Martha Stewart has dismissed the idea that work-life balance is achievable, describing it as a myth while outlining the demanding routine that keeps her working at the age of 85.
“There is no such thing as balance—just get that through your thick skulls,” Stewart said earlier this month in a conversation with Vivian Tu, who runs the social media account Your Rich BFF. “You can’t balance it. It doesn’t balance.”
The lifestyle entrepreneur said major events such as marriage and divorce inevitably disrupt any attempt to divide time evenly between work and personal life. Although some people might occasionally achieve balance, she said she was “jealous” of them and suggested they were “also boring”.
Stewart’s career has included work on Wall Street, television, modelling and the creation of a business empire estimated to be worth $400 million. She served five months in federal prison in connection with crimes related to an investigation into a stock sale, before rebuilding her public profile and expanding her brands after her release in 2005.
She now begins her day at 4am, reads the entire New York Times and attends Pilates or works with a personal trainer. By 7am, she said, she is working on projects including her lifestyle brand and an artificial intelligence start-up, and expects her staff to be working as well.
Martha Stewart says work-life balance is not always possible
Stewart said she preferred to view her career as a series of metamorphoses rather than “pivots”, a word she said she hated. Her approach, she suggested, was to keep changing direction rather than accept periods of boredom.
“Why be bored?” she said. “If you even feel a moment of boredom or you can’t get up for some reason—because you don’t want to face the day—that is not good.”
She added: “When I get up in the morning, I have choices. I can do whatever right now I can do anything I want to do every day but I like being able to look forward to what’s going to happen in the day, and the surprises are also good.”
Stewart is not the only prominent figure to reject the idea that work and family life can always be kept in equilibrium. Thasunda Brown Duckett, president and chief executive of TIAA, has also described work-life balance as unattainable.
Duckett said demanding days and long commutes while working at JPMorgan Chase left her feeling that she was failing her family and needed to stop trying to fit every part of her life neatly into balance. Instead, she said, different periods would inevitably require greater attention at work or at home.
Former US president Barack Obama has expressed a similar view, saying that excellence in areas including sport, music, business and politics can require periods of intense, single-minded focus at the expense of other priorities.
