You only need to work 6 hours a day

Hi! I’m Peter, CEO of Kickresume, and these career-related stories caught my attention this month — and might catch yours too.

It's the end of summer, life's been hectic, so I decided to take my son camping to spend some quality father-son time. 

I felt very relaxed. Maybe even too relaxed.

Because suddenly, a tiny Mark Cuban, the billionaire from Shark Tank, materialized on my shoulder like in the cartoons and whispered: "Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it all away from you!"

The anxiety hit instantly. Who is this person who wants to take all my stuff? Should I be working right now? Had I checked my emails today? Have I been falling behind while watching my kid throw rocks into a lake?

Well, suffice to say, Mark Cuban was the last thing I wanted to think about at that moment. So I flicked him off my shoulder and said: “Not today, Mark Cuban!”

And luckily, it turns out that even the dude who's out to get me 24/7 is only really out to get me for about 5 hours a day.

Rise and grind! Time for an ice bath.

The thing is, Mark Cuban isn’t the only billionaire whispering in our ears. 

They’ve all been doing it for years, and been pretty consistent about what it supposedly takes to “be successful.”

Kevin O’Leary (who’s weirdly also on Shark Tank?) once said: “Nine-to-five only people, they don’t work for me. I hope they work for my competitors.”

Then there’s Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia. Not really advice, more just his own routine: “I work from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. I work seven days a week.”

And of course, there’s Mark Cuban himself, yelling about someone out there working 24/7 that’s out to get me (and you!).

Basically every billionaire who’s ever given an interview ends up saying the same thing. 

And it’s not just billionaires anymore either. 

Now there are also entire armies of hustle bros on my (and likely your) insta and LinkedIn feeds, sitting in ice baths, shouting that 80-hour weeks are the bare minimum.

So what’s the formula for success according to this crowd?

• Work 80 hours a week minimum

• Ideally 24/7

• Forget about work-life balance, that’s for the sheep

• Never see your mom

• And yes, take that ice bath

It feels like everyone is doing it. And if you’re not, you’ll never be successful. 

I’ll be honest, sometimes it gets in my head. That maybe I’m not doing enough. Maybe you feel that way too.

Which made me curious: are there actually people living like this? Or is everyone else secretly just… normal?

Ice bath? No, thanks, I’ll take a bubble bath.

So I decided to check it. I asked my team to run a survey to see if the guy Mark Cuban keeps warning me about actually exists. 

Turns out, most people don’t work 24 hours. They barely manage five.

Only 18% of the people we surveyed said they’re actually productive for the full 7–8 hours a day, and nearly a third admitted it’s really just 3-4 hours. 

And what about the rest of the workday?

• Bathroom peace breaks are surprisingly common — 44% use the restroom as a quick escape. Four percent even hide out there after finishing tasks just to kill time.

• 38% scroll through socials and 19% run errands during work hours

• And in the “creative remote worker” category, one percent admitted to taking bubble baths while on the clock.

It gets better: more than half (55%) admitted they’ve taken a nap at work at least once, and nearly a third said they do it occasionally or even regularly.

So no, it sure seems that the world isn’t full of unstoppable hustle machines.

Mark Cuban would hate this advice

So do you really have to work 24/7 to be successful?

Probably not. More likely, you just need to work a little more than the average coworker.

If most people are clocking 5-6 solid hours, then doing 7-8 already puts you above the rest.

And are Mark Cuban and Kevin O’Leary full of it? 

No, I don’t think so either. I actually think that it might be solid advice (heart attack–inducing, but still), especially if you’re building your own company then that level of obsession probably has its place. 

But if you’re just a normal person trying to do your job and have a life, I’m pretty sure you can safely ignore that kind of advice. All it really leads to is burnout. 

Which, btw, is backed up by science. Research shows that compared to a 40-hour workweek, your risk of burnout doubles once you hit 60 hours, triples at 74, and quadruples at 84.

So if a tiny Mark Cuban shows up on your shoulder too, just flick him off.

Made it all the way down here? That kind of dedication is exactly what we're looking for on our Kickresume subreddit. If you join, you'll instantly get 15 days of Kickresume Premium free.

The promo code will be waiting in your welcome message.

Catch you later! 

Peter