I know what you’re thinking after reading the title of this episode. You’re wondering what happened to this totally wholesome podcast you’ve been listening to. Since today’s episode is going to be about interrogating the American dream, I figured an apt title would get down and dirty. Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Redditt, described the American work culture as nothing other than hustle porn. On social media, we sensationalize the daily grind of working long days and refusing to set down our phones to eat a meal or take a walk or enjoy some general self-care. You know those posts, the wee bit ironic ones where people are busy complaining (or should I say bragging?) about how busy they are, but not too busy to stop and post about how busy they are on social media?
You know this trend, but if I’m being honest, I’m guilty of buying into the compulsion to be productive every minute of every day. My feelings about how my day might be going is often directly related to how productive I feel I’ve been that day. I can brag, though, that I don’t think I’ve ever complained about it on social media—that’s what I have Colin for. This problem with hustling isn’t just with you or me, like Ohanian says, it’s a cultural one, and it’s not a stretch to say that we’ve been taught, either in principle or by example, that we aren’t working hard if we aren’t sacrificing and making things happen from sunup to sundown.
When you think of hard work, you probably envision that mythic archetype of the dedicated businessperson. We’ve been told to be the first at work and the last to leave, because that’s what it takes to succeed. Look at Jack Ma, multinational business man, investor and philanthropist, who, like several other business legends, endorsed the “996” work system, working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.
For me, the example of hard work and dedication is my dad. He’s a phenomenal business man. He started out with a tiny little coffee shop that had a microwave in the back to heat up maybe two kinds of sandwiches, and he built this into a thriving restaurant. How did he do it? I still remember the vague shuffling sounds early in the morning as dad got ready to leave, hours before my own alarm would signal the start of my day. The man worked 12 hour days, roughly 5:30 – 5:30, 6 days a week, and I never doubted this was the reason for his success.
My dad and Jack Ma are not alone in this work hard to succeed ethos. I recently heard an anecdote from an Amazon employee who works at headquarters in Seattle. The employee said Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO—or now former CEO, claims that he starts work at 3 am and works 12 hour days. Then, there’s the newly minted world’s richest person, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla who also happens to run a space program on the side, that claims he works 120 hour work weeks,– What? That’s crazy to me, and Musk does admit, he’s trying to cut back—God bless that man. He should.
The surface level takeaway from all these examples is that one simply has to put in the time to achieve the desired success; however, very few of these examples actually give us insight into what these luminaries are doing during those long work days. Now, based on their success, we can be sure they’re working smart as well as working hard, yet these stories are almost designed exclusively to convince us that simply putting in the man or woman power is all it takes to yield the results and to be on par with the Jack Mas, Jeff Bezos’s, and Elon Musks of the world.
Now, it’s important for me to say this isn’t an intentional misrepresentation by these mentors. Business is ever changing. To go back to my dad when he had his restaurant: you had your job or business and you showed up. You worked hard. You did what it takes to make it a success with the resources you had available. And I don’t mean to take anything away from the accomplishments of these great entrepreneurs. A lot of what we have we owe to them—it’s just that times have (emphasis) changed and the resources available then were different than what we have at our disposal now, yet—and here’s the rub–our view of a good work ethic hasn’t kept up with the times.
The problem, as I see it, and I think Ohanian would agree, is that businesses and the systems required to run those businesses have complexified and expectation of businesses have grown. As a result, we have a wider variety of hats we’re expected to wear as entrepreneurs. Just look at social media, which isn’t something my Dad had to consider when running his business. I’m sure he would have figured it out, but my guess is he probably would have considered it a necessary obligation that took time away from his true passions about the restaurant.
Thankfully, resources have also evolved along with those expectations, because not all of those expectations are what we signed up for when starting our business. For example, the increasing pressure for businesses to show up online. Well, there are marketing teams with strategists to help with a business’ social media, so we have access to relief from the increasing expectations. But our mindset is still stuck on hustling as the iconic characteristic of a successful entrepreneur. I think my Dad really enjoyed most aspects of running a business, which allowed him to regularly work 12 hour days, but the responsibilities or expectations of him weren’t as broad or daunting then either. I guess what I’m saying is, the hustle porn mindset where you grind it out for 12 hours a day is only really sustainable when you love the specific tasks you’re doing, but with expectations of businesses increasing, that becomes less and less a reality.
When questioned by critics about this “996” ethos, even Jack Ma said maintaining that many work hours is only sustainable if you absolutely love everything you do at work. So I wonder. How many of us does “996” actually apply to now? We discussed the 80/20 rule just last episode, and I wonder how necessary “996” and the day long hustle is once we focus in on the 20% goal we’re shooting for. Either way, I’m pretty sure that 996 is fantasy more than reality – mere hustle porn that represents a scenario impossible to replicate in real life.
Challenging today’s hustle culture doesn’t negate the value of hard work. My family’s value of hard work didn’t start with dad, and I can trace it as something that has partially defined how we see ourselves back through my parents to my grandparents. My grandparents embodied the belief that working hard is one of the most important things in life. I’m from the Midwest, so Grandpa Gibson was a farmer, who worked from sun up to sun down and Grandpa Bell was a loyal employee who worked at the local electric company his entire career until the day he retired.
From them, the value of consistent hard work passed down to my parents who passed it on to me. They passed on the idea by example that success is putting in the hours, and failure is merely a result of not enough hard work. My husband, Colin, tells me in the video game world, it’s called, grinding. You raise your stats if you do the work. In this instance, for our purposes, grinding means that you can succeed if you just do the work, no matter how repetitious it gets. You find the same concept in expressions like ‘nose to the grindstone,’ another name for hark work or focusing heavily on one’s task.
Apparently, this idea can be traced back to a 16th century treatise called “A Mirror to know thyself.” It was written by a man named John Frith. He wrote, “This Text holdeth their noses so hard to the grindstone, that it clean disfigureth their faces.” And it refers to when too much wheat is added to a water wheel or mill. Overloading it would burn the wheat, and said burning was detected by a smell. The original lesson that was intended was pay attention to your work so you can catch the burning smell—and maybe…not…burn your face. Though it seems to me the real take away is to not put in so much wheat and perhaps avoid keeping your face by the wheel and possibly getting burned. Whether you take it as don’t work too hard, or if you’re going to work hard, you better stay laser focused, the nose to the grindstone expression can lead us to ask, what’s smoking in our lives? Is it glamorizing the work place hustle? You’re listening to this podcast for a reason, so let’s work together to eliminate your hustle.
For my Dad, the hustle included cooking, ordering supplies, managing the bookkeeping, designing the menus, processing payroll, and this was merely the start of his day. He worked his 6 days a week for most of my growing up years, and I can probably count our vacations on one hand. But I wonder, what would my Dad’s restaurant have looked like if he ran it today? I wonder mostly what he would have done or could have done had he had the resources available through outsourcing. What would have happened had Dad been able to hone in on the few key areas that are his strength and find other people with the specific skills needed to do the rest?
Dad excelled at client interaction. Everyone who came into the restaurant wanted to make sure they said hi to my Dad, Bill. He certainly had a way of treating customers with such respect and fairness and kindness that they came back again and again, and he did so without giving away the profit. He had a hawk eye on the profit and loss statement and knew to the penny what any given meal cost. What would have happened if he focused on those aspects of his restaurant and outsourced the rest? Would he have franchised? Would there be a smattering of his restaurants around Columbus? Around the United States?
Yep, Dad’s restaurant was a smashing success, so there’s no doubt about his business savvy or his work ethic. In earlier episodes, I’ve mentioned how invaluable the experience was for me working in his business, and, for sure, I would be nowhere near where I am today without his love and my experiences within his restaurant. My guess is that you have quite the work ethic too. You’re listening to a podcast to further your professional development when you could be binging something on Netflix or singing along to your favorite jam, or whatever. You picked this podcast, because you’re interested in outsourcing, which means you are business savvy enough to see the current movement towards remote work, and you’re jumping on board.
I love that, because the difference between the business tycoons we’ve discussed and my Dad comes down to the culture and the resources available. Charles Darwin says, “In the long history of mankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” My Dad chose to retire after running a successful restaurant for almost 20 years. He put in his time, and he should be proud that he can retire and enjoy a different phase in life. But let’s face it. You’re not listening to this podcast because you’re retiring; you’re listening because you’re building your business.
So how do you overcome this hustle porn culture? The feeling that if you’re not adhering to Jack Ma’s example of working 9 to 9 6 days a week than your business is doomed to fail. We’ve already established 12 hour work days are not what we’re going for here. You want your business to grow, but you also want to retain your humanity. Let me suggest an alternative. Might I suggest you focus on scalability rather than hustling? Let me give you an example.
As my team really started to grow, I failed to provide new team members with everything they needed to feel supported, and I wasn’t really setting them up for success. Part of it was that they often felt isolated in a remote environment, and I hadn’t found the right way to check in regularly so that they felt my collaboration without feeling micromanaged. They felt unsure about what to do next when they hit a wall, but I wasn’t there in the next office to ask a quick question. We’re completely virtual. Even though I said, “Let me know if you have any questions?”, picking up the phone to ask their boss what felt like a simple thing caused them to feel pressure to figure things out on their own. I hadn’t developed the necessary relationship for that kind of open dialogue. I hadn’t touched base enough just to see how things were going so they were comfortable reaching out when issues came up.
I know all this now, but I didn’t know it at the time. No one was coming to me with Rachel, I need some help or Rachel, I need to talk about this. Which is the problem? RIght? A problem that I didn’t even see. Sure. I always said, “call if you need anything” and genuinely meant it, but I didn’t follow through with the actions that showed I was truly available. As a result, I didn’t hear what they were saying and ultimately feeling when we did touch base.
You’re probably wondering why I’m rambling on about my failure as a boss. I do have a point though. Turnover became a time consuming issue because of my poor management. It wasn’t for lack of effort. It was a lack of time and a lack of soft skills. I didn’t have time to be approachable as the boss, because I was too busy doing our invoicing, hiring the next team member, doing client services, and – the list goes on. To avoid the hustle of doing all the things, I hired a Customer Relationship Manager. My goal was to decrease turnover, which results in less time hiring and increases employee performance. It also took client services off my plate, so there were many wins with this move.
When I hired Alissa, our customer relationship manager, our team blossomed. The morale of the entire team improved now that team members, including the new ones, had a sounding board and ultimately someone they knew was available for questions and another perspective when needed. Alissa is passionate about relationships and truly listening to people. As a result, she hears between the lines and acknowledges all sides of a situation… something I didn’t have the time and quite frankly don’t naturally have the inclination to do.
The ultimate result of this is scalability. My team is functioning better and new team members are smoothly added to our team regularly, and I have time to focus on higher level tasks at Check Off Your List, which allows me to focus on growth. It’s the ultimate set up for scalability. When other people, who are much more capable and, quite frankly, more inclined, handle the lion’s share of your weaknesses, you’re working smarter not harder. In reality, I could have saved myself a lot of time—mostly with the damage control to fix the consequences of uninformed and even unhappy employees.
And now, with 20/20 hindsight, it makes complete sense. Knowing what I know now, I should have avoided team management like an actor avoids saying Macbeth in a theatre. Early on, I believed it was only me who could take on this important task, because after all, it was too important to entrust to someone else. But it wasn’t just importance, I was convinced that success was directly proportional to hard work, and that as the owner of the business such important decisions had to flow from the top-me, and down.
In my mind, not doing this important task was shirking responsibility as the owner of Check Off Your List, and as business owners we all know the fears, whether justified or irrational– that come with any kind of shirking, or even just perceived shirking. It took me a lot of highs and lows with my business and many late nights working overtime to realize working hard is not directly proportional to working smart. Maybe I was always cognizant of it, but I just couldn’t admit it. And while I eventually figured it out the hard way, it’s taken me even longer to be able to articulate exactly where the problem is. It’s Alexis Ohanian who verbalized it in a way that made sense to me. In effect, hustle porn creates a false sense of reality, like porn, by portraying a life built around hustle as attainable. It says that working hard is all there is, and I’m here to say there’s something so much better – working smarter.
Working smarter is different for each person, but you can pinpoint your weaknesses, and I guarantee there’s someone out there with the perfect skills and personality who is excited to take on the responsibility of those areas in your business as their own. Once I learned this, I found people to do the other things I was grinding away at while not completely loving it or being the most effective. For instance, I offload several of my month end tasks, which are quite easy and repetitive tasks that I just kept doing because they’re easy, and I never got around to asking someone to do it. I no longer feel the pressure to do things like journal entries, A/R reminders, reimbursement invoices, and calculating commission. I no longer feel like I’m grinding away, meaning my energy is freed up to focus on the areas where I’m needed, where I’m capable, and where I’m able to actually enjoy the work I’m doing.
Certainly, no one will argue that a good work ethic is invaluable. Check Off Your List is no Amazon or Tesla—yet—but my work ethic is one of the things that made me who I am today. In college I was a double major taking more than a full semester load of classes while held a part time job, and at the same time, I was the business officer in one of my college’s student organizations. Every spring we had the chance to participate in accelerated classes to complete a class in the span of a month rather than a semester. Sign me up. I’ll take two on top of my part time job. This wasn’t healthy, and I was forced to turn down my summer job to move home for the summer to protect my health. That summer holds some precious times for me, because I lived with my grandparents, but I spent the majority of that summer on the couch trying to recover from running my body down by over committing myself.
Thanks to my Grandma’s care and the many cups of morning orange juice served with love, I jumped right back into school in the fall. And I continued to overextend myself. It took me years to realize there’s a better way, and I hope you’ll learn from my mistake.
As a recovering workaholic, I took this work ethic into my business. I get it, working harder is something you feel will bring you closest to your goals, but it’s often activity not progress. As I hired and managed the Check Off Your List team, we were growing. My activity even felt like progress, but we didn’t really make strides toward my big goals until I outsourced the management and eventually the hiring of the Check Off Your List team. Then, we were making progress.
Your next steps toward working smarter to overcome the hustle porn culture we live is in the areas that you need to outsource. Outsourcing is key. Let me repeat that in case you didn’t understand me. Outsourcing is key to overcoming hustle – to working smarter not harder. You can’t do it all yourself, and outsourcing will give you your life back. Whether it’s the Check Off Your List Team, a cleaning lady, or Amazon Prime delivery – allowing other people to take things off your plate will allow you to focus on making the best use of your time. Outsourcing is a philosophy that I live both personally and professionally. It’s ultimately why I started this podcast – to share this life changing aspect of my life.
As you outsource, you’ll surround yourself with people who excel in areas that complement your skills. You may need a bookkeeper to do your invoicing, because you don’t reliably send invoices or you don’t have the time to follow up sufficiently on those aggravating past due accounts. You may need a marketing expert to revamp your social media so you actually attract your ideal client, because the thought of coming up with content for one more post is exhausting. Or, you may need your website redone, because it’s outdated look doesn’t portray the quality of service and excellence on which you pride your business. You can find a team whose strengths will fill in your gaps or weaknesses, and they’ll bring their own vision and passion to solving those problems for you. The way to work smarter instead of harder is to let your team do their job and do it better than you imagined.
As a result, your business grows exponentially while: You have time to wake up a little later and enjoy a cup of coffee rather than rush into the office. You have time to eat dinner with your family or drive your kids to one of their many after school activities without trying to work on your phone at the same time. You have technology free date nights, because you don’t need to think about your business unless you want to. Sounds pretty dreamy, right? All because of working smarter through utilizing the skills of a team.
So, you’ve started outsourcing, or you’re going to start outsourcing…now you have to find the right team members. We’ve all heard the hiring nightmare stories, but there are things you can do to ensure you build the right team for you and your business. On the next episode, I’m going to let you in on a few things we’ve learned at Check Off Your List about building a successful team. Whether it’s adding your first team member or improving how you add to your current team, you don’t want to miss the next episode of Checking Off Your List with me, Rachel Luther.
