Creating a Lifestyle Dent

In certain circles the term “lifestyle business” is a derisive term. There’s a glory in dedicating yourself fully to your work, to the late nights, to the sleeping under the desk mentality of of the early stage tech startup culture. As Michael Arrington put it: startups are hard, stop whining.

But do you really need to set aside your health and happiness to see success in your business life? Is a lifestyle business really completely incompatible with making a dent in the universe? Or is that just a con spun by VCs who want to make their fortunes on the backs of the hard work of others?

As usual, there’s more than one path to success. Treehouse founder Ryan Carson has earned fame for having a four-day work week (no work Fridays since 2006), and has successfully built, and sold, a few businesses along the way.

Ryan is unusually forthcoming in the way he treats his work-life balance, how the four-day work week has been successful for him, and what he’s found successful in his own path. This presentation he gave at Creative Bath outlines a lot of his principles, and I think it’s very much worth a watch:

Ryan Carson’s talk at Creative Bath from Treehouse on Vimeo.