No more heroics.

(I admit, in full disclosure, that I like heroics and that I’m not always right.)

Hustle & grind culture. It amuses me when I see non-gym-attending people wearing Nike shirts with phrases such as, “I’m always on my grind.” or “24/7 Hustle.” Clearly, someone making shirts is on a hustle because those people got hustled into buying shirts for a cause they don’t believe in.

The hustle culture is the “Only losers sleep” “No days off” mentality that you can work your way to success. I actually subscribe to this mentality, and you likely do as well since you are reading a blog dedicated to working better.

You do have to outwork other people to get ahead. When we are young, you might be there now; podcaster and entrepreneur Scot Galloway suggests that early in your career, you should be out of balance focusing more on work than other aspects of life.

One of my favorite quotes is “You must do what others are unwilling to do to get results others are unable to get.”

or if you like football

“Today I will do what other’s won’t, so tomorrow I will do what others can’t.”― Jerry Rice

Youth provides the energy and fresh thinking to maximize your impact.

I remember my early days building Maize Quest. I’d sleep at the office, work insane hours, take significant risks, win some, lose some, wake up and do it all over again.

I felt, in those moments, heroic. I was plowing my way through the sweat and blood of extreme effort. I was living the dream as the hero in my own story.

There is a time for that, and maybe you’re in it. The flip side is that we, as human beings, are pattern-seeking. We slowly mold our lives into patterns over time and seldom reevaluate the routine.

I fell into one of these patterns. In my youth, when the business was small, growing, and struggling, I’d fill every waking moment with another new idea regardless of the time, effort and strain. I’d do this because my time, effort, and strain were ‘free.’

This season, we were preparing the Fun Park for the Fall, and I realized that things were on schedule. We were doing work each day, and the sum of those individual days would be enough to be ready. It would not take heroics to open the Fun park. We were so well planned that it would happen Hero-Free.

At that moment of realization that we’d have a little margin for opening the Fun Park, we are presented with two choices:

• Jam in another project, borrow money, keep the staff late, burn the candle at both ends and hope you get close to completed before the doors open, or
• Enjoy the moment, send the team home early, save some payroll, and keep that next idea on the list for the next season or time period.

Stop the heroics. Inevitably, at any gathering of agritourism operators, we share the heroic stories of last-minute, incredible efforts to build this, pull-off that, up until 3 am pounding fence posts, and on and on.

I do it, too, because we are all searching for respect, appreciation, and recognition for our daily work.

I think it might be more heroic to accomplish your goals and dreams, working hard while not burning out your people, yourself, your finances, and your relationships.

The big vision, the big goals, and the big rewards we should chase with every fiber of our being. Vision, goals, and rewards should be hero-sized.

I’m just saying that you shouldn’t feel the need to create such chaos in your business so as to have a reason to perform a dazzling, daily rescue to feel good about yourself.

You’re already doing good work everyday.

Have a great week,

Hugh