Do the Hustle: Life Lessons from Studio 54, the Championship Lacrosse Field, and the Boardroom

Don Kurz has built and lost fortunes more than once. What he learned each time he had to start over is the real subject of this book.

An NCAA lacrosse champion. An Arthur Murray dance instructor. A Studio 54 fixture rubbing shoulders with Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger. A Nasdaq IPO. A hedge fund. Executive board chair and principal shareholder of one of the world's leading creative agencies. Don Kurz has lived enough lives for three memoirs, and in Do the Hustle, he distills all of it into one. This is not a standard business memoir. It's a masterclass in resilience for anyone who has ever built something, lost it, and had to decide whether to rebuild or walk away. Kurz moves from the discipline of elite college athletics to the glittering chaos of 1970s disco, from Ivy League academia to public company warfare, delivering hard won, practical wisdom on when to double down, when to pivot, and how to face brutal reality without lingering in regret.

Endorsed by Paul Rabil, National Lacrosse Hall of Fame member and cofounder of the Premier Lacrosse League, and Peter Milliman, head lacrosse coach at Johns Hopkins University. Marketing veteran Michael Kassan, American Advertising Federation Hall of Fame inductee, calls it proof that adversity handled with intention can become the best competitive advantage in business and in life. Do the Hustle speaks as directly to athletes and executives as it does to anyone navigating their own second act.

Don Kurz is an entrepreneur, former championship athlete and dance instructor. He has been a senior partner in a major international consulting firm, successfully taken a company public on Nasdaq, started a hedge fund, and currently is the executive board chair and principal shareholder of leading creative agency Omelet LLC.Don served for 12 years on the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees and subsequently was elected a trustee emeritus for life. He was awarded the Johns Hopkins Heritage Award for exceptional life long service to the institution, and he has endowed the Kurz Family Scholarship to provide tuition support for low-income students.He was a key player on the first Johns Hopkins University NCAA lacrosse championship team in 1974, though two serious knee injuries prematurely ended his lacrosse career in 1976. Don is currently an active mentor of student-athletes at Hopkins. He was voted the Outstanding Athlete at Elmont Memorial High School his senior year and has recently been inducted to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.Don was a dance instructor for Arthur Murray Dance Studios and was a regular at New York iconic disco Studio 54 in the late 1970s.He earned his BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Columbia University.