Exposure to social media instills in you the values that you live by. The people you follow and meet influence your life. And if you follow the likes of social media accounts like Tai Lopez’s and Dan Peña’s, you’re probably neck-deep into the hustle culture.
What Is Hustle Culture?
Tai Lopez is a famous investor with several multi-million dollar businesses. He sets himself up in a series of experiments to provide life advice to his followers. He teaches people his theory on living the “good life.” He shared a formula to do this. He said that living a good life means achieving whatever you want. And that you can do it by developing specific skills such as communication and public speaking.
Dan Peña is an entrepreneur and a business coach who published a book in 1990 called “Your First 100 Million.” He uses this as a tool to teach his mentees the core of business strategies. He also tells them how to apply these strategies to their businesses. He is also a go-to personality for stock market investors; he often makes predictions on stock market movement.
Both of them are subscribers to the belief that you have to hustle day and night. While all lessons from these men are a source of great advice on your own business and career, there are some dangers in thinking that the less rest you get, the more successful you will be. That is what the hustle culture is about. It tells you that you need more than three streams of income and to make day night to ensure success.
It tells you to prioritize work and money above all else. You tell yourself you can spend more time later with family and friends once you are successful enough. But when will that come? By the time you finally get there, you might have had missed your child’s birthdays in the past 21 years.
You have to realize that this mentally is toxic and will sooner or later burn you out. It is simply not healthy for a human being to work 24/7.
How Do You Reset?
Once you’ve ingrained yourself in this lifestyle, you might find getting yourself out of it difficult. That said, here are some ways you can do to get yourself out of this hole:
1. Stop Buying into the Imaginary Competition Thing
Most people’s goals are not even for themselves to be truly happy. For successful business types, success sets them apart from the mediocre employees who work in modest businesses. Their worth lies in other people’s approval of their image.
This is dangerously unhealthy. You will find that if you step away and look from the outside, people are too busy caring about themselves to even care about how many streams of income you have.
2. Stop Thinking That Rest is Unproductive
Maybe it’s how the movies portray successful people that is to blame. They are always on the road, attending meetings after meetings. They don’t even have time to get a present for their kid’s seventh birthday. That’s the image of the cool person.
But what if you can reverse the narrative and make the rest look cool? What if you can make unconventional hobbies look remarkable? Why can’t you be the person who collects filter papers for his coffee collection? Be someone who goes to the grocery to cook dinner for his family. Be someone who thinks that the spa is cool.
Choosing rest means accepting that you are only human. You are not some invincible superhero. Don’t you think that a man who knows his limits is wiser than a man who forces something impossible? It is impossible to be productive while you are sleep-deprived. You know better than to pull that all-nighter again in hopes that you will be a better career man.
3. Stop Pretending
You have probably heard people tell you to fake it till you make it. And you have probably believed that was a good idea. Until one day, you are used to pretending you like what you are doing it that it doesn’t feel like pretending anymore. You are on autopilot.
Is that such a bad thing? Not really, if you think that living a dishonest, unhappy life is okay with you. Because if you are going to work hard, you should at least direct your hard work to something that genuinely makes you happy.
Your goal in life should always be to strike a balance. You can still get advice from famous entrepreneurs and investors. After all, they are the most qualified people to guide you. But you should know that what worked for them may not work for you. So the key here is to take the good things you hear from them and apply them to your life as you see fit.
