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Hustle your face off

In America, we celebrate hard work. Burning the candle at both ends. Rise and grind. [insert your favorite “work hard, play hard” quote here]

But is it always the right thing?

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

And it’s especially hard to know when you’re working for yourself (or aspiring to) because there’s always more to do and the pressure to do it. But working harder doesn’t always mean you’re working smarter. In fact, the more you work, the less you’re able to differentiate between the good stuff and the bad stuff. It’s like cramming for a test… that last hour of studying is usually trash.

We start today’s Apex with a post on entrepreneurship and finish with a fun video series by the champion of hustle, Gary Vee:

Why Your Entrepreneurship Addiction is Making You Broke (and how-to fix this) [Studenomics] – “You’re proud of yourself because you suddenly feel like an entrepreneur. You’ve listened to a podcast, you’ve signed up for another seminar, and you shared an inspirational meme today. You did all of this before 6 in the morning since you’re up at 5 because that’s what you’ve been told to do by a guru.

I’m here to tell you why your self-help addiction is making you broke and what you can do to fix this right away…”

How to Manage Two Successful Business (And Why One Wasn’t Enough) [Afford Anything] – Julia Kelly shares why she started a second business after having a ‘successful’ first business. She’s a caricature artist making six figures that also co-started an accounting business with her neighbor. “Three years in to starting the biz, we have over 50 clients and five employees making up an awesome team of humans doing work that’s valuable, important, and (for me at least) fun!

I still run JK Expressions and do a decent number of the gigs myself. Turns out, I’m much happier when drawing caricatures is my side gig and it’s balanced out with more analytical type of work.”

Ever wonder where Amazon returns go? People buy them by the pallet and resell them!

Where Amazon Returns Go to Be Resold by Hustlers [The Atlantic] – “With a couple hundred dollars and a few minutes, you could go to a liquidation website right now and buy a pallet full of stuff that people have returned to Amazon. It will have, perhaps, been lightly sorted by product category—home decor, outdoor, apparel—but this is mostly aspirational. For example, in one pallet labeled “home decor,” available for sale on liquidation.com, you could find hiking crampons, shimmer fabric paint, a High Visibility Thermal Winter Trapper Hat, a Mr. Ellie Pooh Natural White Paper List Pad, a St. Patrick’s Pot O’ Gold Cupcake Decorating Kit, a Spoontiques Golf Thermometer, a Feliz Cumpleanos Candle Packaged Balloon, and five Caterpillar Hoodies for Pets.”

It’s a GRIIIIIIIND.

IF you enjoy that type of thing, I found a fun video series you’ll enjoy. Gary Vaynerchuk, of Wine Library TV and Gary Vee fame, goes around to garage sales for vintage toys, mugs, and other high-value goodies that he can flip on eBay (more accurately, his team flips it). It’s basically a version of Storage Wars but with stuff that all 80s kids will identify with. It’s quite fun to watch. Here’s the first video in the series:

Have a good day and send this to someone you think will enjoy reading this!