22-Year-Old: It's Time to Rethink Work-Life Balance

Emil Barr is a successful 22-year-old entrepreneur, and in a Wall Street Journal essay he chalks up that success to his unusual approach to the work-life balance conundrum: He obliterated it. Which is to say, the founder of the Step Up Social startup has been working pretty much constantly since he entered college. "The physical and mental toll was brutal," he acknowledges. "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." In Barr's view, the old ways of graduating college, landing a corporate job, and retiring with a 401(k) doesn't compute anymore for his generation in a fast-changing economy. He sees it as "front-loading success."

• "If you optimize ruthlessly during your peak physical and cognitive years, you could achieve financial freedom by 30 and buy yourself choices for the rest of your life," writes Barr.
• "I'm not suggesting that everyone eliminate work-life balance, but rather arguing that for ambitious young people who want to build wealth, traditional balance is a trap that will keep you comfortably mediocre."
• Read the full op-ed.