Hustle The Most

A Few minutes on Social Innovation and talking about the book "Social Innovation: How Societies Find The Power To Change" by Geoff Mulgan

A conversation with Greg Bennick (Part 4) Greg and I have been friends for over 25 years and every time we catch up we it takes hours and hours. We jumped on the podcast and did what we always do which is talk about everything you can imagine! We talk about everything from playing in bands to things that our parents do or have done that shaped us to into the people that we are today. Check out Parts 1-4 of my conversation with Greg Bennick.

A conversation with Greg Bennick (Part 3) Greg and I have been friends for over 25 years and every time we catch up we it takes hours and hours. We jumped on the podcast and did what we always do which is talk about everything you can imagine! We talk about everything from playing in bands to things that our parents do or have done that shaped us to into the people that we are today. Check out Parts 1-4 of my conversation with Greg Bennick.

A conversation with Greg Bennick (Part 2) Greg and I have been friends for over 25 years and every time we catch up we it takes hours and hours. We jumped on the podcast and did what we always do which is talk about everything you can imagine! We talk about everything from playing in bands to things that our parents do or have done that shaped us to into the people that we are today. Check out Parts 1-4 of my conversation with Greg Bennick.

Greg and I have been friends for over 25 years and every time we catch up we it takes hours and hours. We jumped on the podcast and did what we always do which is talk about everything you can imagine! We talk about everything from playing in bands to things that our parents do or have done that shaped us to into the people that we are today. Check out Parts 1-4 of my conversation with Greg Bennick.

In this episode I talk about how having 1 conversation wit the right person can totally change your entire perspective on just about everything. How I went from looking for a job to creating my own!

In this episode I jump into a familiar but uncomfortable space know as limbo. What to do when it all comes crashing down. I talk about starting over and rebuilding from the ground up in a new place, road tripping across the country and putting the pieces back together 1 piece at a time.

So in the last episode we talked about making something out of nothing and then wanting to start over again. Craving instability and just being a nomad. I feel like I am always trying to make something out of nothing. When I decided to pack up and leave South Florida I was ready to hit the road. I was ready to tour and travel. I was headed back to the west coast.

In the last episode I talked about kind of making choices in order to chase your passion, follow your dreams and make it happen. I talked about how I packed up my drums and headed down to Florida to live and play in a band called Until The End.

We all know that having passion and drive is important. We all know that it takes work and dedication to pursue your dreams. There is always a turning back point that exists that’s different for everyone and it’s usually based on a number of variables. How far will you go to chase your dream? Entrepreneurs often go broke chasing their dream. The dream to be a business owner and be self employed. Lots of barriers become very apparent when taking that entrepreneurial leap becomes a reality. Things like time, money, family, bills, age, and knowledge all the sudden become larger than life. Sure you can go open up a cupcake stand and make some money if you already have things like a house, a car, a home kitchen, and resources. These things are usually being supplemented by the day job. But the question is could you do it if this was your only gig? Your cupcake stand now has to pay for things like space, supplies, industrial kitchen, staff members, advertising. Could you still do it?

This podcast has been interesting looking back at things through this adult kind of retrospective lens. Sometimes when I look back I see mistakes or maybe other choices that could have been more beneficial. I am a pretty big fan of the phrase: “you don’t know what you don’t know”. It’s easy to look back and think to yourself “well that was dumb”. But ya know its like hindsight is 20/20 and ya know forrest through the trees and any other cliches you can think of for being ignorant. short sighted probably just young and foolish. Years ago while on tour I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. Seattle Washington is one of my favorite places in the entire world. The views are from the I-5 bridge are some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The people are great, the food is fantastic and rain is absolutely brilliant. I really moved there just looking for something different. I had these visions at one point of being stuck in Flint or Detroit, working a job and playing in some band. I think it just wasn’t for me. I have said this before that If I had never picked up a set of drum sticks when I was 14 years old I would probably be in Flint at 40 years old working at a fast food place or something equally as outlandish. I mean maybe not because I like to hustle and try to make something out of the nothing but I think that part of successful hustling is having a positive attitude and when I was living in Flint and Detroit I don’t think I had the right attitude or outlook to successfully hustle the most. I remember when I was talking to my Dad about moving out west and I said that I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want to be so far away from him and he told me to just go. He said I got stuck in this town years ago. He was talking about Flint. He said he wished that he had moved out of the city years ago but he got stuck there. He got married and had kids and we were in school and he just settled down there and he kind of always regretted it so it said If I had an opportunity to leave I should take it.

So let me start out with a few questions. How do you stack up to your friends? How does your career compare to your colleagues? How does your life look when it’s placed next to someone else's? Any here is the most important question. Does any of that really matter? Here is what I am getting at. There is always this perception that someone that has more than you or they are are happier than you or better than you. People place a lot of emphasis on how they stack up against blips that they are seeing on instagram. But the truth is that you never know what happens behind closed doors. When the camera is off that game is much different but the fantasy lives forever on the internet. So what my question is are you happy and what makes you happy?

Not too long after coming home from Europe I was about to move into my first apartment and start school at Eastern Michigan University. I’d spent the 2 years prior going to Mott Community College in Flint and trying to get all my basic classes out of the way. This was the plan that I had kind of proposed to my Dad a few years back. Community college was just highschool but not my highschool it was more like what we saw on TV shows where you rarely saw people in class but you would always see them sitting out in the quad. Of course since I went to school in Michigan and not California people were only hanging out on the quad about a quarter of the time. Community college was fun because there were a lot of high schools around town and if people went to community college then they probably went to Mott. The classes were good and I felt like I had a pretty firm grasp on what was going for and which classes I was taking and why. I was going to school for Marketing. 

Hustle The Most Episode 16: Banding In Europe So in 1998 which was the summer before I moved in with Phil I was drummining in a band called Earthmover. We were a hardcore band from Detroit and we had a few records out and done a handful of small tours and  bunch of weekends all...

So as you know or if you are listening for the first time the Hustle The Most podcast is a series of short stories that talk about all things heart, hustle, innovation and design and more. One of my favorite parts of the podcast is talking about what I have learned from these adventures and the talking with the guests that I have had in to share and partake in the memories. Some of these stories are 30 years old. It’s weird the things that we remember. The things that stick out in our head as relevant. How is something that happened to 30 years ago still living in my head where I can just access them anytime I want. It’s weird to me that memories that are 30 years old can be just as relevant and as impactful as memories from last week.

In this episode Phil and I talk about the differences between the kids that he teaches now and the kids that he taught early in his teaching career. We talk about distractions and how technology really hasn't really created more distractions they are merely just different types of distractions. We talk about our first computers, dial up and some of the odd piercings that Phil has a young piercer. After 20 years Phil finally apologized for breaking my favorite bowl that I hand crafted while in high school.  

Hustle The Most Episode 13: Side Hustle + Passion = Career So on the last episode I talked a little about transitions and how to kind of attack some of those things head on. We talked a little about jobs, and what it’s really like to be in a touring band and how you have...

Hustle The Most Episode 12: Transitions Can you remember a time in your life when you had a conversation with someone that changed everything for you. I don’t mean like a someone died or I’m pregnant conversation but a conversation that just blows your mind. I have a been pretty fortunate enough to have a few of these conversations in my life and I walk away from the conversation just rethinking any path or plan that i may have had in my life.

Hustle The Most Episode 11: Putting In The Effort I really feel like putting in the effort will get you anywhere you want to go. I remember when I was kid I would always rush through my chores or whatever work I was doing just so I could do nothing. I think even when I started my first job I didn’t really understand what working was all about. My first job ever was at KFC. I was 16 and Eric who played in Jive and Spit with me got me a job there. Minimum wage at the time was $4.25 an hour. Which even to this day still blown my mind. My dad used to tell me how lucky I was because he used to pump gas in the freezing cold for a Nickel. I still don’t know if there was any real truth to that it seems a little low. I remember getting hired to work at KFC, I had to go to orientation. The orientation was help in this little out building the was painted like a small KFC. I seem to remember people calling it the chicken coop but I could totally be making that up. I was hired to be a cook I was going to cook chicken. The orientation was a lot more geared toward people working in the front. I remember there being some sort of customer roll playing around upselling and I remember me being super uncomfortable and bad at it. I wasn’t going to be anywhere near the front counter or dealing with customers but I still had to do the drill. There was one situational question where I was supposed to ask the person playing the customer if they would like to order a drink and I my response was something like “would you like something to wash down that chicken?” I can’t even believe I said that that’s probably the worst upsell in the history of upsells. Wow. What a bonehead answer! I think everyone laughed and she corrected me and we just moved on. The orientation was like 8 hours long and it was pretty much the worst thing ever but looking back on it I think that’s a right of passage that everyone should experience at least once in their life.

Episode 10: Q and A With Hustle The Most We are officially 10 episodes into the Hustle The Most Podcast. I decided to make this episode a Q and A episode. People have been listening to the podcast and they have questions so I am going to do my best to give them some answers. If you do have questions you can always contact me @ hustlethemost.com or DM me on instagram. So let’s jump in to our first round of questions. To keep in short I decided to only pick 5.

Episode 9 Building a Culture That Works : When you are motivated you are always looking up to to the next big thing.

Episode 8: Being an entrepreneur is kind of scary because there is always some sort of risk involved. We know that risk and assessing risk is definitely a learned behavior.

Episode 7: What I learned from my big brother. I think that having brothers and sisters is pretty amazing I grew up with 2 bothers and 2 sisters. We all got along for the most part minus the growing up woes that happen in every house hold. This episode we are going to talk about how 2 brothers that live in the same house with the same opportunities can go down 2 different paths.

Episode 6: New Friends and Experiences (PT2): is about growing up skateboarding in the early 90’s and starting a punk band. I knew a few kids in my school that played drums and my brother was always into drums. He air drummed a lot but I had never seen him play. He had these black...

Episode 5: New Friends and Experiences (PT1): is about growing up skateboarding in the early 90’s and starting a punk band. I think like most other kids I went through my share of fads and interests. I feel like it was always whatever the next thing was. Whatever your friends were into it was like...

When you watch your dreams fall apart in front you it’s a very trying time. There are lots of questions, emotions and sometimes feeling of anger. What do you do when this happens? I had my rug ripped out from under more than once in my life but this one hurt.

We all have ideas on a daily basis. Some of the idea are probably amazing and some of them are the exact opposite. What happens when you don’t follow through? What about the ideas that you forget about? My dad bet against me and even cheered me on to move forward with an idea that he thought was a pipe dream.

Episode 2 of Hustle The Most Podcast is about how kids can be so cruel and how to navigate barriers in your life.I feel that we all have some things about ourselves that we are not exactly stoked on. We all do our best to hide them from the world. Some people may have a belly, or acne or weird looking feet. Some things we can’t change so we just do our best to navigate them. When you are young these things seem to be directly out in the open for other kids see, judge and make fun of. When you are weird or different looking you are seemingly an easy target. 

What happens when you take a poor kid from Flint MI that had to learn the hard way to navigate the barriers around him at a very young age in order to succeed?