Calling All Hustlers

The actual manifesto

It’s time to jailbreak from toxic hustle culture.

We take “hustler” back from the belief that bigger is better, security is contingent on compliance, and freedom is reserved for the powerful.

We restore “hustler” to its true meaning—to exercise free agency.

We are works of art in a world of widgets. Instead of conforming to a predefined role, we build our work around our innate talents, motivations, and desires. We embody the natural human instinct to innovate, generate, and thrive in a world that wants us to fit in, comply, and settle.

We derive our power from our ability to adapt, create, and transform. We build the life we want from scratch, turning what’s been handed to us into something better—designing our ideal with the salvaged pieces others have left behind.

Instead of self-reliance, we worship autonomous interconnectedness. Our ability to care for ourselves makes us better at caring for each other.

We are inherently decentralized, rhizomatic, and microbial, building our own networks, partnerships, and support systems. Our connections are not vertical or horizontal but fluid. An expert on one topic is the student on another; the leader on one project is the support on another; where one venture fails, another succeeds; when one partner struggles, there are others to support her.

Our mutual aid is organically reciprocal, with one good deed always repaid without explicit expectations for favors.

This resiliency allows us to take greater risks and reap greater rewards. We make choices not dictated by others’ opinions, their control over our paychecks, or their ability to take our benefits away.  We make choices based on what makes us happy, fulfilled, and free, solely based on the life we want and our ability to bring it into being.

We honor all types of work as long as it is freely chosen. We are neither blue- nor white-collar. We respect resourcefulness, ambition, and implementation, not degrees, social classifications, or rankings. We learn by doing, trying and failing, and working together.

We have skin in the game. Hierarchy increases the distance between effort and results, both tangible and intangible. When you are told what to do, you cannot understand your weaknesses, let alone your strengths. You also become entitled to a baseline survival level instead of being inspired to thrive.

Autonomy means we are no longer alienated from our work—who we are and what we do are the same. We own our success or failure because it depends on our competence and determination.

We don’t wait for life to deliver or waste even a moment wishing something was different; we act. We create solutions for problems inherent to who we are instead of relying on others to solve them for us.

We operate with intention. We are active participants in a living universe, not victims of circumstance. We use all the tools at our disposal—market metrics and historical patterns, astrological events and tarot cards, our instincts and prayers—to anticipate outcomes, hone our timing, and maximize our success. We trust that what’s meant to be will find a way, and we work hard to manifest our vision through action.

We neither fear nor worship money. In a world that wants us to define our worth solely in financial terms but not talk about money explicitly, we jailbreak wealth; we take back the power to define it for ourselves, demand it, and work relentlessly toward it.

We also know when enough is enough. We get shit done and worship rest, elevate it, praise it, and don’t make it contingent upon goals achieved, money saved, or missions accomplished. 

We leverage money to create self-defined prosperity—understanding that money is the vehicle, not the destination. We take success back from externalized metrics, which means we recognize it when it happens and bask in it instead of chasing the next best thing.  

While we are an anomaly today, we trace our initiative back to our ancestors—the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers—who were true craftspeople with work that was unique to them and integrated with their lives.

We honor them by understanding that free agency meets the needs money inherently cannot; that freedom is the true currency, the thing we cannot live without.