Finish What You Start! (Later)

The internet has been fanning the flame of ‘hustle culture’ to the point of redundancy and lacking efficacy. Thankfully though there are more and more examples important minds providing insight to the downsides of the language we’re sharing that says to “sleep when you’re dead”.

Yet, there aren’t nearly as many public examples of successful deviations from ‘hustle culture.’ 

I hypothesize that until the proof is demonstrated in the pudding that hustling less gets results, it will be difficult for this generation to make the shift away from the hustle. So, here’s one. 

Billie Eilish’s hit single ‘Everything I Wanted’ won the Grammy for record of the year and went triple platinum. You’d be hard pressed to find a better musical example of success. That said, Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, who co-wrote and produced the track credit are confident that if they hustled to finish the track that it would have never had the success it has today. 

The two worked on the track, which sparked a family argument which put its production on hold. Long story short, Billie had a dream that she committed suicide, which inspired the song she begin writing with Finneas the next day. This jarring truth led to resistance from her family about the song’s production. Rather than pushing through to finish the track, her and her brother tabled the song halfway through its production. They were able to revisit the track in a different space and executed the unique piano structure and distortion many months later. 

They attribute the success of the song to their ability to step away from the art. Forcing it would have ruined it, they said. If you need real world evidence that permanent hustling isn’t the answer, maybe a Grammy award winning record is the nudge you need.