Redefining Hustle: A Balance Between Hard Work and Healthy Living

George was being wheeled out on a stretcher to the ambulance. He looked back at his wife and said: "I don't have time for this. I have a meeting in 10 minutes."

That moment was the culmination of years of unhealthy hustle. Years of 18-hour days. Years of believing that if he could just work harder, longer, faster, he would finally arrive.

He spent three and a half days in the hospital. And he started to unpack everything he believed about hustle, hard work, and what success actually looks like.

The Words Actually Mean Something

George opened the episode by level-setting on the confusion around the word hustle.

"I fundamentally want the listeners to know that I'm talking about hard work. That's what I'm talking about. Because I'm not sure how hustle or hustling or a hustler got a positive connotation or could be a thing that somebody would aspire to. Because words matter."

He broke down the dictionary definitions.

A hustler: An aggressively enterprising person. A go-getter. Alternate definition? A prostitute.

Hustling: Force someone to move hurriedly, unceremoniously in specified directions. Obtained by forceful action or persuasion.

Hustle: Busy movement and activity. A fraud or swindle.

"In all three of those words, there's nothing that says that means you're a baller, that you're making tons of money, and you're uber successful on social media."

When George talks about healthy hustle, he's talking about healthy hard work. That's the distinction.

Where It Comes From

George traced the roots of his relationship with hustle back to his childhood.

"My growing up showed me that it's about hustle. I have 2 dads. One dad was a logger in Lincoln, Montana, a ranch hand for farmers in Montana, worked for the US Navy, the US Postal Service. It was all about hard work."

His other dad worked at a steel mill for 30 plus years. Hot, massive hammers pounding out metal. George worked there once. It was one of the scariest jobs he's ever had. But once he worked there, he realized he could work anywhere and do any job.

"All the family, they were just workers. Blue collar, down and dirty, trying to survive. Hours equals money. The more you work, the more you make, the better life."

Then in 2012, he heard Gary Vaynerchuk speak at Inbound. Started watching his content. Started listening to all the folks who were rise and grinding with their different sayings.

"That's what turned it up. It took this bed of information that I had been fed growing up from my family, and it was like somebody took a blowtorch to the kindling that was laying there and was like, this is what I'm supposed to do. Let's go."

By 2014, he was well on his way to the future catastrophic event.

"I can sleep 4 hours and work 18. As long as I get 2 seconds to go to the bathroom, I'm good to go."

The Years He Can't Remember

George described what happens to your brain when you're stuck in hustle mode.

"When you get into this mode, it is affecting your physical body, but it's affecting your brain because it's almost like you're not giving yourself time to think. Because it's just to do. To do. To do. To do the next thing."

The years between 2012 and 2016-2017 were magical years for building a brand and becoming who he would need to be. But when asked how much of it he remembers?

"Not a whole lot. Not a whole lot. Because it was just to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do. There wasn't a pause to take what was being done and import it into the memory banks. To recall it, to segment it, to dissect it, to learn from it. It felt like I was just on this conveyor belt of life."

His measurement of success was pointed in the wrong direction. He was eroding his brain, his body, his relationships. Because everything was about getting as much done as fast as humanly possible.

When Did You Last Upgrade Your Brain?

George shared an analogy that hit him hard.

"You have a phone. You love that phone. You carry that phone everywhere. And for most of you, as soon as that phone gets that little red dot where you can update it and change it and bring it to the latest and greatest thing it can be, you upgrade that bad boy faster than you can say anything. I gotta find a charger. I gotta be above 50%. I gotta upgrade my software."

Then he asked the question: "When's the last time you upgraded your brain software? When's the last time you went to version 15 of your life?"

Deprogramming and reprogramming the way you believe, the structures of your life. That's more important than upgrading your phone. More important than rising and grinding. More important than hustling your face off.

"You have to realize how special you are, how important you are, how much of a key piece of the world you are and can be. But you've gotta step into that. You've gotta deprogram, reprogram, upgrade yourself so that you can be in the spaces and places that God wants you to be, that the universe wants you to be."

From Success to Significance

One of the things George changed by deprogramming and reprogramming was what he was chasing.

"I'm actually not chasing success anymore, which means hustle culture doesn't fit. I'm chasing significance. And for significance, I need long term. And for long term, I need to be healthy. Because I need this vessel and this engine to run as long as humanly possible."

Significance is a never-ending, never-reach-it, but always-trying-to-obtain-it game. And that's what he's down for.

Good Luck, You Won't Take a Vacation

When George left agency life to start his own business, someone told him: "Good luck. You won't be able to take a vacation."

That made him angry. Because he knew he was making this decision because he wanted a different style of life for him and his family. He wanted to set his own rules.

"To hear somebody say good luck, I literally challenged myself. You know what? I am not gonna fall prey again like I did with hustle culture into this thing. I have been talking about healthy hustle. Let me put my money where my mouth is."

He had been in business for maybe 3 months when he went on a week's vacation with his family. Almost once every quarter since, he's taken 5 to 10 days for vacation with his family. When it hits 5:30 or 6 o'clock on 90% of the days, he walks out of his office.

"If you work that extra 2 hours, you're gonna be burnt anyway, so it's probably gonna be counterproductive."

One Cylinder Firing

George used an engine analogy to describe hustle culture.

"Think about a vehicle, 6 cylinder, 8 cylinder. Hustle culture is very much 1 cylinder firing all the time. But what about the other 6 or 8 cylinders that you need to fire in life?"

He asked a question for listeners to answer honestly: "Do you have a hobby, or do you have a side hustle? Because there's a big difference. A hobby equals something you enjoy to do. Most likely, a side hustle for you, if we're being honest with each other, equals more work."

Do you have a time or a place you just go sit down and don't do anything? Just think? Just be?

Highway 46

George shared an image from his travels.

"There's a highway in North Dakota, Highway 46. It's actually the flattest, straight stretch of road that goes for 120 miles."

He asked: "Do you have a 120 mile road in your life? Do you have a flat stretch planned out? Have you done everything that you can do to eradicate the peaks and valleys emotionally, the peaks and valleys relationally, the peaks and valleys professionally?"

He's not trying to hit the gas at 110 miles an hour. He's trying to create a Sunday drive. Looking at the trees. Feeling the breeze.

Why Not Anti-Hustle?

Given everything George experienced, Liz asked why he didn't just go full anti-hustle like so many others have.

His answer was clear.

"If we go back to the very beginning of this episode and the way that I'm defining hustle is hard work, anti hard work just doesn't make any sense. When you're working, work hard."

If he stopped working hard, his clients would feel it, his bank would feel it, his family would feel it, he would feel it. And what would immediately happen? He would start to over-index and feel like he has to work 18 hours a day to get back to where he was.

"It's not about being against something. It's about manufacturing the scenarios in a way that these things work best for you and best for those around you."

He also pushed back on the binary thinking.

"Anything anti, pro or anti. I have worked so hard in my life in so many ways to not be a polarizing, separating type human. And as soon as you go into this pro or anti, now you're ripping into 2 different cultures. I'm saying that doesn't need to happen. There's a happy medium. It's not a one. It's not a zero. There's a middle ground."

Whole Assing Your Life

George ended with a direct question.

"Are you half-assing your life? Are you showing up as a half-ass human? Or are you whole-assing your life, and are you showing up as a whole-ass human?"

The culture you're part of shouldn't come at the cost of your own relationships. It shouldn't come at the cost of your mental health, your spiritual health, your physical health. It shouldn't come at the cost of your own life.

"I have a meeting in 10 minutes. I don't have time for this."

But the anti side isn't that you're sitting on the couch collecting money from somewhere for doing nothing, wondering why you're even here.

"Get up, run the race, work hard, and design it in a way that it's healthy for you, for your relationships, for your health, for your spirituality, for you as a physical human being trying to navigate this planet."

Quotable Moments

"I have a meeting in 10 minutes. I don't have time for this." That's when you know you've reached a whole new level of unhealthy hustle.

"When's the last time you upgraded your brain software? When's the last time you went to version 15 of your life?"

"I'm actually not chasing success anymore, which means hustle culture doesn't fit. I'm chasing significance."

"Do you have a hobby, or do you have a side hustle? Because there's a big difference."

"There's a happy medium. It's not a one. It's not a zero. There's a middle ground that we all could be rolling in."

Questions to Sit With

1. Where did your beliefs about hard work and hustle come from? Family? Culture? Social media? Have you ever examined whether those beliefs are actually serving you?
2. Do you have a 120-mile road in your life? A flat stretch where you can just drive and enjoy the journey? Or is it all peaks and valleys?
3. Are you whole-assing your life, or half-assing it? Are you showing up fully for the things that matter, or spreading yourself so thin that nothing gets your best?

Press play above to hear the full conversation. George shares the full story of being wheeled out on a stretcher, the years he can barely remember, and why chasing significance instead of success changes everything about how you approach hard work.