36 | The Problem with Hustle Culture
Why hustle culture makes you work less effectively, the people 4xing their income by gaming, why we should build bridges and more
Good morning,
Last week, I published an essay called ‘Why I love the internet’. Inspired by a recent trip where every person I met up with, I first spoke to via the internet. The experience cemented why I’m so optimistic about the internet and being an active participant in it. I’m off these next two weeks where I’ll be continuing with Hack Africa, visiting the English countryside and seeing plenty of friends.
This week on Future Talk, Sam, our special guest Beth, and I, discuss the future of finance and how automation tools could improve our own personal finances and the changing nature of finance departments.
You can catch up with episodes on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more.
A trend I’ve seen, and I’m sure you’ve seen, sweep the internet is ‘hustle culture’. People that emphasize the need to always work. You’ve got to keep grinding; otherwise, you’ll never ‘make it’. And sure, working hard is good, and many opportunities can come from building a ‘side hustle’. But that doesn’t mean we should work all the time. Working all the time makes you perform worse.
In addition to my day job, I write this newsletter (now fortnightly), do a podcast and build projects. That might seem like a lot, but it isn’t because there are plenty of gaps in between. And it’s those gaps that make me ‘productive’, which is why I’m against hustle culture.
Walks, reading, talking to friends and doing other activities is when I come up with new ideas or solutions to problems I’m facing. It’s during those times that the lightbulb switches on, and everything comes together.
Hustle culture also promotes mistreating ourselves. Staying up all night, so we get little sleep. Or working so hard that we forget to eat properly and don’t exercise. Without looking after ourselves, we can’t function at 100%. Try a few consecutive nights of little sleep and see how well you think.
So if you want to ‘hustle’, my best advice is to not. Do things other than work, because counter-intuitively, it’ll make you better at work.
This weekend I’m re-energizing. I’m camping in the countryside with friends, staying in one of my favourite places in England - the Peak District. And while there, I plan to disconnect and not think about work.
And that’ll no doubt make me more productive.
👀 Recommendations 👀
👾💵 Infinity Revenue, Infinity Possibilities - Packy McCormick. Packy once again dives deep into Web 3.0, this time focusing on a crypto game called Axie Infinity. What’s incredible about Axie is that people in developing nations like the Philippines are quitting their jobs to play this game. Because they’re 4xing their income. Gaming on blockchain is another example of how crypto isn’t all about finance and shitcoins.
“NFTs are important the same way the App Store was important. Meaning that at the beginning of the App Store, everything was broken. It took like three months to get an app approved. Just crazy stuff. It was a real nightmare. And it was growing like crazy. That's what you want. You want an environment that's completely broken”
👷♂️🌉 Building Bridges - Aaron Frost. Aaron gives a talk at a JavaScript conference that applies to more than JavaScript. While that is the community he focuses on, zooming out it can apply to plenty more. A bridge-builder is somebody who crosses something difficult and builds a bridge for people less experienced than them. And we should all aim to be bridge builders, whether that’s updating old documentation or helping a junior person at work with a problem you faced before.
“Don’t be passive. Affect change. Don’t watch. Get involved and leave your mark.”
🏋️📱 Strong. I don’t usually recommend apps, but Strong has been a game-changer for me. If you lift weights (which you should), Strong makes it easy to track workouts, progress and monitor rest periods.
That’s all for this week.
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