Work-life balance isn't optional.

I'm tired of LinkedIn posts preaching that balance and "greatness" are mutually exclusive – especially the ones targeting people in their twenties.

Let me share some truth from someone who's lived the unbalanced life:

Those "100-hour workweeks" I once endured? They weren't 100 hours of productivity.

They were:

40 hours of actual focused work.

20 hours of meetings that could've been emails.

15 hours of waiting for decisions.

10 hours of office politics.

15 hours of looking busy because everyone else was still there.

Sunday meetings and midnight calls didn't make our team more effective. They made us exhausted, resentful and ultimately less creative.

Here's what I've learned since:

The most successful leaders I know don't sacrifice their lives for work – they build systems that eliminate their constant presence as a requirement.

While hustle culture is sending people to early graves (with stress-induced heart attacks in their late 20s and early 30s becoming disturbingly common), truly effective leaders understand a brutal truth:

- Marathon hours don't signal commitment – they expose failed leadership.

- Constantly working on weekends doesn't show dedication – it reveals broken systems.

- Always being "on" isn't a virtue – it's a pathway to burnout.

- Glorifying sleep deprivation isn't brave – it's silly.

The gap is stark.

On one side: Leaders bragging about 100-hour weeks while their health collapses, relationships crumble and teams cycle through burnout.

On the other: Leaders who fiercely protect their teams' time, build processes that don't depend on heroics and produce better results without the human sacrifice.

The real competitive advantage isn't squeezing more hours from people.

It's creating environments where breakthrough work happens within human-scale timeframes.

Don't let LinkedIn hacks push you into accepting their definition of "greatness". 

You do you.