The Truth About Hard Work
Both sides of the work-life debate are lying to you
Let’s start with two recent remarks:
“I hate this whole men’s mental health stuff that they talk about.1 Unfortunately, when you’re a man, you are the provider, you can’t be that guy posting on social media, oh I had a bad day and I’m so sad. It’s unattractive to other males, let alone women.” —Dana White, CEO of UFC
“If my mental health was a priority I wouldn’t be as successful as I am… I obviously never would have buried myself alive for seven days. There’s a reason no one makes videos like me, not even close. Because no one wants to live the life I live” — Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr Beast, the YouTube star.
White is worth north of 500 million dollars. Donaldson more than 2 billion.
Set aside whatever you think of White or Donaldson’s character. Both are channeling a now-familiar cultural script about hard work that insists there are two ways to live—and two camps you can belong to.
The first one is full of therapy-speak, talking about your feelings all day, downplaying ambition, still expecting to achieve success, wondering why you don’t, and then blaming other people. You can have it all, this camp says. You can be perfectly balanced.
The second involves suppressing your feelings, pushing through everything, and disregarding the toll it takes on your body, your relationships, and the people who depend on you. The missed birthday. The cot under the desk. Burnout, broken marriages, public meltdowns2, the occasional early death—these are just the cost of greatness, or so the story goes.
This is an overly simplistic dichotomy that plays great in short clips on a hyper-polarized, tribal internet, but that is utterly removed from the truth of actual greatness. The people who embrace this dichotomy—whatever side they identify with—are badly misinformed.
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Here’s a useful metaphor: imagine there is a powerful force, an inner mongrel, a dynamic drive. If you channel that force in the right direction, it can fuel your greatest contributions and accomplishments. But to channel that force productively, you need to build a pipe that directs it and is durable enough to contain it. The materials that combine to create the pipe will vary from person to person, but include things like friends, intimate relationships, therapy, sleep, and exercise. The greater the force inside of you, the stronger the pipe must be. The pipe can withstand the occasional weak point—say, a three-week period of intensive work where you skip the gym, sleep less than usual, and cancel social plans. But if the pipe’s casing starts to rust or weaken more broadly, the force will burst it, degrade your performance, and potentially destroy your life.
The truth about hard work and aspiring toward greatness is that it is very hard! You absolutely have to make tradeoffs, sacrifices, and have some dog in you. It’s not for everyone. There is a certain kind of temperament that is driven, hard to satisfy, and not accepting of the default. You will not be balanced. There will be times in your life, perhaps especially when you are young, when you may be singularly focused on your craft. You will wonder how some people are content to work a traditional 9-5 and simply enjoy their life. You may even find yourself jealous of them. But you are wired differently, and no amount of meditation or yoga will compete with that wiring.
But what is also true is that if you don’t have any constraints around your drive, if you neglect relationships and health and the basic hygiene of being a functioning adult, if you try to white knuckle everything always, if you refuse to ask for help when you need it, if you never allow yourself to process your feelings, if you take pride in how worn down and psychologically broken you are, then not only will you be miserable, but eventually your performance will suffer and you won’t last very long at whatever it is you do.
The most common objection: What about Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant? Both are known for their fierce intensity and ruthless ambition. Surely they’re proof that grinding yourself into dust is what greatness demands? I actually think they are perfect examples—only for my argument, not against it.
Both Jordan and Bryant worked with the same renowned psychotherapist, George Mumford. And both were coached by Phil Jackson, basketball’s resident mindfulness guru. I’m not trying to take anything away from how incredibly talented and driven they were, but it seems possible, perhaps even likely, that each would have self-destructed without Mumford and Jackson. At the very least, I don’t think they would have won as many championships. You also can’t help but wonder if their metaphorical pipe-coating had been just a little stronger, might they have still been world-beaters on the court without all the personal turmoil off of it?
Put simply, Jordan and Bryant are maniacs. Their drive for greatness is otherworldly. They outworked everyone around them. They made next-level sacrifices. They also had just enough constraints on their drive to keep it productive. If you don’t sacrifice enough, you’ll never be great, but if you sacrifice too much, the force underlying your greatness is likely to turn into anger, depression, and despair.
This is the truth about hard work. It’s why I can’t stand takes like Dana White’s and Mr Beast’s, and it’s why I also can’t stand people who say you can have it all, be perfectly balanced, and achieve great things. Both are selling lies to audiences that want to be lied to.
The truth is harder than either lie. You have to figure out what you can sacrifice and what you can’t. How long can you push, and when must you pull back? What buffers do you need to protect yourself from yourself? What values are integral to your character? These aren’t questions you answer once. Wrestling with them again and again is the actual hard work.
I found this statement dumb and dangerous. Men die by suicide at 4x the rate of women, and two driving factors behind that gap: men are less likely to open up and ask for help; men are more likely to use firearms, which are more lethal than other suicide attempt methods.
Dana White infamously got caught slapping his wife on video in 2022. She had slapped him first. Either way, it’s not indicative of great mental health, stability, or restraint.
Great article. I coached for a decade and then became an AD. One of my biggest observations my first year out of coaching was how much time I (and by proxy the players) spent on things that didn't matter. Some things we were just doing it to feel like we were working hard. We probably would have been better with more balance. I've watched too many talented coaches burn out not because they lacked drive, but because they treated every support structure (sleep, marriage, friendships outside the gym) as optional. The ones who sustain it aren't softer; they've just figured out, to use one of your examples, how to have more rooms in their house.
Chase your dreams with your whole heart, but also don't cling to attachments and expectations.
Basically be a motivated buddhist with big dreams 🤙🏼