Knocking the side hustle
A purposeless hustle is bound to be fruitless
Let people work their 9–5 jobs in peace; not everyone wants to or should be a ‘business owner’. Some people want to invest their free time on relationships and adventure — stop pressuring people into fruitless ‘side hustles.’ — https://twitter.com/TLA4_6/status/1016247293274656768
Let me start by saying I have no entrepreneurial bone in my body; I am a chronic procrastinator (it took me months to write this article).
I don’t have an affinity for wealth, and I’m resigned to the notion that my purpose in life is to empower and enlighten with intellectual resources as opposed to enriching with material resources.
This sentiment is the inspiration of my critic of the millennial trend of seeking an alternative source of income.
We are living in a time where social media influences societal behaviours; social media entrepreneurs, influencers, and financial coaches, are advocates of freedom derived from doing what you love — with the goal being financial security and an escape from the entrapments of the corporate world.
In theory, the ideals of corporate independence and the luxury of comfort it provides make it not only alluring but a moral necessity, in practice it is scarcely attainable.
The everchanging 9–5
Labour is a social construct, and we have subscribed to it. It is our norm. The 9–5 is our hustle, it was the basis of the foundation of our global economy; in a technology-driven world, where the path to independence it more evident, it hasn’t been short of critics, but it is ever evolving.
The nature and dynamics of labour today is different from what it was in the 20th century; with the innovation of technology, the availability of information, the advocacy of human rights, employees have never been more powerful.
50% of the American workforce has now adopted remote working; remote working is now a growing trend in the workplace. Employers are seeing that having trust, and affording flexibility of base to their workers can improve productivity: this is no longer profession-specific. While it’s true that some professions would still need a fixed base, employers are conferring ownership to their employees, and it is yielding rewards.
The Illusion of the hustle
As attractive as the modern workplace is, a lot of millennials are still subscribing to the get-rich-or-die-trying spiel of failed snake oil salesmen turned influencers, who promise them a lifetime of eternal bliss of corporate freedom if they take a daily dose of their over-simplified motivational potion.
The sentiment is derived from overexposure to sound bites from self-serving entrepreneurs, that takes advantage of the attention-deficiency of social media users, to feed them particular information, tailored in a get-rich-quick format, that preys on the insecurities of young workers who are looking for fulfilment in their careers and lives.
8 out of 10 businesses fail within the first 18 months, so the statistical reality is that if you were to set up a side gig, with the goal being establishing a business, the viability is unlikely.
So what is the attraction?
As millennials, we are living in the information age, and the inundation of information means we are perpetually cross-examining, comparing, reflecting.
Amid the hyperactive mind of the millennial in the quest of self-realisation, rational thought is often absent.
‘Comparison is the thief of joy.’
Us humans are social beings; we buck to social trends; we follow the pack.
Many of us are more comfortable with being followers than we are leaders; it is ironic that we succumb to a social phenomenon that tells us to cast our net in the ocean of uncertainty that is entrepreneurship, as an escape from the secure, although often monotonous corporate life.
So we are at the altar of entrepreneurial prosperity preachers, fawning at their every word, salivating at the thought of turning our dreams to reality by merely subscribing to their how-to guide; but most of us fail.
A dream premised on financial liberation isn’t a dream — its a subscription to the same principles of ‘slaving away’ to corporate labour: it is a means to an end. Your goal should anchor on problem-solving and finding a resolution to a common issue, that is what makes corporations successful.
The irony of escaping stability of stable income through employment for the statistical instability of entrepreneurship and potential enslavement to debt is lost on us.
I’d rather be a slave to a corporation, with growing experience that would eventually allow me to manoeuvre my industry as my expertise becomes attractive to corporations than to be enslaved by the narcissistic nature of building an unattainable and unsustainable dream.
The idea that you can’t build a purposeful career within the framework of corporations is ludicrous. Tim Cook is currently Apple’s CEO, he is at the creative cusp of Apple’s operations, but he doesn’t own the company.
Tim Cook is answerable to Apple’s Shareholders. Most big corporations are accountable to their largest shareholders — meaning you — as a budding CEO — would also be too.
The preposterous motivation for escaping corporate servitude is unsustainable in the business world. As a business, you are either answerable to your investors or your customers — in most cases both.
Like a story I once read on Twitter:
I once got into an Uber, and the driver told me he loved being his own boss; he didn’t answer to anyone.
Then I told him to take a right turn, which he obliged.
The moral of the story is, no matter who you are, once you are providing a service, you are obliged to serve: service is a derivative of servitude.
You can’t learn how to lead until you have mastered the expertise, or gained adequate experience in servitude. Most bosses and leaders learn from someone. All masters were once an apprentice.
The economic reality of millennials means most people have to take a gig to survive, better yet thrive. And with technological advances connecting service inquirers to contractors and service deliverers, the ease of getting into the gig economy is apparent. This, however, comes at a cost. The lack of strict regulation which makes the gig economy attractive to some also opens up the abuse of employment laws and protection for contractors.
20 to 30 per cent of millennials in Europe and the United States engage in independent work, but the vast majority of those are vulnerable to fluctuations of the availability of work and contractual terms of the requested work, according to research.
In the early years of a new business, you are more vulnerable as you do not have the resources to protect yourself or business from the vulturism of the business world.
With 72% of millennials wanting to be their boss, without an adequate plan or rigid structure to stan on, most hustles end up being a hassle.
The wheel of purpose
Millennials are driven by a career where they can fulfil their potential and also make a social contribution that aligns with their purpose; while some may conflate this with financial security, the reality is that most never achieve their target amount for financial safety — as it is insatiable.
Most humans are stuck on the hedonic treadmill: an observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major negative or positive events or life changes.
In the pursuit of happiness and purpose, financial security is not high up in the hierarchy of priorities as the capitalist society we live in has led us to believe.
Symptomatic of the anti-intellectual age is motivational speakers urging us to ditch acquired knowledge, expertise and experience, for the laissez-faire naive approach to entrepreneurship. By doing this, we are denouncing the practices that led to social and industrial revolutions in our world.
Collaborative hard work, by people with expertise, gaining experience, sharing the experience, has brought about the advancement in various industries and is the cornerstone of the sustainment of those industries.
If we are all bosses, who will provide service? If people are not committed to offering solution-based service, and developing them, how will we keep up the technological advancements that have afforded us the possibilities of a gig economy in the first place?
Everyone has a role to play; whether you are the boss, or you are keen to lead a life or service, the reconciliation of our various roles in an economy, society, should be the foundation of the continuum of the development of the global economy.
