Author Rahaf Harfoush Addresses Epidemic of Work Burnout in New Book: 'Hustle & Float: Reclaim Your Creativity and Thrive in a World Obsessed With Work'

TORONTO, Feb. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- As we struggle to keep up in a knowledge economy that never sleeps, we grasp at anything that will help us work faster, push harder and produce more. There's just one problem: most of these solutions are making things worse. Creativity is not something that you can produce on an assembly line and this endless hustle is ruining our mental and physical health, while subtracting from our creative performance. But we can't seem to stop ourselves.

Why do we act against our own creative best interests?

New York Times best-selling author and renowned Digital Anthropologist Rahaf Harfoush explores the answers to this fascinating question in her newest non-fiction work: "Hustle & Float." Harfoush will also launch her book at the Rotman School of Management, in conversation with Lisa Kimmel, CEO and President, Edelman Canada, on the same day.

Synopsis:

"We Idolize creativity but worship productivity."

Over the course of a comprehensive three-year research project, Rahaf Harfoush has discovered that instead of focusing on how we work, we must understand why we work. And why we believe that what we do determines who we are.

Part big-idea book, part prescriptive guide, "Hustle and Float" explores the ideological tensions that lie at the heart of creative performance and traces the complicated, fascinating and messy relationship we have with work. "Hustle and Float" explores the ideological tensions that lie at the heart of creative performance. Harfoush offers a compelling mix of actions and tools that professional creatives can use to begin working better within their own creative best interest.

"Our modern-day heroes include entrepreneurs, CEOs and celebrities who have turned their talents into financial success, usually through highly mythologized accounts of hard work. These stories share common themes including putting in long days, a lack of sleep, and a pride in outperforming competitors through sheer endurance and strength," Harfoush writes.

"We treat our work as an extreme sport, where our struggles and sacrifices in the name of our job are glorified. We've fused our self-identity to our profession, within a culture that values nonstop momentum as a validator of skill and strength. It's not working."

About Rahaf Harfoush

A strategist, Digital Anthropologist and best-selling author, Rahaf Harfoush is the Executive Director of the Red Thread Institute of Digital Culture. She currently teaches "Innovation & Emerging Business Models" at Sciences Po's School of Management and Innovation. Formerly, Rahaf was the Associate Director of the Technology Pioneer Program at the World Economic Forum in Geneva. Her work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Wired, The Globe and Mail, Fast Company, Techonomy and The Next Web. She is currently working on "Infobeisity," a book that explores data, knowledge and society's relationship with knowledge.

"Hustle & Float" Launch Event Details

• Date: Tuesday, February 19, 2019; 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
• Topic: Materials and research related to Harfoush's new book, "Hustle & Float."
• Location: Fleck Atrium, ground floor, North Building; Rotman School of Management; 105 St. George Street; University of Toronto in Ontario.
• Cost: $22.50 plus HST per person (includes one paperback copy of "Hustle & Float" and one seat for the session).
• For more launch event details, click HERE.

Contact:

Patrick Nelson
Speakers Associates
[email protected] 
+44 (0)7985 301942

SOURCE Rahaf Harfoush