Matt Laurinas of Bluecrew: The Five-Year Strategic Planning Test That Destroys Toxic Hustle Culture

“Hustle Culture” is an ethos often propounded by young self-proclaimed internet gurus that centers around the idea that working long hours and sacrificing self-care are required to succeed. This mentality may have gained popularity in the mid-2010s, but it has peaked, and now it has been sardonically renamed “Burnout Culture.” So why exactly is Hustle Culture the wrong path to take? What damage can it cause? What is a viable, sustainable alternative to hustle culture? How can we move from Frenzy To Focus? In this interview series, we are talking to business leaders, mental health leaders, marketing experts, business coaches, authors, and thought leaders who can share stories and insights about “How We Can Cancel Hustle Culture And Create A New Sustainable Work Paradigm.”

As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Matt Laurinas.

Matt Laurinas is the Chief Customer Officer at Bluecrew, the Workforce-as-a-Service platform. An accomplished professional with progressive experience defining and driving sales strategies, Matt has a proven track record of growing sales/revenue, creating innovative customer retention plans, implementing key initiatives, and supporting corporate financial structures. Before Bluecrew, Matt served as the Head of Sales at Uber Works. Prior to tha the worked as the VP of Customer Success at CareerBuilder.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Tell us about your typical day!

I typically start my days by waking up around 3:30 in the morning so I can get a workout in before anything else — it might seem early (and it is!) but doing something active first thing in the morning gives me a jump start on the rest of my day, kicking things off with a sense of accomplishment. From there, I might comb through email before my favorite part of the morning: taking a walk with my son. I love spending time with him when he first wakes up and before I head to work for the day — it helps to ground me.

When I get into the office, I typically play a bit of catch up to make sure I’m prepared for my meetings of the day. Then I spend most of my day meeting with people — across my organization and with our customers. Regardless of where my workday takes me, I always try to end my day right at five so I can get home, eat dinner with my family, spend time with my wife and son, and relax.

What lessons would you share with yourself if you had the opportunity to meet your younger self?

I have two:

The first, is that you only get one opportunity in life to experience it all. Early on in my career, I had an all-work-no-play mentality; looking back, I neglected some of the smaller things in life in favor of getting more done. I would have loved my younger self to think about that, and I might have told that version of me: ‘it’s great that you want to work hard and get ahead in your career, but there are more important — sometimes small — things that are going to help you be a better person, both in and outside of work — and you’re missing them.’ Now, when I get out and experience those little moments — like spending an hour each morning taking my son for a walk or sitting around the dinner table with my family every night — I cherish them and find that I’m more focused on all of it.

The second lesson is that the road to success is never a straight line — there are going to be a lot of bumps, but it’s how you frame those hiccups that matter. It’s important to use these bumps as an opportunity to learn and get better vs. getting frustrated and giving up. When I was younger, I often looked at those bumps as an excuse to stop and feel bad for myself when I should have been reflecting on the lessons that these moments had to teach me. Now, I try to reframe these obstacles, visualizing how I can use them as launch pads to make myself and the people around me even better; or how we can make it a smaller bump in the future. The bottom line is, mistakes are inevitable, it’s how you come back from them that counts.

How do you define Hustle Culture?

When we hear the word ‘hustle,’ it often evokes a feeling that if you’re not constantly working, you’re falling behind — but this just simply isn’t true. Yes, there are certain aspects of the hustle that people can and should embody to get ahead, but it doesn’t have to be approached that way. No one should need to work 12 hours a day without pause to be successful — there are other, better, and more strategic ways of going about advancing in your career.

Oftentimes, the people who are hustling haven’t taken the necessary step back to define their career goals, whether they be short or long term. Does it make sense to put in the 12-hour days if you haven’t determined where you want to be in six months, one year, or even 10 years from now? When it comes to hustling, it’s always more beneficial to scope out the five-year plan; once you have your targets outlined, it’s possible to put structure in place around how to efficiently hustle toward them.

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?

As the Chief Customer Officer at a Workforce-as-a-Service platform, my days are spent connecting with workers — and hustlers — of all types; from executives at major corporations across supply chain, manufacturing, and hospitality, to hourly workers filling critical positions at all of the above. My relationships and conversations with these individuals, coupled with my own experience in the workforce, has given me a unique perspective around what it means to hustle effectively.

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?

Technology has had a definitive impact on hustle culture as we know it, likely because it never turns off. When I started my career, I didn’t have access to my email when I left work; my customers didn’t have my cell phone number — all I had was a simple flip phone! As we got into the 2010s, and everyone became equipped with (and attached to) a smart device, the components of work that were once reserved for the office came home with you. Now, every time we receive an email, we feel obligated to respond; customers have our phone numbers, and we always want to answer.

The pandemic has exacerbated this even further with the onset of remote and hybrid work. While remote work is fantastic — and has opened doors we may have never dreamed possible three years ago — those who continue to work from home must define boundaries and carve time out to actively turn off. It’s very easy to let the workday bleed into your personal time when your desk and kitchen table are one in the same — it’s important to carve out space for work and life to exist separately.

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?

I think marketing and social media have taken hustle culture to the height it lives at today, making the grind seem like a lifestyle worth attaining. We see people romanticizing the fact that they’re working 12-to-18-hour days, or stories of “how successful people got ahead,” which often lean into the same sort of themes. The reality of these long days is probably much less glamorous than they seem, but that’s the power of social media: it rubs off on people and becomes aspirational.

Can you help articulate the downsides of Hustle Culture? Why is this an unsustainable work paradigm?

Hustle culture is inherently inefficient — both personally and professionally. Not only does “the hustle” often take people away from other pleasures in their life — family and friends, travel, physical activity, etc. — it’s often a lot of grind without a lot of purpose. It’s far more beneficial to establish goals and work toward them in a way that leaves space for personal time and enjoyment, than it is to work around the clock and eventually burn yourself out. Besides, what is drive if you don’t know precisely what you’re driving toward?

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?

The birth of my son really shifted my perspective on business and life overall; in an instant, I realized that I needed to create boundaries in my career to prioritize spending time with him and my wife — and I feel so fulfilled in being able to do that.

I’ve always been an inbox-at-zero kind of guy (my calendar is even color-coded based on meetings and priorities!), but in the last year and a half, as the business has shifted, I have worked to become more strategic about how I am spending my time. Am I dedicating my time to meetings where I’m going to have an influence? Am I providing value to this task? Or would my time be better spent tackling higher priority items? Every day I work to make sure I budget my time to be the most productive I can be for both myself and the business overall.

What life experiences have you adopted in your business or personal life that have left you more satisfied? Can you please explain?

This is a small but important habit I’ve adopted: when appropriate, consider blocking time on your calendar just for yourself — and protect it at all costs! Personally, I have several hours booked every Friday, and I don’t let anyone take it unless it’s necessary. This gives me structured time to focus on successfully wrapping up for the week and enables me to head into the weekend knowing all my boxes have been checked. For me, focus is all about being intentional.

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”?

1. BE INTENTIONAL: Time is precious, in both business and our personal lives. It’s so important to be intentional about where you’re focusing your time and energy — and how. Putting intention behind everything you do will help to calm the frenzy and hone the focus.

2. CREATE BOUNDARIES (AND STICK TO THEM): This is especially important for those working in a remote or hybrid environment. The bottom line is this: the hustle to get ahead in your career should not come at the cost of your personal time. Create boundaries that allow you to focus on work when you’re at work, and home when you’re at home. And communicate those boundaries with the people that matter (your colleagues, your partner, etc.) to make sure they’re respected and adhered to.

3. DON’T LET PERFECTION BE THE ENEMY OF PROGRESS: The way of the working world is constantly evolving and it’s easy to get lost in the hustle, striving towards continued innovation in order to keep up. But trying to work toward perfection often puts us squarely into the bucket of ‘frenzy’ — and typically keeps us from actually hitting our goals.

4. OUTLINE AND WORK TOWARD ACHIEVABLE GOALS: How can you achieve focus if you don’t know what you’re focusing on!? Hustling for the sake of it is typically inefficient and ineffective. The true magic begins when you’re able to focus on the goals you’re working toward and create a blueprint for reaching them.

5. LEARN SOMETHING NEW — PERSONALLY & PROFESSIONALLY — EVERYDAY: If anything should trickle over from our working lives into our personal lives, it’s this! As working professionals, we’re constantly striving to better ourselves on the job, but the lessons learned in our lives — at home with family, amongst friends — are just as important and can often lend to our careers as well. In both facets of life, it’s important to learn from our mistakes and (if possible!) have a little fun while we’re doing it. Life can be so serious, and we can get so wrapped up in our failures — which only results in frenzy. Step away, come back, analyze what you learned, and allow it to make you better in every aspect of life.

BONUS — 6: APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT SYSTEM: Allow the ones closest to you to act as meaningful reminders of everything you’re working toward, every single day.

Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources that have inspired you about working differently?

As someone who works with people across industries (logistics, hospitality, industrial, etc.) I always try to read three or four trade articles a day — this helps me to better understand the pain points my customers are working to solve, and ways in which my company can help. Every morning I send an email to my team, summarizing what I’ve learned through my industry reading. I also turn to business publications like Inc. and Fortune to help me take in life lessons that help me to grow.

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 am super passionate about Bluecrew’s mission to help hourly workers. If I could support any mission, it would be providing support to blue collar workers, who truly are the backbone of our country but don’t always get the credit — or opportunities — they deserve. I hope to continue providing avenues for continued education, upskilling, and growth to the hourly workforce.

What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: For 30 years, Drew Gerber has been inspiring those who want to change the world. Drew is the CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., a full-service PR agency lauded by PR Week and Good Morning America. Wasabi Publicity, Inc. is a global marketing company that supports industry leaders, change agents, unconventional thinkers, companies and organizations that strive to make a difference. Whether it’s branding, traditional PR or social media marketing, every campaign is instilled with passion, creativity and brilliance to powerfully tell their clients’ story and amplify their intentions in the world. Schedule a free consultation at WasabiPublicity.com/Choosing-Publicity.