, does this guy work hard. He is very, very passionate about what he does. And growing up in the inner city from Jamaica, Queens in New York, he really doesn't take anything for granted. He really feels that he can outwork anybody because none of this seems like work to him. This all seems very, very fun to him compared to the struggle he was enduring in his earlier days. That's not to say that he doesn't have new challenges, being famous and being rich and being sought after. But in this chapter, he describes basically his daily rout routine and some of the things that you could do every day to just be more productive. One of the things that he does, regardless of if he's busy, if he's tired, if he's traveling, if he's sick, if he's whatever. Every single day he exercises. And he says this is the key for him to have the energy that he needs to have to hustle harder. The third chapter is about constructing your crew or your circle of influence, the people around you. As Jim Rohn is famously known for saying, you are the average of the five people you surround yourself with. And in this chapter, he shares stories about how he cut off people from his circle of friends, how he has certain types of people in his crew to do certain things or help him in certain ways. But most of all, how to find people that will support your goals. It's hard to achieve goals. Life is hard as it is. Don't make it hard on yourself by having people around you that don't support you. And he defines what support means. Now, support doesn't mean they just say, way to go every single time. You achieve something or cheer you on from the sidelines, that's good and all, but really what you want is people that are doing what you are trying to do, where success is normal. One of the things I realize is that the more time I spend with people that have achieved the things I want to achieve, the easier those goals seem. It just seems like that's just the standard, that's what you have to do. And even if I come up a little bit short, I would be far more successful than if I, you know, weren't around these people. I wasn't exposed to what high level performers do. Another very powerful chapter in this book that I loved is called Evolve or Die. He talks about in the hip hop and rap industry, very few rappers can perform forever. Knowing this and seeing other examples in the culture of hip hop, he realized, I can't rap forever. I can't rap about the same things forever. I'm not the same person when I started rapping. I have to diversify my talents. I have to diversify what I invest my time and effort in brand in. Whether it's making deals and investments with Vitamin water or becoming the executive producer of Power, which is a huge TV series on stars or acting in films. You gotta become more than what you were at the beginning. He mentions other hip hop stars like Dr. Dre, who expanded his empire through Beats by Dr. Dre, or Snoop Dogg, who is really a social icon now. Like, he gets gigs just because people love him. I was just watching some clips of him and Kevin Hart doing these funny commentating on the Olympics. But people that dig their heels and say, no, I'm one thing and never evolve, they die, they get forgotten. And I really, really resonated with this because I realized that this is applicable to all walks of life, especially entrepreneurship. I'm always trying to evolve because I know that if I don't, I'm not growing and I will not continue to be relevant in the world of business. Not in terms of relevancy, people knowing who I am, but understanding what works and what doesn't and becoming a better entrepreneur. Yes, I'm a podcaster, but I'm not just a podcaster. Yes, I love a good blog, but I'm not just a blogger. That's why I got into courses and that's why I started a software company. That's why I started speaking on stages, so I can be a better speaker on stage. And I know the future requires me to keep growing, maybe be an investor, maybe be an advisor, all that kind of stuff. So evolve or die.

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I really loved this book because it was just a fun read. There are a lot of fantastic stories that 50 Cent shares. He's really genuine, he's really honest, and there's some really practical advice you can use you can actually apply immediately. One of those chapters that are really practical is the Power of Perception. It talks about that, hey, this is just the reality of the world. People are going to make a judgment. People are going to evaluate you and really make up their mind about you really quickly. The first few seconds they see you, meet you, hear you. And some people just don't want to admit that this is just human nature and this is just something that is in our DNA. So you can find it or you can use it to your advantage. Meaning, how do you show up to the world physically? How do you show up to the world in terms of how you speak and present yourself? How do you want to be perceived? You choose that. That's what the chapter is about. You have to choose how you want to be perceived in every situation and project that most of us are not conscious of, that most of us are not consciously thinking, hey, am I being perceived the right way? How do I want to be perceived? I want to be perceived like this. Okay, so what are the actions I got to do to be perceived this way? And he breaks that down in this chapter. He wraps up the book with a great, great chapter called the Entitlement Trap. There are a lot of gems in there because he talks about success can be a problem. Okay? It can be a psychological problem. It can be an ego trip. There's a lot of things that can come from success that are not positive. I'm going to leave it at that because I want you to dive into this book and get to the end and read that chapter. I highly recommend you pick up this hidden gem. It's not that hidden. It's got thousands of reviews, but it was hidden for me. Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by Curtis 50 Cent Jackson. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love what you hear, hit, subscribe so you never miss an episode. We love, love, love all our listeners. We want to make sure that you have all the business knowledge that you need to be successful. And by subscribing, you get the next episode automatically right in your feedback. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Anybody, anybody that's successful in any area can teach you something, and that's something I learned over the years. It doesn't matter if they're a incredible athlete in a sport that you don't care about or they're in a profession that you really are not interested in. Success leaves clues. You can learn a lot, and you can apply those learnings to your own life, to your own career, to your own business, to, if anything at all gives you perspective. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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