Why Work-Life Balance is Overrated When Starting a Business

Everyone seems to want to start a business these days. 🚀

The stats are staggering:

• 60% of millennials and Gen Z aspire to start their own business (source)

• About 40% of traditionally employed Americans are considering becoming entrepreneurs, saying it's "somewhat likely" they'll work for themselves within the next two years (source)

• The number of new business applications has jumped nearly 50% in the past decade, with 2021 and 2022 breaking records (source)

Social media has glamorized entrepreneurship, making it seem accessible to everyone and that success comes easy. Yes, it's never been easier to start and make money online, but easier doesn't mean easy.

Here's the reality no one talks about: People are being sold a dream that might not be for them. There's more competition than ever. It still requires skills, hard work, patience, and so much more. The cost of this trend? People are burning their wings because they don't realize what it actually takes.

And if you want to succeed, you need to throw away one of the most popular pieces of advice out there...

📸 Always on…

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We often hear about work-life balance. We hear stories about people giving up their personal lives to their work and regretting it later. We hear about people burning out after a while.

I get it. Balance is important in life, and we need to create sustainable systems around us to live healthy, long lives.

I believe that.

You can feel the but 🍑 coming, right?

BUT, I also believe if you want to start and grow a business and make it financially sustainable... you need to completely throw away this balance and become obsessed with it.

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Some of you might not agree with me, and that's okay.

If you've tried or are trying to grow a business, you know that at some point during the process, it consumes you. It sucks up all your brain space and energy. You think about it from the moment you wake up to the time you finally fall asleep. You'll be lucky if you don't dream about it.

When you embark on this journey and you're passionate about what you're doing, I think it's pretty much inevitable.

It's something probably hard to comprehend if you haven't actually experienced it... which is why it often feels lonely to be in this position when no one else around you is also going through it.

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I get it because I've been there. When I started, I thought passion was enough. I believed I could just wing it and things would work out.

That's probably why I'm on attempt number 14 in my entrepreneurship journey. 😅

My biggest frustration is hearing people, close to me or far away, saying they want to start a business or complaining about their stagnating business... but they have never studied business, never opened a business book, never invested in a business course or coach, or never watched a business YouTube video.

I'm like... what did you expect? 🤷‍♂️

How can you be surprised that you don't know where to start or that you're failing? You thought you would just be naturally good at it? You'd be graced by business knowledge being downloaded into your brain?

Come on. Wake up, please. 😴

When you want to learn a musical instrument, you take lessons. When you want to play a sport competitively, you hire a coach. But when you start a business, no... just wing it. Sure, why not!

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But even if you have done all that study and preparation, I think the degree of obsession you put into your business has a direct correlation to the output and outcome.

I don't have any proof or stats... but when you look around and analyze successful businesses... more often than not, their founders have poured their soul into it for years before reaching success.

Take Elon Musk (I know, I know, but hear me out). He runs Tesla, SpaceX, Neurolink, and X. Any one of those companies would burn out a normal founder, yet he deals with all of them at once. That's obsession in action.

It's not just famous founders either. I was part of a young startup in France, and I witnessed firsthand the time the three co-founders had to invest to grow the company. We were messaging on Slack at 11pm most nights. It was intense, but it was necessary.

That obsession rubbed off on me as an employee. I was nearly as obsessed as the founders, and I think that's why I had all the growth and opportunities within the company that eventually led me to move to Miami.

Later, as a founder myself, my experience with Warrior Flow School proved this point. It was the first time I really decided to focus all my energy into one thing. My co-founder and I were obsessed. We talked for hours every day for months on end. That's one of the reasons we were able to make 100K+ revenue in year two. Nothing beats hard work.

What does obsession actually look like? It doesn't have to mean working more and more hours, because at some point you become unproductive. But it's all the mental energy that continues even when you're away from your laptop. All the thinking, planning, strategizing. All the learning you're willing to do to make it work. Saying no to friends or fun activities because you need to deliver something. Attending a meeting on a Sunday at 7pm. All those small sacrifices add up to make a real difference.

For a few seasons of their lives, successful founders become completely obsessed with their business.

What I find ironic is hearing these same successful entrepreneurs now preach about the importance of work-life balance.

True.

But before you get to that stage, when you're just getting started and grinding through the growth phase... I don't think there are many ways around it. You gotta obsess over it. You gotta put in countless hours. Forget about the evenings, the weekends, and do whatever it takes to grow.

These days, people see hustle and hard work as toxic... I call that nonsense. I just don't believe you can grow a business without working incredibly hard. 💪

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Here's the thing though, obsession isn't negative when you're passionate about what you do.

Working hard doesn't feel like hard work when you love it. And it's temporary, seasonal.

Eventually, if the business develops sustainably, the intensity decreases. The beginnings are hard. You need to earn people's trust. You need to grind for every lead and client. Eventually, you become known. People recommend you. It gets easier.

Once you've done the hard work and made it past that intensive first build phase, you can slow down a little. Don't get complacent, but the balance gets better. If you're good at what you do, success looks like more time and more freedom, at least, those are my personal goals.

These days, I relax when I go sightseeing, when I watch sports a couple hours a week, or when I read fiction. Apart from that, my mind is pretty much always on.

I work on my business. Or I think about my business.

Even when it looks like I'm relaxing by the beach or the pool, I'm often reading business books or watching business and self-development YouTube videos. I very rarely switch off these days.

Part of me just can't help it, my brain keeps going. Part of me doesn't care because it excites me. I'm choosing to spend my time watching educational podcasts instead of The White Lotus (despite Rosie's insistence 😅). It's a priority to me right now. That's how I want to be spending my time.

I'm determined to be successful. I'm determined to offer the best possible service to my clients. Therefore, I cannot get complacent. I need to get better at everything I do to keep growing and stay on top of things.

A stagnant business is essentially a declining business because in a dynamic market, staying still means falling behind.

As Einstein said:

"Once you stop learning, you start dying."

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So how do you know if you're obsessed enough?

It's when the fire within you is always present. You can't switch it off. It consumes you, but not in a negative way. If you think it's overwhelming and just hard work... maybe it's not for you. Because yes, that's exactly what it is. You constantly need to make decisions. You will fail more often than you succeed. There will be stress. You need to be able to deal with all of this.

But what about burnout?

I've never personally experienced it, and I think one of the reasons is because I've always chosen things that I enjoy. When you're willing to invest time and energy into something you love, you don't burn out from what brings you joy.

The key is developing self-awareness around what you're capable of and adapting accordingly. Be obsessed without neglecting your health. If you are your business, then your business needs you at your best. Sleep well. Work out. What matters is what you do when you work and how you use your free time. Make sacrifices, but not with your health, otherwise everything collapses.

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I realize all this now because I've lived through it.

Most of my previous business attempts failed. One of the main reasons was that I wasn't willing to do the real work. I wasn't good enough. I was too comfortable and didn't want to get uncomfortable.

Now, I thrive in the discomfort. I understand that to realize my dream of doing work I love, something that offers me time, freedom, and flexibility that only a few people have, I need to be willing to do more than the average person.

You can't get extraordinary results if you're not willing to put in extraordinary effort.

I'm in a period of my life where I'm obsessed with growth, and business growth is a huge part of that. I feel like I've spent years getting ready for this moment. I've tried many things. I failed many times. But now I feel ready.

Do I have it all figured out? No. Could I do more? Yes. But I'm doing my best and giving everything I can right now while keeping it sustainable mentally and physically so I can reach my goals. 🌍

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So here's my question for you: Are you treating your business like a real business, or more like a hobby?

I've seen this pattern with many clients, they treat their business like a side-hustle even when it's their main source of income. That mindset switch is crucial for growth.

Starting, growing and running a business is not for the lighthearted. You will stumble, fall, hopefully get up, try again, fall again. If you're not willing to go through this cycle... it's not for you.

Wherever you are, you'll be thinking about how you can make your product better, how to price your services, what you could have done better during your latest sales call, how to generate more leads... and more.

And despite all that, you will be happy about it. Because if you're not, if all that sounds dreadful and exhausting to you... then it's simply not for you.

Right now my life is very imbalanced. I work, I travel... and that's pretty much it. One day, I might rebalance it all... or maybe not, who knows!

But for now, I'm obsessed with what I do. I want to do more of it. Whether it's Sunday or Monday, I don't care, it's another day I get to spend building something I believe in. 📈