I don’t know many people who have embarked on the straight and narrow path to entrepreneurship, myself included. I studied entrepreneurship in college but didn’t really do anything about it until ten years later. Most of the entrepreneurs I know worked 9 to 5 for a while and then decided it was time to mind their own business.
But my latest podcast guest, Alex Schlinsky, is different. He abandoned the traditional 9-5 and immediately went into business. The reason is that he thought there was a chance that he might die at a young age.
I don’t want to make this too dramatic, but I can imagine that feeling like you don’t have much time left can motivate you to really live for today and make the most of how many days you have left. .
Luckily, you don’t have to go through life and death to better control your future because Alex shared the lessons he learned during the latest edition of the Start Your Business podcast.
Some key takeaways from our interview, which you can listen to here or below:
- The power of perseverance in achieving what you want in life
- How to create a reliable and profitable online community
- Why the “fuss” mentality doesn’t make sense (and what you should be doing instead).
We also discussed Alex’s new book, The Anti-Hustler’s Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide for Hardworking Entrepreneurs: Who Want to Reimagine Success Now and Discover the Endless Choice to Implement Without Sacrificing Everything That Matters.
The power of perseverance and purpose
Alex got into the anti-hustle movement unintentionally (he burned himself out at a young age). It all started with a diagnosis of congenital heart disease at the age of 18. Alex said that when you know you’re going to have open heart surgery at some point in the future, you want your time to count. So he worked hard at school to get a degree in psychology while doing business.
After graduation, the idea of spending more years at school became untenable. He also wasn’t quite ready to become an entrepreneur and develop his digital marketing agency, so he fully immersed himself in his passion, which was local sports. In pursuit of media reputation with the Miami Dolphins, he called their media department every day for two months straight.
“After listening to every single objection in the book, I realized one thing that was really important to me: I was ready to hear no more than they were ready to say it,” recalls Alex. “And so I just called and called and called, in the end, knowing that beating the eyebrows would eventually force them to capitulate, and they would give me that opportunity.”
His perseverance paid off, and he still has his Dolphins badge hanging in his office, reminding him of the feeling of accomplishment after months on the job — a feeling he said he wanted to pursue again and again.
Accidentally start a seven figure business
The season was rewarding, but brought in about $500 for its coverage. To make money, Alex turned to a business he accidentally started in his senior year of high school when Facebook launched a business page feature. Alex’s neighbor (who was a personal injury lawyer) was convinced that Facebook would be critical to growing the business. A neighbor offered Alex $1,000 a month to post on Facebook once a day and start his email newsletter.
While in college, Alex worked for about ten lawyers, waking up early to take potential case opportunities (such as a testimonial) and post them on Facebook, then heading to classes during the day.
“It’s so crazy because I never thought of it as a business. All the time it was just a side job. Fast forward to four or five years later, finishing college and realizing that journalism isn’t really going to make me as much money as it does. – This is passion. What can I do? And naturally, I thought, “Is social media a business?”
You don’t need to google a lot to find the answer.
Alex went through the training, moved his offer from social media to Google ads, and quickly built a seven-figure agency.
Alex moment of reckoning
With open heart surgery hanging over his head, Alex pushed himself to the limit, putting his best effort into everything he did.
About 10 years after his diagnosis, his heart had grown to the point where it required intervention. Alex said he hastened the need for help by 30 years – and while doctors couldn’t give him a direct answer, he links early surgery and 10 years of overwork.
“But it was enough for me to know that if the engine is red all the time, what happens to the engine?” Alex asks. “He dies, he breaks, and that’s what ended up happening.”
Alex said that he got so caught up in the hustle and bustle that when the doctors told him they needed to operate as soon as possible, Alex’s first question was if they could delay the operation until there was a business event he had to do.
“That’s how warped my mind was,” Alex said. “I just got the amazing news that I’m going to have open heart surgery and my brain (was saying) ‘Can I put this off until after we have our business event?’ And that was a really big wake-up call for me.”
End of the fuss
Awakening does not necessarily mean slowing down to a complete stop. Alex now runs the Prospecting On Demand community, which offers mentoring to agency owners, digital marketers, trainers, and consultants looking to grow their business.
This is the tricky part: Alex said that for most people, “scaling” means getting bigger all the time. So even when you reach the top of one mountain, you can always achieve more. This makes the business owner feel a lack of clarity, always striving for greater accomplishments (whether or not it actually benefits their lives).
“The anti-hustle model is, at its core, about identifying the true purpose of entrepreneurship,” Alex explained. “Everyone wants to be happy and they want to be free. The thing about freedom is that most people think of freedom as financial freedom and time freedom. freedom – without even defining financial freedom (and worse, never taking the time to define it and let someone else define it for you)… You can actually get a very clear idea of how much money you have you have a. do indefinitely more instead, right? Because lack of clarity is what breeds anxiety and frustration, and for many people, burnout.”
Alex said the results of defining success and scale are beneficial to the business and the business owner, but they also extend to friends and family.
“I think most people, when they come into a coaching program, a mentoring program, their intentions are very directly related to the bottom line ROI, which makes a lot of sense and I totally respect that,” Alex said. But in the end, we find out how much we affect people’s lives, their families, their relationships with children and friends, their family, their peers, their circle of friends.
Next steps
Ready to learn more from Alex so you can make more money without sacrificing the people and experiences that matter most?
- Check out Alex’s mentoring program, Prospecting On Demand
- Contact Alexey LinkedIn
- Read Alex’s book The Anti-Hustler’s Handbook.