Will.i.am grinds from 5-to-9 after his 9-to-5-because work-life balance is for people 'working on someone else’s dream' and not for visionaries | Fortune

It’s not just Gen Z and millennials on TikTok who are raving about the five-to-nine after their nine-to-five. Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am is also a fan of the productivity hack. He says it’s the secret to getting his creative juices flowing, as well as ditching work-life balance. Will.i.am is busy. When he’s not writing hit songs like “OMG” for Usher, he’s looking for the next big pop star on The Voice UK , or running his new AI company, FYI. So how exactly does he balance it all? The Grammy Award-winning artist turned tech entrepreneur revealed to Fortune that he maxes out the five-to-nine after the daily grind of his nine-to-five, and he advises Gen Zers to forget about work-life balance if they want to emulate his success. “If you’re trying to build something that doesn’t exist, it’s about dream-reality balance,” he says. “Work-life balance means that you’re working for somebody else’s dream. You just have a job supporting somebody else’s dream, and you want to balance your work and your life. “But if it’s dream-reality balance, then it’s not work. It’s a dream that you’re trying to put into reality, and you’re ignoring your current reality.” For example, after working on his tech venture from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Will.i.am says that he goes back to work on his creative business until 9 p.m. But before his AI company was a reality, his day was flipped. He’d work on music first before dipping into his tech side hustle well into the evening. It’s why he advises young people to reframe how they think of their time off work and their current nine-to-five reality. “I’m not really paying attention to this reality,” he explains. “I’m trying to bring that one [a new business venture or idea] here and focusing on how do I get people who believe in this dream to help me materialize it? So for that, you have to make some type of sacrifice to bring this thing that doesn’t exist here. “From that perspective, work-life balance is not for the architects that are pulling visions into reality. Those words don’t compute to the mindset of the materializers.” Will.i.am doesn’t even take time out for his birthday-and goes to work in China on Boxing Day Of course, many young people already devote hours to their side hustles and personal development after work. Millions of Gen Zers and millennials are tuning into people’s five-to-nine evening routines on TikTok . But Will.i.am says chipping away at your dream when most people are off work extends to weekends, birthdays, and holidays. “I didn’t party. I was always a square, meaning, ‘You work too much, man, let’s go out.’ Like what? Go out. I don’t want to go out. I just always worked,” the rapper says. “It’s your birthday what are you gonna do? Work. You ain’t gonna celebrate?” The multimillionaire says he’s always saved the celebrating for the stage, where he can finally enjoy the fruits of his labor. “There’s...

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