Productivity requires rest, while business growth demands hard work (especially on yourself). A paradox? Only partly. On one hand, if you focus too much on performance, your performance suffers. On the other hand, if you don’t grow as a person, your business won’t grow much either. That’s why I see high work intensity as necessary. But you need to know its limits—your limits—and understand all the factors at play.
What Does High Work Intensity Really Mean?
I won’t dwell on how individual it is—every manager (and really, every working person) already knows that.
From my own experience, if you want to build a business, you need to dedicate more than eight hours a day to it. If you want to be a leader and thrive in entrepreneurship, greater focus and greater effort are essential. Which means your work and personal life probably won’t be “perfectly balanced.”
At the same time, being overly consumed by work or becoming dependent on it isn’t sustainable—not in the long run.
When you realize these two truths, another question emerges: Is it possible to build a truly big and successful business without “sacrificing it all”?
And a sub-question: Is sacrifice the inevitable price every one of us has to pay?
In my view, the answer has two dimensions.
1. Don’t Stay in the Zone of Performance—Stay in the Zone of Learning
I’m not an advocate of a “strict” balance between work and personal life. And I like that more and more people see balance not as a rigid 50:50 split. My motto is: don’t balance—harmonize.
Work life is dynamic, and so is personal life. If you’re a CEO, if you run your own business, you know one cannot be fully separated from the other—they overlap. Naturally, high work intensity spills into your personal life. But it doesn’t have to be negative—if that intensity is tied to a growth mindset, not just performance.
It’s about the quality of tasks, the quality of time, and how you fill it. Not about the quantity of tasks (which you end up carrying into your “free time”), but about the quality of relationships and collaboration with clients.
2. Distinguish What Tasks You Take On Yourself
As a founder or CEO, when you try to handle a million things, you end up with no time or mental energy to think about where you’re headed, whether you’re moving toward your vision—or whether you even still have one.
Here’s an example: if I keep myself busy with the wrong tasks—ones I could easily delegate—I’m wasting time and slowing down the growth of my business.
So where should you invest your high work intensity?
You can delegate many tasks. But no one else can ever take over the responsibility for your vision and direction. Nor the responsibility for your self-development.
When Does High Work Intensity Become Counterproductive?
- When I treat it purely as performance, not as self-growth (as mentioned above).
- When I carry it all myself, without delegating, instead of sharing the effort with the people who work for me.
Your Business Needs to Have a Pulse
I once read that high work intensity is a virtue. I agree—but I’d refine it a bit. For CEOs and managers, it’s indispensable. But I see the virtue in maintaining a work–mental strategy that guides each of them.
If its foundation lies not only in constant decision-making but also in awareness—of yourself, your mental needs, and your business vision—then there’s the seed of harmony.
Searching for harmony within high work intensity is, in a way, a lifelong process. That’s why I recommend focusing more on growth than on performance. Leave performance to the capable and responsible people you should be surrounding yourself with.
