Hustle Lifestyle Explored
The hustle lifestyle could be killing your vibe and even making you ill. If you’re an entrepreneur or businessman that never knows when to call it a day, then you might be hustling too hard. It’s time to realize that there are plenty of values in life that transcend the fulltime grind.
If you identify with the hustle culture then you’re probably familiar with guys like Grant Cardone, Tai Lopez, and Dan Pena who hustle day and night. Then, there’s guys like Dan Luk and Dan Bilzerian who flaunt the supercars and flashy things that make you feel like riches equal happiness.
Have you ever beat yourself up because you feel like you’ve got to wake up earlier, grind harder, stay later, and outperform the other guys to be successful? You’ve probably told yourself that you’ll spend time with family and friends later because right now you’ve just got to HUSTLE HARDER!
Newsflash – this is a super toxic mentality.
You’re supposed to hustle for a reason, and when it’s appropriate, but chasing the hustle lifestyle and obsessing over your business all day long actually saps your vitality and robs you of life’s simple pleasures. It’s time for men to refocus on values that aren’t so materialistic and turn down the hustle.
Here’s how hustle culture is destroying your life.
The Hustle Lifestyle is Ruining Your Health
Elon Musk is one of those hustle culture demigods who brags on social media about how much he works and how little he sleeps. He’s one of the richest people on the planet and guys who get hooked on the hustle lifestyle tend to view the wealthiest 1% as their idols. It’s tempting to just do what he does and hope for similar results, but you’d be putting your health on the line.
Overworking causes an increase in cortisol, the body’s stress hormone. A study published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine in 2009 found that men who worked long night shifts had elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The researchers also tested other metrics such as work-related stress and long hour work weeks.
Is the hustle worth the stress? It might be helpful to recall the reason you started hustling in the first place. I’m sure it had something to do with living a stress-free life. So, why would you endanger your health by heaping on the stress?
Stress is one of the main causes of illness. Stress can lead to heart disease, depression, migraines, diabetes, and other life-threatening illnesses. We already live in a high stress world. Hustling too hard only makes it worse.
When you’re an entrepreneur or businessman who’s focused on high levels of success, you’re spending lots of time sitting at a desk, staring at a computer screen, and even eating at your desk. These bad habits will tax your health and it’s possible that you might even work yourself to death. In Japan, there’s a term for it called “karoshi”. It literally means to “work yourself to death”.
An employee at Bank of America in London died back in 2017 from working 72 hours straight. Now, I know that this is the extreme end of hustle culture, but the average employee spends more than 13 hours a day sitting down and works an average of 47 hours a week according to research statistics.
The Hustle Lifestyle is Making You Forget What Really Matters
It’s taking away things that are more important than money. There is a sense of emptiness that comes from overvaluing materialistic things. Yet, this is what hustlers live for. Just go on YouTube and type in – business motivation. You’re going to see lots of mansions, private jets, and supercars.
When you’re hustling all day, every day, you can miss out on the greatness that’s already in front of you. When you’re climbing that ladder, there’s a voice in the back of your head that tells you that you can get it all back after the work is done, but that’s a huge gamble.
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You don’t need to overwork yourself to enjoy good food and good company. You don’t need to hustle harder than the next man to see beautiful places or look attractive. Sometimes, the images on social media are there just to sell you on a course, workshop, or book that some OTHER hustler is using to get your money. So, don’t buy into it.
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I’m speaking from experience here. I used to work in the entertainment business and the workday was never done. I’d wake up early to take meetings in different time zones and sometimes my day didn’t end until the final video clip was edited and polished around 3 AM. I thought that I needed to hustle harder than every other producer so that I could be successful.
Th problem was that I never clearly identified success. I was just locked into the hustle lifestyle. I spent days at a time locked away in a studio and barely noticed as my friends and family became distant blips in my rearview mirror. I was so obsessed with work that I never attended any of their parties or stopped by to watch sports or play video games with them. I thought all of that was a waste of time.
Eventually, my business tanked, and I was so depressed. Naturally, I looked around for my support system (my bros) but they had all moved on. It was as if I had been asleep for seven years and everything had changed. I missed weddings, birthdays, graduations, and important events in their lives. So, they weren’t around when I needed them the most.
The money that I earned and the material things that I bought couldn’t take away the depression from losing my business. I had to sell them. I was alone and in a dark space. I realized that my hustle mentality was all wrong. I had been chasing a feather on the wind and ignoring the real tangible rewards that were lying all around me.
Hustling Too Hard Can Be Counterproductive
One of the motivating factors for hustling is that you’ll get more done if you work harder. Start the day earlier. Make sacrifices. Take a second and third job. It will all pay off in the end. However, that’s not always the case. There’s just so much that a person can accomplish at any given time.
Hustling too hard can make you less creative and it can destroy your productivity. Yes, by working more you could actually be getting less done. The quality of your work goes down and you get burned out quicker.
You won’t get an edge by working six days a week. In fact, researchers in Iceland tracked 2,500 workers who had been switched to a 4 day work week. Their findings were published by UK thinktank Autonomy in 2021. The workers in the study who switched to a shorter work week were more productive, had lower levels of stress, and produced better quality work. Iceland is currently pursuing measures to make the 4 day work week a national standard.
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What a contrast to hustle culture which praises people who burn the candle at both ends. I used to work ridiculously long hours and take on way more work than I could handle. In my job as an entertainment producer, I didn’t turn down any new prospects.
“Sure, we can produce that commercial by next week. Sure, we can have that budget ready by tomorrow. Sure, we can have that video edited by the end of the day.”
I thought that I was killing it and for a time, I was able to juggle all those balls.
However, my creativity was taking a beating from overuse. The quality of my work was going down and clients weren’t happy with the work my company was producing. I was missing deadlines and ruining relationships. I would show up for meetings with red eyes and forget what we just talked about.
Thankfully, one of my mentors reigned in my toxic work habits. He reminded me how computers work. Sure, you think that a computer can do lots of high levels tasks all at the same time, but in actuality, a computer processor works on one thing at a time. It just does each task remarkably fast. So, there was no need for me to take on all these various jobs. I just needed to focus on a single task and complete it to a high standard, over and over again.
If you’re an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or an employee who wants to get ahead in life, you need to harness your creativity and productivity. If you take on too much at a time, you’ll spoil your creative gifts. You’ll poison your own industriousness.
How to Hustle Smarter, not Harder
You don’t have to give up the hustle mindset. You just need to facilitate a sense of balance in your life. Recognize that there is a time and a place for the hustle. Hustling is like sprinting; it’s only effective in short bursts. You need to balance that expenditure of energy with rest and time to recharge your batteries.
Practice more gratitude. Slow down and appreciate where you are in life and what you have before it’s all gone. Develop a self-care routine. Give yourself permission to take some time off because rest is part of the game. Do things that enrich your life like meditation, dancing, going outdoors, going to music festivals. These are activities that renew your mind and refresh your spirit for better business.
Try experimenting with a shorter work week. Try working four or five days a week or working fewer hours in the day. Don’t hold all the keys to your business. Delegate parts of your workload to others. This can be one of the hardest things to do for entrepreneurs and business leaders, but you should avoid a lone wolf approach to your ambitions. There’s a real value that comes from working with others. You form a community based on your shared ambitions and values.
You’ve got to carve out some space and time for life and avoid putting it all off until you “make it”. You don’t need to compare yourself to billionaires. When you think about it, you don’t actually need that much money to be happy. Do you really need a super yacht? Will that complete you?
Lastly, avoid making the mistakes that I made. Reign in your ambition before it takes you down. Hustle for a reason and only when it is appropriate. Don’t overestimate how much value you’ll get from squeezing the last bit of juice from your day and don’t underestimate how much you can achieve with others through consistent and focused work. In other words, hustle smarter, not harder.
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This is a refreshing article in an otherwise hustle obsessed culture. Thank you.