The Humbling Hustle #5

This Week’s Thoughts

I’ve been noticing how everything moves in cycles lately, whether it’s the changing seasons, the rise and fall of business trends, or the repeating patterns of entire eras. There’s a rhythm to it all… which I’m just now picking up on, probably because I scored a solid 2 on my AP Music Theory exam.

One famous example of it is like that one saying “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create hard times.” It makes a lot of sense when we look at history and how every empire kinda fell apart after a few generations. Times of great prosperity never lasted long and the cycle goes round and round. This pattern you can attribute to everything imo.

Similarly, this week we saw it in our business. There are times where we do very good with great margins and it never stays. It goes down and then shoots up higher in the next cycle.

In the troughs it feels bad and it seems like we work harder to raise revenues and make sure we start selling faster. Then I also notice that we let off the gas a little bit when we reach the peak because everything looks good and everything is working at peak efficiency. But then one price tank, one supplier mishap, or one mistake and the sales go down again reminding us to press on the gas. Some cycles like this you can have control over but others like the market equilibrium price really force revenue cycles to look like this.

I came across this Tony Robbins clip where he compared the stages of our lives and business to the seasons. He explained how everything moves in cycles, and the key isn’t to fight the seasons but to understand and prepare for them.

Winter is the tough season. It’s the downturn, the challenges, the silence after momentum fades. But winter isn’t permanent. It’s preparation. If you embrace it, you can plant seeds and build strength while others are checking out.

Spring is when opportunities start popping up. It’s the season of hustle, planting, creating, moving fast. Not everything you plant will grow, and that’s okay.

Summer is when things start working. Momentum builds and there’s growth, but it also takes discipline to protect what you’ve built. It’s where distractions and ego can ruin the harvest.

Fall is the payoff. You harvest what you planted and nurtured. It’s also a time of reflection and strategy, getting ready for the next winter.

Once you start seeing things through that lens, it becomes easier to zoom out. Bad days don’t feel permanent and good days feel more intentional. You stop resisting the lows and start preparing during the highs. The cycle is going to happen either way. Your power is in knowing which season you’re in and acting accordingly.

This Week’s Business Ideas

Step-in acquisition or sometimes called buy-in arrangement is a slept on business idea that I’ve known about for a while. While it is a big time commitment it’s a very quick way to own an already functioning and profitable business.

This is how it works: instead of starting a business from scratch, you step into an existing one by buying out a portion of ownership with the intention of becoming actively involved in operations. In many cases, the current owner is either burned out, looking to retire, or simply wants help scaling the business but doesn’t have the right partner.

You bring in fresh energy, new ideas, and strategic direction. Over time, depending on your agreement, you either buy out more equity or take over completely. It’s not as flashy as launching a startup, but you skip the fragile early stage, inherit an existing customer base, and start with real cash flow on day one. It’s one of the smartest ways to become a business owner if you’re willing to get your hands dirty.

In some scenarios it can be a clean-up job and in some cases it’s just a lot of catching up with the owner whose job you are trying to replace. I don’t think it’s something a college student with many other commitments like me could take on as yet.

There are many sitting gold mines in boring industries like plumbing, HVAC, and signs which are owned my older men who want to retire and are perfect for a transition into the digital world with fresh new management. If you sit down and study industry trends for months you might be able to really take it to the next level while buying out equity of the business much faster.

This Week’s Reading (Listening)

I haven’t read a book in the last few weeks due to exams and research but I did listen to a podcast where they talked about the Law of Attraction. I don’t exactly remember which one (It might have either been JRE or Chris Williamson) but they explained it in a way that stuck.

If you don’t know what the Law of Attraction is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_(New_Thought)

It’s not about magically manifesting things into your life just by thinking about them. It’s more about how the combination of your mindset and your actions pulls you toward what you want. When you start thinking clearly about your goals and genuinely believe they’re possible, you naturally start acting in ways that align with them. You make different decisions, notice new opportunities, and filter your environment through a lens that’s focused on growth.

It’s like your energy starts moving in the direction of what you’re aiming for and in return, the right people, ideas, and chances start showing up. Not because the universe is granting wishes, but because you’re actually in motion. That mindset shift puts you in the places where things happen.

This Week’s Academics

College is officially over for the semester, and I didn’t get the grades I was hoping for.

After a full week of waiting, checking my grades wasn’t the usual relief it has been in the past. Normally, I overthink and stress more than I need to, but this time, the stress was justified. I didn’t perform as well as I have historically, and seeing that in black and white was tough.

But it is what it is. Now that I’ve seen where I slipped, I know what I need to fix. I’m not letting my GPA drop below a 3.6, and next semester I’ll just tighten things up and move a little smarter.

Also, my law review got published in the inaugural edition of the UTD Undergraduate Law Review. Here’s the link if you want to check it out: https://www.utdulr.org/journal/how-9n9x9

In simple terms, I wrote about a statute called Section 230, which gives social media platforms legal immunity from content posted by third-party users. Over time, through legal precedent, I believe this protection has grown too powerful, especially given how dominant and influential these platforms have become. My argument is that social media companies should be held legally accountable for the content they actively promote through their recommendation algorithms, like what you see on your feed. To support this, I proposed something called the Platform Algorithmic Responsibility Test, a framework courts could use to determine when a platform is responsible for algorithmic amplification. In one sentence: platforms shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind Section 230 when they’re actively pushing harmful or illegal content.

This Week’s Struggles

They say that “comparison is the thief of joy,” and I’ve been comparing myself to a lot of people lately including the flurry of students on my LinkedIn sharing their new internships.

I think comparing yourself to others is dangerous but also really effective motivation and inspiration if you do it right. I won’t go deep into this actually.

This Week’s Quote

Harvey Specter is the GOAT

This Week’s Pictures