A 22-year-old startup founder says striving for work-life balance ‘is a trap that will keep you comfortably mediocre.’
Emil Barr, who built two companies with a combined value of more than $20 million, has worked with billionaire mentors and earned admission to Stanford’s MBA program.
To accomplish these feats, the entrepreneur said he gave up work-life balance entirely and focused solely on hustling.
‘When you front-load success early, you buy the luxury of choice for the rest of your life,’ he wrote in a piece for the Wall Street Journal.
He sacrificed sleep and socializing, as well as his physical and mental health for success.
When he started studying at Miami University in Ohio in 2020, he did the math and found that he had approximately 1,460 days before he had to enter the ‘real world’ and get a traditional job.
Breaking it down by hours, Barr calculated that his average classmate would sleep for eight hours, attend classes for six hours and use two hours for ‘basic necessities’ – meaning students had eight hours left in their day to spend on ‘life.’
They would use this time to date, hang out with friends and enjoy entertainment – all things, Barr wrote, that rarely contribute to accomplishing long-term goals.
Barr’s approach to his college days was far less balanced: He slept for less than four hours each night, and spent over 12 hours working on his businesses.
He relied on Red Bull, gained 80lbs and struggled with anxiety, but he said this was the only way to build a multimillion-dollar company.
Barr built the social media company Step Up Social from his dorm room and it hit $1 million a year in revenue in under two years.
He said that his methods represent a shift in successful young entrepreneurs, because the traditional path of college to corporate career and then retirement does not lead to success and riches.
‘The window for building something meaningful is narrow, and the tools to do it often are already in our hands,’ Barr wrote.
He noted that his peers who have worked at the same pace and intensity as him have reaped similar benefits and enjoy more options.
The limitations Barr put on himself to achieve his goals were intense.
He hired a cleaning lady and subscribed to meal-delivery services so that he could focus his time solely on work.
He said he lost a lot of his friends because he didn’t prioritize spending time with them and chose to work instead.
He only attended classes that pertained to his business, gave priority to classes graded purely on exams rather than attendance, and refused to take classes that banned laptops because he couldn’t afford to be offline.
Every event on Barr’s calendar had to earn its place, and he weighed everything against business priorities.
He even insisted that it’s sometimes necessary for him to take a helicopter instead of a car because his time is so precious.
He plans to become a billionaire by the time he turns 30. Then, he will have time and resources to tackle problems close to his heart.