From Frenzy to Focus: Author Dr. Brittany Friedman On How We Can Cancel Hustle Culture And Create A New Sustainable Work Paradigm
…Make mindfulness a part of your weekly routine. How can you incorporate mindfulness into your life? This could be a walk around your office or neighborhood a few times a week. For some it might be doing a guided meditation. For others mindfulness could be keeping a gratitude journal of everything and everyone you are grateful for and why. This could also be listening to your favorite playlist and moving your body to the music. Mindfulness is best when done simply. It is simply the act of intentionally unplugging from the hustle and bustle of our fast paced world, and doing something that brings you gratitude, peace, fun, love, or joy. Mindfulness will not only aid in promoting a grounded sense of being, but it will also allow you to receive some of the greatest inspiration for your dream because you aren’t in a state of stress. Stress is one of the number one inhibitors of creativity. For me, sometimes mindfulness is as simple as engaging in one of my favorite hobbies or taking care of my plants…
We had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Brittany Friedman. Dr. Friedman is recognized as an innovative thinker on how people and institutions hide harmful truths. Her current work examines this in the realm of social control, and the underside of government such as prisons, courts, and treasuries. Friedman is considered a pathbreaking scholar producing big ideas that blow the whistle on bad behavior within society, and author of a Winter 2025 book titled Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to know how you got from “there to here.” Inspire us with your backstory!
I am a woman who has lived many lives in my 35 years on earth. Even as a child, my mother and aunts would joke I was an old soul.
I was born just outside of Columbus, Ohio to African-American parents who grew up in the rural southern tip of Missouri known as the Bootheel. Though I now live in Los Angeles, I also call Jefferson City, Missouri home as that’s where I was raised.
Something that gives me peace, always, is that my ancestors are always with me no matter where I am. I am the proud granddaughter of a sharecropper, Early Ida Marie Coffee Wilderness Avery, who was a part of a major 1939 Tenant Farmers Union protest against the mass eviction of sharecroppers in her rural town of New Madrid, Missouri.
Descended from enslaved people of African and mixed-race descent, my family hails from all throughout the Deep South — places with rich history such as Louisiana, Mississippi, the Carolinas, and Georgia, to name a few. We still have a family farm through my maternal grandfather and his mother, Katie McMichael Avery, in Attala County, Mississippi.
From those that came before me, I learned the meaning of resilience, to practice gratitude daily, and to express love to the land, animals, and mother earth. It is from my family that I first developed my love of plants, gardening, and collecting stones and crystals during my hikes in nature. I have very vivid memories of my aunts canning their harvests, my grandmother making her own medicines while tending to her collard greens growing out front, and the stories my parents told of raising chickens and helping my grandparents garden.
Anytime I miss my grandparents, I think of these stories, my visits to the places where they grew up, and the strong foundation they left for me and my children.
When I look back at my life thus far, I am very blessed. I have loved deeply, I have reached incredible career heights, and given birth to two children, but I have also experienced profound heartbreak, survived immense traumas, and emerged from the other side of these experiences the strong, confident woman I am today. In fact, because of this wide range of life experiences, I believe my heart has grown bigger and expanded past what I could have ever thought possible. I know what it means to pull forgiveness from seemingly nowhere or the joy of watching a sunset that you swear must be a painting. This is life and every day I try to live mine consciously, to honor myself, and where and who I’ve come from.
Now as a new book author, award-winning sociologist, professor, and herbalist, all of these fancy titles and education remain informed by my life experiences and by my reverence for my ancestors’ legacy. It is this legacy that keeps me grounded and grateful.
I am my ancestors wildest dreams come true.
Tell us about your typical day!
As a divorced mother of two, weekdays I wake up early! While this is out of practical necessity, I also love to rise with the sun, before anyone else so I can have this time to myself. In truth, despite being in the spotlight for my career, on a personal level I am introverted and a bit of a creative hermit and need time alone to be with my hobbies or relax in order to cultivate my life force energy — the “special sauce” if you will that we all use to energize our lives.
I begin my early mornings with a simple meditation while lying in bed: “I am enough. I am worthy. I am whole as I am.” When we first wake up in the morning, several studies on cognition and performance find that our minds are in a very suggestable state. We are still groggy and coming out of the dream state. I tell myself these simple words after just waking because they set the tone for the rest of the day and as a reminder, I have them written down next to my bed.
Even if I don’t fully believe them because I could be sad from the day before or stressed about a big deadline, I still say these words over and over, because I must remind my mind that these words are the truth about me. These words are the truth, so no matter what happens during the day, the truth about me is that “I am enough. I am worthy. I am whole as I am.”
I then do my morning routine with my children and school drop, with the goal of getting to my desk at a reasonable time so I can begin writing while listening to my favorite playlist of classical music. I write in the morning because there is a mountain of scientific research to support the claim that the mind is at a peak concentration state before 12pm and for me, this is truly when I am at the height of my creativity and able to take my best ideas and translate them into words on the page. I also learned in my herbalism apprenticeship that according to the Chinese body clock, the peak hours of mental productivity are from about 7am until noon — adding further credence to the scientific research on concentration and time of day.
In the middle of the day, I try to make it a point to leave my desk for at least an hour to get some movement. Even if I have meetings scheduled, I will take them by phone so I can incorporate a walk around my neighborhood, the office, or if I have more time, to one of my favorite nearby hiking trails. This time in nature is so important to shake off the mental activity of the morning and practice a walking mediation to ground into the body. A walking meditation can be as simple as listening to my favorite playlist and jamming out while walking.
For me, midday movement helps to reduce the anxiety and restlessness associated with professionals working in demanding industries, creative careers, or scientific discovery. Sometimes I even bring a notebook with me because midday movement can spark big creative downloads and “ah-ha” moments that I will want to write down to incorporate the next day during my morning writing session.
After movement and lunch, I dedicate the afternoon to miscellaneous to dos, whether personal or professional to get things done off my checklist. For example, this is when I address my daily mountain of emails, make professional and personal appointments, or get a little cleaning or cooking done before my kids will come home.
Having this separation between my creativity peak in the morning and checklist mode in the afternoon, I feel I am able to accomplish a lot in one day without experiencing end-of-day burnout, regret, or overwhelm.
And since my kids are younger, my weekdays typically have to end at around 4 or 4:30pm. So if I am not traveling to give a talk or do an event, I love to follow this routine because it feels balanced.
At night once my kids are asleep, I always end my evening with homemade herbal tea and a beauty routine, not just for vain reasons, but because this time to do some at-home gua sha or moisturize is done in the spirit of my morning meditation or midday movement — it is time all to myself with peace and quiet to do something nice, just for me. This time alone taking care of myself helps remind me of my value and worth, especially in such a fast paced world where we often do not have this time alone to reflect on the day, pause, and do something kind for ourselves.
What lessons would you share with yourself if you had the opportunity to meet your younger self?
You are beautiful and worthy as you are. In that body, with that hair, with that skin — you are perfect. There is nothing outside of you that will complete you. No partner, no job, nothing — you are enough the way you came into this world.
Wholeness is not something you must earn or search for. It is you. You are already whole.
And stop pulling frenzied all-nighters! They are spiking your cortisol levels and leading to burnout. Get on the Chinese body clock routine instead and you’ll be more focused and thus productive with work deadlines, and you’ll have more time to chill and go out with friends.
Ok, thank you for sharing your inspired life. Let’s start with a basic definition to make sure that all of us are on the same page. How do you define Hustle Culture?
I like to keep it simple. Hustle Culture refers to beliefs and practices that encourage people to work faster, harder, and labor beyond their physical, psychological, and spiritual limits in order to compete with other people for money and success.
Hustle Culture is the quintessential rat race.
Now let’s discuss an alternative to Hustle Culture. To begin, can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority on the problems that come with Hustle Culture?
Personally, I like to think of myself as a survivor of Hustle Culture-induced burnout who is now on the other side of it.
Professionally, I have a PhD in sociology and through my research over the last decade have become an expert in human culture, how we as humans organize ourselves through institutions and laws, and the inequalities that arise from this. Much of my work exposes lies and uncovers dark truths. I examine what we take for granted and consider normal and then collect the necessary data to flip it on its head. Importantly, I am a dreamer and use my research findings to propose alternatives that reimagine how we could do things differently.
I consider Hustle Culture to be a major lie that continues to run rampant in our society at the expense of our peace and most importantly, our humanity. As the famous saying goes, we are humans being, not humans doing, but Hustle Culture is so engrained into our psyche that we believe the latter as a core belief.
I am also an herbalist and believe in the power of plant allies and what we now deem alternative medicines that have long been forgotten as a part of our normal day-to-day routine.
The specific term “Hustle Culture” may have been popularized in the 2010s, but the concept behind it and the behaviors that come with it can be traced back hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years. From your vantage point, experience, or research, what were the main drivers of Hustle Culture?
The rise of Hustle Culture in Europe and North America can be traced to the rapid transition from communal, agrarian societies to urban, industrialized ones. Prior to this, the vast majority of workers were certainly pushed to their limits toiling the fields for dukes, lords, and others with noble titles; however, the rise of the machine and factory work had significant effects on the routinization of the work day. Basically, factory and land owners employed scientists to determine the best way to organize the work day so that employees would be forced to labor beyond what was humanly possible so they could derive the most profit from their employees’ work without concern for their welfare. It is within this rise that we also see coordinated efforts by businesses, which would become corporations with staunch legal protections (especially in America), to break up employee efforts to unionize and protest against this particular version of Hustle Culture, which was trimming away their wages, working them literally to the bone, and polluting cities which were becoming increasingly more overcrowded. Think the invention of Ford Motors in America to get a clear picture of what I’m describing and if you like cinema, then think of the television series “Peaky Blinders” if you want a backdrop of what this looked like in Europe.
The main drivers then of Hustle Culture were industrialization, profit, and the subsequent migration of people from rural areas to urban ones in search of new work opportunities. This gave rise to metropolis cities, filled to the brim with people migrating from all of America and significantly, all over the world, to work in the burgeoning industries such as steel, oil, and railroads, to name a few. Again, if you love cinema, picture the television series “Warrior” based on the writings of Bruce Lee.
And so we can’t talk about the rise of Hustle Culture without understanding the industrial era, the belief in the American Dream, and the promise that people can make it in a capitalist world from any background if they only work hard. But what these beliefs and practices overshadowed was a dark reality that the majority of people in the poor and working classes were slaving away in horrendous factory and agricultural conditions (even children), for very little compensation.
These are the true roots of Hustle Culture. It is not glamorous, but instead a story of corporate greed, exploitation, and disregard for the needs of employees as human beings. This is why we must be honest about this history so we can rethink how we do our work by embodying new values and practices that will actually make it easier to achieve our dreams because are not killing ourselves to do it.
I work in the marketing industry, and so I’m very cognizant of this question. What role do you see that marketing and advertising has played in creating the frenzy caused by Hustle Culture that many of us feel?
Marketing and advertising work to create a frenzy around people’s self-worth. Meaning, they use signaling to convince people that they need something outside of themselves to feel complete. The industry’s goal is to create long-term customers and the only way that is achieved is by selling what buyers feel they are missing and often, what they feel they are missing is wholeness. People feel they aren’t pretty enough, fit enough, happy enough, rich enough — the list goes on. The entire industry’s foundation is rooted in the premise that you are not enough but you will be if you just work harder so you can buy all of the things you are missing. Hustle Culture thrives on this premise.
What exacerbates this premise is the reality that the vast majority of people in our country actually do not earn enough money to satisfy even their basic human needs such as shelter, food, clothing, and healthcare. This stark inequality is a dark truth that is often masked by Hustle Culture. Consequently, people come to believe the lie that their own laziness is the reason they don’t have both their basic needs and the material things that will complete them.
When in truth, material things will not complete them and the reason they do not have their basic needs met is because our society is structurally unequal — meaning there are real barriers and “glass ceilings” that impede the material success of women, people of color, and those coming from the working classes.
Hustle Culture works to overshadow all of these dark truths so that people individualize their problems and the lack characterizing their life, rather than seeing them as a part of a collective problem where the majority of people are setup to fail at the rat race from the beginning, with only a few people able to win from the outset.
Can you help articulate the downsides of Hustle Culture? Why is this an unsustainable work paradigm?
In a Hustle Culture society, we then idolize these few select winners rather than questioning the unequal system entirely.
In other words, everyone wants a seat at the table rather than creating an entirely new table to begin with.
The opposite of this rat race ethos is what inspires me: people and organizations that are innovating how we build our world, finding meaning and purpose in what we term “work,” and creating structures of work that do not play off people’s insecurities but instead help people know their inherent value as creative, capable, already whole human beings.
Hustle Culture inevitably leads to burnout for everyone because we all have limits.
Based on available scientific research, here are some innovative things small and large businesses could test out instead:
- Forbes recently highlighted how some business owners are re-organizing their work according to Human Design metrics in order to make better use of their employees gifts and prevent burnout.
- Results from an experiment on the financial and social impact of switching employees to a 6-hour workday showed the switch actually increased efficiency.
- A new study has found that hybrid work where employees work 1–2 days from home did not negatively impact productivity and instead, employees were just as productive and likely to be promoted, while having higher job satisfaction.
Let’s now discuss Focus, the opposite of Frenzy. Can you please share one area of your personal or business life where you simplified things and then felt less frenzied and more fulfilled? Can you please explain?
When I organized my workdays around the Chinese body clock and did the work to understand my Human Design results, my entire life changed both professionally and personally. There are many tools for understanding human beings (e.g. Myers Briggs) and Human Design is but one of them. The reason I like Human Design and think it is currently the best out there is because it blends the strengths of many different tools.
There are quite a few interpretations of Human Design, just like there are for Myers Briggs, but I like this interpretation and recommend it when asked: https://www.myhumandesign.com/
Once I really researched the meaning of my Human Design results, it helped me to understand what type of daily routine would work best for me, significantly simplifying my life from frenzied to starting a path to fulfillment. Once I did this, I had the energy and commitment necessary to develop what I term the DREAM Method, something I’m very excited to share with the world.
Okay, fantastic. Here is the main part of our interview. In your opinion, how can we break the addiction to being busy or trying to find the next big thing? How can people truly focus on tasks that make THE difference to their business and lives giving them satisfaction or life purpose alignment? Based on your experience and your area of expertise, can you please share “Five Ways To Move From Frenzy to Focused”? In other words, how would you describe a work paradigm that is a viable alternative to Hustle Culture? What would it look like, and what would you call it?
I call this the DREAM Method and I have never shared it publicly outside of my literary agent or publicist, so I’m thrilled to be able to share it with your readers first. I developed the DREAM Method after surviving a pretty vicious bout of burnout and decided something in my life needed to change. I blended my expertise in scientific research with herbalism and came up with DREAM. If your readers would like to know more, I encourage them to keep up with me to get the book and more!
In short, this is what the DREAM Method entails:
1 . Dream: Think of what you would do if you were granted one wish. What is your dream? Inside each of us is a dream waiting to be birthed. Turn your gaze inward and place your hands over your heart, asking yourself what would you do if your heart could have a dream come true. This tasks draws you to your true life purpose by igniting your imagination to dream beyond what you might think possible.
2 . Routine: Make your wish come true a little each day. To do this, how would you organize your day? Develop a realistic weekday routine that follows your body’s natural rhythms, write it down, and post it somewhere you can see it. I like the structure of the Chinese body clock routine, but for you, there could be a different way of organizing your routine. I also enjoy using the wisdom of my Human Design results so I can structure my days in a way that best honors my energy type. Also, for some people, having a DREAM community is very helpful — what I mean is have 2–3 trusted people in your life that you can share your DREAM with and then tell them your plans for routine, envision, authenticity, and mindfulness and ask them to share theirs. This DREAM community can act as a strong support system, and promote connection, accountability, and all extremely helpful toward realizing your DREAM.
3 . Envision: Create a vision board. What life do you wish to see? Though people like to joke about vision boards, there is a load of scientific evidence proving that if you can see it, you can believe it. Creative visualization is key to ordering your steps in the direction of your dreams and doing so in a focused, rather than frenzied, manner. Vision boards are one of my favorite tools for creative visualization because they are cheap, easy to create, and can even be fun. This activity is especially important for people who find themselves stuck in a cycle of stress and can’t seem to see their way out. A vision board provides clear direction and with that comes a clear intention for your mind, body, and spirit to follow.
4 . Authenticity: Lean into what makes you unique. How can you bring more of your authentic self into your work? Our society often encourages people to follow a set script and be just like everyone else. In sociology we call these “social norms” which are customs, practices, and ultimately ways of being that try to make us “normal.” However, social norms disrupt our innate authenticity and ability to see what makes us unique. Uniqueness is what gives people that special edge. We all love people who stand out from the crowd, but the only way to do that is to be your true self. If you are always trying to be like everyone else, then your dream will not come to pass because your dream is unique to you. Invest time to write down at least 1 page listing all of the ways you are unique and what you love about your authentic self. Put this list somewhere you can see it daily, like for example, taping it to the bathroom mirror. This will be your daily reminder that you are special, you are whole, and you are a unique human being that has something to offer the world.
5 . Mindfulness: Make mindfulness a part of your weekly routine. How can you incorporate mindfulness into your life? This could be a walk around your office or neighborhood a few times a week. For some it might be doing a guided meditation. For others mindfulness could be keeping a gratitude journal of everything and everyone you are grateful for and why. This could also be listening to your favorite playlist and moving your body to the music. Mindfulness is best when done simply. It is simply the act of intentionally unplugging from the hustle and bustle of our fast paced world, and doing something that brings you gratitude, peace, fun, love, or joy. Mindfulness will not only aid in promoting a grounded sense of being, but it will also allow you to receive some of the greatest inspiration for your dream because you aren’t in a state of stress. Stress is one of the number one inhibitors of creativity. For me, sometimes mindfulness is as simple as engaging in one of my favorite hobbies or taking care of my plants.
What life experiences have you adopted in your business or personal life that have left you more satisfied? Can you please explain?
I am grateful that during my recent sabbatical from university, I experienced travel to North Africa that changed my life by slowing down my days, thus pulling me back into my heart. When my daily focus was only on connection, building community, and writing from a place of inspiration, rather than productivity, these questions became the only true important focus:
How can I best connect with myself, with my fellow humans, and ultimately, with nature and the divine?
Everyone needs a reset like this once a year and for me this recent trip really helped me to reconsider what is important to me and let go of anything or anyone trying to hold me down.
Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources that have inspired you about working differently?
Audre Lorde’s famous quote on rest comes from her collection of essays, “A Burst of Light,” where she writes about dealing with illness:
“I had to examine, in my dreams as well as in my immune-function tests, the devastating effects of overextension. Overextending myself is not stretching myself. I had to accept how difficult it is to monitor the difference. Necessary for me as cutting down on sugar. Crucial. Physically. Psychically. Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
Her writing makes clear that self-care is not simply about treating yourself occasionally to something special, but instead learning to slow down and truly organize your days in a way that promotes thriving rather than survival is key.
I also love bell hooks’ treaty on nature titled “Touching the Earth” which for me acts as a confirmation and assurance that the love of nature instilled in me as a child is something that is innate for all of humans and remains an ethos we can come back to, to help ground and release Hustle Culture.
I also really love Einstein’s quotes on intuition and imagination, which I talk about at length in a piece I co-authored called “Creating Intuitively” that I come back to often. We wrote the piece to talk about what this concept means for scientists but it is something that can be expanded to all people who use creativity and innovation in their professional life. A copy of the piece can be found here.
For me, creating intuitively is to be in alignment with your purpose and gifts. We are all here to do something and we all have gifts. To create intuitively is to put your energy and resources into this mission for the express purpose of fulfilling it. This is the opposite of Hustle Culture because what you are creating is not coming from a place of lack. Instead, you know that you are already whole and because of your wholeness and all that naturally resides in you, you are the perfect person to do what you do very well.
It was my own personal and professional experiences that led me to weave all of this knowledge together in what I’ve developed as the DREAM Method.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can inspire.
I truly believe the DREAM Method will change people’s lives if it becomes a standard practice for business owners, creatives, scientists, and anyone looking to find their true purpose because this method is all about alignment. I hope it becomes a movement that frees people from the chains of Hustle Culture and helps them redirect their frenzied energy into mindful focus toward the realization of their DREAM.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
Sign up for my newsletter here or from my website www.brittanyfriedman.com and find me on Instagram @curlyprofessor
This way they can get early information and stay tuned about current and future offerings related to the DREAM Method, my latest book tour, and other projects. Would love to connect!
From Frenzy to Focus: Author Dr Brittany Friedman On How We Can Cancel Hustle Culture And Create A was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.