![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SerhantResize.png?w=2048\")
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In today\u2019s ultra-competitive business world, being a leader can feel like running a never-ending marathon. That might be why some executives, like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, work every day of the week\u2014including holidays\u2014to stay ahead.<\/p>\n
Ryan Serhant operates from that same all-in philosophy.<\/p>\n
The social media mogul, Netflix star, and founder of real estate firm SERHANT has built a reputation not just for selling high-end homes to millionaires, but for treating his time with near-mathematical precision. <\/p>\n
He wakes up at 4:30 a.m. each morning, spending the first hour answering emails. After getting a 90-minute workout in, he starts his day with meetings and client work that sometimes run as late as 11 p.m.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s the first to admit he has little semblance of work-life balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely have a problem, like I definitely live to work,\u201d Serhant, a married father of one, said. \u201cEven when I’m traveling, I get so excited to come back to my command station.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many workers, achieving balance has become increasingly important. In fact, it was the highest-ranking factor for talent when evaluating current or future jobs, according to Randstad\u2019s 2025 Workmonitor report. It was the first time in the study\u2019s 22-year history that work-life balance surpassed pay as a top incentive.<\/p>\n
But Serhant argued the debate over work-life balance isn\u2019t as simple. Many people struggle because they \u201clie to themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the easiest person to lie to is the person in the mirror,\u201d Serhant added. \u201cPeople are not honest with their goals. They think they want to get married, they think they want X, they think they want Y, but what they really want is to do nothing. What they really want is just to be lazy. What they really want is just to win the lottery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Years ago, before being known for his CEO title and media brand, Serhant realized if he wanted to reach his goals, he had to reel in his day-to-day life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did a time audit, and I just saw how much money\u2014so time\u2014I was spending on things where I should just be making an investment,\u201d Serhant told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n That realization became the foundation of his schedule, where time is money\u2014literally. He plans his days on a scale where one minute equals $1. Multiplying 24 hours by 60 minutes leaves $1,440 in each day. After accounting for sleep and meals, he arrives at what he calls his 1,000-minute rule.<\/p>\n The system\u2014that\u2019s studied by Harvard Business School students\u2014encourages intentional allocation of time, while also centering perspective. If your boss yells at you for five minutes, that\u2019s just $5 gone. Does that small price justify throwing away the rest of your day\u2014$995?<\/p>\n For Serhant, goal setting is his north star. In 2026, that includes scaling SERHANT as an AI-first brokerage and continuing to expand its footprint across new states. And even if he doesn’t reach them, he said it\u2019s important to always move your career forward on your own terms:<\/p>\n \u201cYou’ll have stressful days. You’ll be exhausted, you’ll be sad, you’ll cry, you’ll get sick. All the things in life that are going to happen to you will still happen, but at least you know what you’re marching forward towards. It’ll be the beat of your own drum versus someone else’s song.\u201d<\/p>\n Following this system helped propel Serhant’s status as a top real estate broker. His firm\u2014which includes nearly 1,500 agents and nearly 200 full-time employees\u2014closed more than $6 billion in sales last year alone.<\/p>\n Serhant is not alone in believing that people aspiring to success may have to forgo a proper work-life balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman has long believed that anyone wanting to pursue entrepreneurship in particular will have to dedicate themselves to their idea to get it off the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I ever hear a founder talking about, \u2018This is how I have a balanced life,\u2019 they\u2019re not committed to winning,\u201d Hoffman told Stanford University\u2019s How to Start a Startup class in 2014. \u201cThe only really great founders are [the ones who are] like, \u2018I am going to put literally everything into doing this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Amazon cofounder Jeff Bezos echoed this sentiment in an appearance last year at Italian Tech Week.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t love the word \u2018balance\u2019 because it implies a tradeoff,\u201d Bezos said. \u201cI\u2019ve often had people ask me, \u2018How do you deal with work-life balance?\u2019 And I\u2019ll say \u2018I like work-life harmony because if you\u2019re happy at home, you\u2019ll be better at work. If you\u2019re better at work, you\u2019ll be better at home.\u2019 These things go together. It\u2019s not a strict tradeoff.\u201d<\/p>\n Even former President Barack Obama has conceded that the path to success will require you to sometimes prioritize work over life.<\/p>\n Speaking on The Pivot<\/em> podcast, he said: \u201cIf you want to be excellent at anything\u2014sports, music, business, politics\u2014there\u2019s going to be times of your life when you\u2019re out of balance, where you\u2019re just working, and you\u2019re single-minded.<\/p>\n This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/p>\n #Ryan #Serhant #starts #work #a.m.he #people #dont #achieve #dreams #lazy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In today\u2019s ultra-competitive b… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[11247,11055,6698,542,624,1223,7014,666,398,5362,352,1980,976,3197,1575,11246,1981,1606],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Billionaire business leaders like Jeff Bezos and Reid Hoffman agree: work-life balance isn\u2019t a reality for success<\/h2>\n