Healing Vs Hustling

I’ve just released a new video that is sending shock waves through TNL networks. Grown men are breaking down and crying, many for the first time in years. If you have opened your inbox in the last month or so you’ve probably been bombarded by masses of life coaches and online educators reminding you to keep working hard and optimizing your lockdown time. Now, I don’t disagree with any of that. It is a good idea to take advantage of this unique moment in history, when the entire world pauses, to pivot your life plan and prepare for what happens next. However, what I also think this long period can offer is an occasion for healing, to go deeper inside of yourself and be real with yourself about what’s under the surface. Be prepared, what you’re going to find is not going to always be positivity and happiness, and, counter-intuitively, that is not a bad thing. It might just save your life.

Today I want to lead you through a thought journey, but to do so, I need you to be in touch with your entire emotional range. The first thing I want to touch base on is the idea of ”Hustle”. We live in a society that greatly celebrates the doers, the hard-workers, the men that become obsessed with their jobs. That’s good overall. At the end of the day, it is thanks to this 20% of people that get shit done that businesses, governments, and society itself keeps functioning. Those are the men who “succeed” on certain metrics, usually material ones. And that’s a big part of what I teach in courses like my Lifestyle Design Academy: how to leverage your networks and relationships to 10x the quality of your dating life, career and lifestyle results. The problem is that, for a lot of men, hustling stops being a means to an end and becomes the end itself. That’s because, like most forms of high-stimulation activities, hard work can be another way to get your dopamine spikes, external validation from friends and colleagues, and overall feeling you’re doing something that’s more important than anything else. This leads you to repress and despise any form of weaknesses like frustration, psychological and emotional pain, or any other negative feeling that can put you out of the constantly positive hustling mindset. On the flip side, is it’s easy to be really down on yourself if you can’t always live up to the extremely high standards of discipline and emotional balance you think you should have all the fucking time. If you recognize yourself in that statement, even a little bit, I suggest you spend a big chunk of your quarantine time starting to heal your inner wounds and acknowledging your past traumas, whether self-inflicted or created by others. The longer you decide to wait and postpone this, the higher the chances they’ll become a permanent part of you, calcifying those wounds into numb scars, anger or cynicism - which you will likely pass on to the next generation if they don’t take you out first.

Dealing with the grief of generations

So, the second thing I want you to realize today is, that it’s okay to feel sad. It is okay to wake up and feel lonely and a bit depressed (especially during Corona). It’s ok to have a tantrum or feel rage (seemingly for no obvious reason) sometimes, as long as you’re not damaging yourself or others around you. You have the privilege and burden of being born in the first generations that finally get to acknowledge their emotional pain and feel it fully. Your father, your grandfather, your frontier ancestor fighting a war, carving out life in a harsh environment, were all too busy copying with big challenges coming from outside. That often boiled down to a life-or-death type of outcome, with little resources left to work through the inner demons and trauma they experienced. That’s why they passed it on to you, they didn’t have the tools or self-awareness to know any better. For the first time, you have the choice of breaking this cycle, to save yourself and whoever comes next. The moment you finally acknowledge the repressed pain inside of you, something else amazing also happens. You begin to notice how almost everyone else is going through similar challenges. This creates an opportunity for you to truly understand what people need and desire in their lives at a very core level. How do you think I am able to empathize with my clients and lead them through their darkness? Because I’ve been to all those dark places too and come out on top. Once you do so and find a way to provide them some help to alleviate their own unique struggles, you’ll become a very valuable person in their lives.