Will.i.am Calls Out Work-Life Balance, Pushes After-Hours Grind To Build Your Dream

'Work-life balance means that you’re working for somebody else’s dream,' he said.

Will.i.am is a Grammy-winning recording artist, music producer, and entrepreneur who recently shared in a Fortune interview that his approach to success centers on what he calls a “dream-reality” balance. Rather than subscribing to the traditional idea of work-life balance, he believes in putting in focused effort beyond the 9-to-5 to align daily work with long-term vision and purpose.

The Black Eyed Peas member and hitmaking producer — whose credits include collaborations with Nas, Ariana Grande, John Legend, The Game, Macy Gray, and Chris Brown — is now a tech entrepreneur with a traditional 9-to-5. Still, he remains focused on pursuing his ambitions on his own terms, encouraging others to do the same as they work toward their goals.

“If you’re trying to build something that doesn’t exist, it’s about dream-reality balance,” he said. “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.”

He has switched back to working regular hours during the day, with the goal of focusing on his creative side from the end of the 9-to-5 shift until 9 p.m. This was from someone who did the exact opposite: during the day, when the music was the focus, he would then try to do his work on his tech after his “main” job of producing tracks. He would advise younger people to adopt that mindset to achieve what they set out to do in life.

“I’m not really paying attention to this reality. 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.”