Are you Working Harder or Smarter? 🤔 | by Nzube Ohalete | Oct, 2022

A question we need to ask ourselves every day

Here’s the latest edition of my Growth Hive newsletter, a collection of inspiration and actionable ideas to help you avoid unnecessary mistakes and achieve your goals in the shortest way possible.

Last weekend I went on a short trip to Texas to celebrate the 50 years wedding anniversary of a wonderful couple. On my way to the airport, I struck up a conversation with my Lyft driver about how bad the traffic was that morning. We got talking and then she told me she was working 5 jobs at that time while hoping to add the sixth. I sat there perplexed, like “How is that even possible?”

Then she gave me the breakdown: “I have a job I do in the mornings and another driving job I do at night then I do Lyft, Uber, and DoorDash on the weekends. I’m looking to add Instacart as well because I heard they pay really well but they’ve just been putting me on the waiting list so I would try again later.” I kept asking her questions trying to find out the mindset behind this drive then finally she said: ”The bills won’t pay themselves.” At that moment I was taken back to a similar experience I had in May this year when I worked a factory job.

My initial pay was $13.5 per hour and it was going to increase to $14.8 after a month provided I didn’t smoke tobacco 😅. After 12 days of working the extremely physically demanding job, I came to a sudden realization and asked myself: “If I continued working here for 2 months would I have the amount I need even if I worked overtime?” The answer was simply No. I needed much more. So I decided to quit and worked smarter to get a better remote job where I was earning over twice that amount.

It’s so easy to be tempted by the hustle culture where we prefer to work harder instead of smarter. More work isn’t always better. Be willing to pay for knowledge if it gives you speed and saves you years of learning the hard way. Learn to ride on the shoulders of people, you’ll just get there faster and less stressed. Be willing to be disliked by people because they constitute the majority and the majority always love the status quo.

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Think of a goal you’re trying to achieve (e.g. being fit, making more money, improving your relationship) and ask yourself: “Am I taking the shortest route to get there?” If you answered No, then:

• At the minimum, look for a great book on it and read. (Ideally, you should read the 3–5 top books to be good in that area.)
• To go much further, look for someone that has achieved it and ask them to mentor/coach you.

This is Why I read 1–2 books every week, I don’t want to learn everything from my mistakes.

Have a great weekend,

Zubby

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