August 5, 2025 • 26 mins
Welcome to a raw exploration of the hustle culture mythos, where we peel back the layers of this relentless grind that’s left a generation burned out and unfulfilled. Drawing from my own rollercoaster—excitement turning to slumps and a toxic cycle of overwork—I dive into why hustle culture whispers you’re never enough, pushing unhealthy obsession over authentic progress. Yet, there’s gold in the grit: the power to act when you’d rather not, a testament to resilience. But here’s the truth bomb—balance is king. Progress matters, but rest and peace are non-negotiable. We’ll reframe success, ditching the mansion fantasy for the quiet joy of family, nature, and self-worth. If you’re tired of sacrificing relationships for an empty win, this is your call to rethink the game. Drop your own story—how do you balance hustle and life? Let’s redefine what it means to thrive.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello everyone, Welcome back to Wax On, Wax Off.
I am so happy that we're here. Today's a solo episode.
We're going to be talking about hustling.
We're going to be talking about the hustle culture, what it does
to our mind, Is it good? And yeah, I kind of just want to
get right into it, give a brief description of kind of what my
journey with hustle culture and hustling and grinding and
(00:23):
success has been. So I just kind of want to start
there. I probably when I was about 14
years old, I, I've always been an entrepreneurial person, but I
really started like fleshing it out.
Like, OK, I'm like, I'm like 4 years from being an adult.
What do I want to do with my life?
What do I want to be? How do I want to be successful?
(00:46):
And I just started diving into people.
I looked at people that I wantedto be like.
So I guess that would be the first thing that I, I, I would
say is find people that already are where you want to be and try
and pursue and, and, and study what they do.
A lot of it is research first. A lot of the people I talked to
(01:07):
and a lot of the people I watch always told me do your research
first, Do your research 1st. And I think what the importance
of that is to humble yourself and to build a foundation.
I am someone who kind of tends to lead towards like not wanting
to build the foundation and justjumping straight into it.
(01:30):
And I don't think that that is the best way to do it.
Yeah. And I, I also want to be frank
with you guys today. I'm not feeling my best right
now. My brain, my my mental health,
my brain, it's not feeling good.I'm not feeling motivated.
(01:53):
I did not want to come in here and do a podcast today.
But I think part of improving and trying to be yourself and
the best version of yourself. I don't even think there is a
best version of yourself. I think it's just all you are
yourself and you show up and youdo everything the best that you
(02:19):
can do it. And that is perfection in itself
is doing the best in every moment.
Because comparing yourself to other people is not good.
Comparing yourself to other people leads you into sadness.
It leads you into fear. You're afraid that you're not
(02:42):
going to do enough. Do as much as the person you
watched on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram or heard about or met.
So you don't do it. And comparison is the thief of
joy. Joy is not knowing about
anything else. Like I, I have these friends.
(03:03):
They live in California in the mountains, and like, they know
who people are, but they're not like constantly consuming media.
So they're just like happy. They're just like, yeah, I'm
going to go outside, hang out with my friends, hang out with
(03:23):
my brothers, chill. And they're just happy.
And they get, they get mad. Like they get mad when they're
like mom tells them what to do or whatever.
But they're not like waking up every morning with the
existential dread of how am I going to be like Joe Rogan?
Like I do. Like I wake up in the morning
and I'm like, great. Another day of not being enough.
(03:46):
And that's where like this online hustle culture takes you
is just waking up and knowing that you're not going to be
enough. And there's moments where it
feels really great and you get this huge dopamine surge and
dopamine high of I'm achieving stuff, I'm meeting people, I'm
doing stuff. I got this amount of views, I
(04:07):
got this amount of likes, but itjust fades.
And when it all fades away, you're just sad.
And that's what I'm why I want to do this episode right now.
It's because I'm in the the low part of this right now.
And I want to warn you and kind of give the lamentations, the
(04:29):
lamenting of what hustle culturedoes to you and talk about the
good stuff too, because there are good stuff.
You want to improve, you want tosucceed, you want to do better.
You want to be better than you were yesterday.
But why? Why do you want to do that?
(04:54):
The reason I wanted to do it because I wanted to, I always
looked up to people. I always, when I was a kid, I
played a lot of pretend and I pretended to be like a lot of
different people. And that was kind of what
motivated me. It was like, OK, I want to be
like this cowboy that I watched in a western.
I want to be like a superhero. I want to be like, whatever,
some character from a movie. And then that changed, and it
(05:18):
changed to my style and how I dressed and how I talked and
acted and what music I listened to and what I did.
And then when I got even older than that, it became what do I
want to achieve? And that's when things started
(05:39):
to kind of going downhill. I guess they going uphill, but
downhill at the same time, because comparison is the thief
of joy. And when you listen to a self
help podcast, like, I mean, I love modern wisdom, but if you
listen to like modern Wisdom or even better, like Diary of a
(06:01):
CEOI think this is a good example of one because it's
people having conversations and you kind of idolize different
guests that are on the podcast. And I don't think it's a bad
podcast. I like it a lot.
My dad's been on it. I've gotten to go to the set of
it and meet the guy. But it just like eventually it
(06:22):
doesn't, it doesn't last. And all the entrepreneurs, Chris
Williamson, Stephen Bartlett, orwhatever his name is, they're
all sad. They all like have these high
highs and then they have these low moments where they're just
broken. So it's like, do you really want
that? Like, do you want this path of
just like ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs and
(06:46):
brokenness inside? But it's a hard path.
But I, I guess it has its, its benefits and its benefits are
those mountaintop experiences where you get to be the man.
But I just think it's, I think it's better.
(07:08):
I think it's better from the viewer's perspective.
I think it's more utopian to look at someone from an
outsider's perspective and see, ah, they get to do this and they
get to do that and they get to do that.
But what they're worrying about with that person who's getting
(07:30):
to be on Joe Rogan, who's getting to succeed, who's
getting to hit this amount of sales, they're just thinking
about what's the next thing? How am I going to outperform
this grandiose thing that I justaccomplished?
And that's sad. So this kind of leads me to that
was kind of my story with what where hustle culture has left
(07:53):
me. So it makes you feel like you're
not enough and it pushes sort ofunhealthy grinding, but it also
teaches you a lot of good things.
It teaches me what I'm doing right now, which is doing a
podcast when I don't want to, proves that I'm strong and I'm
capable. And I think reflection, rest and
(08:21):
keeping a tally of the things you did right really help you in
this. Because I can look back on this
episode in the future and I can say I did something that I
didn't want to do when I didn't want to do it.
And I think that that's really good because a lot of times when
I have taken a, I'll be honest, when I've taken a break from a
(08:44):
season of the podcast and I've been like, OK, we're not going
to release episodes. It was abrupt, it was fast.
And it was because I was just tired and I didn't want to do
it. So I stopped doing it.
Put it to the wayside. And then you get this like nice,
like little tug on your heart tolike restart and start, start it
again. So then you start it again and
then you do it. You do it, you do it.
(09:04):
A couple weeks goes by, maybe you're like, OK, this time I'm
going to push through this firstwave of like, I don't want to do
this. And then you push through it, it
gets better and then you get tired again and then you give
up. So that was kind of like it was
like 1 failure or not one failure, but one like stopping
of doing the podcast. And then it was 2 stoppings
(09:27):
stopped me. It was like 2-2 blocks in.
The two bumps in the road took me out.
This time. I've gone through at least two
bumps in the road and I'm going to keep trying to push through
it. This is kind of my third bump in
the road right now. And I think that's just the
pattern. Like humans, people like to call
(09:47):
burnout a lot. I don't know if it's necessarily
burnout. I think burnout is just like a
term that people use whenever they get fatigued in their their
mind of doing something like they they want to create this
term like I'm burnout, I need totake a break, I need to take a
sabbatical. And I don't know if that's
(10:10):
necessarily true. I think if you just keep doing
something for long enough, you're just going to get past it
because time moves like this. It's like up, I'm feeling great,
goes down, I'm feeling bad, up, I'm feeling great, down, I'm
feeling bad. And if you, it's like a sound
wave, if you go up and down and up and down and up and down.
And if you were to like, if you're on a like a production
(10:32):
editing software for, for sound,for like a song and you had
these big waves of like different highs and really low
lows. And then you zoom it out and you
go way out. What that up and down those
massive mountains and waves and valleys look like is just a
straight line. And that's what life is like.
(10:53):
It's this straight line filled with highs and lows.
But when you can take your brainand you can zoom out and you can
look at the high highs and the low lows and you can see the
pattern. And when you get to see the
pattern and understand the pattern, life just looks like a
straight line and it's more consistent.
It's better 'cause you have in your head, you are, you are
(11:15):
preemptively assuming that because you're at a mountaintop,
there's going to be a, a low low.
And, and, and these things teachyou, they teach you, they make
you better. And when you understand that,
life becomes a little bit easier.
And this has helped me through hustle culture.
Like right now, I'm not feeling good.
(11:36):
I don't feel good. I, I'm, I'm really sad and
anxious. But I know that even though I'm
in this valley, it's going to get better and I'm going to push
through it because that's just what happens.
Like every time that something bad has happened, something even
better has happened after that. So I I think part of it is just
having faith and trusting that it's not even faith.
(11:59):
It's like an educated guess based on the bad things that
have happened to me in the past,Seeing the good things that come
after that another good thing isgoing to come after the bad
thing I'm going through right now.
Yeah. The next thing I kind of wanted
to talk about was progress matters, but rest and peace are
(12:23):
also key. So if you're like always go, go,
go, go, go, go, go, that's not sustainable.
You need to, if you can't drive a car without giving it fuel and
you need to keep giving it fuel and do maintenance on the car.
So it's a, it's a, it's balance.All of life really truly is
balance. It is, it is the yin and the
(12:47):
Yang. I don't even know if that's how
you say it. Yin, Yang, Yang, I don't know
whatever. But it, it's just balancing
everything out. You're balancing rest with
motion because if you rest too much, then you're lazy.
And if you go too much, then you're, you're going to be like
this fatigued super entrepreneurwho's who's tired and who like
(13:10):
actually hates everything that they're doing, even though
they're living the dream of them1510, five years ago.
And I don't want to be like that.
So I have to, I'm having to conscience consciously balance
rest with progress. The next thing is, I don't think
that the things that you do evenreally make you happy in a way.
(13:36):
Like, like, I don't know, I'll use my dad for an example.
Like the things that like work stresses him out sometimes.
And the things that don't stresshim out are like the things that
he's always done. Like he likes to chill out in
the sun and read a book or be onhis phone.
And that's like fun for him. And he does that still.
(13:59):
He's been doing it for 20 years.He now has everything that
probably 15 year old him wanted,but the things that brought him
joy back then still bring him joy now.
And I think there's something tothat.
There's these like eternal things, these eternal practices
(14:31):
that we all we still enjoy and those are the things that like
live forever. I'm still fleshing it out and
I'm still trying to figure it out, but I just feel like
there's there has to be something more to what we do.
(14:54):
Like like like no one is still happy, Like no one is happy from
just achieving stuff. That's not what it's about.
It's about something bigger. And I don't know what the bigger
thing is. Some people would say it's God,
Some people would say it's relationships with people.
(15:15):
Some people would say it's success.
And I don't know yet what it is,but I guess we'll kind of flush
that out a little bit more. I guess another thing that I
wanted to say was don't sacrifice relationships for
success. You are enough now If you have
(15:37):
everything in the world, but youlose your soul, you lose your
friends, you lose your love for people and for relationships or
or whatever, you won't be happy.And what is the meaning of life?
What? What?
Why? Why?
Like, why do we even do this? Is it because we're trying to
(15:59):
prove to someone, to prove to ourself, to prove to the world
that we are something? So it's it's like trying to
fulfill a brokenness within us. I don't know.
I don't know what the meaning oflife is.
Is it progress? Yeah.
I'm just not sure. And I'm also like, doing this
(16:21):
episode thinking like, is this even a good idea?
Like, am I even doing the right thing?
But I just wanted to at least show up today, to show up, to be
just here and to kind of be an example of showing up even when
(16:44):
you don't want to. Yeah, I'm sorry if this episode
isn't going well. I'm sorry if you're confused or
if you're like, I don't know what's happening, but just bear
with me. I guess it'll be better in the
future and I hope that my ups and downs can motivate you.
(17:12):
If you came into this episode like I'm feeling super
motivated. I'm excited to listen to this
podcast and you see me now. Maybe this episode isn't for you
right now, but there are other episodes that are.
And but maybe if you're a personright now who's just in the the
(17:32):
dumps, you're not feeling good. This episode is helping you by
seeing someone who's there with you, who's trying to be a better
version of themselves everyday, who's trying to become
(17:53):
something. Because I don't even know, like,
who am I supposed to become? Like, what am I made to do?
Is it to progress? Is it to have relationships with
people? Is it to be a good person?
What does good even mean? Where does good even come from?
(18:16):
These are all questions that I have going on in my head right
now Yeah. Last couple things I want to say
is you don't need to grind to bevaluable.
Your value is not in what you do.
And this is very hard for me because I think inherently from
a young age that what I did was how people will perceive me.
(18:38):
If I perform well, you will likeme more, which is kind of true
in a way. It's it's like semantics to say
that it's not true. But there are some people who
who love you no matter what. And those are the people that
you really need to keep around in an inner circle.
It's the people that are there even when you're not at your
best. And I have those people in my
life right now, like my girlfriend, she's really great
(19:01):
and she's there for me even whenI feel like crap.
And my family's there for me even when I feel like crap.
My friends are there for me. And I and I picked out good
people who are there throughout the highs and lows.
And I have other people in my life who, who use me for what I
can give them. And then once I do something for
them like I, I like, once I, I, I give them what they wanted,
(19:25):
they're on to the next thing. And then they leave you and they
hurt you. And, and those, there are people
like that, that they're like emotional leeches.
They're, they're just like sneaky little rats who want to
climb. And that's what they're,
they're, that's, those people are on their own journey and
they're trying to heal themselves and figure that out.
The last thing I want to say is how do you balance hustle and
(19:47):
life? I don't do it well, I try my
best. SO I was talking about this with
a friend the other day and she was like you.
I, I, I things aren't going the way I want it to.
(20:08):
Things aren't going the way I want it to.
My first response was, well, usually for me, what I do when
things aren't going the way I want it to is I do the best that
I can and stress every single option.
To try and make things go the way I wanted to.
And even if it doesn't work, I know that I did the best that I
(20:31):
could. And that's the most important
thing to me is that I know that I did everything that I possibly
could in this scenario to make things go my way.
So even if it doesn't work out, I'm still going to be proud that
I at least tried. So when it comes to balance, I
(20:53):
don't do it perfectly and I don't always get the outcomes
that I want, but I try and I canlook back on that with with
gratitude and with pride feelinglike, OK, I, I at least I tried,
at least I did my best. And I get better every single
time because I reflect on that and I see how how I did and try
(21:19):
and improve that and take that and dissect that and figure out
what is the optimized version ofthe optimized version every
single time. Yeah.
So I'm sorry if this episode wasconfusing.
Just know that I'm trying my best.
And for those of you who are trying your best, I'm here for
(21:40):
you. I'm here with you.
I'm just trying to keep going and push through even when I
don't want to do stuff, even when I don't want to do podcasts
because content is hard because it gets discouraging and people
don't respond to it as much or people don't like it or
(22:01):
whatever. Like, you know, I, I don't know,
I'm just like trying to also be real, like be a person on here,
not just be this like talking head that's always just like put
together. Because I think that's what
people like about certain peopleis they like that they're kind
of just human. Like like Theo Von, like I,
(22:22):
that's why I like him because he's just human and he's just
there and he shows up and he does the best that he can.
Some days it's great. Some days it's not great.
And that's kind of where I'm at right now is it's just like, I'm
just going to be a human. And I'd, I think I'm going to
maybe at least where I'm, what I'm feeling right now is maybe
move away from some of the, someof the hustle stuff.
(22:45):
Like success is actually, there's something more
transcendent than success in politics.
It's like, what did I write the other day?
It's really hard to be transcendent.
What does transcendent mean? Transcendent means this like
eternal spiritual energy that that exists, like the like the
(23:06):
the God energy that that exists in the world.
Like these like spiritual, like they're, they're not in the
physical realm. They are.
It's just like when it's the ultimate purpose, the pinnacle
of of human experience is transcendent, transcendent of
(23:27):
earthly things. It's really hard to be
transcendent and political at the same time.
Within my own life. I'm trying to be more and more
less political and more transcendent of two-dimensional
things like politics. And I think that like this
hustle grind thing, it, it, it for some people, it works really
well, but it doesn't translate well to the masses.
(23:55):
Like when you like. That's why I think religion,
like in Christianity, they try and teach people like all or
nothing. Like it's like like technically
if you look at the rules, like you can do up to this extent,
but then they just like like to like, is it easier to fiddle
around with alcohol or just say no alcohol at all?
(24:18):
It's way easier to say no alcohol at all.
Because then for the people thatare totally good with with with
drinking a little bit, which I don't think there's any level of
alcohol that is healthy level ofalcohol because it's neurotoxin.
Every single time you drink, it is bad for you and it hurts you.
That's a fact. That's a fact.
But on the other hand, biblically, like what?
(24:41):
Like, oh, we see that Jesus drank or whatever.
So then you have this like nuance.
It's hard to teach nuance to people.
So how do you, how do you teach the masses about a certain topic
that's nuanced? You just say, no, it's bad,
don't do it. But then people like feel like
(25:01):
you're being intellectually dishonest.
And I don't know, I just, I, I'mnot sure.
I'm not sure how to talk about things like this without being
like, yeah, go for it, go for it, go for it when it in fact,
it's nuanced in teaching the balance is really hard.
And that's like kind of like, I guess that goes with this wax
(25:22):
on, wax off theme. Like like Mr. Miyagi teaching
balance to The Karate Kid. I'm not Mr. Miyagi, I'm
definitely the the kid in this scenario, but trying to find the
balance and like make our generation as good as possible.
(25:42):
If you like this, I guess go I it sounds cheesy, but go and
subscribe. It would mean a lot to me and
like it comment whatever, all that jazz.
I'm sorry if this episode wasn'tsuper helpful.
I'm trying my best and we got really cool stuff planned for
you next week. Next week.
Very special guest. Also, if you haven't yet, listen
(26:06):
to episodes before this one. Go listen to episodes before
this one. Yeah.
Thank you for being here with me.
Pray for me if you pray and meditate for me if you meditate.
Yeah, Pushing through. Keep going, everyone.
(26:26):
I love you guys. Later.
Hello everyone, Welcome back to Wax On, Wax Off.
I am so happy that we're here. Today's a solo episode.
We're going to be talking about hustling.
We're going to be talking about the hustle culture, what it does
to our mind, Is it good? And yeah, I kind of just want to
get right into it, give a brief description of kind of what my
journey with hustle culture and hustling and grinding and
(00:23):
success has been. So I just kind of want to start
there. I probably when I was about 14
years old, I, I've always been an entrepreneurial person, but I
really started like fleshing it out.
Like, OK, I'm like, I'm like 4 years from being an adult.
What do I want to do with my life?
What do I want to be? How do I want to be successful?
(00:46):
And I just started diving into people.
I looked at people that I wantedto be like.
So I guess that would be the first thing that I, I, I would
say is find people that already are where you want to be and try
and pursue and, and, and study what they do.
A lot of it is research first. A lot of the people I talked to
(01:07):
and a lot of the people I watch always told me do your research
first, Do your research 1st. And I think what the importance
of that is to humble yourself and to build a foundation.
I am someone who kind of tends to lead towards like not wanting
to build the foundation and justjumping straight into it.
(01:30):
And I don't think that that is the best way to do it.
Yeah. And I, I also want to be frank
with you guys today. I'm not feeling my best right
now. My brain, my my mental health,
my brain, it's not feeling good.I'm not feeling motivated.
(01:53):
I did not want to come in here and do a podcast today.
But I think part of improving and trying to be yourself and
the best version of yourself. I don't even think there is a
best version of yourself. I think it's just all you are
yourself and you show up and youdo everything the best that you
(02:19):
can do it. And that is perfection in itself
is doing the best in every moment.
Because comparing yourself to other people is not good.
Comparing yourself to other people leads you into sadness.
It leads you into fear. You're afraid that you're not
(02:42):
going to do enough. Do as much as the person you
watched on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram or heard about or met.
So you don't do it. And comparison is the thief of
joy. Joy is not knowing about
anything else. Like I, I have these friends.
(03:03):
They live in California in the mountains, and like, they know
who people are, but they're not like constantly consuming media.
So they're just like happy. They're just like, yeah, I'm
going to go outside, hang out with my friends, hang out with
(03:23):
my brothers, chill. And they're just happy.
And they get, they get mad. Like they get mad when they're
like mom tells them what to do or whatever.
But they're not like waking up every morning with the
existential dread of how am I going to be like Joe Rogan?
Like I do. Like I wake up in the morning
and I'm like, great. Another day of not being enough.
(03:46):
And that's where like this online hustle culture takes you
is just waking up and knowing that you're not going to be
enough. And there's moments where it
feels really great and you get this huge dopamine surge and
dopamine high of I'm achieving stuff, I'm meeting people, I'm
doing stuff. I got this amount of views, I
(04:07):
got this amount of likes, but itjust fades.
And when it all fades away, you're just sad.
And that's what I'm why I want to do this episode right now.
It's because I'm in the the low part of this right now.
And I want to warn you and kind of give the lamentations, the
(04:29):
lamenting of what hustle culturedoes to you and talk about the
good stuff too, because there are good stuff.
You want to improve, you want tosucceed, you want to do better.
You want to be better than you were yesterday.
But why? Why do you want to do that?
(04:54):
The reason I wanted to do it because I wanted to, I always
looked up to people. I always, when I was a kid, I
played a lot of pretend and I pretended to be like a lot of
different people. And that was kind of what
motivated me. It was like, OK, I want to be
like this cowboy that I watched in a western.
I want to be like a superhero. I want to be like, whatever,
some character from a movie. And then that changed, and it
(05:18):
changed to my style and how I dressed and how I talked and
acted and what music I listened to and what I did.
And then when I got even older than that, it became what do I
want to achieve? And that's when things started
(05:39):
to kind of going downhill. I guess they going uphill, but
downhill at the same time, because comparison is the thief
of joy. And when you listen to a self
help podcast, like, I mean, I love modern wisdom, but if you
listen to like modern Wisdom or even better, like Diary of a
(06:01):
CEOI think this is a good example of one because it's
people having conversations and you kind of idolize different
guests that are on the podcast. And I don't think it's a bad
podcast. I like it a lot.
My dad's been on it. I've gotten to go to the set of
it and meet the guy. But it just like eventually it
(06:22):
doesn't, it doesn't last. And all the entrepreneurs, Chris
Williamson, Stephen Bartlett, orwhatever his name is, they're
all sad. They all like have these high
highs and then they have these low moments where they're just
broken. So it's like, do you really want
that? Like, do you want this path of
just like ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs and
(06:46):
brokenness inside? But it's a hard path.
But I, I guess it has its, its benefits and its benefits are
those mountaintop experiences where you get to be the man.
But I just think it's, I think it's better.
(07:08):
I think it's better from the viewer's perspective.
I think it's more utopian to look at someone from an
outsider's perspective and see, ah, they get to do this and they
get to do that and they get to do that.
But what they're worrying about with that person who's getting
(07:30):
to be on Joe Rogan, who's getting to succeed, who's
getting to hit this amount of sales, they're just thinking
about what's the next thing? How am I going to outperform
this grandiose thing that I justaccomplished?
And that's sad. So this kind of leads me to that
was kind of my story with what where hustle culture has left
(07:53):
me. So it makes you feel like you're
not enough and it pushes sort ofunhealthy grinding, but it also
teaches you a lot of good things.
It teaches me what I'm doing right now, which is doing a
podcast when I don't want to, proves that I'm strong and I'm
capable. And I think reflection, rest and
(08:21):
keeping a tally of the things you did right really help you in
this. Because I can look back on this
episode in the future and I can say I did something that I
didn't want to do when I didn't want to do it.
And I think that that's really good because a lot of times when
I have taken a, I'll be honest, when I've taken a break from a
(08:44):
season of the podcast and I've been like, OK, we're not going
to release episodes. It was abrupt, it was fast.
And it was because I was just tired and I didn't want to do
it. So I stopped doing it.
Put it to the wayside. And then you get this like nice,
like little tug on your heart tolike restart and start, start it
again. So then you start it again and
then you do it. You do it, you do it.
(09:04):
A couple weeks goes by, maybe you're like, OK, this time I'm
going to push through this firstwave of like, I don't want to do
this. And then you push through it, it
gets better and then you get tired again and then you give
up. So that was kind of like it was
like 1 failure or not one failure, but one like stopping
of doing the podcast. And then it was 2 stoppings
(09:27):
stopped me. It was like 2-2 blocks in.
The two bumps in the road took me out.
This time. I've gone through at least two
bumps in the road and I'm going to keep trying to push through
it. This is kind of my third bump in
the road right now. And I think that's just the
pattern. Like humans, people like to call
(09:47):
burnout a lot. I don't know if it's necessarily
burnout. I think burnout is just like a
term that people use whenever they get fatigued in their their
mind of doing something like they they want to create this
term like I'm burnout, I need totake a break, I need to take a
sabbatical. And I don't know if that's
(10:10):
necessarily true. I think if you just keep doing
something for long enough, you're just going to get past it
because time moves like this. It's like up, I'm feeling great,
goes down, I'm feeling bad, up, I'm feeling great, down, I'm
feeling bad. And if you, it's like a sound
wave, if you go up and down and up and down and up and down.
And if you were to like, if you're on a like a production
(10:32):
editing software for, for sound,for like a song and you had
these big waves of like different highs and really low
lows. And then you zoom it out and you
go way out. What that up and down those
massive mountains and waves and valleys look like is just a
straight line. And that's what life is like.
(10:53):
It's this straight line filled with highs and lows.
But when you can take your brainand you can zoom out and you can
look at the high highs and the low lows and you can see the
pattern. And when you get to see the
pattern and understand the pattern, life just looks like a
straight line and it's more consistent.
It's better 'cause you have in your head, you are, you are
(11:15):
preemptively assuming that because you're at a mountaintop,
there's going to be a, a low low.
And, and, and these things teachyou, they teach you, they make
you better. And when you understand that,
life becomes a little bit easier.
And this has helped me through hustle culture.
Like right now, I'm not feeling good.
(11:36):
I don't feel good. I, I'm, I'm really sad and
anxious. But I know that even though I'm
in this valley, it's going to get better and I'm going to push
through it because that's just what happens.
Like every time that something bad has happened, something even
better has happened after that. So I I think part of it is just
having faith and trusting that it's not even faith.
(11:59):
It's like an educated guess based on the bad things that
have happened to me in the past,Seeing the good things that come
after that another good thing isgoing to come after the bad
thing I'm going through right now.
Yeah. The next thing I kind of wanted
to talk about was progress matters, but rest and peace are
(12:23):
also key. So if you're like always go, go,
go, go, go, go, go, that's not sustainable.
You need to, if you can't drive a car without giving it fuel and
you need to keep giving it fuel and do maintenance on the car.
So it's a, it's a, it's balance.All of life really truly is
balance. It is, it is the yin and the
(12:47):
Yang. I don't even know if that's how
you say it. Yin, Yang, Yang, I don't know
whatever. But it, it's just balancing
everything out. You're balancing rest with
motion because if you rest too much, then you're lazy.
And if you go too much, then you're, you're going to be like
this fatigued super entrepreneurwho's who's tired and who like
(13:10):
actually hates everything that they're doing, even though
they're living the dream of them1510, five years ago.
And I don't want to be like that.
So I have to, I'm having to conscience consciously balance
rest with progress. The next thing is, I don't think
that the things that you do evenreally make you happy in a way.
(13:36):
Like, like, I don't know, I'll use my dad for an example.
Like the things that like work stresses him out sometimes.
And the things that don't stresshim out are like the things that
he's always done. Like he likes to chill out in
the sun and read a book or be onhis phone.
And that's like fun for him. And he does that still.
(13:59):
He's been doing it for 20 years.He now has everything that
probably 15 year old him wanted,but the things that brought him
joy back then still bring him joy now.
And I think there's something tothat.
There's these like eternal things, these eternal practices
(14:31):
that we all we still enjoy and those are the things that like
live forever. I'm still fleshing it out and
I'm still trying to figure it out, but I just feel like
there's there has to be something more to what we do.
(14:54):
Like like like no one is still happy, Like no one is happy from
just achieving stuff. That's not what it's about.
It's about something bigger. And I don't know what the bigger
thing is. Some people would say it's God,
Some people would say it's relationships with people.
(15:15):
Some people would say it's success.
And I don't know yet what it is,but I guess we'll kind of flush
that out a little bit more. I guess another thing that I
wanted to say was don't sacrifice relationships for
success. You are enough now If you have
(15:37):
everything in the world, but youlose your soul, you lose your
friends, you lose your love for people and for relationships or
or whatever, you won't be happy.And what is the meaning of life?
What? What?
Why? Why?
Like, why do we even do this? Is it because we're trying to
(15:59):
prove to someone, to prove to ourself, to prove to the world
that we are something? So it's it's like trying to
fulfill a brokenness within us. I don't know.
I don't know what the meaning oflife is.
Is it progress? Yeah.
I'm just not sure. And I'm also like, doing this
(16:21):
episode thinking like, is this even a good idea?
Like, am I even doing the right thing?
But I just wanted to at least show up today, to show up, to be
just here and to kind of be an example of showing up even when
(16:44):
you don't want to. Yeah, I'm sorry if this episode
isn't going well. I'm sorry if you're confused or
if you're like, I don't know what's happening, but just bear
with me. I guess it'll be better in the
future and I hope that my ups and downs can motivate you.
(17:12):
If you came into this episode like I'm feeling super
motivated. I'm excited to listen to this
podcast and you see me now. Maybe this episode isn't for you
right now, but there are other episodes that are.
And but maybe if you're a personright now who's just in the the
(17:32):
dumps, you're not feeling good. This episode is helping you by
seeing someone who's there with you, who's trying to be a better
version of themselves everyday, who's trying to become
(17:53):
something. Because I don't even know, like,
who am I supposed to become? Like, what am I made to do?
Is it to progress? Is it to have relationships with
people? Is it to be a good person?
What does good even mean? Where does good even come from?
(18:16):
These are all questions that I have going on in my head right
now Yeah. Last couple things I want to say
is you don't need to grind to bevaluable.
Your value is not in what you do.
And this is very hard for me because I think inherently from
a young age that what I did was how people will perceive me.
(18:38):
If I perform well, you will likeme more, which is kind of true
in a way. It's it's like semantics to say
that it's not true. But there are some people who
who love you no matter what. And those are the people that
you really need to keep around in an inner circle.
It's the people that are there even when you're not at your
best. And I have those people in my
life right now, like my girlfriend, she's really great
(19:01):
and she's there for me even whenI feel like crap.
And my family's there for me even when I feel like crap.
My friends are there for me. And I and I picked out good
people who are there throughout the highs and lows.
And I have other people in my life who, who use me for what I
can give them. And then once I do something for
them like I, I like, once I, I, I give them what they wanted,
(19:25):
they're on to the next thing. And then they leave you and they
hurt you. And, and those, there are people
like that, that they're like emotional leeches.
They're, they're just like sneaky little rats who want to
climb. And that's what they're,
they're, that's, those people are on their own journey and
they're trying to heal themselves and figure that out.
The last thing I want to say is how do you balance hustle and
(19:47):
life? I don't do it well, I try my
best. SO I was talking about this with
a friend the other day and she was like you.
I, I, I things aren't going the way I want it to.
(20:08):
Things aren't going the way I want it to.
My first response was, well, usually for me, what I do when
things aren't going the way I want it to is I do the best that
I can and stress every single option.
To try and make things go the way I wanted to.
And even if it doesn't work, I know that I did the best that I
(20:31):
could. And that's the most important
thing to me is that I know that I did everything that I possibly
could in this scenario to make things go my way.
So even if it doesn't work out, I'm still going to be proud that
I at least tried. So when it comes to balance, I
(20:53):
don't do it perfectly and I don't always get the outcomes
that I want, but I try and I canlook back on that with with
gratitude and with pride feelinglike, OK, I, I at least I tried,
at least I did my best. And I get better every single
time because I reflect on that and I see how how I did and try
(21:19):
and improve that and take that and dissect that and figure out
what is the optimized version ofthe optimized version every
single time. Yeah.
So I'm sorry if this episode wasconfusing.
Just know that I'm trying my best.
And for those of you who are trying your best, I'm here for
(21:40):
you. I'm here with you.
I'm just trying to keep going and push through even when I
don't want to do stuff, even when I don't want to do podcasts
because content is hard because it gets discouraging and people
don't respond to it as much or people don't like it or
(22:01):
whatever. Like, you know, I, I don't know,
I'm just like trying to also be real, like be a person on here,
not just be this like talking head that's always just like put
together. Because I think that's what
people like about certain peopleis they like that they're kind
of just human. Like like Theo Von, like I,
(22:22):
that's why I like him because he's just human and he's just
there and he shows up and he does the best that he can.
Some days it's great. Some days it's not great.
And that's kind of where I'm at right now is it's just like, I'm
just going to be a human. And I'd, I think I'm going to
maybe at least where I'm, what I'm feeling right now is maybe
move away from some of the, someof the hustle stuff.
(22:45):
Like success is actually, there's something more
transcendent than success in politics.
It's like, what did I write the other day?
It's really hard to be transcendent.
What does transcendent mean? Transcendent means this like
eternal spiritual energy that that exists, like the like the
(23:06):
the God energy that that exists in the world.
Like these like spiritual, like they're, they're not in the
physical realm. They are.
It's just like when it's the ultimate purpose, the pinnacle
of of human experience is transcendent, transcendent of
(23:27):
earthly things. It's really hard to be
transcendent and political at the same time.
Within my own life. I'm trying to be more and more
less political and more transcendent of two-dimensional
things like politics. And I think that like this
hustle grind thing, it, it, it for some people, it works really
well, but it doesn't translate well to the masses.
(23:55):
Like when you like. That's why I think religion,
like in Christianity, they try and teach people like all or
nothing. Like it's like like technically
if you look at the rules, like you can do up to this extent,
but then they just like like to like, is it easier to fiddle
around with alcohol or just say no alcohol at all?
(24:18):
It's way easier to say no alcohol at all.
Because then for the people thatare totally good with with with
drinking a little bit, which I don't think there's any level of
alcohol that is healthy level ofalcohol because it's neurotoxin.
Every single time you drink, it is bad for you and it hurts you.
That's a fact. That's a fact.
But on the other hand, biblically, like what?
(24:41):
Like, oh, we see that Jesus drank or whatever.
So then you have this like nuance.
It's hard to teach nuance to people.
So how do you, how do you teach the masses about a certain topic
that's nuanced? You just say, no, it's bad,
don't do it. But then people like feel like
(25:01):
you're being intellectually dishonest.
And I don't know, I just, I, I'mnot sure.
I'm not sure how to talk about things like this without being
like, yeah, go for it, go for it, go for it when it in fact,
it's nuanced in teaching the balance is really hard.
And that's like kind of like, I guess that goes with this wax
(25:22):
on, wax off theme. Like like Mr. Miyagi teaching
balance to The Karate Kid. I'm not Mr. Miyagi, I'm
definitely the the kid in this scenario, but trying to find the
balance and like make our generation as good as possible.
(25:42):
If you like this, I guess go I it sounds cheesy, but go and
subscribe. It would mean a lot to me and
like it comment whatever, all that jazz.
I'm sorry if this episode wasn'tsuper helpful.
I'm trying my best and we got really cool stuff planned for
you next week. Next week.
Very special guest. Also, if you haven't yet, listen
(26:06):
to episodes before this one. Go listen to episodes before
this one. Yeah.
Thank you for being here with me.
Pray for me if you pray and meditate for me if you meditate.
Yeah, Pushing through. Keep going, everyone.
(26:26):
I love you guys. Later.
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