Before money mattered, what did you hustle?

All too often we fixate on the most profitable hustle.

Personally, I think that’s the least interesting part of the story.

The messy, naive, adrenaline driven hustles is where the fascinating lessons hide.

So I’m curious:

What was your very first hustle?

Failure or success what did it teach you?

I’ll start.

Aside from trying to hustle the tooth fairy for an extra bit of coin, my first real hustle was going to a residential building site on weekends and carving out a makeshift bench from a pile of brick sand.

I’d sculpt little animals native to the area, tell them all about it.

The sand was just sticky enough to hold shape, and on a hot day it would almost kiln-dry on my makeshift bench.

$5–$10 bucks per sculpture.

The builders hated me.

The ice cream man loved me.

The locals curious got the better of them, wallets opened as they passed by.

Of course, they knew most of these timeless pieces of art wouldn’t survive the walk home, but that wasn’t the point.

What they taught me, without saying it, was this:

A combination of visible effort and a unique story is often more powerful than the actual thing you’re trying to sell.

What was yours?