When Hustle Becomes Self-Sabotage
“Put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting others.”
It’s part of the pre-flight safety spiel you hear every time you get on an airplane, and if you’re a parent, it’s a piece of advice that goes against every fiber of your being. Every instinct you have as a caregiver rebels against the thought. If your cabin suddenly depressurizes, and unconsciousness is just moments away, your kid is supposed to get oxygen first — not you.
But the advice is sound. Pass out, and you’re no good to anyone. You *need* to put your own mask on first so that you can stay conscious enough to get oxygen to your kid, your parents — or your company.
One of the big problems in the startup world is the pervasive belief that, underneath product differentiation, underneath experience, execution and everything else, the thing that *really* sets successful companies apart is “hustle.”
Sleep in a sleeping bag on your factory floor, put in 130-hour weeks, go without food, friends — and oxygen — and you’ll win.
What we’ve found is that persistence is far more important than hustle. While working unsustainable hours may help you out in the short term, you will run out of oxygen eventually. The startup landscape is littered with companies that died hustling. Those that last do so largely because they’re able to persist.
Startup hypoxia
For years, I ran Wistia like a pilot who wanted to put everyone else’s oxygen mask on first. I ran around, took every meeting and phone call that I could. Every part of the business was my responsibility. My schedule was full because I thought real CEOs had full schedules.
I didn’t really know how to be CEO, but being busy made me feel like I was on the right track. Sure, I wouldn’t have time to do other things that I wanted to do — like hang out with my friends, spend time with my family, meditate, exercise — but sacrifices had to be made.
Of course, seeing people I care about and staying fit are also ways to stay centered on the things that matter in business, rejuvenate me, and help me towards breakthroughs in thinking.
At the time, this barely crossed my mind. As a founder — there was no time for all that. How can you justify taking the time to go rock climbing before work in the morning, or spend a long weekend hanging out with college friends, when there are not only other entrepreneurs working just as hard as you on the outside, but *other people on your team*?
Gradually, this begins to take a toll. You’re never able to clear out your email. Scheduling gets impossible and you start showing up late to meetings. You’re blowing people off in your work and your personal life. You are, in other words, being deprived of oxygen — and this is where, if your company is still standing, your brain starts to trick you.
You’re on the verge of burning out, but your company is doing well. You’re keeping your customers happy. You’re growing.
And you begin to assume it’s because of how you’ve micromanaged and driven yourself into the ground that your company is succeeding — never stopping to ask yourself if it’s actually working in *spite* of you.
Gasping for breath
Without the right correctives, the hustle-mindset can lead us to cripple our companies and stunt the growth of the people that join our teams.
Founders set the 130-hour-week tone, but it trickles down to tech leads, people managers, and comes to affect anyone on your team who’s stepping up into a leadership role, especially when it’s their first time.
Those high-performers suddenly have schedules full of meetings they don’t really need to be in. They’re working late all the time. They’re frantically micromanaging their team’s work.
This is what happens when you put being busy and working crazy hours in the pursuit of “hustle” above taking care of yourself. We try to take care of our teams, but we eventually will burn out because we’re just not taking care of ourselves.
When you put your own oxygen mask, you’re putting yourself in a position where you’re fit and equipped to lead. If the plane needs to suddenly make a landing, for instance, you’re going to remember where the life vests are and you’re going to be able to help others. If you are gasping for breath, you’re liable to miss the fact that the closest exit is just behind you, or forget to brace yourself in the event of a crash.
With enough persistence, you can even end up flying the plane yourself.
Self-care is leadership
You can survive for a short amount of time without breathing. It’s not long, but it’s long enough that when the oxygen masks drop down at 35,000 feet, you can put one on yourself and *then* get one on your kid without any adverse effects.
When you’re a leader, you need to be available for your team. You need to be capable of unblocking them when they get stuck. You need to help them grow as people — and you can’t do any of that when you’re on the road to burnout yourself.
I’ve learned this the hard way. Every time I’ve let myself get to a place where I’m not exercising, where I’m not meditating, where I’m generally not taking care of myself, I always end up doing my worst work. It always starts sounding innocuous — “I just don’t have time today.”
You always have time — the question is how you prioritize and what you make time for.
It feels backwards, but if you’re not taking care of yourself, and you don’t “have the time” to unblock problems, and you don’t “have the time” to check in on how your team is functioning, then you’re just managing. You’re not truly leading.
It’s one of the most difficult transitions for us to make — from managing to leading. It’s hard the same way putting your own oxygen mask on first is hard. It’s hard because you’re quieting every instinct in your body telling you to work crazy hours, and practicing self-care instead. It’s a hard thing that you absolutely have to do if you want to become a true leader.
