Hustle Monkey Culture Is Hollowing Out Nursing

I am sure xxxpreneur Academy [insert hustle here] is run by genuinely good, likable people. Having a significant following doesn’t necessarily mean someone on social media has bad intentions. When I refer to xxxpreneur Academy and hustle-monkey culture, I’m not attacking the people behind it, but the methods and processes.

And to be clear, this isn’t just about xxx—there are dozens and dozens of similar accounts operating the same model across nursing social media.

Which is exactly why the model, not the individual, deserves scrutiny.

But good people can still profit from bad systems. And intent does not erase impact.

What we are watching unfold in nursing right now is hustle monkey culture—a recycled internet playbook that turns burnout into content and desperation into revenue.

And yes, I’m annoyed. Not because of disagreement, but because blocking critique instead of engaging it is a tell. When dissent threatens the brand, the conversation ends.

The posts are interchangeable at this point.

Balcony shots.Candid “making dinner” clips.Laptop-on-the-couch freedom porn.

The same hustle monkey imagery copy-pasted across the internet.

“This is me.”

“This is freedom.”

“This is six figures.”

The subtext isn’t subtle: this lifestyle exists because nurses like you are buying the courses that fund it.

That’s not inspiration. That’s extraction dressed up as aspiration.

Here’s the hustle monkey model, stripped of aesthetics:

• Recruit burned-out nurses.

• Convince them the bedside is a dead end.

• Sell them courses, coaching, and “DM me” promises.Teach them to quit nursing.

• Then teach them to sell courses to other nurses who want to quit.

Follow that logic all the way through.

1. Nurses leave the bedside.

2. They sell digital products to other nurses trying to leave.

3. Those nurses are trained to sell products to more nurses trying to escape.

4. No new value enters the system.

5. No external problem is solved.

6. No profession is strengthened.

The system cannibalizes itself.

Burnout is the raw material. Disillusionment is the funnel. Desperation is the product.

And here is the part I’m saying from lived experience, not theory:

I know this profession is hard. I’ve spent over 30 years in nursing. I’ve watched good nurses age faster than they should, carry injuries they never recover from, and internalize failures that were never theirs.

But hear this clearly: Buyer beware.

There are people feeding on your desperation.

Not everyone offering an escape is offering a solution. Not everyone selling freedom is creating value. And not everyone who left nursing is qualified to coach others out of it.

“This system broke me” is not expertise.

“Escape worked for me” is not leadership.

And trauma is not a business credential.

Hustle monkey culture reframes systemic failure as personal responsibility. If you’re still exhausted, still underpaid, still stuck—well, you just didn’t monetize yourself correctly.

That’s not empowerment.That’s blame with better lighting.

Nursing is hard—physically, cognitively, morally. But when mass exit is marketed as success, the profession is being strip-mined, not liberated.

Because this model does nothing to:

• Fix staffing

• Improve patient safety

• Build clinical leadership

• Protect future nurses

It just turns nurses into each other’s customers.

And when six-figure promises rely primarily on other nurses being desperate enough to buy their way out, the system isn’t just unstable—it’s unethical.

If you want a coach, find someone who survived nursing and stayed accountable to it—not someone whose lifestyle depends on convincing others to leave.

Nurses do not need to be fixed.They do not need to become brands.They do not need to monetize their burnout to deserve humane working conditions.

We don’t need more hustle monkeys selling the same exit ramp to one another.

We need systems that stop breaking nurses in the first place.

Author: R.E. Hengsterman, MSN, MA, M.E., RN

Registered nurse, night-shift administrator, and author of The Shift Worker’s Paradox

Nursewhowrites.com

For educational purposes only. Not medical advice.

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