This is a phrase that British actor/singer Murray Head says when he sees an array of nude Thai stripper girls in the video for the 1985 hit "One Night in Bangkok". That song is featured in the Cold War-themed romantic adventure musical "Chess", which was written by the men of ABBA and appeared on Broadway in 1988.
Rocky, Freddy and Frankie are watching cable TV in their dorm room. The 1983 movie "Class" is being shown on HBO. It stars Jacqueline Bisset as a Mrs. Robinson type. You get the idea. After this preppy-ass boarding school kid meets her in a bar they are later in a shopping mall, in an elevator all by themselves and they kanoodle and he goes down on her and there is some noise being made. Frankie is disgusted by what he sees. He says strongly "I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine!"
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”
Someone who is addicted to obtaining money and building wealth. A money addict and fanatic. Breadheads often work more than one full-time job, and some even participate in illicit activities to "obtain the bread".