Aerial View:

• Intro thoughts

• Mindful Minute: Pushing back against hustle culture.

• Conscious Consumer: Luma 1.0

• Quote of the day

• 3 key questions to reflect on

What’s up men, welcome back. Just had the NADS team in town for the past few days. We run a digital business and the 5 of us are scattered throughout the country, so this was the first time we all got to spend some real quality time together. It was really productive and we got a ton done. But more importantly, it was just an absolute blast. We worked a lot for sure, but we also unplugged, relaxed, ate good food, laid by the pool, hit the beach, partied, and enjoyed each other’s company. This is the culture that I am proud to be building and experiencing within our business. Balance.

Ok, into the good stuff.

If you’re considering launching a business, project, or new side hustle, or really anything for that matter, this one’s for you. Today I am going to share my take on hustle culture and the misconceptions around building something.

Mindful Minute - Pushing back against hustle culture.

After half a decade building in a few different startups, I can confidently say that the norms of hustle culture do FAR more harm than good. Thus, I believe that hustle culture is incredibly glorified, and is actually designed to get builders OFF of the field, not keep them in play. Less players on the field means less competition…

The marketers promoting hustle culture love to romanticize certain actions that are looked to as requirements to build anything. Sleeping on the floor, operating on 2 hours of sleep, eating only ramen noodles, the list goes on.

If you’re familiar with how it’s promoted, you know that the general idea is this: do nothing but work. Go all in all the time, and sacrifice anything and everything that isn’t directly building, otherwise you’re not REALLY all in, and then you’ll never see yourself or what you’re doing as enough.

Here’s why this is dangerous:

1. Burnout - Straight forward here. If you don’t take time to rest, and distance your mind from the grind, you will burn out. It is inevitable and will happen sooner or later. Burnout will sideline you and force you off the field.

2. Guilt- It’s incredibly easy to fall into the trap of feeling that no matter what you are accomplishing, that it isn’t enough. This creates a feedback loop of never taking your foot off the gas, chasing moving targets, hitting false mental summit after summit. When we compare our own actions to those marketed in hustle culture, it’s near impossible to not fall into the guilt trap. Feeling guilty for getting 8 hours of quality sleep? That’s just ridiculous. Get the damn sleep.

3. Decreased work quality- Working through burnout, or when you’re overly tired and needing a break, leads to pretty subpar work-product. Think about it like this: if you had an hour, and you knew that you could only accomplish 75% quality work-product if you worked the full hour, or you could take a 20 minute break, and do 95% quality work in 40 minutes, which would you choose? 90-100% work-product beats 75% and below work-product 10 times out of 10. Quality over quantity.

4. Resentment- If you don’t feel your best most of the time, if you aren’t energized and fired up about what you’re working on, you’ll eventually start resenting it, especially when you’re forcing yourself to do it around the clock. You’ll realize that the work itself (in that volume/frequency) is making you feel subpar and then you’ll dislike it. If you don’t love what you do, let alone like it, you’ll push back against it, it’s human nature.

I really bought into hustle culture early on in my building journey, and felt the repercussions of it time and time again, until I was able to step back and see the full picture. Here’s a shotgunned summary of my take on all of this AFTER the fact:

Leadership means doing it YOUR way. Not following the ways of others. Because then you’re just following. I believe in learning from other leaders and success stories, but this information must be used as inspiration, NOT as a set-in-stone road map for your personal path. 

Space allows a reset- a moment to refresh and come back recharged. Creativity in problem solving and operating best comes during moments of peace and stillness away from the day to day grind.

Knowing when to press the gas down is incredibly important, and there will always be times to put in an ungodly amount of work. But what is equally important is knowing that this is not sustainable, and time away must be looked at as a required part of building.

Finding the balance between slacking off/procrastinating and making essential sacrifices will be up to you and you alone. No one else can tell you how much time is required daily to build your dreams, so you must trust your internal guiding voice. Lean into intuition, always. 

Building anything will take more work and effort than most realize, but the reality is that there is really no rush. The feeling of needing to rush stems from self induced pressure. Guess what? Self induced pressure is not real outside of your mind. It’s all in your own head. So, my stance here now is to go slower, NOT faster. By building slower, we can create long lasting, sustainable, and healthy habits. These will yield results that can last a lifetime. This is the way. 

There is not one single way to do anything, especially when it comes to building. Your way, is THE way. It’s your journey, don’t let the pressures of how it “should be” steer the ship. You’re the captain.

So, if you’re getting ready to build, or are in the early stages, or perhaps you’re deep into building but are struggling, make sure you question the norms of hustle culture that you may or may not have subconsciously hard wired into your head. Go deep on this and be brutally honest.

Conscious Consumer

Quote of the week

This is one of my favorites. Spend time sharpening your mental axe, so that when you are ready to chop, you’re best prepared and capable. Time away from building sharpens the axe.

Rise and Reflect - 3 Questions to Inspire Impactful Action and Critical Reflection

1. What is my self dialogue like when I take time to do things that are “unproductive” ?

2. Am I taking enough time to rest? Genuinely rest, not just sleep.

3. What are activities that allow me to rest and recover while I am awake? Don’t know? What are 3 that MAY be options for me that I should try? Go try them.

My Ask of You

If you found value in this newsletter, I ask that you please share it with others:

• Forward it: Send this email to friends, family, and/or others.

• Talk about it: Share your thoughts on social media using #MindfulMan

• Invite others: Encourage those around you to subscribe here and join our community.

As leaders, it's our duty to help others. If you found this newsletter helpful, share it with someone who it can help. Change starts here, together.

Thank you for being here.

Sails up, eyes open.

Until next time,
Dan Baird