To be successful you’ve got to hustle right? I mean that what separates the truly dynamic and successful people in any industry, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gary V, Tim Ferris, etc., etc. they ALL HUSTLE.

So if you want to know if you’ve got what it takes to be successful answer the short 5 question quiz below

Are you more committed to working and making it happen than close relationships, rest, etc?
Do you take work to bed? Work on the weekends? Do you find time to hustle on vacation?
Do you prefer to talk about your hustle more than any other topic?
Do you get impatient with people who don’t get why you’re so focused on hustling?
Do you think about hustling while driving, conversing, falling asleep, or sleeping?

If you answered yes to most or all of these questions then you are truly aligned with hustle culture. But you might also be a workaholic.

That’s because these questions are actually adapted from the workaholic’s anonymous website. They’re 20 questions to help you see how you might be using work as a way to avoid your feelings, fill a vast and empty hole inside of you, and generally give you a sense of self or worth.

But Hustle culture isn’t all bad.

It’s based on a simple idea: Anything is possible with hard work and determination.

And this idea at its core is a good idea. Too many people believe that they can’t create the lives they want because they lack the education, connection, skills, or background to create what they want. This fundamentally isn’t true. In fact, it’s something that I work with clients on regularly.

But hustle culture also ignores the fact that being white, male, having a good education, and access to good credit or sources of funding all have an outsized effect on your ability to make hard work, work for you.

It also ignores the fact that overworking as a way to create identity is dangerous, because if your identity is all about hustling then you can never stop hustling even after you’ve achieved success.

The danger of endless work.

About 3 years ago I identified myself as a workaholic. Of the 20 questions on the WA website, I answered yes to 12-15 of them. It was a wake-up call; it helped me see that work had not only become problematic for my health and well-being, but it had also become the center of my identity.

I realized that life wasn’t supposed to be just about work for work’s sake. I also realized that my health, especially my mental health, wasn’t worth the rewards of overwork. Yes, I liked making good money as a coach, but I didn’t love the hours of stress, the outbursts of emotion, the fights with my cofounder, and the endless sense of anxiety and pressure I felt.

I realized that life isn’t worth overworking through. So I changed my business. I slowed down. I took more time off. I figured out how to be more effective while working fewer hours. And now I work 4 days a week and make the same amount of money.

I sometimes still feel left behind by hustle culture. I feel like I should be working harder, especially when my partner stays up till 7 pm finishing her own work, or when a friend of mine completes a big project after working long hours and nights… I wonder if I should go back.

But then I remember that it isn’t worth it.
YES, I need to work hard.
YES, I need to serve my clients.
YES, I need to be on purpose and generous with my time and efforts.

But that doesn’t mean I need to go back to hustling so much that I lose myself.

You can be successful by applying yourself, working hard, and being persistent as all get out. You do need discipline and endurance to be a successful entrepreneur.

What you don’t need is to be shamed for taking care of yourself. It’s why I always have a coach that pushes me to work harder when I slack off or I’m avoiding what needs to be done, but who also advises me to get rest when I push too hard.

So get supported, stay focused, and when the noise that you should be working harder enters your head, check to see where it might be right, and let the rest of it go.