Have you had to hustle recently? Are you hustling right now?
The word “hustle” is used as shorthand for something entrepreneurs have to do. Sometimes a badge of honour, sometimes a survival tactic. Turns out that the hustle is actually a thing that can be named, defined, and studied.
According to researcher Daria Hakola from the Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics, hustling is the “urgent and unorthodox actions intended to be useful in addressing immediate challenges and opportunities under conditions of uncertainty”. Sounds about right to me! She says these things about hustle:
- Hustle is a temporary action, not a personality trait: Hustle is not a fixed behavioural pattern you are born with. It is something you do temporarily in response to immediate, situated demands.
- The “permission to hustle” shifts over time: In the early stages of a venture, you may have full “permission to hustle” to get things off the ground. However, as your business matures, operating in a state of perpetual emergency can lead to dysfunction.
- How others read your hustle matters: Hustle can give an impression of competence, commitment, and resourcefulness. But there’s a flip side: audiences can interpret those same actions negatively as desperate, disorganised, or manipulative, which ultimately damages your credibility.
- Beware the “dark side” of the grind: While popular culture often celebrates the hustle, it has a dark side, including extreme exhaustion, ethical boundary-pushing, and legitimacy risks.
A new corporate structure for creatives
Let’s start in Colorado (why not?). There, the state legislature is preparing to establish a new corporate structure for artists – the Artist Corporation, or “A-Corp”.
As reported by writer Sandy Battulga at CPR, the legislation, inspired by Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler’s TED Talk (“Forget Hustle Culture, it’s appropriately called, and is well worth a look), the A-Corp is a specialised limited liability company (LLC) which provides a framework that allows artists to share ownership of their work and codify clear rules for equity, decision-making, and royalty distribution.
A defining feature of the A-Corp is the requirement that creators maintain a controlling stake of at least 51% in their intellectual property. By formalising agreements within a legally binding entity, the A-Corp offers bands, design collectives, and collaborative groups a reliable way to manage assets, split royalties, and handle the eventual dissolution of a creative partnership. It would also be able to access public funding while maintaining private ownership.
For the broader creative community, the A-Corp represents a significant step toward professional legitimacy. The article quotes Boulder-based performing artist and poet Maggie Saunders, who argues that the formal structure validates art as a serious and sustainable career path rather than a hobby, while advocates hope it will eventually ease access to group health insurance (very important in the States). Let’s see if it’s an idea that catches on outside Colorado.
Gender matters for entrepreneurs with ADHD
Here’s one for the neuro-spicy among us. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is sometimes held up as a “superpower” for those starting businesses. But in this report, author Avery Miles outlines a study that tracked more than 4,000 respondents for 28 years to analyse the direct links between childhood ADHD and adult self-employment. The research, authored by Mi Hoang Tran, reveals that ADHD by itself does not automatically drive individuals toward business ownership (or keep them out of it) when family background, poverty, and other socioeconomic variables are factored in.
However, there is a difference between genders. The study uncovered a positive association between childhood ADHD and entrepreneurship among men, who successfully pursue self-employment. However, for women with the same cognitive abilities and childhood ADHD characteristics, the trend completely flips, resulting in the lowest rates of business ownership.
Tran’s research suggests that these diverging outcomes are rooted in how both entrepreneurship and ADHD traits are filtered through a gendered lens. Men and women experience vastly different social support systems, risk tolerances, and cultural expectations when attempting to launch a business. So, ADHD is not a universal boon for would-be entrepreneurs; rather, its commercial utility is dependent on the gendered and social environment in which the individual operates.
Music catalogues become tradable assets
Music rights are, of course, big business, but they’re also increasingly becoming the target of mainstream investors. On pehub.com, entertainment lawyer Josh Love says that huge investment funds set up in recent years are now actively buying and selling music catalogues and attracting new investors. As a result, major music companies are teaming up more closely with financial firms to raise the money and build the partnerships needed to compete for big-ticket catalogue deals. Two recent examples: Concord’s merger with rival BMG, and The Weeknd’s $1 billion joint venture with Lyric Capital.
These deals work, says Love, because record labels and investment firms bring different but complementary strengths to the table. Investment firms get access to the labels’ industry connections, know-how, and deal-making experience. In return, labels get the capital they need to stay competitive. Labels also bring something investors can’t easily replicate: the infrastructure and administrative expertise to squeeze long-term value out of a catalogue, whether that’s through sync licensing (getting songs into ads, films and TV), streaming revenue, or riding a wave of sudden TikTok popularity.
Artificial intelligence is also reshaping the picture, for better and worse. On the upside, Love says AI could make it much easier to manage metadata, process royalties, and handle licensing across the millions of tiny transactions that happen every day. But rights-holders are also moving quickly to protect their IP, striking licensing deals and partnerships with AI companies to make sure they get paid as new AI-driven revenue streams emerge.
Japan looks to creative industries to grow its economy
Next, to Japan, which has officially integrated its content industry into its core national security and economic strategy, designating it as a priority growth sector to counter a shrinking domestic market. On csis.org, Makoto Tsujiguchi details how the Japanese government, under the Takaichi administration, has doubled its promotional budget and established massive public-private investment goals of ¥33.7 trillion to propel overseas content revenues to ¥20 trillion by 2033.
The commercial strategy here? Combining Japan’s legendary library of original IP with dominant United States digital distribution platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube. Japan holds a unique position as a global IP factory, originating ten of the top twenty-five highest-grossing entertainment franchises in history, including Pokémon, One Piece and Hello Kitty. US streaming giants leverage this pipeline to sustain subscriber growth (anime viewership on Netflix has tripled in recent years).
This partnership between the US and Japan also carries real geopolitical significance. China’s state-backed game publishers are expanding into Southeast Asia and the Global South with hit titles like Genshin Impact. Against that backdrop, the US-Japan alliance stands out as a democratic counterweight, built on open platforms and creative freedom rather than state control.
These cultural ties also work as a form of soft power. They keep global interest in Japanese culture and language alive – over 90% of American Japanese-language learners say entertainment is what first drew them in. For a country with negative population growth, the creative industries are offering Japan an economic boost without requiring large-scale manpower.
The neutralisation of nostalgia
Do you prefer to watch an old TV show from the 90s than trying out something new? Retro content is everywhere these days, but the very technology that’s made it so popular might be quietly killing off the real feeling of nostalgia. On The Conversation, Jonatan Sodergren argues that because the past is now available anytime, anywhere, on digital platforms, it’s losing the emotional pull that marketers are trying to cash in on. Traditionally, nostalgia has been a bittersweet feeling that depends on distance, loss, and the realisation that a particular moment can never truly come back.
Today’s digital economy runs on three main tricks: preservation, restoration, and what Sodergren calls “foreverisation.” Through cloud archiving, AI-powered remastering, and endless reboots of old franchises, creative industries keep popular culture permanently on sale. Take gaming, for example: classic titles that once faded from memory because the hardware became outdated are now just a subscription away. The result? Instead of looking back on the past from a distance, we live alongside it constantly and that removes the sense of loss that real nostalgia needs to take hold.
This shift creates a real problem for creative businesses. When the past never really ends, nostalgia gets replaced by something much shallower: familiarity, comfort, and passive recognition. Those feelings still sell well, especially in uncertain times but constantly recycling old material risks running the well dry. When everything is available on tap, what will we harken back to?
Finally, a quick recommendation. I recently had the chance to collaborate with Ronit Fazekas on some client work. She’s a certified financial coach who specialises in helping people in the arts industry. She’s full of great, practical ideas for taking the heat out of financial stress for creatives. Her newsletter is packed with useful tips, well worth signing up: www.mymoneypractise.com/newsletter
Until September!