Ep. 368: I Want Work-Life Balance. Am I Doomed to Mediocrity?

Last month, a 22 year old entrepreneur named Emil Bar wrote a Wall Street Journal op ed with a provocative title, Work Life Balance Will Keep You Mediocre. In it, Barr claims financial success requires sacrificing sleep, health, and social connections in your twenties. And this article annoyed a lot of people, including me, but here's a key question that has stuck around. Is it possible that Barr might be at least partly right? This is a debate worth having, and it's exactly what we're gonna get into today. I'm Cal Newport, and this is Deep Questions. Today's episode, I want work life balance in my doomed demediocrity. Alright. So we should start with the actual op ed itself. I'm gonna bring this up here on the screen, if you could do that, Jesse, for people who are watching, instead of just listening. So as mentioned, the title of this article is work life balance will keep you mediocre. The subhead was for financial freedom by age 30, optimize ruthlessly during your peak physical and cognitive years. This came out online, August 18. This came out in print the next day on August 19. What I wanna do here is just read you a few quotes from the article that should give you an an idea of what exactly the author is arguing. So I wanna start where the author sort of introduces himself a little bit more. He says, I'm 22, and I've built two companies that together are valued at more than $20,000,000. Jumping down here, when people ask how I did it, the answer isn't what they expect or want to hear. I eliminated work life balance entirely and just worked. When you front load success early, you buy the luxury of choice for the rest of your life. Well, that's sort of like his big claim. Let's get some more details from the article. Here's a quote from a couple paragraphs later. During my first year working on Step Up Social, I averaged three and a half hours of sleep at night and had about twelve and a half hours every day to focus on business. The physical and mental toll was brutal. I gained 80 pounds, lived on Red Bull, and struggled with anxiety, but this level of intensity was the only way to build a multimillion dollar company. Heady words from mister Barr. I have a couple other quotes I wanna read here. Here's another one. I steer clear of courses that banned laptops in the classroom because I couldn't be offline for three or more hours a day when my team and clients needed me. Plus, it isn't 1999, and that kind of thinking won't get us anywhere. Another piece of advice he has, every commitment had to justify its place on my calendar with social events, casual hangouts, and even family gatherings weighed against business priorities. I constantly felt guilty about missing important moments with loved ones, but, ironically, the relationships that …