I recently renovated my website to start preparing for my upcoming book launch. Like many renovations, the process has unearthed some interesting relics. One is this almost decade-old post giving my opinion on some Gary Vaynerchuk hustle porn.
Before I go much further, let me be clear about a couple of beliefs. I believe there is some nobility in working hard. I also believe there are valuable rewards to be had in the path to mastery (which requires deliberate, dedicated work). It no secret I have benefited from both. That said, I have learned a few things in the nine years since that post and at some point—for the few that have been with me since then—I’ve gone from a hustle porn distributor to an outspoken critic.
Hustle porn has had a good run, but it’s time for us to put a fork in it. Too many among us are continuing to fetishize long working hours. Too many of us are wearing our fatigue as a badge of honor.
Is it any wonder why the World Health Organization has now identified burnout as an official medical diagnosis? My primary issue with hustle porn is it promotes suffering with the allure of some sort of glorious end—but that seldom is the case (an assertion backed by data). In fact, there is now a growing mountain of evidence that suggests long hours actually are one of the most effective ways to move you away from glory.
I am not the only one turning on hustle porn. Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, said this at last year’s Web Summit in Lisbon:
This (Hustle Porn) is one of the most toxic, dangerous things in tech right now. It is this idea that unless you are suffering, unless you are grinding, unless you are working every hour of every day and posting about it on Instagram, you are not working hard enough,” Ohanian said.
He continued with this warning: “Do not let hustle porn win here. And do not let it infect your brain … It is such bullsh¡t. Such utter bullsh¡t. And the worst part about it is it has deleterious effects, not just on your business, but on your personal well-being.”
Ohanian and I are hardly pioneers here. I remember Jason Zook wrote about the folly of hustle porn back in 2015, exposing the hustle’s tender underbelly: stress, debt, and unhappiness.
Hustle porn now goes by many names: “struggle porn,” “toil glamour,” “work martyr.” It is all the same bullsh¡t. The fallacy that untethered struggling is noble and that if you just push harder, glory is on the other side of pain.
What You Need to Know
The increasing evidence behind the relationship between hustling and poor health can no longer be ignored. Again, this is not just a U.S. problem. For instance, in Japan hustling has gotten bad enough that there is now a specific term for death from overwork. It’s called “karoshi” (Kondo & Oh, 2010). If you don’t feel like digging into the research I have cited, here is the important nugget: working long hours out of the feeling of responsibility, Japanese workers are literally working themselves to death.
In 2018, Virtanen and Kivimäki published an article in Current Cardiology Reports, where they looked at studies that examined long working hours as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, such as stroke and heart attack. Their large-scale meta-analyses that included more than 740,000 men and women free of cardiovascular disease showed a link between long working hours (55 hours or more a week) and the onset of cardiovascular events. This evidence suggests those that work long hours have a significant increase in their risk associated with coronary heart disease as well as significant increases in their risk of stroke.
Need more proof? A French study that included those who worked more than 10 hours daily for at least 50 days per year also found a significant association between working long hours and stroke (Fadel et al., 2019).
Hustling is also associated with mental health problems. A study published in the journal Occupational Medicine in 2017 by a group of Portuguese scientists found significantly higher anxiety and depression symptom scores in respondents reporting long working hours (when compared to peers who worked regular hours). The group also made an association between long working hours and burnout, especially in younger employees. It should come as no surprise that poor mental health is often the byproduct of not getting enough rest (Alfonso, Fonseca, & Pires, 2017).
What You Need to Do
Have more fun, build constraints into your week, scroll pass hustle porn and balance your effort and output with recovery. Guess what, when you lose your mental or physical health … no more hustle anyway! The American Psychological Association lists “taking time to recharge” as one of the most useful strategies to avoid stress-related burnout. You need to replenish your energy by having “periods of time when you are neither engaging in work-related activities, nor thinking about work.”
The best part (although clearly I’m biased) is that fun and leisure improve your hustle. It is clear that a requirement of success is finding time for fun and downtime—outside your hustle. Again, this shouldn’t surprise you … according to the annual Project: Time Off report, workers who fail to utilize their vacation time are more stressed on the job when compared to those of us that take time off for fun. Good news for us fun seekers, those of us that do take time out for fun are more likely to have had a promotion within the last year, as well as a raise or a bonus in the previous three years when compared to those who chose hustle over fun.
What I Need to Not Do
Start a “fun porn” movement? As much fun as that sounds, I just don’t see that ending well. Let’s just commit together to put an end to hustle porn. For many, slowing down and balancing work with pleasure is the ticket to achieving more. Bonus: you will have more fun during the process.
Sources & further reading:
American Psychological Association. Coping with Stress at Work, 2019. [Available from: https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm]. Accessed 23 July 2019.
BBC. Young Chinese are sick of working long hours 2018 [Available from: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180508-young-chinese-are-sick-of-working-overtime ] Accessed 23 July 2019.
Bick A, Brüggemann B, Fuchs-Schündeln N. Hours Worked in Europe and the US: New Data, New Answers. 2016. [Available from: http://ftp.iza.org/dp10179.pdf ]. Accessed 23 July 2019.
Afonso P, Fonseca M, Pires JF. Impact of working hours on sleep and mental health. Occup Med. 2017; 67(5):377-382.
Fadel M, Sembajwe G, Gagliardi D, et al. Association between reported long working hours and history of stroke in the CONSTANCES cohort. Stroke. 2019;50(7):1879-1882.
Kondo N, Oh J. Suicide and karoshi (death from overwork) during the recent economic crises in Japan: the impacts, mechanisms and political responses. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2010; 64:649–650.
OECD. Hours worked, 2019. [Available from: https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm]. Accessed 22 July 2019.
Shields M. Long working hours and health. Health reports / Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Health Information = Rapports sur la santé / Statistique Canada, Centre canadien d’information sur la santé. 1999; 11(2):33-48(Eng); 37-4855(Fre).
Virtanen M, Kivimäki M. Long working hours and risk of cardiovascular disease. Curr Cardiol Rep. 2018;20(11):123.
