Welcome to Part 2 of our Head Heart Hustle series. Last week, we talked about The Head, which is our term for the notion that becoming a subject matter expert allows us to find our freedom, do great work, and collaborate with talented professionals.
This week, we’re talking about something that’s just as important as your booksmarts (if not more so): Something we call The Heart.
So you’ve studied the theory for years, you’ve started applying your knowledge in your own profession, you keep reading the thought leaders in your industry, you constantly upskill, and people have started telling you that you seem to know everything about your domain of work.
Awesome! Congrats: You’re a subject matter expert.
But here’s the dealio: While your head is what allows you to solve problems, while your brain is what makes you valuable in the knowledge economy, knowledge alone can only take you so far.
That may sound like a blasphemous statement, seeing how the entirety of science, philosophy, technology, and medicine has relied on the pursuit of knowledge to make progress for a couple thousand years or more, and especially seeing how our readership base consists entirely of knowledge economy workers.
But hear us out.
“Knowledge economy” is a misnomer.
Thanks to the Internet, knowledge is more accessible than ever before.
Feel like learning how to play the bagpipes? Here you go – this guy has a website, a YouTube channel, a free newsletter, and a paid online course where you can learn how to play the bagpipes.
Want to go to Clown College? Udemy has a course for that.
And if you decided, for whatever reason, that you wanted to spend 4 years of your life watching grass grow, guess what – you can get a Bachelor’s Degree in Turfgrass Science by studying online through Penn State University.
In other words, being a knowledgeable professional isn’t a selling point – it’s a basic minimum expectation.
Your head is what gets you in the door.
But what sets you apart from everyone else? Is your heart.
The professionals who go far in their industries are the ones who are ON FIRE for what they do.
The ones who care so much about their work that they can’t help but obsess over every tiny detail.
The ones who are so eager to get to work in the morning that they leap out of bed with boundless energy.
The ones who are constantly engaging in what Csikszentmihalyi called “Flow”: That magical state where you are completely absorbed in the task at hand, and it feels like nothing else in the entire world matters.
Your clients, your prospects, and your collaborators can tell when you’re passionate about what you do. They can tell when you show up fully present every day because that’s what you feel like doing.
And perhaps most importantly, they can definitely tell when you’re phoning it in.
That’s why The Heart matters. Because when you’re so passionate for what you do, you’re driven to be the best, which in turn makes you the best, which means your work improves, your ideas are better, and your clients are happier.
And when lots of super-passionate people get in a room together? That’s when magic happens.
Passion is contagious. When you show up excited to do your part, it prompts the people around you to get excited about their roles in the project. When you show up with a strong belief in your vision, it persuades the people around you to believe in that vision, too.
Passion motivates all of us to be at our best, and to be at our best together.
At coLab, we call that “The Heart.”
And when you have The Head and The Heart working together, that’s when you get….The Hustle.
(No, not the Van McCoy song. But more on that next week.)
Until next time…stay on fire, you passionate rabble-rouser.
