Especially relevant in big companies. When you develop an intricate, sought after skill set, but never rise to the level that was possible from your early potential, that may have been/still could be achievable elsewhere.
Zach has a PhD from an ivy league college, and has built enviable experience, but has never risen above director level in the blue chip company he works for. He's become little more than someone else's bonzai tree, and should probably leave, in order to become a red wood.
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".