133. How Public Health Promotes Hustle Culture
Are you aware of how hustle culture is personally impacting you? How is hustle culture being explicitly and implicitly promoted in public health? And what can you do to change the narrative and advocate for rest and work-life balance instead?
The truth is, no matter how hard you try to get out, hustle culture will always attempt to pull you back in. Part of the reason it feels impossible to prioritize rest is because the structures and systems we live in promote hustle culture, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait for the world to change to live a hustle-free life. What’s the solution?
Join me on this episode to discover the keys to detaching from hustle culture. You’ll hear how doing this on an individual level leads to collective change, innovative examples from around the world of ways rest is bring prioritized over hustling, and what you can do on a personal level to begin changing your experience of overworking.
Do you want to stop working late and working through lunches? Do you want to have more control over your time? Click here to download my FREE Top 5 Calendar Tips! They are simple and effective, and you can implement them right away!
What You Will Discover:
What hustle culture entails.
Examples of how hustle culture shows up in public health.
How hustle culture is impacting you, and what you can do to change the narrative.
The unique ways in which rest is being promoted over hustle culture.
How it’s possible to have policies and social norms that promote rest.
Why we have to change our beliefs alongside policies and social norms around hustle culture.
Resources:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for Public Health Professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Hi, everyone. I don’t know about you, but I’m just having one of those days where it’s practically noon when I’m recording this. And I really haven’t done anything work related. I just got off a group call with my nutritionist. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I joined a nutrition program. It’s been great. It’s been amazing. I’ve learned so much. But before that I really didn’t do much work. I actually this morning, normally, I get up, have my coffee, all that stuff. I’ve changed what I do in the morning. I’ve talked about that in past episodes.
But this morning. I was like, “You know what? I really want to watch one of those cheesy bad Hallmark-esque type Christmas movies. So I did. And then I took my time having fun with makeup, even though I’m wearing biker shorts and a t-shirt today. So it’s just been a weird day. It’s not that I feel like I’m tired or I’m dragging. I don’t know what it is. So I’m hoping I can record this episode, take my dog on a walk and come back this afternoon and kind of sit down and get to work. We’ll see, fingers crossed.
But there is something before we jump in this episode, I want to kind of give you all a heads up about. I’m not going to go into too many details at this point, I will in a few weeks. But I don’t want anyone who’s listening, who’s a regular listener, who’s a new listener to be blindsided or anything like that when I formally announce. But I have made a decision, in many ways, it breaks my heart. But I also know it’s the right decision that in 2024 the Redefining Rest podcast is going to go on pause for the whole year.
We’re going to be taking the year off of creating, producing and putting out podcast episodes. And the plan is to come back in 2025. I have a future episode that will be coming out towards the end of the year, talking more about why I made this decision. I promise you it was really thought through. I got a lot of coaching on it. I was really thorough and thoughtful about this because I created this podcast for you all. And I know going on pause is going to have an impact on you. And I was really conscious of that when making this decision.
So I will talk in the future about why I made this decision, how I thought about you all in the decision process, why I’m doing this. What I’m going to be doing differently next year outside of the podcast, so some other things you can have access to resources. I don’t want this community to go away. I don’t want you getting support to not be available. So don’t worry, I’m thinking through all of this and I will, I promise, in a few weeks share all the details with you.
And I hope that once I do, you will fully understand why I’m doing this. It aligns perfectly with being a rest coach, just as a little sneak peek to that, and the future sustainability of my business. The goal of this business has always been to help public health professionals, particularly women, reduce their burnout, get more rest, live a life they love. And this decision fully supports that and the sustainability of that. So anyways, just a little bit heads up, so when I do talk in more detail, most of you who are listening won’t be completely blindsided or shocked.
And I’ll talk about the dates of when everything’s happening and all that stuff. So I don’t know if you just heard that. My dog in the back just, I don’t know if it was a growl or a moan. So she probably feels the way some of you are feeling hearing that news. Anyways, today I want to talk about how hustle culture shows up in public health and how it impacts you and of course, what you can do to change that.
And in doing research for this podcast episode, I found some really cool and awesome examples that other countries or other industries or companies do to promote rest, to promote work life balance that I’m going to share with you. Because I think sometimes when we talk about hustle culture and critique it, there is this idea that there’s no other option. There’s no other way. But that’s totally not true. It’s just a lot of times it’s making both systems level and systemic changes, which do take time, but also individual changes. So we’ll get into that.
So there are many definitions of hustle culture. And I think I’ve talked about this a couple of times on the podcast. But essentially, most of them boil down to the essence of getting messages that what matters most is productivity, doing a lot, getting it all done, and that rest is a reward, rest comes later, rest has to be earned and sometimes only if you’re lucky or privileged.
In the workplace this is focused on getting it all done for the organization, even if that means overworking missing out on time with your family, not working towards your personal goals, not working towards your career goals. In society at large, particularly for women, it means doing everything for everyone else first, for your family, for your friends, for your neighbors, for your community before yourself. And feeling guilty for doing things for yourself, believing it’s selfish.
And in the career sphere, it’s really messaged as you need to prioritize external accolades, that’s what’s going to get you success and happiness. So prioritizing degrees and salary and job titles and publications and all that stuff. And neglecting your mental, emotional health to achieve that. And overall in general, we glamorize this idea of hustling for success. You can look everywhere, on YouTube, on movies and music about side hustles and hustle and grind and all this stuff.
In school, think university, how many of you pulled all-nighters? I know I did. There are movies that show people who are really successful and wealthy, they’re the ones who neglect their family and that’s how they got all their success and money. Those things aren’t necessarily true. That’s the message we get. And I think in public health, we don’t talk enough about, we don’t talk at all actually about how this shows up and is promoted in our workforce. I think most of us, I know I was before I really started thinking critically, are just unaware.
And part of this episode was prompted by a LinkedIn exchange I had. Someone posted something, I tried to find it but it’s been a while so I couldn’t. But I wrote in the comments that they were posting an article or something and they were criticizing it for a different reason. But I also pointed out, this also promotes hustle culture. And we had a little back and forth because they hadn’t thought about that and they asked me for more examples in public health. And so that really prompted me to make this episode.
So here are just a few examples of how hustle culture is promoted in public health. And I know some of these I’ve mentioned in the past. And a lot of these aren’t isolated to public health. They happen across industries, particularly in the US. So the first one being accrued PTO, accrued paid time off, if your job even offers paid time off, which many public health jobs do. Most of them are set up, you have to accrue it, meaning you have to work a certain amount of hours to earn days off.
This models, intentionally or not, that rest comes after productivity, that your leisure, that your time comes after you’ve done enough for the organization or your employer or whoever. Then there’s delayed health benefits. Some employers, and sometimes the employer and the insurance together decide when your medical benefits kick in after you start a job. Sometimes it’s right away and it should be, but many workplaces you have to wait three months before you get those benefits.
And there are many benefits, but the one I’m thinking of mostly is health benefits. Think about countries where there is universally funded government funded healthcare. You never lose your healthcare benefits. You never have to wait three months after you start a job to get it, unpaid internships. Now, I know many people in the past couple of years have been calling for public health to end this practice. And it is very common in public health. I know I did an unpaid internship.
The idea that you have to work for free for a period of time before getting paid, that’s straight out hustle culture. And there’s a lot of old school mentality of you have to pay your dues and that’s the way you do it. But as many people have pointed out, volunteering doesn’t pay the bills. The advice in public health that many mentors, employers, even professors, faculty advisors give to never say no on an opportunity. I have a whole episode on this, it’s episode 68 if you want to go check it out, I go into way more detail.
I know I was told this early in my career, “You never know. Take an opportunity. You don’t want to burn bridges. You never know what will come of it.” And this unintentionally sends the message that other decision making factors like your personal time, your enjoyment, your personal goals, rest shouldn’t come into play with making career or job opportunity decisions. You should just say yes automatically. And I could go on and on. Giving pizza parties and staff appreciation, socials instead of raises.
Not replacing staff who leave, just redistributing their work, not even being willing to pause their work so the organization overloads everyone. Or denying a long time employee a raise or a title change that they have been advocating for. Saying, “You don’t have the funding”, just for them to leave and then actually you change the title and increase the salary to attract new talent. I know all of us have seen that. Some of this might have happened to you. It’s so frustrating.
The grant side of public health, percentage of public health work and staff funded by grants, where oftentimes you are writing a proposal technically for free before, or oftentimes you’re writing a proposal and doing that ‘free work’ when you aren’t even guaranteed you’re going to get paid for that.
And I know I had a former client reach out. I posted a little bit about this a while ago on LinkedIn, reached out and said that she was just written on a grant where her percentage time written in that grant made her overall percentage. Because those of you who work in grants know you might be 30% on one grant, 20% or another, whatever it may be. But the new grant she was written as such a high percentage that her overall work percentage if she calculated it from all her grants would be well over 100%. Then the horrible lack of and terrible parental leave policies and so many others.
I mean, I think for many of you listening, those things frustrate you. I think you see them and they frustrate you and that was me for sure. But I don’t think we make the connection, that is hustle culture. That is a promotion of hustle culture and it is and it’s really important to name it and call it out.
Now, here are some examples of other workplaces, other countries that promote rest and not hustle culture in really unique ways. And listen, none of these countries or organizations are perfect. So I’m sure you could find ways that they’re promoting hustle culture. I’m just pulling out some cool examples of things they are doing differently. So in Brazil, on top of the regular paid time off wage people get during their time off. Employers must also give employees a vacation bonus, which equals one-third of their monthly salary. This is so freaking cool.
This incentivizes people to take their time off, to get their rest. How many of you have PTO just sitting in your vacation bank you’re not using? Or you’re losing accrued time because you’re over the limit. We think in public health all the time, how do we incentivize? How do we encourage? How do we motivate communities to go get vaccinated, to go get tested, to participate in this health promotion behavior? We need to do the same for our workforce. And that idea of you get paid a little bit more, you get a bonus if you take a vacation, what could be more motivating?
A while back I saw, I think it was an Instagram reel where someone talked about, I think it was Finland does something similar. I tried to Google it just to confirm and I couldn’t find it. This person lived in Finland, so I’m not denying it, but I didn’t include it here because I could not actually find documentation of it. But Brazil might not be the only country that does this and that’s so cool.
Now, I know all of us know that many other countries have way better parental and maternity leave but one I want to call out is in Norway, women get 59 weeks of paid maternity leave. Now, if you do the math, that’s more than a year. That’s pretty amazing.
In France, this one’s interesting, this is so interesting, in France, eating lunch at your desk is against the law. Now, whether it’s enforced, I have no clue. I haven’t been to France. I don’t know much about the culture. If you have or if you’re French, I’d love to hear. Is this a norm? Do people not eat at their desk? And the law didn’t start from a place of let’s reduce burnout. From what I found, it really started from a health concern of having food at the desk and all that but I still think it’s really cool, because so many of us struggle with stepping away from our desk for lunch.
So here are a couple of companies that have some interesting policies too. I think I’m going to pronounce this wrong but we’ll see. Altria, I think that’s how you pronounce it. They have paid time off, a separate bucket for emergency care and school activities. There are so many people who avoid taking time off for themselves because they want to save it for if their kid has an activity or if they get sick or if there’s an emergency. So it’s really cool to have that separate bucket dedicated to that. So you can use your PTO for actual time off and vacation.
Evernote. It’s a US based company. They actually are focused on creating productivity products. And they give their employees a $1,000 travel stipend to use on their vacation. That is so cool. And also that’s so much money. That’s really cool.
And thredUP, some of you might be familiar. I’ve used it. I think I have the app on my phone right now. It’s a clothing thrift, secondhand kind of app. All of their employees have a four day work week, which I know that’s kind of become more of a trend and there’s more research on it and also debate, but I think that’s really cool.
So it is possible. It’s possible to have different policies and social norms and be innovative and creative. And outside of kind of the actual policies and the things we’re doing there are these sayings we have in public health that also promote hustle culture. Build the plane while you fly it. Do more with less. Can’t pour from an empty cup. And I’ve posted about these sayings so many times. Those also matter. That’s part of the culture. that’s part of the norm are the sayings we use and how we talk about our work.
So why am I telling you all this, for you to move to another country or to feel resentful of public health or quit public health? No. It’s important to understand that you were not born to overwork, to miss out on your life, to not rest. And part of the reason it’s hard is because the structures and systems we navigate, promote hustle culture and encourage it. And the truth is, it’s not just public health, it’s almost every industry.
A lot of this comes from, especially in the US, our capitalistic kind of fabric, also, the industrialized revolution. And you have internalized a lot of this to believe that’s just the way things are, that’s just the way life is. You’ve internalized messages, you can’t rest, that you have to be productive, that you have to do it all and that’s not true. That’s not a fact of life. That’s not a biological survival requirement of modern life in 2023 as a human.
And that’s not to say because of the way our structures are, there are people to survive who have to work two to three jobs, minimum wage to afford living and food. So I’m not denying that. But when we think about public health, given the barriers to entry are so high, which that’s a separate conversation and problem, but most people work in public health, they’re not necessarily having to do that, So what do you do? What’s the purpose? What do you do now with all this information?
Yes, we need the systems to change, but what creates systems? What creates structures? What creates norms? What creates policies? Individuals, all of us, while we advocate, while we try to change policies and norms, we also have to change our own beliefs because that drives how we show up. That drives what we choose to do, our decisions. So first you have to recognize it and you have to see it and that’s part of this episode is pointing it out.
But then you have to undo your belief system. That is an ongoing practice. I still do it. It gets easier over time, but that is the only way to be able to operate in a hustle culture world without getting sucked into it. And you have to decide to set yourself apart, to do things differently than your colleagues, even if it’s against the norm. And that’s not an easy feat, I actually did a webinar for the CDC, a couple, I don’t know, a month or two ago, and this came up.
Someone said, “I’ve been doing this work. I’ve detached a lot from it and now this is the struggle I’m facing.” And I was like, “I get it. I’ve been there too.” But from there you really have to create the confidence and trust in yourself to prioritize something other than hustle because you are going to get pushback. You are going to see people hustling and grinding and your brain is going to question if you should be doing that too.
And to prioritize your rest and your health and a slower life, and your family and joy and travel, you have to have the confidence and trust in yourself that you’re making the right decision, even if others don’t understand, even if others don’t agree. Hustle culture will always be trying to pull you back in, always, always, always. For as long as you and I are alive, we’re going to be surrounded by hustle culture. But you don’t need hustle culture to go away tomorrow to stop hustling.
You don’t need public health policies and practices and norms to change right away to start prioritizing yourself. Yes, ultimately, we want those to change but you know that takes time. You don’t have to wait. You can start doing it, start by challenging, and detaching from the belief you have to earn your rest or you have to do it all. And start to practice believing that rest is always available to you, that you get to choose what you do, you always have a choice, that you don’t have to overwork to create success.
And when you have those differing beliefs, then when you do face barriers to rest or promotions of burnout, you can face them, you can navigate them, you can overcome them rather than be defeated by them. In public health, it is very easy to just blame the system, the structures, the leaders, the organizations for our burnout, for our overworking. And while yes, they are part of the problem, they’re not the whole story.
My most popular posts on LinkedIn, I’m talking 16,000 impressions are the ones where I call out the systemic issues in public health. And yeah, we need to do that, we need to call out those issues and they need to be changed. But what’s fascinating is when I post on LinkedIn, sharing how you individually, how everyone individually can undo their burnout, the ways in which we individually are contributing to our own burnout. I only get maybe 200 or 300 impressions, such a stark difference.
And I think part of that is it feels good to point the finger at someone else, at something else. And it’s harder to look in the mirror and be like, “I am part of the problem. There are some things I can do to shift this.” We don’t want to admit we have a part to play but we do. The system is part of the problem but it’s only one part of it. You aren’t setting boundaries. You aren’t saying no. You aren’t sticking to your boundaries. You are people pleasing. You aren’t being honest. You’re denying yourself rest.
And yes, that is an outcome of learning to do that, you were taught, you didn’t come out of the womb doing that. You were taught that by the world around you, by what your parents modeled, by our school system but that doesn’t mean you can’t change it. It also doesn’t mean you have to wait for the world to change. You need to change, change the way you’re showing up, change what you believe, change your decisions, take responsibility, take charge. That’s the only way you’re going to detach from hustle culture.
And the more we individually detach from hustle culture, the more collectively we can work to change and reduce and eliminate hustle culture from our systems, from our structures, from our policies, from our field, from our organizations. So it’s a both and. And that’s the truth with all hard work, it’s not just black and white, either or. Yes, the systems and the way public health promotes hustle culture is a part of the problem, and that has to change and we have a role to play.
We have a role to play, not just in changing hustle culture in the field, but first in our life. And you absolutely can do this, I know you can because I’ve done it. My clients have done it. My students have done it. You can absolutely do it. And you are already in that beginning stage of the practice by listening to this podcast. So I thank you all for being here. You are all collectively being a part of the solution to addressing hustle culture in public health. And I know that individually you are working on undoing hustle culture within yourself and in your life just by listening. And I’m so, so proud of you.
Real quick before we go. I just want to give a little preview of some of the episodes coming up over the next month or so. We’re going to be talking about holiday busyness, that holiday hustle. Those of you who are parents or have big families or travel a lot, you know what I mean. It can be really stressful. Don’t worry, I’m going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about imposter syndrome. We’re going to talk about the mental load, what that is and how that’s impacting you and so many other things.
And of course I will be sharing as we move along, why I’ve made the decision for the podcast to go on a brief sabbatical hiatus break in 2024, and what it means for you. So with that, everyone, I hope you have a great week. I’m going to go have my lunch, take my dog on a walk and hopefully come back to my desk this afternoon and get some more work done. Bye everyone.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Hi, everyone. I don’t know about you, but I’m just having one of those days where it’s practically noon when I’m recording this. And I really haven’t done anything work related. I just got off a group call with my nutritionist. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I joined a nutrition program. It’s been great. It’s been amazing. I’ve learned so much. But before that I really didn’t do much work. I actually this morning, normally, I get up, have my coffee, all that stuff. I’ve changed what I do in the morning. I’ve talked about that in past episodes.
But this morning. I was like, “You know what? I really want to watch one of those cheesy bad Hallmark-esque type Christmas movies. So I did. And then I took my time having fun with makeup, even though I’m wearing biker shorts and a t-shirt today. So it’s just been a weird day. It’s not that I feel like I’m tired or I’m dragging. I don’t know what it is. So I’m hoping I can record this episode, take my dog on a walk and come back this afternoon and kind of sit down and get to work. We’ll see, fingers crossed.
But there is something before we jump in this episode, I want to kind of give you all a heads up about. I’m not going to go into too many details at this point, I will in a few weeks. But I don’t want anyone who’s listening, who’s a regular listener, who’s a new listener to be blindsided or anything like that when I formally announce. But I have made a decision, in many ways, it breaks my heart. But I also know it’s the right decision that in 2024 the Redefining Rest podcast is going to go on pause for the whole year.
We’re going to be taking the year off of creating, producing and putting out podcast episodes. And the plan is to come back in 2025. I have a future episode that will be coming out towards the end of the year, talking more about why I made this decision. I promise you it was really thought through. I got a lot of coaching on it. I was really thorough and thoughtful about this because I created this podcast for you all. And I know going on pause is going to have an impact on you. And I was really conscious of that when making this decision.
So I will talk in the future about why I made this decision, how I thought about you all in the decision process, why I’m doing this. What I’m going to be doing differently next year outside of the podcast, so some other things you can have access to resources. I don’t want this community to go away. I don’t want you getting support to not be available. So don’t worry, I’m thinking through all of this and I will, I promise, in a few weeks share all the details with you.
And I hope that once I do, you will fully understand why I’m doing this. It aligns perfectly with being a rest coach, just as a little sneak peek to that, and the future sustainability of my business. The goal of this business has always been to help public health professionals, particularly women, reduce their burnout, get more rest, live a life they love. And this decision fully supports that and the sustainability of that. So anyways, just a little bit heads up, so when I do talk in more detail, most of you who are listening won’t be completely blindsided or shocked.
And I’ll talk about the dates of when everything’s happening and all that stuff. So I don’t know if you just heard that. My dog in the back just, I don’t know if it was a growl or a moan. So she probably feels the way some of you are feeling hearing that news. Anyways, today I want to talk about how hustle culture shows up in public health and how it impacts you and of course, what you can do to change that.
And in doing research for this podcast episode, I found some really cool and awesome examples that other countries or other industries or companies do to promote rest, to promote work life balance that I’m going to share with you. Because I think sometimes when we talk about hustle culture and critique it, there is this idea that there’s no other option. There’s no other way. But that’s totally not true. It’s just a lot of times it’s making both systems level and systemic changes, which do take time, but also individual changes. So we’ll get into that.
So there are many definitions of hustle culture. And I think I’ve talked about this a couple of times on the podcast. But essentially, most of them boil down to the essence of getting messages that what matters most is productivity, doing a lot, getting it all done, and that rest is a reward, rest comes later, rest has to be earned and sometimes only if you’re lucky or privileged.
In the workplace this is focused on getting it all done for the organization, even if that means overworking missing out on time with your family, not working towards your personal goals, not working towards your career goals. In society at large, particularly for women, it means doing everything for everyone else first, for your family, for your friends, for your neighbors, for your community before yourself. And feeling guilty for doing things for yourself, believing it’s selfish.
And in the career sphere, it’s really messaged as you need to prioritize external accolades, that’s what’s going to get you success and happiness. So prioritizing degrees and salary and job titles and publications and all that stuff. And neglecting your mental, emotional health to achieve that. And overall in general, we glamorize this idea of hustling for success. You can look everywhere, on YouTube, on movies and music about side hustles and hustle and grind and all this stuff.
In school, think university, how many of you pulled all-nighters? I know I did. There are movies that show people who are really successful and wealthy, they’re the ones who neglect their family and that’s how they got all their success and money. Those things aren’t necessarily true. That’s the message we get. And I think in public health, we don’t talk enough about, we don’t talk at all actually about how this shows up and is promoted in our workforce. I think most of us, I know I was before I really started thinking critically, are just unaware.
And part of this episode was prompted by a LinkedIn exchange I had. Someone posted something, I tried to find it but it’s been a while so I couldn’t. But I wrote in the comments that they were posting an article or something and they were criticizing it for a different reason. But I also pointed out, this also promotes hustle culture. And we had a little back and forth because they hadn’t thought about that and they asked me for more examples in public health. And so that really prompted me to make this episode.
So here are just a few examples of how hustle culture is promoted in public health. And I know some of these I’ve mentioned in the past. And a lot of these aren’t isolated to public health. They happen across industries, particularly in the US. So the first one being accrued PTO, accrued paid time off, if your job even offers paid time off, which many public health jobs do. Most of them are set up, you have to accrue it, meaning you have to work a certain amount of hours to earn days off.
This models, intentionally or not, that rest comes after productivity, that your leisure, that your time comes after you’ve done enough for the organization or your employer or whoever. Then there’s delayed health benefits. Some employers, and sometimes the employer and the insurance together decide when your medical benefits kick in after you start a job. Sometimes it’s right away and it should be, but many workplaces you have to wait three months before you get those benefits.
And there are many benefits, but the one I’m thinking of mostly is health benefits. Think about countries where there is universally funded government funded healthcare. You never lose your healthcare benefits. You never have to wait three months after you start a job to get it, unpaid internships. Now, I know many people in the past couple of years have been calling for public health to end this practice. And it is very common in public health. I know I did an unpaid internship.
The idea that you have to work for free for a period of time before getting paid, that’s straight out hustle culture. And there’s a lot of old school mentality of you have to pay your dues and that’s the way you do it. But as many people have pointed out, volunteering doesn’t pay the bills. The advice in public health that many mentors, employers, even professors, faculty advisors give to never say no on an opportunity. I have a whole episode on this, it’s episode 68 if you want to go check it out, I go into way more detail.
I know I was told this early in my career, “You never know. Take an opportunity. You don’t want to burn bridges. You never know what will come of it.” And this unintentionally sends the message that other decision making factors like your personal time, your enjoyment, your personal goals, rest shouldn’t come into play with making career or job opportunity decisions. You should just say yes automatically. And I could go on and on. Giving pizza parties and staff appreciation, socials instead of raises.
Not replacing staff who leave, just redistributing their work, not even being willing to pause their work so the organization overloads everyone. Or denying a long time employee a raise or a title change that they have been advocating for. Saying, “You don’t have the funding”, just for them to leave and then actually you change the title and increase the salary to attract new talent. I know all of us have seen that. Some of this might have happened to you. It’s so frustrating.
The grant side of public health, percentage of public health work and staff funded by grants, where oftentimes you are writing a proposal technically for free before, or oftentimes you’re writing a proposal and doing that ‘free work’ when you aren’t even guaranteed you’re going to get paid for that.
And I know I had a former client reach out. I posted a little bit about this a while ago on LinkedIn, reached out and said that she was just written on a grant where her percentage time written in that grant made her overall percentage. Because those of you who work in grants know you might be 30% on one grant, 20% or another, whatever it may be. But the new grant she was written as such a high percentage that her overall work percentage if she calculated it from all her grants would be well over 100%. Then the horrible lack of and terrible parental leave policies and so many others.
I mean, I think for many of you listening, those things frustrate you. I think you see them and they frustrate you and that was me for sure. But I don’t think we make the connection, that is hustle culture. That is a promotion of hustle culture and it is and it’s really important to name it and call it out.
Now, here are some examples of other workplaces, other countries that promote rest and not hustle culture in really unique ways. And listen, none of these countries or organizations are perfect. So I’m sure you could find ways that they’re promoting hustle culture. I’m just pulling out some cool examples of things they are doing differently. So in Brazil, on top of the regular paid time off wage people get during their time off. Employers must also give employees a vacation bonus, which equals one-third of their monthly salary. This is so freaking cool.
This incentivizes people to take their time off, to get their rest. How many of you have PTO just sitting in your vacation bank you’re not using? Or you’re losing accrued time because you’re over the limit. We think in public health all the time, how do we incentivize? How do we encourage? How do we motivate communities to go get vaccinated, to go get tested, to participate in this health promotion behavior? We need to do the same for our workforce. And that idea of you get paid a little bit more, you get a bonus if you take a vacation, what could be more motivating?
A while back I saw, I think it was an Instagram reel where someone talked about, I think it was Finland does something similar. I tried to Google it just to confirm and I couldn’t find it. This person lived in Finland, so I’m not denying it, but I didn’t include it here because I could not actually find documentation of it. But Brazil might not be the only country that does this and that’s so cool.
Now, I know all of us know that many other countries have way better parental and maternity leave but one I want to call out is in Norway, women get 59 weeks of paid maternity leave. Now, if you do the math, that’s more than a year. That’s pretty amazing.
In France, this one’s interesting, this is so interesting, in France, eating lunch at your desk is against the law. Now, whether it’s enforced, I have no clue. I haven’t been to France. I don’t know much about the culture. If you have or if you’re French, I’d love to hear. Is this a norm? Do people not eat at their desk? And the law didn’t start from a place of let’s reduce burnout. From what I found, it really started from a health concern of having food at the desk and all that but I still think it’s really cool, because so many of us struggle with stepping away from our desk for lunch.
So here are a couple of companies that have some interesting policies too. I think I’m going to pronounce this wrong but we’ll see. Altria, I think that’s how you pronounce it. They have paid time off, a separate bucket for emergency care and school activities. There are so many people who avoid taking time off for themselves because they want to save it for if their kid has an activity or if they get sick or if there’s an emergency. So it’s really cool to have that separate bucket dedicated to that. So you can use your PTO for actual time off and vacation.
Evernote. It’s a US based company. They actually are focused on creating productivity products. And they give their employees a $1,000 travel stipend to use on their vacation. That is so cool. And also that’s so much money. That’s really cool.
And thredUP, some of you might be familiar. I’ve used it. I think I have the app on my phone right now. It’s a clothing thrift, secondhand kind of app. All of their employees have a four day work week, which I know that’s kind of become more of a trend and there’s more research on it and also debate, but I think that’s really cool.
So it is possible. It’s possible to have different policies and social norms and be innovative and creative. And outside of kind of the actual policies and the things we’re doing there are these sayings we have in public health that also promote hustle culture. Build the plane while you fly it. Do more with less. Can’t pour from an empty cup. And I’ve posted about these sayings so many times. Those also matter. That’s part of the culture. that’s part of the norm are the sayings we use and how we talk about our work.
So why am I telling you all this, for you to move to another country or to feel resentful of public health or quit public health? No. It’s important to understand that you were not born to overwork, to miss out on your life, to not rest. And part of the reason it’s hard is because the structures and systems we navigate, promote hustle culture and encourage it. And the truth is, it’s not just public health, it’s almost every industry.
A lot of this comes from, especially in the US, our capitalistic kind of fabric, also, the industrialized revolution. And you have internalized a lot of this to believe that’s just the way things are, that’s just the way life is. You’ve internalized messages, you can’t rest, that you have to be productive, that you have to do it all and that’s not true. That’s not a fact of life. That’s not a biological survival requirement of modern life in 2023 as a human.
And that’s not to say because of the way our structures are, there are people to survive who have to work two to three jobs, minimum wage to afford living and food. So I’m not denying that. But when we think about public health, given the barriers to entry are so high, which that’s a separate conversation and problem, but most people work in public health, they’re not necessarily having to do that, So what do you do? What’s the purpose? What do you do now with all this information?
Yes, we need the systems to change, but what creates systems? What creates structures? What creates norms? What creates policies? Individuals, all of us, while we advocate, while we try to change policies and norms, we also have to change our own beliefs because that drives how we show up. That drives what we choose to do, our decisions. So first you have to recognize it and you have to see it and that’s part of this episode is pointing it out.
But then you have to undo your belief system. That is an ongoing practice. I still do it. It gets easier over time, but that is the only way to be able to operate in a hustle culture world without getting sucked into it. And you have to decide to set yourself apart, to do things differently than your colleagues, even if it’s against the norm. And that’s not an easy feat, I actually did a webinar for the CDC, a couple, I don’t know, a month or two ago, and this came up.
Someone said, “I’ve been doing this work. I’ve detached a lot from it and now this is the struggle I’m facing.” And I was like, “I get it. I’ve been there too.” But from there you really have to create the confidence and trust in yourself to prioritize something other than hustle because you are going to get pushback. You are going to see people hustling and grinding and your brain is going to question if you should be doing that too.
And to prioritize your rest and your health and a slower life, and your family and joy and travel, you have to have the confidence and trust in yourself that you’re making the right decision, even if others don’t understand, even if others don’t agree. Hustle culture will always be trying to pull you back in, always, always, always. For as long as you and I are alive, we’re going to be surrounded by hustle culture. But you don’t need hustle culture to go away tomorrow to stop hustling.
You don’t need public health policies and practices and norms to change right away to start prioritizing yourself. Yes, ultimately, we want those to change but you know that takes time. You don’t have to wait. You can start doing it, start by challenging, and detaching from the belief you have to earn your rest or you have to do it all. And start to practice believing that rest is always available to you, that you get to choose what you do, you always have a choice, that you don’t have to overwork to create success.
And when you have those differing beliefs, then when you do face barriers to rest or promotions of burnout, you can face them, you can navigate them, you can overcome them rather than be defeated by them. In public health, it is very easy to just blame the system, the structures, the leaders, the organizations for our burnout, for our overworking. And while yes, they are part of the problem, they’re not the whole story.
My most popular posts on LinkedIn, I’m talking 16,000 impressions are the ones where I call out the systemic issues in public health. And yeah, we need to do that, we need to call out those issues and they need to be changed. But what’s fascinating is when I post on LinkedIn, sharing how you individually, how everyone individually can undo their burnout, the ways in which we individually are contributing to our own burnout. I only get maybe 200 or 300 impressions, such a stark difference.
And I think part of that is it feels good to point the finger at someone else, at something else. And it’s harder to look in the mirror and be like, “I am part of the problem. There are some things I can do to shift this.” We don’t want to admit we have a part to play but we do. The system is part of the problem but it’s only one part of it. You aren’t setting boundaries. You aren’t saying no. You aren’t sticking to your boundaries. You are people pleasing. You aren’t being honest. You’re denying yourself rest.
And yes, that is an outcome of learning to do that, you were taught, you didn’t come out of the womb doing that. You were taught that by the world around you, by what your parents modeled, by our school system but that doesn’t mean you can’t change it. It also doesn’t mean you have to wait for the world to change. You need to change, change the way you’re showing up, change what you believe, change your decisions, take responsibility, take charge. That’s the only way you’re going to detach from hustle culture.
And the more we individually detach from hustle culture, the more collectively we can work to change and reduce and eliminate hustle culture from our systems, from our structures, from our policies, from our field, from our organizations. So it’s a both and. And that’s the truth with all hard work, it’s not just black and white, either or. Yes, the systems and the way public health promotes hustle culture is a part of the problem, and that has to change and we have a role to play.
We have a role to play, not just in changing hustle culture in the field, but first in our life. And you absolutely can do this, I know you can because I’ve done it. My clients have done it. My students have done it. You can absolutely do it. And you are already in that beginning stage of the practice by listening to this podcast. So I thank you all for being here. You are all collectively being a part of the solution to addressing hustle culture in public health. And I know that individually you are working on undoing hustle culture within yourself and in your life just by listening. And I’m so, so proud of you.
Real quick before we go. I just want to give a little preview of some of the episodes coming up over the next month or so. We’re going to be talking about holiday busyness, that holiday hustle. Those of you who are parents or have big families or travel a lot, you know what I mean. It can be really stressful. Don’t worry, I’m going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about imposter syndrome. We’re going to talk about the mental load, what that is and how that’s impacting you and so many other things.
And of course I will be sharing as we move along, why I’ve made the decision for the podcast to go on a brief sabbatical hiatus break in 2024, and what it means for you. So with that, everyone, I hope you have a great week. I’m going to go have my lunch, take my dog on a walk and hopefully come back to my desk this afternoon and get some more work done. Bye everyone.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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