7 ms·

There's nothing wrong with hard work. But there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed; if you need to wor

There's nothing wrong with hard work. But there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed; if you need to work that hard, something else is off - the idea isn't good enough, you're attacking it in the wrong way, whatever. To me this ties into the gross, pervasive trend of wantrepreneurism. Shark Tank, Zuck, Elon Musk - being a founder has never been sexier, never been more interesting or lucrative. In the wake of that, WeWork and GaryV and a whole bunch of people are selling the idea that regardless of how bad your idea is or how unfit you are to be an entrepreneur, all you need is access or hustle to succeed. And that's awful, awful advice. As income inequality continues to grow, I expect this to get worse and worse.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed Know your pay-offs. Gambling your health to enrich someone else, while you scrape by with pennies, is a last resort. Gambling your health for tremendous gains is a fair choice. These are gambles humans leaving Africa and navigating the oceans made. (The cost of loss was death.) It’s a risk we’ll face expanding to the Moon and Mars and Alpha Centauri. Be thoughtful about the risks you take—not all are offered equally—but don’t discard them outright for being risky.
- marmaduke 8y ago
  I suspect "work" here refers to that thing you do so that you can pay for the life-risking adventures worth having. If you kill yourself working how can you kill yourself scuba diving with sharks?
- crpatino 8y ago
  Exploring outer space is inherently risky, there's no safe choice and no guarantee you are going to succeed either. Leaving a crapsack country is also inherently risky to a lesser degree. There are no legal, safe options to do it, but at least you probably know a buch of people who succeeded. But, if you already are part of a profession where even mediocre practicioners have 50+% odds of making it into the 2-3% of top earners amongst the general population, it is an imbecile's choice to wreck your health for a lottery ticket to make it into the top 0.001% with 0.001% odds of winning; specially if you can still apply the same talent, passion and effort without the health wrecking by cutting an order of magnitude to your goal. IF you did read the article and still came out thinking like that, chances are you are trying to rationalize a past (or present) bad life-choice.
ben_jones 8y ago
Ultimately its peddling false hope with just enough of an inkling of truth to not be downright fraud. Like peddling health elixirs, magic diets, or the casino's w/l rate. It will get worse as income inequality (and desparation) grows.
- jfoutz 8y ago
  It’s worse than that. This kind of pressure leads to ethical lapses and outright corruption. Hustle is fine. The requirement to give 110% at every moment of every day to succeed means, anyone with two neurons to rub together will just cheat. Not hard to find conspirators when everyone is in the same situation.
- exogeny 8y ago
  Exactly. Wake me up when Gary does a video on unit economics. Or cohort analysis. Or CAC/LTV. Or literally anything to do with business other than the idea that regardless of how unfit you are, how unsuitable your idea is, or how damaging the attempt will be on your personal finances or health, hustle is all you need. The winds are increasing against him. It's going to be interesting to watch him flip and suddenly preach realism, once he calculates that his adoring masses are going to appreciate that message more on the basis of his "authenticity". (And I wish I could use about fifteen more air-quotes around that word.)
  - JimboOmega 8y ago
    Reminds of what happened with Inbox Zero. Didn't that guy wind up admitting he himself failed at it and it wasn't reasonable anyway? (Or am I getting confused with someone else?)
    - dasil003 8y ago
      No, Merlin Mann distanced himself from Inbox Zero once it got picked up by the productivity porn blogger crowd who reduced it to yet another lifehack and lost the spirit of the idea which is that your inbox should not be your todo list because then you lose agency over your own priorities.
userbinator 8y ago
something else is off - the idea isn't good enough, you're attacking it in the wrong way, whatever. ...and don't forget the fact that seems almost taboo to say these days: you just don't have the ability.
- JimboOmega 8y ago
  What hussle porn is selling most of all is agency. That you can get whatever it is you want through some actions you can take.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    Hun. When you put it that way, it doesn't sound all that much different from The Secret.
    - sk5t 8y ago
      Nor too different from Dale Carnegie.
  - taneq 8y ago
    Which is true as long as one of your options is "want something else."
  - RugnirViking 8y ago
    I really like this interpretation, but to take it at face value would be to assume that other approaches do not offer actionable steps? or at the very least do not suggest that their steps actually work? Naturally it's correct that no matter what you do you don't always suceed, but does the fact that people eat this up suggest that for most people there are no actions they can take to be successful?
- exogeny 8y ago
  Absolutely. I think about it in the same way I think about "American Idol": Simon Cowell became a notable figure simply because he was honest with people; he dared to tell people that they were wasting their time pursuing singing. Right now, Gary and all of these other hustle porn types are Paula Abdul. And they'll keep telling people that all they need to do is work harder, up until the point that it becomes to professionally more lucrative for them to stop being Paula and start being Simon. When we get to that point, they'll flip in a second. And their fans will eat it the fuck up.
manigandham 8y ago
Sometimes you do have to work that hard. Sacrificing personal health for some future gain for you (and your family) is not strange nor rare, it's reality for many people. There's no moral judgement necessary as each individual can, and should, make that call for themselves. I only wish more had more opportunity to do so.
FooHentai 8y ago
It's a pretty pure example of Cargo Cult. If I shakalaka the 'hard work' stick hard enough, rainfall/supply planes/success will surely come. It didn't rain? Must not have shaken the stick hard enough.
- travisjungroth 8y ago
  “Cargo cult” gets thrown a around a lot, and I enjoy comments like yours that bring it back to its roots.
  - tinus_hn 8y ago
    Cargo cult means imitating something for the sake of it, not doing rain dances or other backwards stuff.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      No, it doesn't mean "imitating something for the sake of it". It means ritualistically imitating some advanced technology and thinking of it as magical way to get wealth and prosperity (based on primitive tribes building fake-airports and thinking that will bring the associated goods westerners coming to their land with airplanes had). And yes, it can involve all kinds of "rain dances or other backwards stuff" too. "The name derives from the belief which began among Melanesians in the late 19th and early 20th century that various ritualistic acts such as the building of an airplane runway will result in the appearance of material wealth, particularly highly desirable Western goods (i.e., "cargo"), via Western airplanes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
    - kungtotte 8y ago
      It's more about misunderstanding cause and effect. Tribal people after WW2 started building runways on their islands because they thought that as long as they built the runways the airplanes would show up bringing their cargo. They didn't imitate it "for the sake of it", they genuinely thought they would receive cargo by building runways. So while it's not about rain dances and shakalaka sticks the previous commenter was on the money about the term cargo culting.
tyingq 8y ago
There's also those companies that advertise on TV to help inventors patent their ideas. No price is mentioned. I assume they fleece customers pretty hard.
lxmorj 8y ago
GaryV was a major investor in FaithBox, a company that knowingly incurred huge bills with my company that they'd knew be unable to pay (I run a 3PL). The switched to another warehouse for two months and did the same to them, then they "sold" to a firm in Omaha in a supposedly $0 asset-for-debt sale, and the buyers are trying to get out of paying me ~$60k. My lawyers are on it and I expect to get something out of them eventually, but I was lucky my business was far enough along to survive the hit. The guy who ran the company into the ground through gross mismanagement was one of the speakers at SubSummit this year. Such 'hustle'...
- pokemongoaway 8y ago
  Many of these people whose brand is promoted the way GaryV does seem to be like this - and few seem to have the balls to call them out. I met Gary. He's definitely one of those overly keen on technology being able to save us all. The old-school values on personal reputation in business have certainly faded. The strange thing is that people act baffled when their reputation is ruined... See Theranos, for example. Holmes continues to behave as if there are no consequences for fraud - and maybe there are not for her.
- mindentropy 8y ago
  I am seeing more and more of this on youtube now. The people who advise others like this are usually flawed in their business dealings. These people usually tend to focus on soft skills without any emphasis on other skills. The soft skills is usually convincing people and leans more towards conning people with sweet talk and forceful marketing.
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
> being a founder has never been sexier Really? To whom? Being rich has always been sexy. Being busy working 70 hours a week not so much. Ask any partner of a workaholic.
- rawTruthHurts 8y ago
  > Being rich has always been sexy And on top of that, the guys come from an already well off background. They were able to invest all the time they wanted in their personal projects, as mundane problems like paying the rent were never issue to them.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    >They were able to invest all the time they wanted in their personal projects, as mundane problems like paying the rent were never issue to them. A million times this. Many, many, founders come from upper middle class families or better. Many of them have, or were earning, ivy league educations when they dropped out to run their funded businesses full-time. A good chunk of them have already exited at least 1 startup and are independently wealthy if they chose to live in most of the US, if not any city in the world. It's easy to pour yourself into an idea when you're not worried about making your car insurance payment, making rent, hoping no personal emergency happens that you'll have to put on a credit card, it's a whole different story when you're lower middle class or lower and have no cushion. When you have no family to fall back on when things don't pan out. Hustle is sexy when you have an exit, when you have a safety net, when you have a support system. Hustle is tantamount to slavery when you don't have these things. When hustle is a means of survival it can quickly become toxic, demoralizing, soul-crushing and even dangerous to your health but when you come from a position of means it's just a challenge, another way to get that adrenaline and endorphin release.
puranjay 8y ago
One of the best things that happened to my entrepreneurial career was realizing that I wasn't cut out for every aspect of the entrepreneurial career. It took a failed startup to realize the things I don't do well. So now I offload them to others. And I'm so much happier for it.
logicchains 8y ago
People who think hustling is about working hard have a very different interpretation of the word than I'm used to. A hustler is supposed to be a cunning character who uses their guile and persistence to get ahead, taking advantage of the system. Someone who just works really hard at the expense of their health sounds more like what I'd expect to see characterised as a schmuck than a hustler.
- CompelTechnic 8y ago
  I think both connotations are valid and context usually determines the underlying meaning. For a third connotation that is close to the GP's, think of a coach telling his players to hustle on the basketball court. To me, that means they need to play hard and quick, not that they need to try more to bend the rules, take advantage, etc.
  - logicchains 8y ago
    >For a third connotation that is close to the GP's, think of a coach telling his players to hustle on the basketball court. To me, that means they need to play hard and quick, not that they need to try more to bend the rules, take advantage, etc. That's interesting, I always assumed the coach was actually suggesting they try to bend the rules and do whatever's necessary to win, but your interpretation makes more sense.
    - avisser 8y ago
      As someone who played a lot of sports, the classic "hustle" play was laying out/diving/getting on the ground for the ball. Be it in baseball, basketball or football. You could play the game without hitting the ground, but if you wanted to hustle and win, you had to get your clothes dirty. You weren't breaking any rules, just doing what other people wouldn't.
- rv-de 8y ago
  That's also my understanding of the term "hustler". Obviously hustling is considered cool - so a lot of people want to be hustlers - but if a lot of people were able to hustle - then it wouldn't be anything special. So by means of commercialized cargo culting the agreed upon definition gets watered down to a level that can be met by more people.
whack 8y ago
Is anyone actually advocating for working until your health is impacted? The article mentioned working weekends and waking up before dawn - neither of which is particularly toxic to your body. If other people want the hard-working founder lifestyle, and if they find these videos motivating and useful, I don't see why we should try to tear them down. People don't need to be criticized or psycho-analyzed just because they have different life goals and dreams. Edison famously said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Was he fetishizing Hustle Porn as well? edit: Thanks for the name fix
- AlexCoventry 8y ago
  That was Edison, and yes, he was definitely fetishizing hustle. E.g. "Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
blablabla123 8y ago
> There's nothing wrong with hard work. > But there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed Yeah but that's the thing: people tell you it makes totally sense to work long hours if you have the time, no commitments in life etc. Those people can be parents, 'peers' (whatever that means), people on the Internet... My bosses - during the times in which I was regularly employed - rarely told me such things. But to come back to the point, nobody of these people tells you to work while you're seriously sick or to work yourself to death. They tell you to work yourself into a higher position, wealth, etc. So by the time you're health or social life are affected, it's already to late. I mean this is not a process where you turn one day to the other from healthy to sick. It's a gradual process and you realize it when it's years to late. > To me this ties into the gross, pervasive trend of wantrepreneurism. Shark Tank, Zuck, Elon Musk - being a founder has never been sexier, never been more interesting or lucrative. I've heard the term 'wantrepreneurism' but the people you mention are highly exceptional and super successful. Chances that you can copy them are for various reasons next to 0,0000%. > In the wake of that, WeWork and GaryV and a whole bunch of people are selling the idea that regardless of how bad your idea is or how unfit you are to be an entrepreneur, all you need is access or hustle to succeed. And that's awful, awful advice. In my experience this is not true. I mean when you encounter people working in the startup scene running accelerators etc., there are not tired to tell anyone how selective they are, that this stuff isn't for anyone, brainstorm any aspects of your idea that might be stupid. When you listen on the people on the videos, you realize that this is also the whole point of this hustling porn: either you have incredible luck or you work like crazy so you become successful. That said, I think the original Medium article which popularized this topic recently was much more on point: https://medium.com/@nateliason/no-more-struggle-porn-202153a01108 https://medium.com/@nateliason/no-more-struggle-porn-202153a...
samfriedman 8y ago
OT, but I only just learned with this post that Gary Vaynerchuk is known for more than being a prolific wine vlogger/reviewer back in the day. Shows how plugged-in to the entrepreneurship sphere I am, I guess.
StanislavPetrov 8y ago
There's nothing wrong with hard work, nor does work have any intrinsic value (despite what the Puritans and many others would have you believe). You need to work hard enough to earn enough money to ensure you have everything you need to survive, plus whatever extra work it takes to earn what you need to live "comfortably" (which means different things to different people). You should also work hard enough so that you can save for retirement and contingencies that might prevent you from working in the future to ensure you have what you need. Unfortunately many in our modern society are caught up with tying the idea of "accomplishment" with work and "productivity". Accomplishment is a completely subjective idea, as is personal satisfaction and happiness. I've found that most people who seek to lose themselves in their work or derive satisfaction out of being as "productive" as possible are usually very unhappy people overworking themselves in an effort to distract themselves from their unfulfilled lives. I am not referring to those who truly enjoy what they do, and thus can "work" all the time and find actual fulfillment. People like this (artists, writers, ect) would be engaged in this "work" whether or not they were getting paid. I'm referring to the people who put in an extra 20 hours of overtime at an office job they don't particularly like, or work a "side hustle" in their few, spare hours because they have been convinced that if they aren't being "productive" all the time that they are being lazy, or that their time is being wasted. For most people work is a means to an end - not something that can or should define you as a human being.
senecamarcus 8y ago
I respectfully disagree with you that Gary vee is selling the idea that everyone should become an entreprenuer. His main message is to be self aware and to be patient. In fact, in many videos he clearly makes the case that entrepreneurship has become glamourous and he warns against the dangers of faking it till you make it mentality.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed Know your pay-offs. Gambling your health to enrich someone else, while you scrape by with pennies, is a last resort. Gambling your health for tremendous gains is a fair choice. These are gambles humans leaving Africa and navigating the oceans made. (The cost of loss was death.) It’s a risk we’ll face expanding to the Moon and Mars and Alpha Centauri. Be thoughtful about the risks you take—not all are offered equally—but don’t discard them outright for being risky.

marmaduke 8y ago
I suspect "work" here refers to that thing you do so that you can pay for the life-risking adventures worth having. If you kill yourself working how can you kill yourself scuba diving with sharks?
crpatino 8y ago
Exploring outer space is inherently risky, there's no safe choice and no guarantee you are going to succeed either. Leaving a crapsack country is also inherently risky to a lesser degree. There are no legal, safe options to do it, but at least you probably know a buch of people who succeeded. But, if you already are part of a profession where even mediocre practicioners have 50+% odds of making it into the 2-3% of top earners amongst the general population, it is an imbecile's choice to wreck your health for a lottery ticket to make it into the top 0.001% with 0.001% odds of winning; specially if you can still apply the same talent, passion and effort without the health wrecking by cutting an order of magnitude to your goal. IF you did read the article and still came out thinking like that, chances are you are trying to rationalize a past (or present) bad life-choice.

ben_jones 8y ago

Ultimately its peddling false hope with just enough of an inkling of truth to not be downright fraud. Like peddling health elixirs, magic diets, or the casino's w/l rate. It will get worse as income inequality (and desparation) grows.

jfoutz 8y ago
It’s worse than that. This kind of pressure leads to ethical lapses and outright corruption. Hustle is fine. The requirement to give 110% at every moment of every day to succeed means, anyone with two neurons to rub together will just cheat. Not hard to find conspirators when everyone is in the same situation.
exogeny 8y ago
Exactly. Wake me up when Gary does a video on unit economics. Or cohort analysis. Or CAC/LTV. Or literally anything to do with business other than the idea that regardless of how unfit you are, how unsuitable your idea is, or how damaging the attempt will be on your personal finances or health, hustle is all you need. The winds are increasing against him. It's going to be interesting to watch him flip and suddenly preach realism, once he calculates that his adoring masses are going to appreciate that message more on the basis of his "authenticity". (And I wish I could use about fifteen more air-quotes around that word.)
- JimboOmega 8y ago
  Reminds of what happened with Inbox Zero. Didn't that guy wind up admitting he himself failed at it and it wasn't reasonable anyway? (Or am I getting confused with someone else?)
  - dasil003 8y ago
    No, Merlin Mann distanced himself from Inbox Zero once it got picked up by the productivity porn blogger crowd who reduced it to yet another lifehack and lost the spirit of the idea which is that your inbox should not be your todo list because then you lose agency over your own priorities.

userbinator 8y ago

something else is off - the idea isn't good enough, you're attacking it in the wrong way, whatever. ...and don't forget the fact that seems almost taboo to say these days: you just don't have the ability.

JimboOmega 8y ago
What hussle porn is selling most of all is agency. That you can get whatever it is you want through some actions you can take.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Hun. When you put it that way, it doesn't sound all that much different from The Secret.
  - sk5t 8y ago
    Nor too different from Dale Carnegie.
- taneq 8y ago
  Which is true as long as one of your options is "want something else."
- RugnirViking 8y ago
  I really like this interpretation, but to take it at face value would be to assume that other approaches do not offer actionable steps? or at the very least do not suggest that their steps actually work? Naturally it's correct that no matter what you do you don't always suceed, but does the fact that people eat this up suggest that for most people there are no actions they can take to be successful?
exogeny 8y ago
Absolutely. I think about it in the same way I think about "American Idol": Simon Cowell became a notable figure simply because he was honest with people; he dared to tell people that they were wasting their time pursuing singing. Right now, Gary and all of these other hustle porn types are Paula Abdul. And they'll keep telling people that all they need to do is work harder, up until the point that it becomes to professionally more lucrative for them to stop being Paula and start being Simon. When we get to that point, they'll flip in a second. And their fans will eat it the fuck up.

manigandham 8y ago

Sometimes you do have to work that hard. Sacrificing personal health for some future gain for you (and your family) is not strange nor rare, it's reality for many people. There's no moral judgement necessary as each individual can, and should, make that call for themselves. I only wish more had more opportunity to do so.

FooHentai 8y ago

It's a pretty pure example of Cargo Cult. If I shakalaka the 'hard work' stick hard enough, rainfall/supply planes/success will surely come. It didn't rain? Must not have shaken the stick hard enough.

travisjungroth 8y ago
“Cargo cult” gets thrown a around a lot, and I enjoy comments like yours that bring it back to its roots.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  Cargo cult means imitating something for the sake of it, not doing rain dances or other backwards stuff.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    No, it doesn't mean "imitating something for the sake of it". It means ritualistically imitating some advanced technology and thinking of it as magical way to get wealth and prosperity (based on primitive tribes building fake-airports and thinking that will bring the associated goods westerners coming to their land with airplanes had). And yes, it can involve all kinds of "rain dances or other backwards stuff" too. "The name derives from the belief which began among Melanesians in the late 19th and early 20th century that various ritualistic acts such as the building of an airplane runway will result in the appearance of material wealth, particularly highly desirable Western goods (i.e., "cargo"), via Western airplanes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
  - kungtotte 8y ago
    It's more about misunderstanding cause and effect. Tribal people after WW2 started building runways on their islands because they thought that as long as they built the runways the airplanes would show up bringing their cargo. They didn't imitate it "for the sake of it", they genuinely thought they would receive cargo by building runways. So while it's not about rain dances and shakalaka sticks the previous commenter was on the money about the term cargo culting.

tyingq 8y ago

There's also those companies that advertise on TV to help inventors patent their ideas. No price is mentioned. I assume they fleece customers pretty hard.

lxmorj 8y ago

GaryV was a major investor in FaithBox, a company that knowingly incurred huge bills with my company that they'd knew be unable to pay (I run a 3PL). The switched to another warehouse for two months and did the same to them, then they "sold" to a firm in Omaha in a supposedly $0 asset-for-debt sale, and the buyers are trying to get out of paying me ~$60k. My lawyers are on it and I expect to get something out of them eventually, but I was lucky my business was far enough along to survive the hit. The guy who ran the company into the ground through gross mismanagement was one of the speakers at SubSummit this year. Such 'hustle'...

pokemongoaway 8y ago
Many of these people whose brand is promoted the way GaryV does seem to be like this - and few seem to have the balls to call them out. I met Gary. He's definitely one of those overly keen on technology being able to save us all. The old-school values on personal reputation in business have certainly faded. The strange thing is that people act baffled when their reputation is ruined... See Theranos, for example. Holmes continues to behave as if there are no consequences for fraud - and maybe there are not for her.
mindentropy 8y ago
I am seeing more and more of this on youtube now. The people who advise others like this are usually flawed in their business dealings. These people usually tend to focus on soft skills without any emphasis on other skills. The soft skills is usually convincing people and leans more towards conning people with sweet talk and forceful marketing.

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

> being a founder has never been sexier Really? To whom? Being rich has always been sexy. Being busy working 70 hours a week not so much. Ask any partner of a workaholic.

rawTruthHurts 8y ago
> Being rich has always been sexy And on top of that, the guys come from an already well off background. They were able to invest all the time they wanted in their personal projects, as mundane problems like paying the rent were never issue to them.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >They were able to invest all the time they wanted in their personal projects, as mundane problems like paying the rent were never issue to them. A million times this. Many, many, founders come from upper middle class families or better. Many of them have, or were earning, ivy league educations when they dropped out to run their funded businesses full-time. A good chunk of them have already exited at least 1 startup and are independently wealthy if they chose to live in most of the US, if not any city in the world. It's easy to pour yourself into an idea when you're not worried about making your car insurance payment, making rent, hoping no personal emergency happens that you'll have to put on a credit card, it's a whole different story when you're lower middle class or lower and have no cushion. When you have no family to fall back on when things don't pan out. Hustle is sexy when you have an exit, when you have a safety net, when you have a support system. Hustle is tantamount to slavery when you don't have these things. When hustle is a means of survival it can quickly become toxic, demoralizing, soul-crushing and even dangerous to your health but when you come from a position of means it's just a challenge, another way to get that adrenaline and endorphin release.

puranjay 8y ago

One of the best things that happened to my entrepreneurial career was realizing that I wasn't cut out for every aspect of the entrepreneurial career. It took a failed startup to realize the things I don't do well. So now I offload them to others. And I'm so much happier for it.

logicchains 8y ago

People who think hustling is about working hard have a very different interpretation of the word than I'm used to. A hustler is supposed to be a cunning character who uses their guile and persistence to get ahead, taking advantage of the system. Someone who just works really hard at the expense of their health sounds more like what I'd expect to see characterised as a schmuck than a hustler.

CompelTechnic 8y ago
I think both connotations are valid and context usually determines the underlying meaning. For a third connotation that is close to the GP's, think of a coach telling his players to hustle on the basketball court. To me, that means they need to play hard and quick, not that they need to try more to bend the rules, take advantage, etc.
- logicchains 8y ago
  >For a third connotation that is close to the GP's, think of a coach telling his players to hustle on the basketball court. To me, that means they need to play hard and quick, not that they need to try more to bend the rules, take advantage, etc. That's interesting, I always assumed the coach was actually suggesting they try to bend the rules and do whatever's necessary to win, but your interpretation makes more sense.
  - avisser 8y ago
    As someone who played a lot of sports, the classic "hustle" play was laying out/diving/getting on the ground for the ball. Be it in baseball, basketball or football. You could play the game without hitting the ground, but if you wanted to hustle and win, you had to get your clothes dirty. You weren't breaking any rules, just doing what other people wouldn't.
rv-de 8y ago
That's also my understanding of the term "hustler". Obviously hustling is considered cool - so a lot of people want to be hustlers - but if a lot of people were able to hustle - then it wouldn't be anything special. So by means of commercialized cargo culting the agreed upon definition gets watered down to a level that can be met by more people.

whack 8y ago

Is anyone actually advocating for working until your health is impacted? The article mentioned working weekends and waking up before dawn - neither of which is particularly toxic to your body. If other people want the hard-working founder lifestyle, and if they find these videos motivating and useful, I don't see why we should try to tear them down. People don't need to be criticized or psycho-analyzed just because they have different life goals and dreams. Edison famously said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Was he fetishizing Hustle Porn as well? edit: Thanks for the name fix

AlexCoventry 8y ago
That was Edison, and yes, he was definitely fetishizing hustle. E.g. "Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison

blablabla123 8y ago

> There's nothing wrong with hard work. > But there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed Yeah but that's the thing: people tell you it makes totally sense to work long hours if you have the time, no commitments in life etc. Those people can be parents, 'peers' (whatever that means), people on the Internet... My bosses - during the times in which I was regularly employed - rarely told me such things. But to come back to the point, nobody of these people tells you to work while you're seriously sick or to work yourself to death. They tell you to work yourself into a higher position, wealth, etc. So by the time you're health or social life are affected, it's already to late. I mean this is not a process where you turn one day to the other from healthy to sick. It's a gradual process and you realize it when it's years to late. > To me this ties into the gross, pervasive trend of wantrepreneurism. Shark Tank, Zuck, Elon Musk - being a founder has never been sexier, never been more interesting or lucrative. I've heard the term 'wantrepreneurism' but the people you mention are highly exceptional and super successful. Chances that you can copy them are for various reasons next to 0,0000%. > In the wake of that, WeWork and GaryV and a whole bunch of people are selling the idea that regardless of how bad your idea is or how unfit you are to be an entrepreneur, all you need is access or hustle to succeed. And that's awful, awful advice. In my experience this is not true. I mean when you encounter people working in the startup scene running accelerators etc., there are not tired to tell anyone how selective they are, that this stuff isn't for anyone, brainstorm any aspects of your idea that might be stupid. When you listen on the people on the videos, you realize that this is also the whole point of this hustling porn: either you have incredible luck or you work like crazy so you become successful. That said, I think the original Medium article which popularized this topic recently was much more on point: https://medium.com/@nateliason/no-more-struggle-porn-202153a01108 https://medium.com/@nateliason/no-more-struggle-porn-202153a...

samfriedman 8y ago

OT, but I only just learned with this post that Gary Vaynerchuk is known for more than being a prolific wine vlogger/reviewer back in the day. Shows how plugged-in to the entrepreneurship sphere I am, I guess.

StanislavPetrov 8y ago

There's nothing wrong with hard work, nor does work have any intrinsic value (despite what the Puritans and many others would have you believe). You need to work hard enough to earn enough money to ensure you have everything you need to survive, plus whatever extra work it takes to earn what you need to live "comfortably" (which means different things to different people). You should also work hard enough so that you can save for retirement and contingencies that might prevent you from working in the future to ensure you have what you need. Unfortunately many in our modern society are caught up with tying the idea of "accomplishment" with work and "productivity". Accomplishment is a completely subjective idea, as is personal satisfaction and happiness. I've found that most people who seek to lose themselves in their work or derive satisfaction out of being as "productive" as possible are usually very unhappy people overworking themselves in an effort to distract themselves from their unfulfilled lives. I am not referring to those who truly enjoy what they do, and thus can "work" all the time and find actual fulfillment. People like this (artists, writers, ect) would be engaged in this "work" whether or not they were getting paid. I'm referring to the people who put in an extra 20 hours of overtime at an office job they don't particularly like, or work a "side hustle" in their few, spare hours because they have been convinced that if they aren't being "productive" all the time that they are being lazy, or that their time is being wasted. For most people work is a means to an end - not something that can or should define you as a human being.

senecamarcus 8y ago

I respectfully disagree with you that Gary vee is selling the idea that everyone should become an entreprenuer. His main message is to be self aware and to be patient. In fact, in many videos he clearly makes the case that entrepreneurship has become glamourous and he warns against the dangers of faking it till you make it mentality.