Business Insights: Why Work-Life Balance is a Myth

In the latest instalment of our Business Insights series, CEO Graeme Carling and our Mergers and Acquisitions Director, Leanne Carling discuss why work-life balance doesn’t apply to successful entrepreneurs, and how their dreams changed with success.

“We wanted to become financially free to be able to do the things we wanted to do, whenever we wanted to do them. We had the dream to retire early to the beach and live off our income and do nothing. The reality is we would have been able to do that fairly quickly.”

The power couple describe how they quit their jobs and had quick success acquiring property which would’ve allowed them to retire to the beach early on, but when they actually reached that stage, they couldn’t think of anything worse. “We realised that we were trying to live our parents dream. We love work!”

“The reality is that when you get to a certain point, where we are, the idea sounds horrible for us. We work harder, longer, we take less holidays. It’s the complete opposite, but we love that! We’re never on holiday, we’re always on it. We started with nothing and you can’t get where we are without complete and utter commitment.”

When it comes to work-life balance Graeme and Leanne tell of how alien it is for them to hear from accountants or other employees that they’re out of office or have their phone switched off. Their commitment is full on, but for Graeme and Leanne, the sacrifice is worth it. “We never thought we’d get to this point, we absolutely love it. We enjoy the responsibility and commitment.”

Graeme and Leanne believe that work-life balance is a myth for entrepreneurs, and being there to solve problems around the clock has been key to their success. “Anyone who has been super successful will be all in. We don’t work a limited amount of hours each day or week. We’re fully in the problem solving game as entrepreneurs.”