Why I Stopped Hustling

> Here’s a simple question: should you follow the same diet and training regimen as an olympic bodybuilder?

Bodybuilding is an aesthetic competition, not an Olympic sport. The Olympic sport is weightlifting. (And that picture is definitely a bodybuilder, not a weightlifter.)

"Hustle" is just a ploy for founders to get startup employees to work harder not smarter towards making the founders successful in the short term, at the expense of both employee well being and the long term health of the business.

Its not a strategy, its a game.

Personally, I've always been a big fan of "hustling." I have made a conscious effort to always be hustling, especially at work. I try to bring hustle to everything I do. Skip the coffee break. Forget hanging out by the water cooler. Follow up promptly. Even little things like how quickly I walk from meeting to meeting. I look around my company and just see people moping apathetically, like they have all the time in the world. My game is: Try to move fast and do a good job even when nobody is looking/measuring. It's a character trait. I firmly believe things like hustle, grit, and backbone are the few tools that normal, working class non-super-talented people such as myself can use to even have a shot at evening the field against the already-privileged and already-talented people who take everything for granted.

I'm nowheres near where I wished I'd be career-wise at 40, but I credit how far I've managed to claw my way, mainly to luck but otherwise to internalizing the importance of hustle.

"Hustling" is not the same as working hard. In fact, it can be the very opposite of it at times.

Hustling is always looking for the new opportunities, saying "no" to bad ones and saying "yes" to important ones. When you work hard and single-focused, you tend to ignore the incoming opportunities to achieve the quality of life you want.