In This Recession - Its Not Brains That Count - Its Hustle

Introduction

We are entering the worst recession in generations. One in five people in the united states could be out of work. People will lose businesses, homes, and vehicles. Families will be set back years on their financial goals. Young professionals (including land surveyors and land planners) will struggle. Many of those professionals (myself included) will have to seek work outside of the real estate and construction industry.

This drastic economic crises raises an important question: Which factor is more important for survival - brains or hustle?

I want to share a bit of my personal story. This story shows why hard work is critically important in hard times. Nothing beats hunger like hustle.

Nothing beats hunger like hustle.

I’m Never The Smartest Land Surveyor In The Room

I'm never the smartest land surveyor in the room. I've worked at several different civil engineering and land surveying companies. My peers have always shown superior skill to me in their chosen speciality.

• Dylan Crawford and Paul Kittredge are better at building 1,000 lot subdivisions.
• Kris Nehmer is better at establishing geodetic control networks over large swaths of California and Nevada.
• Brett Setness and Bill Koch are better at creating land nets for miles of freeway, pipeline, and railroads.
• Adrian Trespando is better at surveying natural gas pipelines.
• Kevin Genasci is better at small scale land development.
• Will Paul and Kevin Stein are better at building skyscrapers.
• Brent Boitano is the world's best corner hound.
• Brian Leiser creates billion point lidar clouds from UAV platforms that look like Apache helicopters.
• Jesse Guiterez is an Autocad master.
• Paul Mabry is a land surveyor and a land attorney.
• Dave Wooley and Jay Seymour have a crazy good knack for business.

Each of these people I worked with were smarter than me in one way or another. Realizing that has humbled me a great deal. My checkered career path has made me a generalist, and not a specialist. In almost every conversation about land surveying, I've had men or women that I needed to learn from, not teach.

Does Inferior Intelligence In Specialized Areas Of Surveying Make Me A Failure?

I'm not a surveying specialist. There is always a smarter land surveyor in the room. Does that make me a failure? Does it always make the smarter land surveyor more successful? No. It doesn't. I'm inferior to others in specialized areas of land surveying, but I'm proud of the modest things I've achieved as a land surveyor. Before I share those modest achievements with you, and the lesson they hold, let me tell you about a gift I received from my parents.

The Gift From My Parents

I grew up in a relatively poor working class family. My dad was a heavy equipment operator. My mom was a seamstress. We always had our basic material needs met, but we didn’t enjoy luxuries. On rare vacations we were usually sleeping in a tent. I only flew in airplanes once or twice. My family always rented, and my parents didn’t buy their first home until I was 14.

Both of my parents were hard workers. My dad worked full-time and always had a side hustle. On evenings and weekends we cleaned state parks, performed janitorial work at offices, pressure washed parking lots of businesses, sold tools at flea markets, chopped and sold firewood by the pick-up load, and a number of other things I won’t list here. My dad ALWAYS had a side hustle. We were never given money without earning it. (My dad would spend more money on gasoline driving us around to collect cans and bottles on the side of the road than we made turning in the bottles and cans.) As a young teenager I was physically undersized, but I could work like a mule. The greatest gift my parents gave me (besides a love for God) was the gift of hustle.

My dad worked full-time and always had a side hustle. On evenings and weekends we cleaned state parks, performed janitorial work at offices, pressure washed parking lots of businesses, sold tools at flea markets, chopped and sold firewood by the pick-up load, and a number of other things I won’t list here.

I Started From Behind – But Caught Up With Hard Work

I never finished the eighth grade, and never went to high school. When I was 14 years old I took my first job washing dishes at a restaurant in West Glacier, just outside the entrance to Glacier National Park. I rode a 4-wheeler over gravel roads 20 miles one-way to my job. At 16 I took my GED exam and got job at Safeway in Whitefish Montana. I worked their full-time for the next 6 years. I started as a bag boy and left as a night-shift manager. Shortly after my seventeenth birthday I moved out of my parent’s house. The first night I slept in my car and tried not to freeze to death. Many times, the only thing I had to eat for the whole day was a 99 cent loaf of bread. At 19 I signed up for classes at the local community college. I was so far behind in my math the professor of the land surveying degree program made me take an entire year of extra math classes before he would let me take my first surveying class. During the three years I was in college I worked full time at Safeway and also held a part-time job in the facilities maintenance department of the Big Mountain Ski Resort. During summers and holiday breaks I worked 80 hours a week.

When I graduated college I took my first land surveying job in Stockton, California. I started as a rodman on a 2 man survey field crew. Thanks to hard work and great mentoring, I was licensed in two states and was a certified federal surveyor 10 years later. During that time I taught myself to write software in Java, Python and C#. I implemented the companies first GIS projects. Before I left that first land surveying job I was teaching other surveyors across the Western United States and was helping one of our civil engineers run the largest construction surveying project the company had ever undertaken. I also executed the companies largest ever land subdivision project and San Joaquin County’s biggest large-lot subdivision. After that first surveying job I went on to help build mapping departments at 3 other companies in Central California.

What was the key to these modest achievements? Was it my superb college education? Was it my vast knowledge of land surveying? Was it my superior skill as a surveying specialist? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. It was the gift from my parents. It was my hustle. In all of those jobs, I was almost always the hardest worker in the room. I worked harder than most of my coworkers (Jason Tokheim, Brian Leiser and Dani Cano being the exceptions.) I worked harder than most of my supervisors. I worked harder than the owners of the companies that employed me. I got up early. I studied every day.

What was the key to these modest achievements? Was it my superb college education? Was it my vast knowledge of land surveying? Was it my superior skill as a surveying specialist? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. It was the gift from my parents. It was my hustle.

It Is Still The Hustle That Counts

I now own a small land surveying and land planning business. Does that make me the smartest person in the room? Nope. Now I’m in the room with land attorneys, land title professionals, real property appraisers, land developers, lenders, and real estate investors. They all possess greater skill in there areas of specialty than I do. I’m still not the smartest person in the room. That hasn’t changed.

What am I doing to make sure that my small business is a modest success? I’m working hard. I’m working like a mule. I’m working like my parents trained me to do. I’m getting up before 5 o’clock. I’m working until dinner. Then I’m working after dinner. I’m learning everything I can about business, economics, and the real estate industry. I’m working on Saturday afternoons and on Sunday evenings. If you are fighting to survive in a major economic depression, and you’re not the smartest guy or gal in the room, that is what you have to do. You have to bring your hustle.

Now I’m in the room with land attorneys, land title professionals, real property appraisers, land developers, lenders, and real estate investors. They all possess greater skill in there areas of specialty than I do.I’m still not the smartest person in the room.

The Lessons

This recession is going to be different from the Great Recession. A lot more people are going to be out of work. A lot of smart people are going to be out of work. What are the lessons for young land surveyors and related professionals?

This recession is going to be different from the Great Recession. A lot more people are going to be out of work. A lot of smart people are going to be out of work.

Don’t be lazy just because you think you’re smart. Bring your hustle. Work like a mule. Study hard. Get up early. That is what you need to do right now to survive and thrive.

It is hard to beat a person that never gives up. It is hard to beat a person that is always hustling. Hard work is a rare character trait. It will set you apart from your peers, and if you are starting from behind, it will help you catch up.

Don’t be lazy just because you think you’re smart. Bring your hustle. Work like a mule. Study hard. Get up early.

I’ve been in a position for several years to choose members of my team. I hire and I fire. If given the choice between hiring a person with exceptional intelligence but a poor work ethic, or a person with inferior skill but superior hustle, I’d choose the person with hustle every time. Every. Single. Time.

I’d choose the person with hustle every time. Every. Single. Time.

You might be struggling because you are poor. You might be struggling because you don’t have a fancy college education. You might be struggling because you aren’t always the smartest person in the room. I understand your struggle, but I want you to remember: Its not the brains that really count – it’s the hustle.