Emil Barr - a young American entrepreneur who, by the age of 22, had built two companies valued at more than $20 million - wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Work-Life Balance Will Keep You Mediocre.”

Barr’s argument is simple and unapologetic - he claims that pursuing work-life balance actively holds people back from exceptional success. It’s bold, it’s uncomfortable to read. But is it true?

If you are anything like me and new year’s resolutions are the place that you started, then I want you to do one thing and switch out resolutions for goals. Then you need a vision which is inspiring and compelling enough that it makes you want to get going.

Now that you’ve got all your visions and goals written out. How would you fit it into next week? Could you really schedule everything? Read this blog to check out our Roadmap process for 2026. We use this with clients all over the world to have more success in achieving their goals.

Do you feel a slight emptiness inside? Perhaps you have a nagging sense that while life is “good”, you could be happier? Arthur Brooks - the Harvard professor, author, and expert on happiness - has shown that living a truly happy and fulfilling life requires balance and abundance across the three macronutrients of happiness. My guess is that you have the first two dialed in - enjoyment and satisfaction - but that perhaps the third might be missing.

“Many people are happy to just give 10%, I just don’t know any of their names.” - David Sedaris. 100% effort for me doesn’t always mean hard work and eating lunch at my desk, it means taking the risk to be wrong. In a startup, it’s hard to do a mediocre job when everything relies on a few people. Things will go wrong and make us feel silly. But at least here at Wildest Dream, we’re all well beyond 10% effort and if looking silly is the price we pay for running towards something we truly believe in, then it’s worth it.

That’s the thing about life, you have to try things in the full knowledge that it could be a terrible idea. A Brit moved to Sri Lanka to try the digital nomad life and ended up starting my new favourite Black Honey Café. So, try something, at the very least you’ll get a cool t-shirt, at best you might open a new café.

What is truly wild is doing exactly what you want to do. Free of the baggage of judgement – positive and negative – from others. When we are 5, 10, 15 and 20, someone has always laid out the next steps for us. Then something happens when we move through our twenties. We let go of that belief that everything is decided for us. Instead, we realise that it’s always been our choice.