In this episode, Chris and Alisa Grace explore the realities and myths of hustle culture.

They discuss how hustle culture is often glamorized for its promises of success, wealth, and status—but at what cost? They weigh the pros, such as ambition, drive, and new opportunities, against the hidden toll it takes on emotional, physical, and relational health. Through stories from their own lives and others, Chris and Alisa provide practical insights and tips to help you reframe what success means and find a healthier, more balanced way forward.

Whether you're dealing with a spouse, coworkers, roommates, friends, or your own expectations, this episode offers valuable advice to protect your relationships and pursue a purpose-filled life.

Resources Mentioned:

• Blue Trust (Colby Gilmore) – Biblically-centered financial planning and investment management for couples and individuals.

Connect with Us:

• Website: cmr.biola.edu
• Facebook: facebook.com/biolacmr
• Instagram: instagram.com/biolacmr
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/@biola-cmr
  
  

Join the Conversation:

• Subscribe to The Art of Relationships Podcast to never miss an episode.
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite platform to help others discover the show.
• Share this episode with someone who could benefit from these relationship insights.
  Sign up for weekly updates and resources from the Center for Marriage and Relationships:
  👉 http://eepurl.com/bgsuQv

About the Hosts:

Chris Grace, Ph.D., and Alisa Grace are passionate about helping people build and sustain healthy relationships. As leaders of the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships, they combine the wisdom of Scripture with scholarly research to offer practical advice and insights. Learn more about their work at cmr.biola.edu.

Mandy [00:00:01] Welcome to The Art of Relationships. This podcast is produced by the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships Let's get right into it.

Alisa [00:00:11] Well, welcome to another Art in Relationships podcast with the co-host here, Elisa Grace. I'm Chris. It's good to see you guys again. And Elisa, this is so fun to talk about life and relationships, all kinds of fun things. It is.

Chris [00:00:24] It is. Yeah, we just got back from Washington, D.C., had a great conference at the District Church out there. So fun. Awesome people out there, got to see our Capitol. That was really cool.

Alisa [00:00:34] Yeah, shout out to all those at District Church in D.C. Hey, Lisa, one of the things that we noticed, even at this church, but they're not immune to the things everyone else is, and all the other churches do this, and all of the other... The Capitol we saw. Yeah, and the Capitol. One of the thing we noticed is similar to here in L.A. Is that first of all, there's a lot of young people working in the capital and in and in government There's a lotta young people out there, you know out here in our area working hard And and this kind of notion is kind of referred to right as the hustle culture. Yeah, right The need to get ahead the need to find that the amount of sleep that you need is proportional to how good you are in the hustle culture, right? Right, you sleep when you're dead. Yeah, okay, good. And so, Lisa, when this idea hits for a lot of our students, you start to see it building a little bit in high school, right, a little in college where that grade, that 4.0 isn't good enough, right. It has to be college classes to get above 4.o.

Chris [00:01:46] Oh, you got to be involved in all those extracurricular activities, you've got to be volunteering. It's just incredible what a lot of students put themselves through to get to the college they think they need to be at in order to succeed.

Alisa [00:02:00] And then it doesn't stop in college right it's the degree I need but it's the um the the the success that I have and it's a number of experiences because there's no way I'm going to make it to that next level where I want to be unless I'm out there hustling man and doing everything I can yeah right okay so the hustle culture is I would say it's not a pandemic but It's pretty strongly built into even American culture. Yeah, along with other cultures, right?

Chris [00:02:32] And so like one of the signs of that hustle culture is that you're putting in like 60, 70, 80 hours a week. I mean, it's just unreal.

Alisa [00:02:42] Yeah, and that kind of time that we put in by some people in this so let's talk about let's let's talk about the hustle culture. Okay, let's. Talk about the pros and the cons, right? The pros I think in a lot of ways about people who are finding themselves like I need to succeed. I need. To be successful because I need wealth or status. Well, guess what those that our card? Those that hustle are probably going to get ahead. They're probably going to get that little bit better internship. They're going to get that better interview with somebody because they're out there doing all the...

Chris [00:03:21] They're gonna they're gonna get that promotion because the boss sees them. Oh, he said he's at his desk She's at her desk before I even come in and they're sitting there at the desk whenever I leave And so it's almost like that overwork is seen as a badge of honor

Alisa [00:03:37] Yeah, and so, and that badge, I guess, says, hey, you've succeeded here, right? So, there's some positives. You wanna get ahead, you start doing things like that over and above what a normal person would do. Well, pretty soon you stand out.

Chris [00:03:55] Which is not necessarily, it's not a bad-

Alisa [00:03:57] No, these are the positives, right? The other positive is, I guess you have a lot of energy, right, you have a lot independence or you work very strongly, you're a great worker on things that need to be done. So task-oriented people, right could be very, you know, hustle culture, all right man, I'm gonna get out there and I'm going to go do this and I am going to finish this task at all costs.

Chris [00:04:24] Yeah. So another positive is that you are really seen as the go-to gal or the go to guy when that report needs to be perfect, when it needs to have all the I's dotted, all the T's crossed, you've done all the extra research, you've boiled that data down, and man, you are ready to go. The boss can count on you.

Alisa [00:04:45] Oh, that's exactly right, Elise. You are this task-oriented person. And boss of...

Chris [00:04:50] Love that. Oh yeah, that who's going to get the promotion if it's between that person and somebody who doesn't put in that extra time or that extra effort. Well of course that person's going to get that promotion. That person's gonna be invited to the bigger business meetings. They're going to be the ones that get the raises, that are making more money, have more status, higher position. So yeah, there's some real benefit.

Alisa [00:05:15] Yeah, I think of a nephew of ours, actually a couple, you know, there was this opportunity that they saw which was to provide snacks at baseball games, you know, for kids literally and everybody was, you know, snacking, you're there and so you want to buy Cokes and popcorn and whatever else. Well, that hustle culture said, well, then let's go open a little stand, you know, we'll take our wagon and we'll put a bunch of things. And the next thing you know the wagon grew to a car and the next you know it grew to Winnebago and the- It started early. Yeah, and they hustled and they had, but they had to do a lot of work, right? That kind of thing is rewarding.

Chris [00:05:53] Yeah, I think another benefit of it too, Chris, is that you really have the opportunity to see your dreams come true. Maybe you grew up with this really high lofty drive that this is what I want to do and I've taken the steps to plan what I need to get there and I am making it It is it's it's my dream is actually coming true

Alisa [00:06:17] Yeah, no, that's good. I remember a roommate I had in in when I was in graduate school. He was still undergrad I'll call him as names JT the guy had He knew what he wanted Engineer and he knew that he had to study a certain amount of time compared to other people But he had it all laid out. I mean you asked the kid, you know, what's your day tomorrow? Oh, he could tell you well, I'm gonna get up at 6, you, know, I'll have a little quiet time You know, by seven, I probably ran a little bit, then I'm sitting there and I'm gonna be studying by 7.15, and I wanna finish at 10, I'm wanna go to class. Then at lunchtime, I'll go ahead and have lunch, enjoy, but then I may get right back at the grind. Okay, all of that led him to be successful in his undergrad career. But he also had one thing that a lot of people in the hustle culture didn't have, and that was balance and perspective. Okay, there are some people in the, let's start heading now toward the gray area. The gray area for a hustle culture person is, does the goal, does the task outweigh everything else? And if it does, then you're going to start finding the lopsidedness of that leads to somebody who is going to face some consequences for this one-sided strong approach, right? If you're that hustle person and you like that kind of world of task-oriented, always on time, always planning, always doing these things and you have your goals, like you say, you have to begin to start watching out for some danger signs because there's some dangerous things that happen and some consequences of it, right? So my friend J.T., he was well aware of it and what he did is he put in place, he recognized, I think the most essential element. Of all of this for a hustle culture person is to recognize the role of people and community and balance, right? And so he was just great at it. I was a slacker compared to him. But when it came to relationships, he would always say, hey, I can't go out with you guys for dinner right now. I got my schedule. But afterwards, why don't we go do something? So he had a down path. Yeah. All right, Lise. What do you see for those that are in this hustler culture? One more thing that you see as a positive, I think you and I have talked about this because it was our life. I think one thing hustler-culture people do that we all should take advantage of is the ability to say yes to a lot of things. What do think?

Chris [00:09:10] Oh, exactly, you know, and I think of us when we were young, we were newly married, we didn't have kids yet. So we said yes to a lot of opportunities. Like we traveled to Russia, we took a group of what, like 10 Biola students. We lived in Ukraine and Russia for like eight weeks and that was an incredible opportunity. We had to study the language. We did evangelism training. So, I mean, that was really cool to be able to speak Russian, know how to share our faith, and then have the opportunity to go live abroad for two months. It really expanded our worldview in a lot of ways.

Alisa [00:09:51] I think the takeaway, Elise, from that is, you didn't study Russian, I didn't study Russian. I mean, I knew where it was on the map, of course, and I knew at the time what the Soviet Union was. But you and I were just presented an opportunity out of the blue, right? Hey, would you guys be willing to lead the Russian team? Like, uh... Sure! Yeah, and yeah? Why not? So we eventually go, all right, let's do it. I think that really paid off in many ways for us. I know another one, one time I'm in high school and someone asked if I'd babysit. I had younger brothers and I would always babysit, and so even starting when I was 14, 15, I would just babysit anybody and then even sacrificing a weekend sometimes, or a weeknight, or a weekend to just, yeah, it made a little bit of money, right? In high school they did that, then in college they had an opportunity. Someone said, hey. They need guy babysitters. I was in this class of 300 students, and the professor said, hey, we're looking for, this was a child development major class, right? And they said, yeah, we need babysitters, but in this classroom, they said there were 300 students. 292 of them, or 293, I don't remember, were women, female. No wonder you took that class. Well, I guarantee you, me and my buddies were in that class when we found out, we were like, okay, we're not dropping this class. We were the only guys in there. It was awesome, first of all. And not to stereotype, but I don't know why the guys weren't in the child development majors. All that to say, I said yes, took babysitting, and that led to taking on more work with even kids that were a little bit more difficult to handle. And then it led to saying yes to doing something with emotionally disturbed and behaviorally disturbed. Get out of college, first job, working with behaviorally-disturbed. All right, here's what's interesting. What did that lead to? Well, I do, we get, you know, you and I, we finish up, you know, the PhD. And one of the things we first get asked, even before Russia, remember that? Was, hey, would you guys run a home and live in a home with runaway kids? Yeah. And I remember going to you, Lisa, and you're What? I don't know anything about runaways.

Chris [00:12:10] I was 23 years old and I was going to be parenting, what, six troubled teenagers that were barely younger than I was.

Alisa [00:12:18] That was crazy. I think what was so cool, though, was your saying yes. You kind of said, Gross, you know this area. I mean, you have your degree. You worked with these kids. Should we say yes? And I remember you saying, let's do it. Why not? So what did that lead to? Saying yes is one of the positives, I think, of this culture and that hustle culture. And by saying it yes, Lisa, we were able to save enough money to buy our first condo. It's southern.

Chris [00:12:49] Southern California.

Alisa [00:12:50] And eventually led to our final second home because we just said yes to things. Okay, hustle culture. By the way, so saying yes can be a really good thing. Bodies like that, people like that. You get exposed to new things.

Chris [00:13:05] Yeah, expand your horizons. And you do get a modicum. You get some success. You get great job opportunities. You get a higher rate of pay. So yeah, just status.

Alisa [00:13:20] Yeah, so then I would say at that point what is what's wrong with that then? Why not just keep doing that right not just carry that on right? You want to move move move? I'll go I'll jump to the very end and I'll just start with this ready That when I think of hustle culture often times think of type a personality types You know versus type B and most of y'all know what those are Type A is that one that's hard-driven, motivated, always on time, demands perfection, right? It's a great task worker, you know? They're the kinds of bosses like. I'll go just give it to them. Type A's great unless it comes with two things primarily. In fact, the American Heart Association says that one of the risk factors for heart disease is, of course, along with your diet, exercise, smoking. Another risk factor is type A people if they have hostility and cynicism with them. And that's enough to find, researchers find that those with that kind of hustle culture but are also in that little bit of, I get mad around other people, a little bit hostile, right? And I'm a little bit cynical about everything going on. It can actually be one of the predictors for heart disease. Okay, so let's jump ahead. Who do you believe ultimately not only progresses through the ranks fastest, but who actually leads most major organizations and companies? Is it the type A, the hustle person, or the type B, the more laid back? Kind of more easy going, good team player. More relational. More relational, and the answer you would think is, hey, it's bees. Bees are almost always in charge of all your large organizations. The top positions, CEOs, are almost always top bee, and so the researchers were going, well, wait a minute. Well, this is counterintuitive, right? How did the type Bs get here? Well, what they did was they were so good at being a team player, so good at the social, and they didn't die off from heart attacks. You cannot be a CEO unless you have good social skills, good team playing, good ability to interact with others, and they're kind of a little bit, and those were your type, the type bees that made it.

Chris [00:15:50] That's so interesting because that is not what most people assume.

Alisa [00:15:59] Well, you know, when it comes to money and marriage, we all want clarity and confidence, right? And especially unity with spouses, right. I think Lisa, that's why we get to work personally with Colby Gilmore of Blue Trust.

Chris [00:16:13] That's right, Colby Gilmore, along with other Blue Trust certified wealth strategists, offers personalized, biblically centered financial planning and investment management services, no matter what your income level.

Alisa [00:16:27] Lisa say that title twice blue trust certified well strategist. That's a tough

Chris [00:16:32] I'm not sure I.

Alisa [00:16:32] I know, so they do put clients' best interests first, and they don't sell financial products. I love that about them.

Chris [00:16:39] Me too, and you know what, we highly recommend Colby Gilmore and Blue Trust for anyone looking for both financial unity with your spouse and opportunities to increase your wealth and your generosity.

Alisa [00:16:51] Yeah, so if you guys want to check out ronblue.com or reach out to Colby Gilmore at colby.gilmore at ron blue.com that's colby dot gilmore at rong blue dot com. I think you guys will be glad you did. And so, Lise, here's where we're going with that. To be a hustle culture, there's some positives. But what sacrifice? What cost? What's the cost? What do you think, Lisa, is the biggest cost that you've seen? I mean, you've been around this. You're in a world of academia. You were in a a world a business where your type A's, you know, that you were great to have. You used to produce some little videos. You wanted that type A person behind the camera, right? Or the director. What was the problem? And what is some of the negatives that come with that type of A? We already said hostility or cynicism, but another one that you brought up is that idea of How good are they though with people?

Chris [00:17:57] Yeah, and when you're putting in that kind of time, you're putting in the effort, and you're that driven, oftentimes it comes at the cost of your relationships, especially if you're married, you have kids, even if you don't have them, your friendships, your family, because you're going over and above. And when you do that, you don t have a lot of margin in terms of time and energy to invest in your relationships. And so when that happens over a period of time, and that becomes your regular pattern of interaction or not interacting with those close, vital friendships, then that's gonna take a toll on your life, on your happiness, your joy. In fact, research shows that your general life satisfaction, one of the most foundational key indicators, are healthy. Stable, vibrant relationships and friendships.

Alisa [00:19:00] Yeah, right. No, that's good. And so what's the sacrifice? And the problem and the downside with a lot of the hustle culture is the sacrifice of the very thing, right? That's going to in the end make you happy. It's relationships. Mm-hmm, right you want status you want wealth, right I don't know what else let's say hustle culture if your motive and goal is I want to get ahead I won't do it at all costs, but I'm gonna get ahead. I'm going to do this task. I'm on a fight. I'm in a work hard. Yeah. I, because I want the status that comes with the next position and I want the wealth that comes with it. And then I'll be happy. I'll I'll happy.

Chris [00:19:38] Yeah, and I think one of the lies of that, Chris, too, is that you don't just work that hard to attain that level of status and power and wealth, right? You don't make it and then, oh, I've arrived, I can coast now. No, in order to maintain that, you have to keep working at that level. You have to put in those hours, that effort, all of everything that went into that overdrive to get where you were? You have to keep that up in order to maintain that position, that power, that drive, right?

Alisa [00:20:14] This was like a vicious cycle.

Chris [00:20:15] It is, yeah. You think, oh I'll get there and then it won't be so hard, right? Then I can pay attention to my marriage and work on my marriage. Then I could spend time, more time with my kids. Then we can go out and be with our friends and maybe take that vacation we've been wanting to do. But the problem is you never get to that point. You always have to keep at it, keep keep working in order to maintain them.

Alisa [00:20:40] Yeah, now there are exceptions, but for the most part, exceptions, right? The guy said, I'm gonna retire at 40, man, I wanna make my millions, I want to buy the yacht, our family's gonna go up. Okay, he did it, right, there are some exceptions.

Chris [00:20:54] But even with those exceptions, research shows that they are not the happiest when they retire so early. It's like I've lost meaning in my life. What do I do?

Alisa [00:21:03] Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right. And my guess is the exceptions do prove the rule. Most of them will probably at the end have fractured relationships. Yeah, they won't they'll be with strangers when they get on that boat with their wife and kids like I don't know who you are anymore. Right. They don't even know this person because they've been out at work the whole time. Right? So it's tough. There's the balance We're trying to maintain good. Healthy community and relationships while still hustling. I think you could do it when you're young, right? I think our young listeners out there are like, all right, but we would just give them a caution and say, be careful, yeah, balance, and that you're investing in your relationships. Let's go at least back to what we did with DC. There was a guy there we met, awesome kid, I'll call him out, Tunde. To me, This was a person who was right smack in the middle of this kind of government work, right? Works, you know, on us with a senator, takes so much time and hustle. And we were introduced to all of these young people that they just turn over and over and

Chris [00:22:15] Hindu 25-year-olds are running our entire country. That was a little daunting.

Alisa [00:22:21] And so you would think, all right, he's right in the middle of this. But what was interesting is I think he just had this amazing balance. First of all, where did we meet him? At a marriage conference. The whole weekend that he gave to his marriage, right? And then the social capital of this person, watching him interact with all these other people, you could tell, ah, he has it figured out. He can hustle. But he's also got these emotional, relational, social gifts of interacting with other people, which at the end of the day is going to get you ahead. Well, first of all, see him as one of our next senators, I predict from New York, but let's leave that for later. But it's having that social capital, right, and investing in it. At least there's others drawbacks that I think people have to be very careful of when it comes to the hustle culture. We talked about burnout, and of course, that's an option out there, you know, for anybody, right? You just do too much. But it really comes down to, I think we can say, you can be in a great social culture, right, you can do this well, that says you have to hustle. So long as you have that culture around you, so long as your invest in your relationships and have good priorities, would you say?

Chris [00:23:41] Definitely. And.

Alisa [00:23:43] I know you said one thing I think that's intriguing there if your goal is status power wealth You are going to find yourself in a very tough Vicious cycle that you never get enough. There's always more there's always that next

Chris [00:23:59] There's always a nicer house, there's always a better car, a newer car that's coming out. There's going to be somebody who's a little bit further down the road that you compare yourself to and you're thinking, oh, I could have that too. I could do that too!

Speaker 4 [00:24:14] Yeah

Chris [00:24:15] Why don't I have that? Yeah, I deserve that.

Alisa [00:24:17] So what's the solution to that? Is this comparison notion, maybe one, maybe it's self-insight, right, learning. Okay, well, what really is meaning in life? What brings me meaning in purpose? Purpose, yes. And where do I get ultimate meaning and purpose? It certainly isn't going to be from, you know, the write-up, you now, they're not gonna put on either of anybody's headstones. Oh man, this guy was a hustler. He got to, you no, CEO faster than anybody, you He led this company and organization, created a million. He's like, no, maybe he left the family and kids behind, right, is what's going to be said. He did life well. So maybe you have to avoid what you said, start thinking about the comparison culture, right?

Chris [00:25:03] Identify it

Alisa [00:25:04] I'm one bit ahead, I need more, and that guy has more. And so it's like, all right, identify and go, wait, hold on here. Just because that bigger house, bigger yacht, bigger 401k doesn't make that person happy. It's what's meaning and purpose behind that, right? And we find that, we call it relationships, but we would underline that to at least I think with the idea of knowing how God has made you, who you are in his eyes, and how God views you, which is infinitely more important than anything else, is how God view you, right? And that relationship that you have with the spiritual is something that can be sacrificed that instead we say needs to be at front and center. Right.

Chris [00:25:55] You know, it makes me think of a friend of ours, Deb, that worked in the corporate world for years, and she was in the higher echelons of this nationwide company in marketing, and she won all these national awards. I mean, she worked long hours. She's a go-getter. She's go-go-geter. And one of the things that... She didn't see the purpose of it was, for her it wasn't to make more money, it wasn't t to get the promotion, it wasn t for the status, the power that she did it, but for her she saw it as her ministry. So there was some real purpose in the way that she did her job, and that's part of what brought that life satisfaction for her. But she was also careful to carve out time. They didn't have kids, but she's married. And she would carve out for her husband. They carved out time for their involvement in a small group and in church. And so she had that kind of personality with that drive and the excellence and was very successful in the corporate world. But she also saw it as her ministry as this is my opportunity to share Christ. You know, when I do my job well, it lends credibility to me as I share my life as a Christian. Like, she's not going around laying out the four spiritual laws to everybody, but they listen to her, how she interacts in conflict. They watch how she handles those kind of conflicts or issues of integrity or how she talks about her husband and her friends at work. And that's what gave her the platform to actually share Christ with a number of people that she worked with. But she was one of those that managed both worlds well. And that part of that was, of her being driven was because of her purpose too and the balance that she brought.

Alisa [00:28:05] That's right, and I love that you bring out that story and example because it can be done. And what it does is it leads to more meaning and purpose because there was a higher purpose and vision besides the power, the wealth, the status. And it was something that... So if you're in that culture, hustle culture, you're young, we get it, right? You're feeling guilty though? You might want to see what's going on in here. Is it because I'm hustling or because I have the wrong end goal in mind, right. Is it because I'm sacrificing things because I want those in the end, but are you actually limiting your possibility?

Chris [00:28:41] Yeah. And is it taking an undue toll on me? In my experience, studies show that people in that highly driven culture, that hostile culture, where they're overworked, they don't have margins, they don t have healthy boundaries, they experience higher rates of depression, higher rates anxiety, higher rates physical ailments, like you pointed to heart disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol. Your cortisol levels just at a high thing. And so one of the benefits of balance in having high drive but making some allowances for the rest of your life, is that you'll experience not only healthier relationships, but you'll have better physical health, better mental and emotional health too, as well as the relational.

Alisa [00:29:39] Yeah, so if you wanna be a hustle culture, hustle after social relationships, hustle after emotional health, spiritual connection and wellbeing, then hustle after those things. Make those your priority. Then these other things will fall into place. You'll certainly be much happier, I think. Well, Lisa, I that's awesome. Living that kind of meaningful life then is important to know ahead of time what your ultimate goal is, and then not losing it as you go along.

Chris [00:30:05] Right, and being open to hearing from the Lord, Lord, do I have my priorities right? Is there anything that I need to pay attention to that maybe I need to cut back or tweak a little bit in order to make sure that my priorities are in alignment with your priorities, that I'm honoring my relationships, my close foundational relationships that I am honoring you, and then I'm also honoring the gift of my body and my mental and emotional health you've given me.

Alisa [00:30:35] I love that. And then if you're already in the married category and you're doing this, one of the things I'll do a shout out lease is when we do our marriage conferences is the couples that are there. You know, they're in these busy lives, but they've made time to invest in this kind of thing that they know is more important. Even in these hustle cultures and in these people that are go-getters. Man, I think at District Church we had people that were, you know, more educated than most anybody else out there. And they worked hard and they did a lot of things and they had double incomes or some of them. But what they also did was they knew it was important to invest in relationships, to invest in this emotional health and this relationship. Relationship with God and the Lord. Well, that's good. All right, that was a good topic, right? We'll be praying for all those out there in that hustle culture. Say yes, but know your limits. Man's got to know his limits, so is a woman. Alright, well it's good talking with you about this kind of cool thing. If you want more, go to our website, cmr.biola.edu and check out all kinds of things.

Chris [00:31:38] Yeah, and please subscribe, hit follow, the like button, all of that because it really does help us in our analytics with the social media. So thanks for joining us and we would love to hear your questions. If you have a question you would love for us to address, then contact us at cmr.biola.edu and we will see you next time on the art of relationships.

Mandy [00:32:03] We're very glad you joined us for today's podcast. For more resources on marriage and healthy relationships, please visit our website at cmr.biola.edu. We'll see you next time on The Art of Relationships.