The 168-Hour Work Week: You're building a life, not just a business My alarm would go off at 5 A.M. I'd open the curtains and be greeted by Winter's unrelenting darkness. And as I stared out the window, plotting the day ahead, I'd shiver; it felt like an advance payment on the consistent chill I'd feel on the boat that day.

Then I'd smile. Because for me, this is what it was all about, this is what I loved to do, this was business. It's a tough world out there for young people at the moment. We're living in a digital age where so many measure themselves against the edited and airbrushed personalities they see on social media. Instagram is not only telling you that a four-hour work week is realistic; it's saying, 'if you haven't figured out how to get there yet, then you're the idiot.' You see a young woman on the beach, sipping on a cocktail and working on her
tablet, and you think, What am I doing wrong?

Maybe it's just me, but I can't see the appeal. I tried using a laptop in my garden the other day. The sun was so bright I could hardly keep my eyes open. Then I put some sunglasses on and I couldn't see the screen. Just as I finally found a chair configuration that gave me maximum efficiency and minimum sunburn, my laptop overheated. I can see why they only work for four hours, I thought. Do what you love or love what you do. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I say we reframe "work-life balance" to "work-life alignment." There are 168 hours in a week, and when you're a business owner, you need every one of them. Owning a company is really tough. At first, it's hard to know where the money is, you have to collaborate with every personality type you can imagine (and some you never knew existed), there are constant legislation changes that screw up your plans, and people you trust will let you down. You don't have to love it, but if you do, it will make those chilly 5 A.M. starts much more bearable. When you're in the office on Sunday mornings to work on a tender or have to remortgage your house to pay the wages, it should feel like an investment, not a sacrifice.

They say, "Do what you love," and that's excellent advice, but I never had a passion for boats, not really. I fell in love with the art of doing business. It meant no matter what happened in my life, there was never question of giving up. How can you give up on who you are? If you aren't doing what you love right now, you'd better learn to love what you're doing, because if you don't, things will only get harder. What are you?

If you ask Mick Jagger what he does, do you think he'll give you a different answer on his day off? Does he stop himself from singing in the shower, or humming a melody on a walk in the woods? Or is that when he gets some of his best work done? Did Cristiano Ronaldo spend non-match days in Wetherspoons, knocking
back pints of Carlsberg and a Hunter's chicken? I mean anything's possible, but I'd assume not. He's an athlete, whether he's playing a match or not. He still has to think about recovery, nutrition, sleep, and building his brand outside the game. We're entrepreneurs. This is what we do. Business is not just our profession, it's our identity. Your mentor on TikTok may work one hour a day, and good luck to him. But what about Picasso, Beethoven, Meryl Streep, Sir Christopher Wren, Michael Jordan, Marie Curie? Are we to imagine that none of these people took their work home with them?

Who would you rather your business replicate? The guy running a company you've never heard of from his hammock in the Cayman Islands, or the people who made it their everything, who lived their passions and succeeded beyond anyone's expectations? Of course, this amount of dedication will come at a cost. Take your family on the journey. A family-run business is hard work. Every meal becomes a board meeting. In a way,
you're stricter with your loved ones to avoid accusations of nepotism. And when things go bad in the business, finding a place to switch off is hard. But when they're on the journey with you, it's also a magical time. You're all rooting for the same things, have so much in common, and see a side to each other you'd never experience otherwise. You don't have to work together, but if you can get your family excited about the
business and its success, the things you do will, once again, be seen as an investment, as opposed to a sacrifice. Do the work!

I'm not saying you can't run a lifestyle business, one that makes you enough money to pay the bills and means you don't have to work in an office or for someone else. That's fantastic. But even if you run a cafe in Brighton, just so you can live beside the sea, you're not switching off when the sun goes down. You're still inspired by the food you eat when you go elsewhere, you're having conversations with other owners and reading books about how to get the best out of your staff. Just because you own a company doesn't mean you have to float it on the stock exchange or cash out one day. And if you only started it to be the wealthiest person on earth, it's fair to say you're probably in it for the wrong reasons.

But, whatever your goals are, if you've found your passion and want to make it a successful business, you've got to get out of the mindset that it'll happen overnight. It's going to take everything you have. And then, when you think you've given your all, you'll have to find some more. But if you love what you do, understand what you are, take your family on the journey with you, and do the work, you can build an existence where you no longer have to choose between business, life and family. Because no matter where you reside or what else you're doing, this is who you are, every hour of every day. And in my view, there's no better way to live.