Find what moves you, but don’t fall prey to a dumb hustle

One of my clients just taught me a great phrase, “dumb hustle.” We’ve all done this. We get very excited and busy working on a project that has almost no chance of success

I know the common wisdom is, “You can’t win if you don’t try.” But trying without weighing both the potential gains and the costs you will incur is a dumb hustle. The classic example is playing the lottery. Or an inexperienced baseball player who swings at every pitch.

Time is money — why do we waste it?

It’s amazing how much time business leaders spend on dumb hustles. I think there are two main reasons.

First, sometimes we fall in love with a “shiny new object.” It may be an attractive customer we desperately want to land, even though we have almost no chance of success and may not even be offering what the client needs. It may be a cool new tool we just discovered and we want to use it to solve every problem. It may be a great idea we thought up at 3 a.m. All these hustles seem really brilliant, but we haven’t done the analysis of what the effort will cost in time, money, and resources, balanced against the probability of success. It’s not much fun being a party pooper, but wasting time on dumb hustles is not a recipe for success.

The other reason business leaders engage in dumb hustles is that we’re panicking. Business is slow. A major customer just dumped us. The economy looks terrible. That’s when we often start swinging at everything.

Not every hustle is a dumb hustle

I know what a frightening landscape looks like. When I started Gail Golden Consulting in 2009, the economy was grim. The Great Recession was still going.

I had been downsized from a consulting firm with a strong brand and client base, and now I was on my own. I had a limited financial runway before my business would be in trouble. So I hustled after every possible opportunity, whether it was a good fit for my company or not.

Luckily for me, some of my hustles paid off, and GGC has been doing well ever since. But as my company has matured, I have learned to be much more selective about what — and who — I’m going to hustle for.

Weighing risk and reward will serve you well

So how do you avoid dumb hustles? Before you get too deep, you insist on disciplined analysis of what the potential upside is, the probability of success, and the costs of the project. Don’t forget the opportunity cost: If you’re focusing on this project, what are the other projects you’ll be neglecting? 

It feels good to be busy. It feels good to have a great idea. But if feels even better to focus your energy on the places where you can win.