#6 - Always Be Hustlin... Or, Should We?

Hey Friends 👋

I hope you have had a great week? I'd love to know what you've been up to so if you are interested in sharing feel free to reply to this email or hit me up on Twitter.

This week I wanted to talk a little bit about "Hustle culture" and the impact it has.

First of all what is "Hustle culture"? A quick Google shows us that:

In today's standard, hustle culture can be defined as the state of overworking to the point where it becomes a lifestyle. There's not a day in your life where you're not exerting yourself to your utmost capabilities — having no time for personal life.*

Someone in your life may or may not instantly come to mind as soon as you read that description, that person may even be yourself. I know for a while it was me. I partook in the practice. I wanted to work 24/7 and if I wasn't working, I felt guilty for not working.

Was this healthy? In hindsight, no.

I soon realised that it's great to make loads of progress towards the future. But, I also noticed it becomes easy to miss the present.

I would say it's almost a requirement of hustle culture, that you should be more focused on the future than you are on the present.

Is this is bad or not will depend on your priorities and your life.

But, for me, someone who is still on the mend from being completely consumed by hustle culture, I know it's not worth it.

Instead, I now focus on balance, working and playing.

Focusing on making progress (be it not as much) but also not neglecting my family, friends and hobbies who ultimately make me who I am.

How much we all work is a very personal choice, we are all in control of our priorities in life and we all make decisions that align with these priorities. And, ultimately the only person that can tell you if you should be working more or not for your goals and aspirations is yourself.

But, I personally now advocate against hustle culture. Not because I'm against working hard or working towards your dreams. But, because I'm against the toxic culture that I firmly believe hustle culture has developed in the modern world we live in.

I believe you can live a happy life, filled with all the things you enjoy while still achieving your goals. Yes, you may achieve them a bit slower but at least you will have done the things you enjoy along the way.

Saying this, I know there are very varying opinions on this topic and I would love to hear your thoughts and what your relationship is with hustle culture.

If you're open to sharing and having a discussion around it, please reply to this email.

I hope next week is a great week for you and I look forward to chatting with you again in a week, if not sooner.

Thank you,

Coner

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• Quote from https://university.taylors.edu.my/en/campus-life/news-and-events/news/the-truth-about-the-hustle-culture.html

What I've Been Doing

Very on point with this weeks newsletter topic, I've been doing some self-reflection on working and how hustle culture and social media as a whole has impacted me over recent months.

I've realised that in recent months I've been spending too much time jumping from idea to idea always trying to do something new and exciting, this has taken a lot of work, energy and time to do.

So, this week was a step back, a reevaluation of everything going on and a time to formulate my next steps and how I'm going to proceed going forward.

That is to say, I've got one idea and one idea I'm going to stick with. Building PhyType to being my new full-time venture.

I'm dropping all my other ideas and ventures. For now, I want to commit everything I've got into this one idea so A) I'm not over-worked, I can achieve my goals and enjoy life at the same time. And, B) You can make more progress in one direction if you just work in one direction.

Tip Of The Week

Don't make a centimetre of progress in a hundred directions, instead make a hundred centimetres of progress in one direction.

A concept from the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.

Quote Of The Week

"In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind, there are few."

What I've Enjoyed

Here are the books, podcasts and videos I've enjoyed from the last week:

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

The Future of Work: OOO by Today, Explained

This Week's Content

Below is a link to all of the content from this week:

YouTube Livestream Playlist

Enjoyed This Newsletter?

If you have enjoyed this edition and want to see more of my content please consider checking out my various socials below:

• Twitter
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• Twitch
• LinkedIn

Questions

If you have a question you'd like me to ask me then I'd ask you to consider publically tweeting me it so others may be able to learn from it. However, I understand not all questions are suitable for the public domain in which case you can email me at hey@conermurphy.com

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