Only a slave quantifies its existence through productivity. I find this quote to be extremely relevant especially in our world today because our society and our culture has established an ideology that is pretty much hustle culture like work work. And there's a lot of pride and ego that's attached to this idea of like how hard you work, right?
People love to brag about this idea of working hard. And don't get me wrong here, I'm not against, you know, like hard work. I'm a Christian and it makes it very clear in the Bible that, [music] you know, working hard is honorable and I do believe this.
But there comes a point where it's too much. There's a line that gets crossed where [music] people are basing their entire identity and self-worth based off of their productivity or what they're achieving in whatever career they're choosing, right? And because of this, their life is becoming consumed by I just want to get better at work.
I want to work really hard. And it essentially creates a paradox because what is the point of working hard if you're only going to continue to work hard? Like you should be working hard to like reap to like bear fruits of your labor, right?
But what's happening in our world today is people are working hard, they're making money, and then they just continue to work hard. Uh the reason that I feel so strongly about this, so you know, when I was younger, I'm 22 right now, I just turned 22, but throughout like my first like 3 years of of college in the summer, I was doing sales internships. So, like one of them was like doortodoor knocking solicitor, right?
One of them was like over the phone selling insurance. One of them was, you know, a consultant for uh a solar panel company, right? And they these were all related to sales.
[music] And I you can say what you want about people that sell, but they are relentless and they're extremely hard workers, right? We were putting in like se like no exaggeration 70-hour weeks. And all the people had a lot of pride attached to it.
And a lot of the people that I knew uh were legitimately millionaires, multi-millionaires. You can make a lot of money in that in that um industry, especially if you have like people [music] under you. It's it's not a pyramid scheme, but essentially it is, right?
Like when you work when you have people under you, you take a percentage. [music] So I would say like a lot of the people in my office like they were like in their early to mid20s making [music] like over like 3 million a year. I know that sounds crazy, but it's the truth.
And [music] the one thing that all these guys I found so interesting was that they were like obsessed with the with the work. And I was like, if I was making 3 million a year, I was going to go on vacations with my family. I was going to like enjoy my life.
I wouldn't be so obsessed with the work. And these guys were like dedicated to it. And I remember there was one time we're sitting in a garage cuz we all lived in the same apartment [music] complex, you know, with this internship.
And it's like 1:00 a. m. and we're standing in a we're sitting in [music] a circle and we're just chopping it up talking about the future and we start talking about, you know, where do you see yourself in in the next like 5 to 10 years?
And all these guys, most of them very wealthy, we're like, oh, I see myself, you know, continuing to work hard and like in building my team and doing all this stuff. And I was just thinking in my head, I was like, bro, nobody in their right mind actually wants to be doing these jobs. They're not fun jobs.
Like, let's let's be honest at some point here, right? [music] Like, so no one wants to be doing these jobs. So why in like in 5 to 10 years would you want to continue to be doing this?
Wouldn't you want to exit plan or like get into something where you don't have to like do as much labor or like put as much effort into it? Like that doesn't seem like such a crazy idea to me. Especially when you consider, you know, you won the cosmic lottery to be alive.
The chances you're alive are 1 in 43 trillion. [music] So you literally won the lottery. And then with this gift of a life, you're you're going to like just lock in on work for the sake of work because you attach your identity and your ego to it.
That just it it doesn't make make sense. As I as I said before, guys, I'm not necessarily against hard work, but I'm against making the work your identity. It's almost like a man has as many uh masters as he does vices.
And so like work becomes a vice to these people and then they're slaves to that work. And that's what they they don't understand. [music] Like if you go back into biblical times, right, when there were slaves and peasants, did you know that they actually worked less less hours than humans today because, you know, they would get off like half the year.
You know, when they wouldn't have to harvest, they wouldn't be working. And it's and it not to say, like, don't get me wrong, we live better lives than those people, but it's just this idea of just constant, relentless, mind-consuming work. And it doesn't make sense.
And if you look at the way that our our society is designed, right? you go into, you know, the school system when you're a kid and they essentially breed you to be a worker, right? Uh if you look into it, I think it was like in 1933, [music] Rockefeller um he invented he created and funded the like education board.
And basically what happened from there was like there's a lot of quotes that he has where he says, "I'm in the business of building I'm not in the business of building thinkers. I'm in the business of building workers. " [music] And he said like people will be too busy working to make money.
What he meant is like if you just work for a company, we'll give you just enough money to be satisfied, [music] but not enough money to go out on your own and actually build something for yourself and you're going to be too busy and too time consumed like to where when you get home, you don't have any energy to like put into, you know, a side hustle for yourself. And I and it's it's so prevalent to me and it's so obvious because, you know, when I would look at like my friend's parents and my parents growing up, all of them sort of did the same things. They all worked like 9 to fives that they all hated.
you know, maybe they didn't admit it, but they put on these facades and act like they love their lives, but really they're spending more time at their job than with their family. And it just there was something about that that I didn't like, right? Like I I don't think it's that far-fetched to be like, I don't think I was put on on earth to just work.
Like that's just that just seems like a like a curse. It doesn't make sense in my head. You know, one time I had a one of my good friends, he uh he's a really hard worker and and shout out to him, but he got this internship at Goldman and Sachs, right?
This is maybe the the most desired internship that a college student could have [music] working in finance. And so he was like going to going to work in mergers and acquisitions or whatever it is. [music] And he gets this job and you know, I was like I was like being planned.
I'm like, "Dude, that's like awesome. " I mean, it is it's a it's a cool feat. But then I was like, "I mean, what what does your days look like?
" And he's like, "Man, I'm putting in like 65 hour weeks. " And he's like, "Pretty much what I do is I just like grind Excel sheets and I'm just crunching numbers for them. " And I just looked at him and I was like, "Bro, you can't pay me a million dollars a year to work 65 hours a week crunching numbers on Excel.
It just doesn't it just doesn't make sense in my head. You only have you have a finite amount of time on Earth and you're going to spend it doing that. " And it's like the problem is because yeah, everybody everybody is like quantifying their worth and and justifying their existence through this idea of like I need to work hard.
And it's been ingrained in us since we were children. They're completely breeding us to believe this. And it's like what what are we doing here?
Like why am I the only one that's like aware of this and and is is questioning all this stuff, right? It just I don't know. It doesn't make sense.
And uh you know in my experience I've worked really hard in my life and it's literally never made me ever feel good. You know I I I'm not saying this to brag but like when I was like I think I was 18 or 19 is like my first internship and I had made like I think my first month I made 30,000 in a month as a 18 or 19year-old which is pretty good money. And uh I was like the most miserable I'd ever been.
I didn't even care about the fact that I got the money. I was just like this is stupid. Why am I doing this?
And I was like, you know what? You just need to thug it out, right? And so I did.
I thugged it out. And I kept making really good money. And I ended up like in a summer making more than my parents make, [music] right?
And I had like no pride in it. Like I didn't even I didn't even care because I was like, dude, I was just miserable the whole time. And then I didn't go for that job the next year.
And everyone was like, "Dude, you were really successful in it. " And I was like, "Bro, but like what was my life? I was literally a slave.
" Right? That that's what I'm trying to get across. The whole point I'm trying to get across in this video is everyone is just being [music] a slave.
