Weekend Challenge #38: Lies of “the Grind”

If you’re a regular here, you are probably the kind of person who strives for more in LIFE. You desire to have life to the full or you wouldn’t care about living with integrity and excellence. You wouldn’t invite people into a LIFE Council who might make you uncomfortable and point out your flaws. If you’re here, you might even be someone who would claim to “hustle” or “grind” in LIFE.

It’s a motivational message, right? All you need to do to get where you want to go is grind. Work harder. Do more. When the other guy is sleeping or watching TV, you’re working. I get fired up when I hear those messages and I intentionally consume them at times to remind myself that I’m capable of more than I think.

The problem with the “grind” is that you’ve been lied to. You’ve been made to feel like you don’t have what it takes to sleep one hour a day, workout three times, raise kids, be a million-dollar entrepreneur, and build your own house like these other people seem to be. Comparison seeps in and the general consensus has to be, “well damn, there’s really no comparison to even have there.”

Here are the three lies the grind culture has told you that you should be more careful of:

Lie #1: Doing more is the way to success

Doing more is the way to look busy, not the way to success. The grind crowd loves to point to examples like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant who were notorious for the work they put into being the best. Others might look to entrepreneurs such as Warren Buffet or Steve Jobs and note their prioritization of work over everything else to build their companies. None of those examples would be wrong but the grind culture fails to unveil the most obvious component to their success.  

It wasn’t doing more than made them great, it was focus. They were focused fully on what they wanted to achieve. They became all-time greats in their sport and billionaire entrepreneurs, not by doing more and never saying no, but by focusing more of their energy on who and what they wanted to be. Greg McKeown has noted the path to success is one of, “the relentless pursuit of less but better”[i]. Don’t do more. Do less, better. Jordan and Kobe focused on their fundamentals, Jobs and Buffet isolated the spaces in the market and put their energies there. Here is perhaps the greatest visual to illustrate the point of focused energy over doing more, also from McKeown’s book:

Let’s look at exercise and the pursuit of excellence as an example of this principle. What is it called when you just do more in fitness? It is called mediocrity or injury. If you want to be great in fitness, you focus on where you put your energy. I am working toward an Ironman. I swim, run, and ride in a targeted effort each week, I don’t simply do more and get better. If you want to add muscle, doing more exercise won’t work. You target the goal with your effort in the gym, and not just go lift every day.

Lie #2: Being busy means you’re winning

What is the most common response to the question, “hey, how have you been?”. Yup, “busy” or “so busy”. It’s always said like a badge of honor. It’s the subtle way of saying, “I’m doing so much more than you.” Well, truth is, busy is not a goal even if the grind culture treats it like it is. Being able to show someone a full calendar or to turn down an invitation because you just have too much going on in your life, is some sort of trophy now but we need to stop. Being busy, cramming so much into a single day that you can’t breathe, is not a goal to pursue. If you want to truly achieve anything great, you have to do the opposite of that.

To be great in all aspects of LIFE, you have to run from busy. You have to say “no” more than “yes” and you have to learn how to prioritize what really matters. Busy with the grind makes a cool YouTube video, but it makes an awful lifestyle and an even worse path to success. Don’t get me wrong, some days on the road to greatness you will surely be busy. You’ll spend entire weekends on your work because deadlines are looming and you know it’s the right place to put your energy. But if every day you have a full calendar for the grind and you humblebrag about it, you’re making a joke of yourself. You’re not respecting the fact that time in this LIFE is limited and shouldn’t be wasted on the pursuit of busy but should be spent on the pursuit of love, integrity, fellowship and excellence.

Lie #3: Sleep is for losers, not grinders

Let’s talk about rest in general. This has been a big problem of mine for years. Ever since I’ve set my eyes on goals that push my limits, I’ve lived in a cycle of going as hard as I can and then crashing into exhaustion and anxiety. I often feel guilty the minute I sit on the couch in the evening and turn on the TV. I think, “grinders don’t watch TV. These other guys I see online are probably out running for the third time today, not watching TV.” Lies. Lies. Lies.

At our most recent LIFE Council retreat, another man in my Council shared that sometimes they feel lazy when they see I’ve posted a workout while they are still waking up. It seemed like I was grinding harder and that somehow made me better. But, I sometimes felt the same way when he would post later that day about his late-night gym session, while I was sitting on the couch. No one in the grind culture is going to post about watching TV or being lazy yet we act as though if something isn’t on social media, it must have never happened. Everyone who is successful at anything rests and they sleep. For every post you see from someone, think of all the time they aren’t posting about. Some of that time is rest.

You don’t have to trust me though. Go read Ryan Holiday’s book, Stillness is the Key and learn how men from Winston Churchill who learned to paint in the midst of a World War, to John F Kennedy doodling in meetings amidst the Cuban Middle Crisis used rest and peace to focus and win. Do you need 9 hours of sleep every night? Some will disagree but I’m going to say no. Should you watch TV for 3 hours every day? No. Do you need to take entire days to binge watch Netflix for a “me day”? Nope. You do need rest though. Every book of faith and wisdom ever written makes room for the power of rest. You should too.

The hard truth for me is that I love the grind. I love when my schedule is packed, and people want to talk with me. I thrive in the 5:00am workouts in the dark and mad dashes to create something inspiring. I believe in the idea that you don’t get what you want, you get what you work for. I know that you can change yourself through intentional work because I’ve done it. The grind is great, right up until it isn’t.

My hope is that you start to recognize these three lies and in so doing find the power in balance. The grind is a temporary state of being, not a lifestyle. The most successful people I know, have the ability to tun on the grind when they have a focused purpose to do so. They always know they are capable of incredible output when they need to be. But they also know how to step out of the grind when it’s time to recover and find peace. They realize that the grind is like adrenaline – it will help you accomplish feats like never before but if it lasts too long, it destroys you.

So if you’re in a place that you need the grind then it’s time to tap into it. You have to push past excuses of being tired, not having enough time, or feeling sorry for yourself. But you better have a specific plan for when you can leave the grind and not buy into the lies. Grind it out, guys, but when will you turn it off? I hope it’s before destruction of yourself and your relationships.

On the other hand, if you’re in a rut, you have to figure out how to get into the grind mentality. Look to the lies to find your path. You’re going to have to first identify where your energy needs to be put. Then make a goal that has nothing to do with being busy but rather being productive and make a plan to find peace in the grind and beyond it.

Perhaps the biggest lie of all in the grind culture is the grind is a way of life. The grind is a tool. That’s it. Those who say they are grinders for life, are lying to you. To live LIFE to the full, recognize it for what it is, don’t believe the lies, and learn to control it instead of it controlling you.

Weekend Challenge

Your challenge this weekend is to stop believing the lies. I want you to write down what your big goal is. Don’t hold back here. I’m not saying your goal for tomorrow or next week, I’m talking about one of your LIFE goals. Maybe you want to speak to thousands, be the CEO of your company, climb Mount Everest, or be able to tell your kids when your life is ending that you always did your best and not be lying. It’s for you, so figure it out and write it down.

Then, redefine the “grind” as a tool you will use to get there. It isn’t going to be doing a bunch of stuff to fill your calendar. It’s going to be focused. It will require you to rest at times and work at other times. It will require you to stop chasing “busy” because you’ll realize being busy is no way to measure your progress.

So what’s your goal? What will the path there really require from you? Focus. Rest. Repeat.  

Let me know what LIFE goal you are chasing, the identity you want to hold, and one part of the grind you think it will take to get there (yes…this is a test to see if you fall right back into the lies)

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[i] Greg Mckeown, (2014). Essentialism: The disciplined pursuit of less. Penguin Random House.