The New Work-Life Balance

Tech Crunch recently posted a few controversial articles in reference to Jason Calcanis's post about the necessity of hiring workaholics in a start-up. Mike Arrington said,

"You should hire people who work 24 hours a day because there is nothing else they'd rather do. If you've got a product to launch and you're ultimately trying to disrupt a bigger and better funded company, it's likely that you are going to need a superhuman effort from the team. I doubt Google's early employees complained about the hours (and take a wild guess as to why Google gives employees free lunch and free dinners)."

The posts produced some great comments and the discussion got pretty heated. Many people argued (and rightly so) that work-life balance is necessary no matter what field you're in. But in my very brief time as an entrepreneur, I've learned that both Arrington and Calcanis are 100% right. If you want to have a real shot at succeeding as an entrepreneur or in any other demanding career, you need to have the desire and ability to work 24 hours a day. And this doesn't leave much time for a personal life.

But a personal life in your twenties typically means bars, friends, girlfriends and boyfriends–all of which can take a back seat to work if you make that choice. On the other hand, a personal life in your thirties or forties typically means a spouse, 6 pm soccer practice, and Saturday afternoon dance recital–none of which should take a back seat to work as far as I'm concerned.

This is why the whole system seems a little backwards to me. Companies expect young workers to wait around for five, ten, or twenty years before they're promoted to partner or VP. Then you get the big promotion and the big paycheck right around the time your kids are entering elementary school. And then they expect you to spend the most important years of your children's lives at the office, only to retire when your kids are leaving home, heading off to start their career.

So when older workers complain that our generation—Gen Y—is in a rush to get ahead, they're absolutely right. The time to get ahead is now, and we shouldn't make any apologies for doing whatever we can to make it happen. Whether that means starting a blog, side stepping the typical corporate ladder by job hopping, or starting a business and dropping out of the rat race all together, now's the time to do it.

If your goal is to be wildly successful you should be working your butt off from ages 20 to 30 with the intention of reaching the top of your respective field as early as possible. And you should have a loose plan for how you will scale things back when it's time for kids and a family.

Whether you want to be a successful entrepreneur, a high powered investment banker, or a well-rounded world traveler, it takes a ton of hard work to be great. So don't listen to the people who say your time will come. Forget next year. Next week is seven days away. Don't make excuses for starting tomorrow. Do it now. Be impatient.

It's the new work-life balance: work now, balance later.