As a Business Owner, Can You Use The Force?
In case you’re an entrepreneur who wasn’t aware, May 4th is Star Wars Day (a takeoff on the saying in the first Star Wars movie, “May the Force be with you.”) Maybe you’ll take the 4th as an opportunity to watch a Star Wars movie, or any other kind.
So many of us business owners think it’s about hustling and grinding or putting our nose to the grindstone until we’ve ground it away completely. But if you look at the articles about what people regret on their deathbeds, “I wish I’d worked more” is never on any of the lists.
Some of us really enjoy what we do in business. I love teaching people about how to be more productive and assessing where their productivity gaps are! Even so, it’s good for the brain to get away from work from time to time.
As noted philosopher Ferris Bueller once remarked, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
How the Protestant work ethic affects business owners
The modern exaltation of the hustle and grind is a very American ethos.
Many of the Europeans who originally came here, especially the Pilgrims, came from Protestant backgrounds and were determined to make a living here. It meant hard work, and the same with the frontiersmen and women who pushed westward. The work could be backbreaking, but anyone could reap tangible rewards from it.
At the same time, many early immigrants had a strong propensity towards magical thinking and the “love of the fantastic”. (Read Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen for all the fascinating and gory details if you’re interested.)
In other words, our culture was largely shaped by people who knew they had to work hard to scrape out a living, as well as those who believed that there’s gold in them thar hills. Even when the hills turned out to be nothing but dirt, they still believed.
In addition to that, the 1980s happened. (Like me, some of you might actually have been here for it!) Here in the US we got Reagan and “trickle-down” economics. Now that we have all the data, turns out that’s exactly what then-VP George H.W. Bush said they were: voodoo economics. We got bootstraps and individualism and a worship of wealth.
If you look around at the majority of billionaires in this country, particularly the dudes, you see a lot of bad behavior. They spend money on vanity “space” flights, pick fights on social media, etc. Yet somehow our culture now believes that if you’re rich you’re a good person and if you’re poor, then you did something wrong. Which means hard work and grinding away is a virtue, and not doing so means you’re bad or lazy or both. Worse, many now feel it’s OK to punish people who are poor.
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is, you can work very hard and still not make a lot of money. Though you can work hard and make a lot of money, there’s no guarantee.
No matter how often you reread Think and Grow Rich, visualize “manifesting” millions of dollars, you’re not going to become Musk rich. Incidentally, he inherited money from his family’s emerald mine that operated during the apartheid era. He isn’t the visionary behind Tesla, he just bought the company.
There’s nothing wrong with working hard! But there is more to life.
Working hard and making money do not necessarily make you a good person.
As another modern philosopher, Tyler Durden, said: “You are not your job. You are not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.”
Oh, and other countries in the 1980s? They decided to spend their postwar riches on shoring up their social safety nets, making sure their citizens can get healthcare (whether they have a job or not) and won’t go bankrupt due to outrageous (and inflated) health care costs.
Correlation is not causation. Having said that… the citizens of countries that don’t have to worry about whether they can pay for a roof over their heads or the medication they need to stay alive, like insulin, are happier than we are. Many fewer opioid deaths as well. Huh, weird.
We know the answer to life
It’s 42, per late philosopher Douglas Adams. But seriously, recent decades have brought us lots of information about the brain, what makes us feel good (certain neurochemicals) and the things that trigger the release of the happy brain chemicals.
Beyond a certain threshold (basically having enough money that your needs are satisfied and so are some basic wants), money doesn’t make you happy.
Fulfilling work does. Holding your newborn does. Playing with your pets, kids, friends, and family does. Sleep helps. So does regular movement (punishing workouts are a very American thing, but hey, have at it if you want) and nutrition.
And all of these things fill up the brain’s “productivity tank”.
Why are so many of our pleasures “guilty” ones?
Well, you may have already figured this one out, but obviously in a culture that downgrades pleasure at the expense of toil or money-making, almost any pleasure is going to be “guilty”. Because how dare you enjoy yourself??!
A piece of dark chocolate, or a slice of cake or pizza? There’s a reason they taste good, you know. Basically they hit various aspects of the fatty, salty, sweet trifecta that makes the brain’s pleasure centers light up like Christmas trees.
But… they taste good and are pleasing, so many people believe indulging in them is bad. Especially for women. I’m not going there, but any woman reading this knows exactly what I’m talking about!
A movie that isn’t a documentary about some horrible problem somewhere in the world? Pleasing! Bad! Which isn’t to say that no one should ever watch these documentaries. Especially if you’re unaware of these problems and there’s a solution presented to you.
But you don’t have to slog through movies, books, and music that are supposed to be “good for you” or somehow “virtuous” if it otherwise bores you to tears.
Don't like classical music? Then don't listen to it. I love it, but that’s because I played violin when I was a kid. I also listen to EDM and heavy metal, because I enjoy them.
I am a fan of horror movies, including the ones that are s bad they’re good. I also love horror movies that are both horror in and of themselves but also send up the genre, like the Scream series and The Cabin in the Woods.
I love campy movies, like Showgirls and Mommie Dearest. Comedies, spy thrillers, etc. All of Quentin Tarantino’s oeuvre. You may call them guilty pleasures, but I just call them pleasures.
I gave up cable over a decade ago, but I assure you I watched a ton of trash when I had it. I distinctly remember watching the first few seasons of South Park, back when they were actually new episodes and not reruns. I also watched entire seasons of a couple different Real Housewives franchises - OC and NYC and I think one or two others.
Star Wars, at least the first one (A New Hope) released in 1977 is not a great movie when you look at it objectively. It’s literally a beat-by-beat hero’s journey screenwriting arc. But still totally watchable.
As you know if you’ve read my stuff, I love to read. And while I do read nonfiction and get my learning on, I read more fiction: mysteries, spy novels, thrillers, mostly. In the trade they’re known as “genre novels” and are popularly supposed to be worse for you than “literary fiction”. But I like them, so I read them.
What’s your “guilty” pleasure? And should you just call it a pleasure instead?
And remember these wise words from an alien philosopher when you’re deciding whether to enjoy life and step off the grind once in a while: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
Recap:
The focus on hard work to the exclusion of enjoyment or other aspects of life is uniquely American, but by and large doesn’t help us feel any better. Or make us more productive. Instead, try making time for some “guilty” pleasures… without the guilt.