Someone recently sent me this video and asked what my take is on this.

I think SRK is 100% correct. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it takes hard work to build remarkable things. But if SRK is being truthful and my intuition is correct, then I posit that this lifestyle is not sustainable. 

So one has to be very, very careful when consuming motivational speeches. Anything that has uplifting background music is designed to make you feel a certain way. It may or not be true. And it almost certainly isn't the whole truth.

So when faced with a video like this, or any of the millions of hustle-porn videos that cover YouTube wall-to-wall, and especially on the short video format, you have to remember a few things

• how old are you? If you're young and yet to be established in a career, then this is definitely the correct advice. Nothing worthwhile was built without effort.
• Now consider this - if you're listening to an Olympic athlete or a film star, consider that they had the finest training and a team dedicated to ensuring that they eat right, rest right and do not train to the point of injury. You do not have this.
• if you're listening to a social media influencer, wait a bit. All influencers will burn out given enough time. You will start to see them say things like 'creative juices not flowing' and so on.
• you can also ask yourself - is this the only truth there is? Is it a truth that covers all people and all situations? Frankly, what else is SRK going to say to a mass audience? That hard work is not critical? It absolutely is. I agree whole-heartedly with that. It's just that it is not the only truth out there. A great work ethic needs a great rest ethic.

And of course, this book doesn't promote sabbatical as anything apart from the necessary complement to hard work. It is commonly known that running is good for you. One should run. But it is also common sense to not run when one's feet are fractured, no matter how much of a virtue Internet influencers may make of 'never giving up'.

One of the central tenets of this publication is that one should listen to one's body. Your body is a magical truth-finding machine. When your body is happy and healthy it will find ways to be useful. It will want to work. When you feel fine you should work and you should work very hard. But when you are exhausted, burnt out, out of ideas or not making progress, it might be useful to take a different approach.

Even SRK would agree.