(dramatic hip hop music)
- Hustle, everybody's talking about it
for better or for worse right now.
Right now you have a lot of prominent people
denouncing what they call hustle porn or hustle culture.
They're defining it as something harmful,
toxic, bad for mental health.
They even are going so far as to say
that it is an obsession that people have.
But I think that a context that's left out here
is that there are people who like to work.
And there are people who have put themselves
in a position where they do what they love
every single day, and they're passionate about it.
And there aren't a lot of other things
that they would rather be doing.
And I don't think that there's something wrong
with people who are in that position.
Also, I'm gonna be very real, I'm gonna be very frank.
This is a no BS answer from me on this.
I think that a lot the people who are denouncing
hustle culture right now, a lot of them
when they're saying these things, they're saying
it from a place of already being successful.
And they have not really struggled in life.
They've had their own struggles.
I'm talking about many of them
have not had financial struggles
that normal everyday people have.
I know personally that hustle even to an unhealthy extent,
a period for time, a season of hustle
that really was unhealthy for me
personally, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally
was absolutely essential to my success,
and I wouldn't be here today without it.
Now that's my own situation.
And I don't advocate for people working themselves to death.
You know that, but I had to because frankly
I wasn't talented enough, or I wasn't born in a position
where I had another option at the end of the day.
At the end of the day, what it was for me
was that failure wasn't going to mean
I go and move back in with my parents.
Failure was essentially, I'm screwed forever.
So that's not something that I most of these people,
these tech CEOs, I think a lot of them
can't appreciate from their position in life
and where they started in life
that for some people, this unhealthy obsession
with hustle is the only out that they're
ever gonna have because their hard work
is the only thing that can save them
from the unhappy life they already have.
So an incremental five or 10 or 20% increase
in unhappiness to undo all the other things in your life
and to never have to live that life again,
for many of us that is a price we are happy to pay
if it means that you lose sleep for two years to spend
the next 30 sleeping as much as you want,
sleeping like a baby and having no regrets,
for many of us that is the gamble.
That is the risk we are willing to take.
And we are banking on our own strength
and our own mental discipline
to believe that we can survive it.
And if they have another route
other than just saying, seek help when you need it,
which I advocate for.
Maybe, like, I really don't feel they have
a genuine answer for that person that's broke
and depressed and miserable already.
Whereas at least someone like Gary V.
is telling you that you can work smarter
and work harder and giving you
very specific examples to execute on.
So yeah, I mean, this is my answer.
And this is a very different type of video
than I would normally do.
But it's like I'm calling them out on this.
I'm calling them out on this.
It's easy from their position to say,
oh, well don't work yourself to death.
Some of us don't have a choice.
That's just the way it is.
I have no regrets about my season of hustle.
I have no regrets about that extra time
from work that wasn't spent relaxing
or with family or with friends
to work harder on developing myself.
And you know why?
Because what was worse was everyday
that I didn't have gas money for somebody giving me a ride.
What was worse was going out with friends,
showing up to the movies and not having enough
money for the ticket and somebody covering me.
That was embarrassing, that was unhappy.
What was unhappy was not having the money
to go out on dates.
That was a lot worse than working hard,
making money, and then saying, you know what?
I can't go out because I don't have time.
I'm working on something, and it's profitable.
And it's something I'm passionate about.
I have no regrets about the time
that I sacrificed, and ultimately sometimes
blowing people off in order to know
that I'm in a position where I'm not beholden to people,
to where I'm not in debt, to where I'm living
the life that I want on my own terms,
that I can control my time, my energy, my ideas.
Whatever price I paid for that was worth it for me.
And I think for a lot of people that's what we are saying.
We are willing to accept that trade
because no one is offering an alternative.
No one is offering an alternative
where you don't have to work that hard,
where you don't have to work that smart,
or where you don't have to change
in order for your circumstances to change.
And the thing is, I'm not convinced
that someone should offer an alternative
where we don't have to take responsibility
for our own success and ownership of our own success.
I don't want it handed to me.
I don't want somebody to just come in with a magic wand
and solve everything for me because I want strength.
I want strength so that when things
get difficult or challenging I have the confidence
to attack my problems head on,
and to know that the answer is inside of me.
That's what I think many people
who are advocating for hustle want,
self-awareness, self-discipline,
self-reliance, and ultimately, a higher sense of self-worth.
None of those things are unhealthy.
And unfortunately, the reality
is that they just might require
a period of time of things that look and feel
wildly unhealthy in order to achieve that
and to stay in a healthy place for the rest of your life.
The concept of hustle was something that was
introduced to me as a track and cross country runner.
I ultimately would become the cross country captain
of my team and become second team silver medal winner
all-county and win awards and it was great.
And you know what happened?
My coach told me that I wasn't
the most athletically gifted person,
and that the reality is that the only reason
that I was able to beat many of the people on my team
and many of our competitors was I simply
outworked them, and I wanted it more.
And that I had more heart.
And that was very, not only flattering to hear,
but it set the tone for how
I would tackle all of my problems in life.
There are people infinitely more talented than me
in every category that I compete in.
There are people that started on third base,
and when I want to do as well or better than those people,
I don't look outside at myself.
I put the work in to make sure that I can deliver
on a standard that I can accept when I look in the mirror.
And that's all that really matters for me at least
is to know that I am living to a standard
that I am happy with when it comes
to my work ethic and when it comes to did I try hard enough?
Now in fairness, I don't think
people that are against hustle culture are trying to be,
I don't think they're trying to
advocate laziness or a poor work ethic.
But I also don't feel that
they're offering anything of substance.
I don't think that they're offering people,
people who have struggled financially like me,
people who unfortunately, where failure
wasn't going to mean, oh, I can't just lean
on my parents, or I can't just scale down my lifestyle.
I think that many of these people, I'm just gonna say it.
They're saying these things, and they're talking down
to people who need to work hard
from a position of privilege,
from a position of they've probably never in their life
had to walk into a pawn shop and give something up.
They've probably never had a house or a car repossessed
in their life, but people who are unhappy with their life
because they know they're living on the margin,
they're living on the edge.
They're one paycheck away from disaster.
Some people in that situation need to not watch Netflix,
need to not play Call of Duty,
need to not go out to the movies,
need to not do all those little things
that they enjoy that make them feel like
they're just getting through their day
in order to never have to live that life ever again.
They might have to give those things up for a year.
They might have to go to bed an hour late
and wake up an hour early in order to build their dream
instead of someone else's.
And I'm sorry that there's not
an easier path to success than that.
For the majority of us, seriously it would have been
really nice to not have to suffer
as much as I did to get here.
But you know what?
I made my suffering meaningful,
and I've used that pain to teach other people
how to manage themselves and to learn
from some of my mistakes.
Because there were points where I did push myself too far.
There were points where I didn't take proper care of myself.
And there's a way to navigate your work and your success
without being abusive to yourself.
But that's not necessarily what I think
a lot of people are offering, not in any detailed way,
they're not literally writing a two-page article
on what you should do, they're not making a 20-minute video
on what you could do or what healthy hustle would look like.
They're not doing that.
But many of the people that they're accusing
of encouraging this toxic culture are doing exactly that.
They're telling you about self-awareness.
They're the loudest advocates in the conversation
around mental health.
They are the loudest advocates in terms of
living below your means or taking a job
that you're happy with that pays less money
in order to have more time for your family.
And yet, at the same, they're the same people
that also are telling you that you might be able
to work harder, and I think that's true.
I think that you can look in the mirror and decide
for yourself whether or not you're giving it your all.
And that's all that I think that
when people talk about hustle, they're saying,
move with purpose toward a clearly defined goal
with a sense of urgency and with respect
for the fact that you have a finite amount of time
in this world to achieve what you want
and to live your life with purpose.
And I think that's all we're really saying.
So, I'm really curious, right now,
are you in a season of hustle?
Or are you someone who has used
hustle to break through, to live the life that you want?
Or are you somebody who right now
hustle just feels like abuse?
I'm super curious, and I wanna pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts about hustle and hustle culture?
Do you think that it's about work ethic
and purpose or do you think that it's just
a toxic buzzword to shame people?
Let me know in the comments section.
I wanna hear what you have to say.
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for watching and don't forget, go out there
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