How to Outsmart Society and Stop Living by Its Rules (Part 2)

Principle Number three: hustle culture isn’t about success; it’s about control.

So, effort is glorified for a reason. Not because it works, but because it keeps people busy and because it keeps a few people who can hustle hard enough at the top. So, you look around today, we’ve got a Navy SEAL, hyper-masculine male hustle culture. Both at work on YouTube and on social media, it’s this idea that if you’re not working hard every second of the day, someone somewhere is.

And when you meet them, they will win, right? It’s pretty wild, but. We’ve been so indoctrinated into the fact that you have to work really hard and burn yourself out to be successful that we’ve created another set of rules that says if you don’t do that, whatever you’re doing isn’t meaningful.

 We think about how crazy that is. And so, effort and hustle and grinding become an identity. Instead of I’m someone who enjoys my life, or I’m someone who knows who I am, I say yes and no to the rules to stay in integrity with who I am and what I believe. The system benefits when people try harder instead of living authentically. And a lot of these rules are around working hard or sacrificing yourself or doing it all.

About something that people never look at, which is your emotional state. See, humans don’t make decisions; they make decisions from emotional states. And different states produce completely different realities. So, what I would describe as primal states are survival-based states, and they create urgency, scarcity, comparison, fear and shame. Powerful states are abundance-based. They create clarity. They create presence, trust, wealth, and decisiveness, and hustle culture keeps people locked into primal states by constantly activating the nervous system.

Pressure around money, pressure around time, pressure around performance and status. It keeps us in survival mode. And a nervous system in survival mode does not create; it complies. So, from that state, effort feels necessary. Safety feels uncertain, and this is why over-effort is rewarded because it plays off of a fear that we are all falling behind.

 The moment you believe you’re behind or running out of time, or you need to catch up, you’ve entered the game of outsmarting. Society doesn’t start with more effort. It starts with a shift of perspective, a shift in values, and a shift in your emotional state. And when alignment starts to replace force, you step into a different reality, which is timeline collapse. There’s less intensity; there’s more momentum—and always better results.

 Principle number 4: the real trap is rules. It’s permission.

 So, the deepest conditioning isn’t actually obedience. It’s conditioning somewhat too late. So, it’s conditioning someone to have to ask for permission to rest, or permission to pivot, or permission to want more permission to want something unconventional. Most people aren’t stopped by force. Imagined consequences stop them if they don’t get permission. And that comes out of fear of judgment. It shapes the decisions more than logic ever could, and so hesitation gets framed as being responsible.

But most of the time it’s just a fear of standing alone. I met a woman years ago who wanted to leave her job. She was working in the hospital to do what she was really passionate about: her artwork. She wanted to open up a retail store, but she was super afraid to do it, and she told me she has a teenage son and it would be quite irresponsible of her to do that. And so, I asked her, I said, hey, what’s more important in terms of what you model for your son: how much money you make and financial security or following your dreams and pursuing your passion? So, she paused for a moment. She said 100%. Modeling independence and pursuing her dreams was the most important thing to model for her son.

And so I asked her again, what is responsible then? Staying with your job or following your passion? See, most people get it completely backward. And here’s the thing: the system doesn’t need to stop you; it just needs you to doubt yourself, the people. Make the moves. They are smarter or faster; they’re just not divided internally.

The moment someone stops waiting for permission, momentum shifts immediately. You start noticing how often hesitation has nothing to do with readiness and everything to do with getting approval or permission. And what every person who has escaped the Matrix will tell you is that all you need to do is.

A decision is not reckless. A decision is a command. And when you decide, your reality begins to reorganize. That’s why Scripture says thou shalt decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee, and the light shall shine upon thy way. That’s the very beginning of the Bible. There’s the first command. God said, ” Let there be light,” and there was. When you decide, life responds differently. So, start deciding. Stop asking to be allowed, and see that your entire reality will change.

Principle number 5: You don’t win the game by escaping it; you win by no longer being ruled by it.

Now, outsmarting society doesn’t mean rejecting it, and it definitely doesn’t mean fighting it. Fighting the system keeps it central in your mind; it keeps your energy entangled with it. What you pay attention to gets more prominent in your life. And that’s why so many people who realize they’re trapped in the system stay stuck because they spend the rest of their lives trying to fight it. You van read the part one here.