Why Hustle Culture Alone Won’t Save Your Business

In this video, Matt reacts to a clip where an entrepreneur shares the intense pressure of running a high-debt, high-stakes business and the mindset he believes is necessary to succeed — always grinding, never getting complacent, and staying in constant motion to avoid collapse.

While he respects the hustle, Matt dives into why this “always-on” mentality can be dangerous without structure. Instead of running your business on anxiety and sheer willpower, you need well-thought-out systems, backup plans, and a strong understanding of your numbers. Success doesn’t come from constant paranoia — it comes from preparation, accountability, and smart risk management.

Matt also questions the framing of entrepreneurship as a test of masculinity and argues that resilience, strategy, and effort are universal traits for any serious business owner. Watch as I break it all down and share a more sustainable approach to thriving in business without burning out.

There are tons of people out on social media giving business advice. Some of it is good advice, but most of it isn’t good. In this series watch CapForge’s owner react to different advice videos. He’s an expert in all things business and has 20+ years of experience under his belt. Some of the things he reacts to might even surprise you!

Video Transcript: 

Business Advice Video:

Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. If you can’t handle the pressure of the game, especially going into $1,000,000 in debt, you could crumble real quick with a few easy mistakes. I need to know as a man that I tried my hardest. Yeah, just like something I live by. So I don’t really get too complacent too often. Yeah, you know, I can’t. I get really nervous if I’m lounging around for a little too long or I know that I should be working and I’m not. Yeah, I’m really always on the ball because out of all honesty, going into year five, we have a really big business, lots of debt. I’ll be up front and we’re doing great. Everything’s right under control, right where it should be, but things can happen quick. 

Matt’s Review: 

Okay, so yes, you don’t want to get too complacent. You do want to be able to make sure that you’re on top of your business, but really you should have systems in place to let you know way ahead of time if things are not going the way you want, and you should have backup plans and contingency plans. If this happens, I’ll do this, if that happens, I’ll do that, so that you don’t have to try to be reactionary and every day be worried about something happening. You shouldn’t go into things unless you know you have a few different ways out. At some point, you do have to take some risks. That’s part of business, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a plan B and a plan C. And make sure that you’ve weighed all the pros and cons and the risks before you make a decision. If you’re flying by the seat of your pants, absolutely, you can get yourself in trouble pretty quickly. But if you know what you’re doing, you have a solid plan, you have backup plans, you understand your numbers well and you’re keeping a close eye on things, or you have a team, even better, that’s also keeping an eye on things and they’re accountable and you’re monitoring them, then you should be able to survive just about anything and get through just about any situation. I’m not sure what being a man has to do with it. I think any responsible business owner should feel that they’ve tried their hardest to be successful and made their best effort to keep things going. The advice is, it sounds like kind of be paranoid all the time and never get complacent. I would position it differently and say have good systems and processes in place and have a plan B and a plan C for anything you do. And that should let you sleep fine at night.