Hustle Culture: Can You Productivity Your Way to Success?

In this lively debut of Working/Broken, hosts Nick Richtsmeier and Brad Farris dive headfirst into the world of hustle culture—tracing its evolution from the early days of knowledge work to today’s digital grind. With a mix of humor and sharp insight, they debate whether the “work harder” mantra truly paves the way to success or if it simply sets us up for burnout. Along the way, the duo dissects modern hustle icons like Mr. Beast and Elon Musk, unpacking how their narratives—full of bold risks and alleged simplicity—might actually mask a more complex reality. Ultimately, Nick and Brad challenge listeners to rethink relentless hustle in favor of creative balance, arguing that sometimes stepping back can be the smartest move in an era where the old rules just don’t add up.

Outside Resources Mentioned:

• Mr. Beast’s Hustle Guidebook: A Google Doc outlining his unconventional approach to work and creativity.

Tune in for a thought-provoking and entertaining look at why hustle culture might just be broken—and what we might do instead!

Ensure you are fully subscribed through your favorite podcast app so you do not miss a single episode.

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at podcast@culturecraft.com.

Transcript

Transcripts are AI-generated and may contain errors.

Nick | All right. Well welcome to working Broken with Nick Richtsmeier. That's me andBrad Farris.

Brad | That'sme.
Nick | Where every week we take a deep dive into a trend to buy us a hot topic affecting business leaders and ask the very simple question, is it working or is it broken? Much ofwhat's broken in the world impacts our businesses and our leadership, of course. Sowe're gonna drive around on some of those topics. We can't fix all of that.
Nick | The great messianic Solve the World podcast will have to say for a different day. Yeah, wecan look at these things a little differently and learn to respond to them in a different way. So this week we're looking at a personal favorite of mine. I'll try not to tip my hand too early of where I'm going to land on working versus broken, but we're gonna look at hustle culture.

Nick | Hustle culture. So this big idea that if you get up at 430 and take your cold plunge pooland then do your protein shake and then your 20 minute walk and blah, blah, blah. And ifyou do that for 18 hours a day, 365 days a year, you can have a beautiful, wonderful,productive life. Before we get into the details of that, before we start hustling ourselves here.

Nick | Brad, hi. Coming intoday.
Brad | I am, recovering from a cold, and I woke up at 3:00 in the morning, so I think I'm full ofhustle culture.I'm. I'm working through the the the pain.

Nick | I mean, if you could maybe just if I could give you some advice, if you could adjust yourmindset alittle bit and really look at the cold as an opportunity to thrive.
Brad | It'strue.
Nick | It's, I think it's that might work better for you,but.
Brad | That that doesn't kill you makes you stronger,right?
Nick | Yeah. And I'm not sure the cold even reallyexists.
Brad | It's just in mymind.
Nick | Yeah. It is. It is psychosomatic. So, I on the other hand, am coming in a little bit differently.I had agood week, some fun meetings this week with some clients. I think some things that might dovetail in our conversation. We'll see. And in just a broad defiance of hustle culture, I took a nap today.

Brad | Oh,man.
Nick | Cat nap afterlunch.
Brad | I'm super jealous right now. I did a webinar afterlunch.
Nick | Oh wow. Who's hashtag winning now? I guess that's thequestion.
Brad | Well we'llsee.
Nick | Okay. So why are we talking about this? I mean, hustle culture has been in the ether forforever. It is probably not going away. Part of the reason why we're talking about this is Ithink we're seeing a little bit of a resurgence of this. There's been so much insecurity andquestions this year. Election yearsare always chaotic from a business leader standpoint.

Nick | And when dust starts to settle, whether you like where the dust is settling or not, there isthis sort oflike, well, we better get to work, right? And so I I've noticed a little reshuffling in the, in theair on that, a little bit. People are kind of ready to roll up their sleeves in a fresh way.

Nick | Again more timely. You know, there's always kind of kings of hustle culture and almostalways kings, rarely queens. Maybe we can find some culture in our discussion, but Mr.Beast is in the news, sowe're going to come back to him. I'm not sure. I mean, is he a king of hustle culture?Maybe.

Brad | I mean, to me, YouTube is like hustle culture embodied. So I feel like since he's the king ofYouTube, he's there's some hustle culture in there. It's interesting. I think Mr. Beast is likea millennial, or evenmaybe even Gen Z version of hustle culture, because he makes it look like he's nothustling.

Nick | Yeah,but.
Brad | He is.
Nick | Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll hear some of that when we get to his news item. Ithink whether he is actually hustling or not, I think people use him as an example of like,hey, if you just do the things, look up, look what can happen for you. So the thing actuallythat put it into my purview is whoI would consider to be the reigning current king of hustle culture.

Nick | I would welcome who you think yours is, but mine is Alex formosey.
Brad | Yeah.And.
Nick | Just to just a guy who really believes in himself, believes in himself. Let's just let's justsay that.

Brad | He has bet onhimself.
Nick | And maybe that maybe that's what we would argue is like a critical, defining cornerstone.Yeah. Is people who feel that they're kind of big bets on themselves, which a lot of our business owner, founder people listening in and our clients feel similarly. So. Yeah. But,he put this out recently. Idon't have the exact date of it, but it doesn't matter.

Nick | This this is the post. It starts with 2014, I should say. Oh, there's a picture. There's twopictures, one in front of him in front of a fitness center, which was his original business, and one in front of a big office building saying acquisition.com, which is his current business. Yeah. So says 2014, my second gym, United Fitness 600,000 in revenue 2020 for my private equity firm@acquisition.com250 million portfolio revenue.

Nick | Just that nice humblebrag at the beginning gets you hooked,right?
Brad | Thousandindex.
Nick | Right. The secret questionmark.
Brad | Okay, here wego.

Nick | I mean, Brad, we can shut down the podcast rightafter.
Brad | This, right? Yeah. We'll just just read it right off thetweet.
Nick | No distractions for ten years. No meaningless purchases for ten years, no clubbing for tenyears. Hiswife probably appreciates that. No fantasy football for ten years. What? What a sacrifice.

Brad | Yes,indeed.
Nick | But this is my favorite one. No friends weddings for tenyears.
Brad | Sure. That's a huge distraction going to friendsweddings.
Nick | So if you're going to pick, like it's your job to come up with five things that you're going toabstain from to be successful. Three of his are clubbing, fantasy football and friends weddings. Yeah. That's amazing. So and then it ends with you better start now because ittakes way longer than you think.Just win.
Brad | Yeah. Hashtagwinning.
Nick | Yeah I mean it's like the poster of or like the, you know, the chiseled in the, in the, inthe granitething. Right. You know on the temple of Hustle culture.
Brad | Hermosa is interesting because I mean, I don't I don't want to get out of ourselves. But hedid work hard. I mean, he is he he made something of himself. He put himself out there,he took risks. And I think this is a feature of hustle culture that is that I didn't necessarilyrealize before you and I started talking about it is another part of it is that the person who's theicon took all these risks, but then isselling the idea that you don't have to take any risk.

Brad | You can just follow my plan and do what I did, and all you need to do is to work your wholelife long.

Nick | Yeah. Part of the hook, right? Part of the promise is it's easy. Yeah, right. It's it's notcomplicated. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to go to. Because a lot of theseguys are like anti college. Youhave to go to college.
Brad | You know ifyou.
Nick | Want even these things, all you got to do is work your butt off and follow a provenprotocol. And I think that's part of the reason why I get to Mr. Beast. I, I agree with you,the YouTube of it all, but Ithink that's his vibe too, is I tore apart YouTube.

Brad | Yeah.
Nick | Figured out what made it work. No no, no. Everything about it. And now you don't have todo that. I can just teach you. Yeah, and you can make money. Follow the rules. Yeah, right.And we saw this as kind of a springboard for our conversation. And we saw this in like a it's like a company culturedocument.
Nick | Yeah. That you had stumbled upon I don't know how new it is, but it's aninteresting.
Brad | I just found Google Doc. Yeah. It's like a Google doc, but he uses to train newemployees that arejoining Beast Inc.
Nick | And I was I was intrigued by that document, in contrast to a news item, which is that he is,you know, under fire for toxic work environment and cruel leadership practices and blah, blah, blah. The document, we'll link it in the show notes. It's kind of a to me. It's a guidebook tothe side effects ofhustle culture.
Nick | But I don't think that's what he intended it to do. I mean, that that's not even really why yousent it tome. So tell me, you know, talk a little bit about what you originally reaction.

Brad | So what was interesting to me about the this guidebook is that I have a lot of clients who are millennial managers or leaders who went into the pandemic feeling like they were with their employees, like they were they were similar to their employees. Yeah.And came out of the pandemic and found out their employees felt like they were theoppressor and that they were theman and that the the employees were the oppressed.
Brad | And it was very confusing for them. And they, you know, the managers wanted to say, no,I'm on your side. I, I'm trying to make things better for you. And the employees were like,no, you can't do that.You're the man. And and so there was this weird dichotomy that arose, between them. Andwhat I saw in the Mr. Beast document was him finding a way to create motivation forthose youngeremployees to really get them to bring their all to the organization.

Brad | But one of the features of it was he asked people to be as creative as they possiblycould, to put themselves out there to try new things. But don't worry, we're not going toput it out into YouTube until our creative director looks at it. So there was a safety valvethere that people could try things and test things, but that the boss was still going toapprove it, which for me, as a as an extra, I'd belike, screw that, you're not going to approve what I'm doing.

Brad | But I think for the younger folks, that's their safety in that there's it unlocks something forfor them.

Nick | Yeah, it's funny because I read it as hypocrisy. You like, you know, a guy who his wholesuccess story is, you know, taking something apart and breaking it in, whatever. Yeah.And. Yeah. And then and again in the document, he spends paragraphs waxing eloquent about how much he knows thatnobody else knows. I mean, it was like this.

Brad | Whole page about how well lit the first minute of the videoneeds to.
Nick | Be. Yeah. I mean, it's his really, homage to himself, which, again, this thing about betting onyourself. And we got to talk about that to me. I read the hey, so then take risks and we'regoing to check you onthem. Yeah. It's sort of like take don't really take risks, you know, is we already know what todo.

Nick | You're lucky to work here, right. It's interesting. I don't know how old he is in 30s.Or is he.

Brad | Like one in his late 20s, Ithink.
Nick | Yeah, he reads like a 60year.
Brad | Old.
Nick | In that document. Like he reads like Don Draper, trying to explain to the secretarieswhat they're allowed to put in the client letters at their at the typing pool, like, it just it'sso heavy handed. And then, of course, I feel validated in that because he's under the gun for, you know, toxic workenvironment stuff, right?
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | But I think there's a subtext to it. So hustle culture that could bring us back full circle isthis sort oftension between.
Brad | Holy cow, he's 26 yearsold.
Nick | Oh my God. Okay. Anyway, I'm 26 yearsold too.
Brad | Yes youare.
Nick | There's this tension between the merits of hustle culture and all of the sort of getting youto the front of the line that it could be. That's right. And then there's this hoarding that happens once they gotthere.
Brad | Yes.

Nick | Right. And so I think let's just jump in a little bit into that really the two sides of this. Right.So workingbroken you I think have a stronger view of this than I do of what's working.

Brad | Well. So I think the roots of hustle culture go back even to my father's generation, where,it was kind of the first generation of knowledge workers that were all coming out ofcollege. And so there were a whole bunch of people that had similar qualifications. Andhustle was a way to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Counsel was one way that you could separate yourself from your peers by justworking harder.
Brad | And I think the other thing that we know about working harder, or at least trying things overand over again, is that if you make a lot of attempts, if you make a lot of videos, you learnhow to make videos better, right? If you if you if you put yourself out there, you're learningcurve accelerates. And so it's true that by working hard, by taking a lot of at bats, you canimprove your game and separate yourselffrom the crowd.
Nick | So I'm curious just for context, because I think this will be meaningful. You talked aboutyour father's generation and coming out the first generation of knowledge work position that for me, geographically and in time. You don't have to tell me, oh, sure. But just like,you know, so we canvisualize where we are.
Brad | My dad graduated with an MBA in 1968. Okay, 69, something like that. And, ended upworking forErnst and Young in New York. So, you know, big five.
Nick | Year Metropolitancenter.
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | At that point, I mean, there's a lot of MBAs now you canget it.
Brad | But back then there were not a ton.Right.
Nick | Again, this kind of way to differentiate yourself, we're now sort of in the second wave ofthe great American dream, right at this point. Right. Because this is one of my bigquestions about the does it work or does it not? Yes, I think underneath. Does it work ordoes it now is a bigger question that I ismaybe the reason for the hustle culture exists is is the standard American dream stillattainable?

Nick | And I think the millennials said, no, it'snot.
Brad | Right.

Nick | That for a variety of reasons, right, wrong or indifferent, the millennials said, no, it's not attainable. The traditional pathway I can't work my way up an organization. The socialcontract between employer and employees is broken. Karl Marx has entered the chat.Right. And so it's like we're goingto find our own path, right? And to some degree, for a select group of them, they have.

Nick | Right. There's this entrepreneurial class, right, of all animals. And now Gen Zers that have broken out right, and are now trying to sort of show the way to others. It's interesting thatyou bring it back to sort of a classic working environment like, you know, Ernst and YoungManhattan climb the ladder kind ofa thing, because I think people inside of hustle culture think they invented something.

Nick | Really?
Brad | Oh for sure.Yeah.
Nick | And and to me, it the farther it matures, the more it looks just like basic not havingboundaries andoverworking yourself.
Brad | Well, and I think that's the context that I think is important, is that in the 60s, if you worked45 hours or 47 hours like that was, you were hustling like you were out there, right? In the80s when I wascoming up, you had to work 50 or 55 hours. Now you see people working 80, 90 hours.

Brad | Because the problem with hustle culture is really all you have to offer is effort. And everybody has the same amount of effort, everybody has the same amount of time. And soonce everybody is in thehustle culture now, you can't differentiate yourself because everybody is hustling.

Nick | Yeah. And all the performative layers start to be lessobvious.
Brad | That's right, that'sright.
Nick | There's always been a performative layer to hustle culture, particularly because it's very online. Right. It's hard to differentiate hustle culture from the online environment that it thrives in.You mentioned YouTube as being sort of the pantheon of oh my gosh. And so because ithas is so performing in the context of a workplace, like you're talking about your clients andmanagers trying tomanage employees, that performative shit doesn't work right?

Nick | Right. All of that, like, look what I'm doing. And I got up early and you know all that.Nobody cares.

Brad | Well, not only do they not care, I will tell you when I was a manager and someone wasdoing that kind of performative crap, my suspicion was they weren't very good at their job.Like if they were good at their job, they could get it done in 8 or 9 hours. Like that's, youknow. Yeah, if you're working 10 or 12hours, you're probably not very productive.
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | It it it it raises one of the questions that I have, which is there are placesunquestionably wherehustle culture has created wealth and create opportunity for people. It's opened updoors.

Brad | You mean but but there's a there's I just I'm going to interrupt you. I'm sorry, but now goahead. There's a fallacy there. And the fallacy is that the winners tell the story. How manytimes did Alex Rosie get lucky? We have no idea. How many times did Gary Vee get hockeylucky. You know, there'sa whole much more complex story that I just worked 12 hours a day, but that doesn't.

Brad | That's much harder to sell. That's now we're selling nuance, and nuance doesn't sell verywell. Yeah.

Nick | I mean, I mentioned I alluded this at the beginning of the, you know, political, cultural environment we're in. Again, this isn't about this is certainly not a politics podcast, but one of therising stars of the current environment that really, I think a lot of people, myself included, thought he was on the decline is Elon Musk. Yeah. And what we've even seen in the backend of, we're recording this at theend of 2024, where we're seeing the back end of 2024 is a resurgence of the Elon Musk.

Brad | Aura.
Nick | Fandom and all of that. Yeah. And and they he is seen by many as sort of a, one of thegreat kings ofhustle culture.
Brad | Self-made man, self-mademan.
Nick | Slept on the Tesla flat factory floor, you know, brought in the kitchen sink to Twitter and fired everybody. And there's Twitter still running. And they got rid of all the waste. And, youknow, I can you know, there's a lot of mythology there. And to your point, we we don't havea lot of spaces where we get to have a productive discussion about, like the generational wealth that, you know, I was came from and, and can we have a discussion where these two things can live in concert, where there'sadvantages that he had that were unique?

Nick | Again, some luck that went his way. And he did things that other people weren't willing todo. Yeah,yeah. And to your point, the reality is very nuanced.

Brad | You know, something I just realized as we're having this conversation, I would love to hearyour take on it. We're in an age of uncertainty. Right. But there's tons of uncertainty inbusiness, in politics and geopolitics. In an age of uncertainty, people want simple answers and the simple answer of followthe rules and work hard. That feels really good.

Brad | In an age of uncertainty, I guess.Seductive?
Nick | Absolutely. And I think we think about, the socioeconomic sort of bubbles of people who are feeling the uncertainty the most. We know that it's young men. Yeah, we know that it's,suburban young men of of of multiple ethnicities. Yeah. Groups that tend to be attracted to, you know, Elon Musk orwhatever.
Brad | Well, that testosterone fueled, you know, strengthcontest.
Nick | Yeah. That kind of broke culture. Yeah. He's going to give you a car at theend, Mr. B.
Brad | Exactly.
Nick | I mean, I do think the resurgence does have to do like you said, I agree with you that it isa way of managing uncertainty, is that if I, if someone can hand me a rulebook because the old rulebook doesn't work, right, that's that's the premise. And part of the reason why you and I started this podcast is because we think our we know from time to our leaders,we have that we work with, thatthey're trying to follow the rules.
Nick | Yeah. Founders are trying to follow the rules. Right. Business owners are trying to followthe rules.CEOs are trying to follow the rules are trying to go, I'm doing what I'm told. And there's alevel of futility of like, why isn't this working?
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | And an example of that is the generational thing that you said after Covid all of a sudden,like, these people used to like me and now I'm, you know, the enemy. I think that angst of,like, something's notworking and I don't know what it is.
Brad | Yes.
Nick | Is really, really costing people emotionally, socially that sense of something's broken. And I mean, I talked to somebody not that long ago, prospective client of ours, and we were giving them some feedback. And a founder in his 60s said to me, we've known for yearsthat something was off, and wedidn't know what to call it.
Nick | And you've given us thewords.

Brad | That's all.That's.
Nick | I mean, that's a great moment, right? It's a great moment as a as a service provider, like welike. But Ithink more importantly, I don't think he's unique.
Brad | No, I agree I think when you're trying to follow the rules and you're not seeing progress, itcreates a lot of anxiety about is it me or am I the problem in this equation. Right. And sowe get into this performance cycle, which is part of hustle culture, right. Like, oh, if I'mnot getting the results, I justneed to work harder.
Brad | And that just makes it an easy answer that I don't have to look at. Maybe I'm just not verygood at this or, you know, maybe this is the thing that I love doing, or maybe I should payattention to my kids.You know, that would be a good tool.
Nick | Right? Because so many of the iterations of this are in context where you're able tolimit thevariables, right? So for example, there's a big hustle culture around fitness.
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | Well shocking of sharks. Most of the people in that culture are under 25 are haveungodly levels of testosterone. The metabolism of a bird. And they're like, hey, just getup early and do calorie reduction, right? Right. When you're 25 and your body is half testosterone of the metabolism willburn. That is the correct answer because you have way fewer variables.

Brad | Elon Musk, who has ten children but none of them live with him, and he's focused on work all the time like I used to. I'm going to admit here I have a workaholic streak, andthere was a period of time where I was definitely a workaholic, and one of the things thatwas attractive to me about it was therules were very simple.
Brad | It wasn't hard to figure out what I needed to do in order to get ahead, whereas in the rest ofthe worldit was much more complicated.
Nick | Well, I think this is leaning toward where we're headed. Yeah, the last little bit here is justwhat's not working. And I think my big stake in the ground of what's not, what's broken about hustle culture. I can make a lot of jokes about, you know, the 4:00 Am and theoverworking and all of that, I honestlybelieve live through this in your 20s in some part of your 30s.

Nick | That's kind of what it'sfor.
Brad | Yeah. You have more energy than wisdom. So spend yourenergy, right.

Nick | It's a resource game. That's right. Right. And when your primary resources energy use itand time use it. Right. You know, so like I, I worked my butt off at 1:00 in the morning whenI was in my 20s. Like, and I don't begrudge that now, I probably did it longer than I shouldhave and blah blah, blah, blahconsequences.
Nick | So I don't necessarily get all on the like. The downside of this is people who are working toolong and late hours and blah blah. I mean, again, pay attention your family, pay attention toyour health. These are prerequisites. Yeah, I actually think the downside is what you've alluded to, which is it implies asimplicity that doesn't exist.
Nick | Yes. Yeah. And once you buy into that implied simplicity, you start going a little insanebecause youwill no longer have a workable map of reality. Yes, yes. And that's chaos.
Brad | Yes. That's where the anxiety comes from, because I have this map and it's notmatching theterritory, and I don't know where I am. And like that, that creates a lot of anxiety.Absolutely.

Nick | Yeah. And I think it's it's a fundamental internet problem. Right, is where these things that work in very specific things are then generalized to say they should work everywhere.That's kind of the rule of the internet. Well, I did it this way. And if you just mass produceand you do it this way, then itshould work everywhere.
Nick | The internet has fundamentally lied to us about that. And there's a lot of people have sort of weaponized the internet to lie to us about that. But we've all started to believe it at a fundamental level, that we just take these very narrow solutions for very specificscenarios making videos, givingaway stuff, and doing weird tricks on YouTube should apply over here, right?

Nick | To my business that sells $50,000 a pop. Comprehensiveadvice.
Brad | Right?
Nick | We're making translation errorseverywhere.
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | And I think hustle culture is one of those big translation errors. I you know, I thinkthere's a lot ofcreative, strong leaders in their 30s and 40s and even 50s that probably becausethey're in a knowledge business, would do well to hustle less.

Brad | So I was just going to say that one of the things that made me stop working long hours,one of my clients said, Brad, I don't want to buy the 12th, 13th, and 14th work hour ofyour day. And I had to look at them and say, yeah, I don't want to sell that either. Right?Yeah. And if anything that you're doing, if the solutions you're providing require creativity,creativity comes from being away from the problem, from being away from work forhaving time where your brain can do other things, evenoperate in different modes.

Brad | Like for me, cooking is a very embodied activity. And so if I go in and make a stir fry, like Icome up with better solutions. And so the idea that work is the only unit by which we cancreate value is, is afundamental flaw.
Nick | Well, and and and that that particularly work that iseffortful.
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | Like there's a time and a place for effortful work. Yeah. But man I have accelerated in mycareer dramatically doing work that's easy. Not all the time. Right. But there have beenmoments where it'slike, this is rocket fuel because it's I'm in the flow.
Brad | Yes.
Nick | Eventually, in my 30s had to learn to go tobed.
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | And then wake up and go, okay, now, now how do I think about this problem? And all of asudden the problem was completely different. And and I think hustle culture undermines all ofthat. I think one of the challenges that or the, the, one of the fundamental outcomes of also cultureis you losemental flexibility. Because you're like, well I've, I've been all in on this way of doing things.

Nick | So I just got a keywhen.
Brad | All you have is a hammer, everything's a nail.Right.
Nick | Right. And I, I think I saw that in that subtext of that Mr. Beast thing where it was just likeall theseguys chasing algorithms and working endlessly to chase algorithms. The game changes.We don't know when it's going to change, but it's going to change.
Brad | But, but, but I think that's also a feature of what's bringing hustle culture back. Is thatbecause we're working against algorithms instead of working with or alongside otherpeople, there is this sense of we have to stay ahead. It's like there is something huntingus, right? And and if we run too slow, thealgorithm is going to eat us alive.

Nick | Yeah. I mean, the the way that the story about algorithms and AI has beenweaponized.

Brad | No.
Nick | To imply that us with skin have to just like we got to make it happen because they're coming from like, that whole narrative as a different, different podcast episode. Here's I want to finish with Brad. Yeah. We try to finish well, we'll do two things. One, we want tojust officially say working are broken.You're about working. You're broken.
Brad | Broken. Yeah. Like ha. I don't think there's I the time of hustle culture is gone. The timewhen it wasadaptive is over. You need to have a different way to do it.
Nick | So I'm kind of surprised to even hear myself say this. I'm going to say, for the most part,broken. I'm concerned that we don't have a really interesting, good, productive way for people in their 20s towork their butts off. Yep.
Brad | I agree withthat.
Nick | And I don't know that digital culture culture was a great interlude for that. But I do think,man, there's just something really powerful to like we said earlier, using energy when youhave it. I don't know that hustle culture has been a good solution for that, but I don't know that we have a different one rightnow.
Brad | I agree with you. And here's here's my wish casting, because this is absolutely wishcasting. But if we believe that the world is getting more complex and more uncertain, whatwe need is more creativity. Yeah. And what I would love my 20 something kids to do ispaint a picture every day, write a story, create a song like do Something to engage yourcreativity and put that creativity into building a betterhuman that's better able to address the challenges that the world is bringing us.

Nick | I have so many thoughts on that, but we got to keep going. I do think it transitions wellinto the question we like to end the episode with, which is, what should people do? Well,you know, we got a lot of people on the call who are well into their career. They're running businesses, they're leading departments, etc. should they go paint a picture like, what'syour what's your what's your take homethinking on this?
Brad | Well, I first of all, the reason that I'm saying that hustle culture is broken is that workingharder and harder and harder is not a sustainable solution. Right. And so when you're atthat point where you're like, I've worked as hard as I'm going to work, I think that thedefault then is for people to say, well,the system is broken and lay down.

Brad | I think another way to address that would be to say, okay, but what is something else that Icould do other than working harder? Is there a way that I could create a community wherewe can work together and get greater output as a, as a collective? Is there a way that wecan apply creativity, this this problem where we can get more output for fewer hours, likeit's not a zero sum game of either wework hard and we win, or we don't work hard and we lose.

Brad | Yeah, there are other solutions out there, and I think that's what I would ask people to startengagingin.
Nick | Yeah, it's it's somewhat related. But I think an application of this, as I was with a clientrecently and they were working on their growth plan and how many new clients theyneed and blah, blah, blah. Well, what it really came down to is they had done all this digitalmarketing and all this stuff, andthey needed they needed ten good new clients in the next 12 months.

Nick | And thenthey.
Brad | Wanted to do cold email.Right?
Nick | Well, no. But they had four partners. And I just said, guys, I'm not saying this is the rightanswer, but I just want to remind you that the other end of reality, you could shut all thisdown. That's cost costing you 20% of your yeah, net revenue every year. And then eachone of you just has to go meet two anda half people.
Brad | Yeah.
Nick | Like, I'm not saying that's the answer just right here. Block and tackle. Go to that likebut there's a pantheon of options if we can do what you're saying, which is slow downand go, well, what else is possible exactly. And I do think this is definitely coming back to thefundamental flaw of hustleculture is we lose that mental flexibility.
Nick | We get myopic about I gotta keep going. I got to keep pumping cortisol. Yeah. And we loseour ability. Go. Well, what else is possible? What else could I do? What's another completely different way to solve this kind of that classic, you know, design thinking, breaking apart a problem. Put it backtogether again.
Brad | So so just an illustration to prove that point. If I went to Yosemite and drove through 70Valley and 70 miles an hour, what kind of an experience would I have with your familyversus if I got out of the car and walked around and smelled things and heard things andtouch things. The faster, faster, faster,it just leaves a lot out.

Nick | Well, I think we solved hustle culture. So Brad and I are on in generally in the tank for hustleculture is broken, but we do want to know what you think. So you can, tag this post on your social media will find you. You can email us. We're going to keep covering thesetopics right. And digging into thesekind of things.

Nick | You can find all the resources we mentioned in today's show at Working broken.com. Me, Nick Richtsmeier. I am a supposedly the rumor is a catalyst for change in organizations(you are catalyst for change) for organizations that rely on trust and deliver their services. Ifyour advisory or education professional services firm needs to accelerate growth, go see my me and my team at Culturecraft.com.

Nick | Brad, is I should have said this at the beginning? Brad is my personal coach so I canvalidate his services, Brad coaches, leaders of creative, professional firms to become thepeople they need to be to lead the agency they aspire to grow. Find out more at Anchoradvisors.com. And the best way tofind us is on our respective websites. We cannot commit to that.

Nick | You can find us on social media because it's such a trash hole out there. But if you've liked what we've heard this week, you can do us a solid with one of three things one.Subscribe. So we see you here next time. Two share. Because caring is sharing andfriends don't let friends work broken. And three give us that infamous five star review onApple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listeningtoday. We'll see you next time.