Hustle!
Totally awesome video by Gary Vaynerchuk (thanks to Jason).
Click here to watch the video.
In this video Gary talks about how raw talent alone won’t cut it anymore. He goes on to say that raw talent alone against someone who doesn’t have natural talent but hustles their butt off will overcome. Furthermore, someone without those natural abilities can easily achieve greatness without it by way of pure unadulterated passion and…. hustle. Admittedly, I don’t know much about Gary, but I like him already.
There are so many applications to this mantra in life that I won’t even begin to discuss them all. There is one thing that I myself can say this applies to directly. UX Design.
I have NO formal education or training in UX. None. Zip. Yet, here I find myself with a relatively fresh title of User Experience Manager for Pikimal.com. I don’t bring any of this up to boast or be prideful, so please don’t take it as such.
How did this happen? I don’t have an HCI degree from CMU, or a degree from the School of Visual Arts, so how can this be?
I kicked ass to get where I wanted, that’s how.
First let me say one thing, I LOVE what I do. I don’t think that even does it justice so let me explain. This stuff keeps me up at night. Sometimes I space out in conversations because I think about the next awesome interaction I can design or I try to think of new and interesting ways to conduct user research. I get funny looks when I tell people that I don’t watch TV regularly because I’m too busy reading everything I can get my hands on about design and UX. My fiancee` pokes fun at me because I don’t read anything but non-fiction.
-“You’re crazy…” -“Yea, I am”
You better believe I’m crazy. You also better believe I’ll do what it takes to outwork and out-hustle people, just like Gary is talking about. After doing some more research, I found that is exactly how Gary decided to tackle his own life and what I found so far is that he’s doing pretty dang well for himself. Working as hard as he can at something he absolutely loves to do got him where he is and I think you can tell that it fires me up!
Like Gary, I left fear at the door a while ago. I’m going to take Gary’s point one step farther and say that Hustle and fearlessness will take you places you never thought you could go. Some people I see and meet often let fear, doubt and (bluntly) laziness hold them back. A lot of people want to sit around and “Monday-morning-quarterback” everyone else’s moves, without taking any of their own, no risks, stale. What are you waiting for?!
I want to actually take this in a different direction slightly for a moment. To relate “Hustle” with UX. I honestly and truly believe, that online businesses that don’t recognize the enormous value in UX will fall. Bold statement? Maybe. Could I be wrong? Maybe. If I am, I welcome comments with open arms.
I have been part of several companies following fantastically broken processes (or worse yet, none at all). Some of these people are just like Gary is describing, just resting on their laurels because they have market share, funding, massive talent or otherwise. It could be my prolonged exposure to the start-up atmosphere that’s coming through here. I have seen the smallest teams of total black-ops ninja style roughnecks kick stuff out the door faster (and better) than fortune 500 teams. Some of these “little guys” have insane passion for what they do. Furthermore, I’ll speak for the people here at Pikimal and say that we do everything we can to hold to a user-centered process in wild and crazy world of a start-up. Excuses and “talent” won’t cut it anymore. I’ll digress for now on my rant about business not recognizing the value of UX.
Let’s get back to this notion of simply applying a nice cold glass of hustle to your life.
It’s your decision, nobody will make you do it. Nobody will do it for you and I can assure you, there are plenty others who want it just as bad as you do. Whatever that thing is for you - go get it!
What are you gonna do?
