Episode 314 | Jam Session on The Downsides of Hustle Culture
Today Dannie and Caitlyn are having a Jam Session on The Downsides of Hustle Culture.
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Episode Transcript - Downsides of Hustle Culture
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:00:21] All right. Welcome back to the side hustle gal podcast. We've got a doozy for you today. You're hanging out with just me and Caitlyn for another one of our jam sessions, and today we're going to dive in to the downsides of hustle culture. Uh, so we've got a few different topics that we want to talk about with you.
We're going to cover burnout, hustle-porn privilege, and how that factors in and unsustainable expectations and unhealthy lifestyles. So Caitlyn, let's start with the last two and I'm going to toss it to you.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:00:51] Yeah. So I think for me, hustle culture has really impacted, um, me to have unsustainable expectations and unhealthy lifestyle choices.
I think a lot of the times. When we think of hustle culture, we think, Oh, we can get all of this done and then we'll have a break. But especially when you continue to hustle and continue to hustle and continue to hustle, you never get that break. Um, because you've created this unsustainable expectation to yourself, into your clients and to those around you that.
You can continue to do all of the things that you're putting on your plate and that they're putting on your plate. Um, which then of course leads to some unhealthy lifestyles, like not sleeping or not taking. Um. Time off for yourself, which then leads to burnout, which is another thing that we've talked about.
So I think for me, that's really what a hustle culture has. Um, how, how it has impacted me personally. And. It's not a sustainable expectation to continue to hustle and continue to hustle and continue to hustle. Because at the end of the day, if you're just hustling and you're not putting, you know, systems or processes, um, for yourself, but also for your business in place, all you're doing is doing a lot of work that. You didn't have to do in the long run. Dannie, how do you think, do you feel like you've seen the unsustainable expectations that unhealthy lifestyles?
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:02:35] I feel like. A lot of this in some ways is what I experienced when I began side hustling, right? The side hustlers experience hustle culture in a completely different way than full time entrepreneurs because we have less time.
We have more expectations because we want this thing to do well, right? Because we're dedicating the very limited and precious time that we have to it. So I think that. It all, it all boils down to unreasonable expectations. We set unreasonable expectations. It leads down healthy lifestyles. It leads to burnout.
It leads to a lot of these other things. So I guess what I'm saying is. We need a gut check and a reality check on the way that we're goal setting. Cause everything comes back to that, right? Like the messages that we're feeding ourselves during our goal setting process plan in effect, the way that we behave as a result.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:03:32] Yeah, definitely. And it's also when you're setting those goals, making, making sure that you're checking in with yourself and your body, um, and how your feeling because yeah, $100,000 might feel attainable because you can hustle your way to it, but is it actually attainable for your body? And for. Yourself at that given given point, and maybe it's not, and that doesn't mean you're a failure if it's not.
It just means that you have to take yourself into consideration into these goal setting scenarios. So I think that especially with the unhealthy lifestyle, that's something that we really, especially a side hustlers like. Going to work? Are you making breakfast or are you making lunch at in the morning?
Or are you getting lunch delivered to work when you come home because you're side hustling? What are you eating? Like the, just the simple basics of putting stuff into your body. Are you able to go to the gym and get a workout in or are you able to take some downtime in the evening to do some yoga or even meditation?
Um. And I'm not saying that you have to be working out at the gym. What I'm saying is you also need to be putting time and energy into helping your body, because that's the only way that you'll continue to have energy. And if you don't have energy, you're not going to want to do anything. And that's only going to be more stressful on the long run. Um, which leads to burnout. So, Dannie, let's talk a little bit about burnout.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:05:09] Oh, burnout. I feel like there are two kinds of people in this world. Those that plan for burnout and those that don't, and I fall in the second camp. I grind and I grind in my grind and grind and grind, and then all of a sudden burned and I'm Burntout and I shut down for 24 hours and then I grind and I grind and grind and grind.
It's just a cycle. I feel like Maddox would. I have some, some, some thoughts on this subject, but burnout doesn't necessarily mean either that your body and your mind are completely run ragged. Burnout could surface as irritability, forgetfulness, hunger. Like how many times have we as entrepreneurs, sat nine to five in our desk chairs?
Three back to back meetings, meetings, and completely forgotten about lunch. I mean, I think it goes back to the like unhealthy lifestyles piece, but burnout is more than just the like complete and utter shutdown that we think about and burnout. Burnout is producing lower quality work because you've got too much on your plate.
I mean, I've been there. I remember like five years ago, I delivered a project to a client and it wasn't my best work. And I was like, I know this isn't my best work, but I'm so tired. And like, it shouldn't take sending that email to a client to realize that. Um, so when we're thinking about burnout, it's.
Creating spaces to pause. I remember the first time I ever meditated and I'm so not a woo person, and I was so like skeeved out and doubting about meditation, but I remember it. It was with my good friend Dalma and she was leading this meditation. She started the meditation with a full body scan, and even if I don't have the patience for meditation, that full body scan shocked me.
The tension I was holding in my jaw, the tension I was holding in my shoulders, the clenching that was happening in my gut and my knees and my toes. I've been doing it for so long. I, I didn't notice. I had no idea that this was happening. And so. I think that in the same way we can do a full body scan of our physical bodies for the purpose of meditation, we can do a full mental scam to check in on burnout.
Um, and so I think we can schedule it in our calendar. Like Rana Pomeroy talks about CEO check-ins on Fridays, right? To check in on how your business is going. But what if we scheduled five minutes to. Just like listen in on and throw away our mental clutter. And I think that both of those things together could really help prevent burnout.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:07:54] Yeah. And I think we all experienced burnout very differently for Dannie. She can just take 24 hours and like turn off for a little bit and then turn back on. Um, for me it's very different. It's that I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. And then I'm being an asshole and I'm, my friends have to be like, Caitlyn, what's, what's going on there?
Um, and then I have to take a week or a couple of weeks to really like check in with myself, figure out where I'm feeling the burnout. Um, is it. My client work isn't a expectations that I've put on myself. Is it this is it that, like I really have to dig deep into , um, where I'm feeling, uh, the, the pressure I think.
Um, so I, I, I've always found it interesting that people call it burnout. For me. It's like. Pressure, like pressurized. Um, because that's, that's how I tend to feel it and I tend to hold on to it. Um, but I agree. Even just checking in with yourself at the end of the week, or even at the end of the month or even quarterly when you're writing your goals, like, Hey, does this actually feel attainable this month?
Um, I think. Well, exactly what you said, Dannie. That was, that's so good to just start doing that.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:09:20] Nailed it. Absolutely nailed that. So I want to talk about hustle porn, and I want to pause and say that my friend Blake of the girl named Blake on Instagram and the crappy Christian podcast, um, talks about this so much better than I could.
She talks about Rachel Hollis and. This idea that like hustle can be completely glamorized without any of the downsides. Uh, Rachel Hollis recently posted on her Instagram feed, absolutely sobbing and devastated because she had to send her team work from home. Like that's not the end of the world, but it's because hustle culture has been so.
Glamorized that there's almost a sexual level of satisfaction from it. And that's where we see the advent of hustle porn, like these images and these ideas and these quotes of the hustle being so glamorized that you literally get off on the perceived productivity of hustle and
Caitlyn Allen: [00:10:29] Productivity. Oh my God, I can't like when. I feel like that is like the subculture of hustle culture, right? Like that perceived notion that if you're just productive today, it'll be so much better for you to hustle harder. Um, I just went on a tangent, but I feel like that is like the epitome of what, like. Gets people off like, but I got that many things into my agenda today, and I took that 10 minute break in between because I did the Pomodoro method. So it must be great. Like what? I dunno if Dannie thoughts,
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:11:05] so I'm right there with you because I used to be that person. Uh, I was adding like shit that didn't need to be added to do list to my to do list for the satisfaction of checking it off. And I'm some level that's great. Like you need, that's why the snowball method works right?
And debt repayment because you need small wins to incentivize those big wins. But if you're doing that every day. Well, I have so many thoughts on how support, and that could be like an entire podcast by itself with like a 10 episode series. But
Caitlyn Allen: [00:11:38] yeah, and I find this very interesting because before Dannie had brought this up before this episode, I had never heard of.
The notion of hustle porn, but I just, I always think back to when you're scrolling your Instagram feed and you see hustle hard girl, or like the different quotes that people absolutely like piss themselves over. I just think of like hustle hard girl, except for at the end of the day, you're not going to be able to sleep because you're going to have so many thoughts running through your head and you're not going to know how to handle it.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:12:10] Yeah. All right, so let's wrap this conversation. On hustle culture up with a little check-in about privilege, right? Because, and we're going to take it back to Rachel Hollis and Blake is going to laugh because she's turned me into an anti Rachel Hollis girl. I mean, I was
before Blake, but.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:12:31] Yeah. I couldn't read the books because of the religion, like the first page or two. I'm like, wait, what?
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:12:36] Well, and I mean like, like even as a Christian woman is like, some of this is so not Christian. Yeah. But I'll let Blake do that blessed work that she is called to do and I will butcher it. So let's let Blake do that work. But privilege, right? Rachel Hollis is a rich ass white woman. Like. And there's so much and privilege and having wealth and preaching about the hustle.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:13:05] I find it so interesting that the people that I've always looked up to in the whole hustle culture, because I bought into it for such a long time, have been stay at home moms or like stay at home wives. Who have a second. The dogs even think that this is ridiculous.
Um, that they have a second income that can support them even if they burn out and have to stop working for a little bit. Um, I've always found that. I think that's what turned me off of hustle culture was the fact that people don't realize the privilege that they have when they're hustling and hustling because they have somebody else who could pick up the Slack if they needed.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:13:55] Yeah. I think that's really spot on. The the like what is your safety net and how reliable is it. Uh, because if you have a really reliable safety net, if you could jump off that cliff and someone would catch you a third of the way down every single time.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:14:14] Well that in the health aspect of it too, right? So for me, hustling for two months means I have an Epstein-Barr flare up and for the next three weeks I can't really work much.
Or I have, I'm sick. I don't have the privilege of. Going to the doctor and saying, I need an IV. I need this. I need, I need medicine that's going to help me, help me get better. Um, because I don't have health insurance, or I do, but my health insurance doesn't cover anything like that. Like it's, it's to that point where if you get sick, you can go to the doctor and get help. Some people can't. Some people that are hustling have no. No fall back there.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:15:02] Yeah. I wish we had the answers. I think that talking about this helps normalize it. And if you are listening and you haven't talked about the impact that how's the culture has on you. I encourage you to share that with someone today.
Even if it's one of us like slide our DM, just let us know. Um, but at least acknowledging that hustle culture is a thing and that we don't have to be on that level, I think is enough. So we'll wrap it up there. Thank you for hanging out. We'll see you next week. And please don't fall in the trap of hustle culture.