Rahaf Harfoush - Hustle and Float: Reclaim Your Creativity and Thrive in a World Obsessed with Work

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
HUSTLE & FLOAT

In Hustle & Float , Rahaf Harfoush takes on a critical question for the decade ahead: How do I get lots of important things done without burning out? If we as human achievers are to compete with machines, we need to become productively creative and creatively productive. Hustle & Float brings a wealth of stories, examples and practical exercises to let us bring out our best.

BRIAN FETHERSTONHAUGH,
Worldwide Chief Talent Officer for The Ogilvy Group
and author of The Long View: Career Strategies to
Start Strong, Reach High and Go Far

Hustle & Float explores how our values and vision of work are colliding with the disruptive force of the fourth industrial revolution. Its an essential companion for business leaders who want to navigate this new economy, and build organizations that are aligned with the needs of Productive Creativesthose responsible for ensuring our new technologies create a future we all want to live in.

KLAUS SCHWAB,
Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum

Rahaf Harfoushs engaging book is an encouragement for all of us whose job is to be creative in environments that seem designed for cookie-cutter production. It will make you smile. It will make you think. It may make you cry. Dont miss out on a word.

RITA GUNTER MCGRATH,
author of The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business ;
Professor at Columbia Business School; Top Ten Global Management Thinker, Thinkers50

Disruptive technology and new business models are constantly changing the rules of business. But many people and organizations are unaware that the systems they are using are relics from a bygone era. Hustle & Float reveals some profound changes that can enable creative-centric, forward-looking businesses.

DON TAPSCOTT,
best-selling author of sixteen books

Finally a book that debunks the gap between the quality of the work that you do and how much time/effort/energy and hustle that you put into it. Theres this hustle and grind myth that is both unhealthy and unproven, yet everyone is buying into it. Im so happy that Rahaf wrote Hustle & Float . If youre grinding yourself into dust, are you really doing your best work or just working tirelessly? Please let this amazing book guide and define you. Want to thrive? Want a healthy relationship with your work? Here you go.

MITCH JOEL,
author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete

Ive interviewed hundreds of leaders about the challenges they face balancing their productivity and creativity. Hustle & Float perfectly balances the personal intimacy of unraveling the hidden blocks of individual performance with an impressive broad analysis of the macro-trends that have reshaped the way we work, and the type of work we do. This is a book that speaks to the pain points all creatives face in their jobs, but offers a hopeful and optimistic outlook of a more human future.

SRINIVAS RAO,
host of The Unmistakable Creative Podcast
and author of Audience of One

To succeed today, companies must balance executing incredibly fast while relentlessly innovating. Rahaf deconstructs how antiquated thinking about productivity result in demands that are counterproductive, while also highlighting what the creative outliers are doing differently in order to enable their talent to realize exceptional results!

LEEROM SEGAL,
CEO of Klick and author of The Decoded Company

Diversion Books

A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1004

New York, New York 10016

www.DiversionBooks.com

Copyright 2019 by Rahaf Harfoush

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For more information, email

Book design by Elyse J. Strongin, Neuwirth & Associates.

First Diversion Books edition February 2019.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63576-578-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-63576-577-9

Printed in the U.S.A.

SDB/1902

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To my husband Jesse.

My heart. My anchor. My Home.

MAKE IT HURT SO GOOD

Craigslist has developed a well-deserved reputation for being a marketplace where no request is too bizarre. Looking for someone with Jedi powers to help induce your labor? A person with a fantastic beard who can mentor you while you grow your own? What about a personal waiter who will serve you for two hours at your local McDonalds? In 2012, Maneesh Sethi added his own quirky request: he was looking to hire someone who would literally slap him in the face whenever he was being unproductive.

You see, Sethi had been using a program to measure his productivity while working and wanted to see if he could improve his performance. Naturally, he turned to Craigslist and hired a young woman who, for $8 an hour, would sit next to him and slap him if he dared to check social media or lost focus by browsing the web.

The hack worked: Sethi claims to have quadrupled his productivity during his sadomasochistic, if not amusing, work experiment. Sethi, the editor of Hackingthesystem.com, a website designed to help readers find unconventional solutions to live better, travel further, earn more money and be more productive, is also working on a new wearable device product that lets your Facebook friends zap you if youre not following through on your goals, a technological version of having an accountability buddy.

While Sethis slapping solution was a little unique, his determination to increase his creative output (writing blog posts, drafting proposals, etc.) has become a standard part of being a professional creative in todays hyperconnected knowledge economy, and people everywhere are coming up with new (and bizarre) ways to accomplish this goal.

I was surprised to learn that face slapping wouldnt be the strangest proposed solution. In 2013, Rob Rinehart raised more than $3 million dollars in crowdfunding for his product, Soylent. Rinehart invented the universally applicable nutritionally complete, beige, smoothie-like meal replacement after he noticed that making healthy meals was a task that was taking up too much time. In Silicon Valley, the popularity of protein-packed liquid meals like Soylent (and other oddly named competitors like Schmilk, Schmoylent, and People Chow) is rising, promising to remove the pesky decisions around what to eat and get busy people back to work quicker than they can chew. In 2017, Soylent further expanded into the retail market, becoming available in 2,500 7-Eleven stores across the country, followed by a 2018 expansion into 450 Walmart stores. Meal replacement extreme goes mainstream.

Following the same train of thought, at a recent SXSW panel on Life Automation for Entrepreneurs, Dave Asprey, CEO of Bulletproof, a company that helps people enter a system of high performance every day, recommended blending the contents of your dinner to be able to drink it while youre doing something else.

Lately, it seems like every corner of the Internet is seething with tips, tricks, and hacks to help us do more. Want the creativity-inducing, stress-relieving benefits of meditation but dont have time to meditate? Pop-guru Deepak Chopra has a one-minute meditation that can helpit has been downloaded ten million times. Need to inspire your work ethic but dont have the right inner motivation? Lifehack.org suggests faking adversity so you have an inner incentive to prove them wrong. Schools of thought, such as David Allens Getting Things Done, Inbox Zero, and even the Covey Quadrant have developed cult-like followings all in the name of fitting more tasks into every hour of our day.