Hustle. Harder.

“An entrepreneur works 18 hours a day to keep from getting a (real) job.” John Hope Bryant. Hustle. Harder.

Sometimes we can complicate life and success. Let me see if I can help some of the brilliant people seemingly stuck in first gear for way too long. Or the countless smart, accomplished, educated people, possibly stalled in third gear for decades. What if we made success and achievement, simpler to understand? Easier to access. Here is level one.

I was not born into a connected wealthy family, so I decided that I had to hustle more. Much. More. More than anyone else around me. Just to get to the same starting line. This may seem obvious to many, but it is not. Most people believe that education, or a skill, or an expertise is enough. It is not — unless your close relative (who actually likes you) is running the company where your ambition lives. So unless you have a hook up, being the smartest person in the room is seldom enough.

I was not born on first base in life, like most people, and that was fine with me. I decided that I would not get angry or frustrated about it. I would not have a chip on my shoulder about it. It was ‘an is,’as I like to say. And anyway, when you hustle harder than anyone else around you, it makes you smarter, wiser, better. All good.

This became my business plan for life. When you were sleeping, I would be working. When you were out playing around or taking an authorized break, I would be reading, studying, strategizing my next move. Hustle. Harder.

I once asked my mentor Quincy Jones what was his secret to success and life. And he told me this, ‘John, it’s simple. I’m just nosy as hell. I want to know everything, about everything.’ And there you have it. Hustle. Harder.

I did not have the opportunity of attending a Harvard or Yale as an undergraduate or graduate student (my choice by the way, respectfully stated), building what I refer to in my bestselling book The Memo as topline relationship capital (and thus joining one of the many informal ‘power clubs’ in life, where most all business happens). And so, I had to hustle more. I have to hustle. Harder.

I was born a person of color, from an underserved neighborhood, and no one in family had been where I decided I was headed. So I also decided that I would just have to hustle more. Harder.

So when opportunity was no where to be found in my native Compton, California and South Central Los Angeles, I boarded public transportation as an aspiring young man, and took a bus for more than an hour each day to an underwealming job as a bus boy — at the nicest restaurant on the beach in Pacific Palasades, California.

Later, when I got my first car, I got a job as a waiter on the worst shift they had — deep in Malibu, California — at the nicest restaurant on the beach at that time, Geoffrey’s Restaurant. What I was attempting to do in each instance, was to build my OWN Rolodex of Relationship Capital. And I did. Hustle. Harder.

After some time working at Geoffrey’s, hustling morning shifts as a bus boy and unwanted evening shifts as a waiter (I was arguably their worst waiter, by the way, but that didn’t bother me one bit), I ultimately met the owner of Geoffrey’s Restaurant; industrialist and multi-millionaire Harvey Baskin. Hustle. Harder.

Harvey had an eye for talent, as most builders and successful leaders do, and he looked past the fact that I didn’t totally ‘fit in,’ and saw my hustle and my ambition instead (and the fact that I made sure he saw me as a constant presence whenever he was around) — and took me under his wing. Hustle. Harder.

I started with the worse job he had, but that was fine with me too. One day I invited Harvey Baskin out to dinner, as I wanted to learn from him. I wanted a different kind of relationship with him, so I would have to work at it. It would not be handed to me on a silver platter. He accepted my fourth offer, and he then chose the best restaurant in Venice, California. I was making $20,000 a year back then, and the dinner bill was $150. Harvey looked at me to pay the bill. After all, I had invited him. I pushed back, asking, ‘Harvey, you are the millionaire here — why are you making me pay this bill? You know what I make. You PAY me after all.’ And then he said this, ‘young man, you have to decide what you want. You have to decide whether you want to pick my brain, or pick my pocket. One last longer.’ This one sentence changed my life, forever.

I closed my mouth, opened my wallet, and quietly paid the bill. That one life lesson was better than going to any major university. This was my university education. Get it where you can fit it. Double down. Find a way. Hustle. Harder.

I never asked Harvey Baskin another silly question. I wanted his respect, not his charity.

I just kept my ears and eyes open and focused on the prize — knowledge.

I stayed close to him, real close, learned as much as humanly possibly, and committed to hustle harder. Gold was right under my nose, but I was at times focused on the minors instead of the majors of life. There is a difference between rich and being wealthy. Rich means you have a little money. It’s temporary. Wealth means you have the right mindset. It’s a permanent software upgrade of how you flow. Hustle. Harder.

“I take no for vitamins.” Hustle. Harder.

‘No’ answers should not bother you. They don’t bother me at all. All a no means to me is not yet. Hustle. Harder. I send out 10 notes, around a bold new idea I have to leaders. 5 say sorry, not right now. 2-3 actually say nope. 1 doesn’t respond at all. But one — one says yes. Which one of these do you think is worthy of focusing on? The one yes, of course. I only NEEDED one yes. I would know would I would have done if two leaders had said yes to me. I might have had to say no — to one of them next (smile). Stop focusing on your limitations, or what someone (typically not successful themselves) or society says you cannot do. They don’t know you. You have a secret weapon. You are committed to hustle. Harder.

Success is not about bobbles, flashing dollar bills, and fancy cars and big houses, shopping and flossing. That’s foolishness, and it’s fleeting. As I said in The Memo, “if you have spiritual wealth, you will never, ever be poor. But if you don’t have spiritual wealth — that thing deep inside of you that tells you that you are indeed somebody — then all the money in the world will not save you.” Or as I said at the founding of Operation HOPE in 1992, “there is a difference between being broke and being poor. Being broke is a temporary economic situation, but being poor is disabling frame of mind, and a depressed condition of one's spirit, and we must all vow to never, ever be poor again.” Hustle. Harder.

No billionaire or builder I know spends large chunks of their time flossing off. They are not at the dance club three nights a week until wee hours of the next morning — unless they are in the entertainment business, or they own the club. They are doing what I do. Hustling. Harder.

Here is a real definition of success for you:

”Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill. Hustle. Harder.

When you get up every morning, the Devil should look over his shoulder and say ‘...oh crap, they’re UP!’ Hustle. Harder. It works.

John Hope Bryant. Entrepreneur. Founder. Chairman and CEO. Operation HOPE, Bryant Group Ventures and The Promise Homes Company. Author of bestsellers The Memo: Five Rules for Your Economic Liberation, How The Poor Can Save Capitalism, Love Leadership: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World. Get The Memo here.