Day 28 Transcript

So, you’ve spent four weeks building a hustle that’s lean, focused, purposeful. You’ve defined your why, sharpened your what, and– one step at a time– one question at a time– prepared yourself to hustle. You’ve built a brand that screams you, claimed your digital real estate, and even started funneling the unwashed masses into believers. But now, we’re staring down Week 4 and life’s most interesting question plays out: what happens when your hustle actually works?

I know what I do and I don’t know if it’ll work for you. Growth isn’t my primary goal—the survival of purpose is. In my experience, most hustles don’t die from failure. They die from success. They scale into all the things you were trying to escape from your day job. They become bloated, unrecognizable versions of themselves, chasing revenue streams that dilute what you cared about most–- your mission. I’ve spent my entire life committed to empowering marginalized voices but I still need to keep reminding myself that I’m not here to chase features or clients or anything else just because it’s more lucrative. There is such a thing as failure in my hustles but it’s not about failure of effort—it's a failure of vigilance. Failure to catch and correct the inevitable drift from the values that I was trying to live.

So… growth without purpose-driven guardrails is self-sabotage. This week, we learned how to optimize funnels, leverage partnerships, scale operations… and hopefully we reflected on the idea that growth demands sacrifice. The question is never how to grow—it’s what you’re willing to lose to grow.

Alright, enough of the preachy preachy. Let’s talk scaling. Two traps:

1. The Efficiency Trap. Automation and systems are seductive. But when you apply algos to every customer interaction, you risk losing the human spark that made your hustle magnetic.

2. The Collaboration Trap. Partnerships (and eventually hires) should amplify your impact. But every person you bring into your hustle becomes a custodian of your mission. That’s a sacred thing so stay on top of it.

Let’s talk solutions to the traps. And try to avoid cliche advice like “sometimes, you need to slow down to speed up.”

Solution 1. Prune Your Offering. Edit your shit. Anyone who gives you advice to “edit, edit, edit” isn’t taking their own advice. Just “edit.” Period.

Solution 2. Invest in process. Efficiency and automation will serve your mission but they shouldn’t eclipse it. Automate everything behind the curtain but keep customer-facing interactions human. And just enjoy the human-to-human parts.

If you need a thought exercise because it’s Sunday and you ditched church, ask yourself: What am I willing to destroy?

Your legacy– your hustle’s legacy– might not be tied to what you create—but what you refuse to compromise. [Put up Fuck Zuck poster]

Ok. next week– is our bonus week 5– the final stretch and it ain’t for the faint of heart. We’re going to dissect the unspoken rules of business warfare and rebuild them in your favor. We’re going to engineer demand where none seems to exist; we’re going to fix the hole in your bucket; and we’re going to architect exit strategies that leave everyone else scrambling to keep up. The goal: Hustle Smarter.

That’s it for week 4. It should be over but someone keeps moving the finish line. It’s almost deliberate.

See you tomorrow!