Billionaire CEO: My wife brought our kids to my office for playtime while I went back to work.

According to Todd Graves, co-founder and CEO of Raising Cane's, starting a business takes dedication, but making it successful requires an infinite amount of effort.

Graves would know that he worked 90-hour weeks at a California oil refinery and fished for salmon in Alaska to establish his Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based chicken finger restaurant chain in 1996. Now, nearly three decades later, Raising Cane's has over 800 locations worldwide and is projected to finish this year with nearly $5 billion in sales, according to a spokesperson.

"Graves, 52, tells CNBC Make It that he has worked 15, 16-hour days in a row and had to miss a lot of stuff."

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Graves' wife would bring their two kids to his office for dinner and playtime, and he'd return to work after they left. Now, he owns a company worth billions, with much of his net worth coming from his 90% stake in Raising Cane's, according to Forbes.

He's still busy, but he's managed to prioritize his workload to make time for family and friends. During vacations, he wakes up early to work so he can spend the rest of the day with his loved ones.

Graves states that he is as busy as anyone he knows and travels as much as anyone he knows, but he can manage his schedule to prioritize his time with kids, family, and important friends.

'You just accept that sometimes it's going to be really hard work'

Not having a healthy work-life balance in a business' early days is not necessarily negative, as it can add extra stress to an already busy schedule, according to Jackie Bowie, a managing partner at financial risk management firm Chatham Financial.

According to Bowie, if you're doing something you love and enjoy, you must accept that it may be difficult and require sacrifices.

In 2022, Graves revealed on the "How I Built This" podcast that he and co-founder Craig Silvey had a coordinated nap schedule while working long hours at the restaurant's first location. They would sleep from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. the next day.

To grow your business, you need to be fully committed, says Graves. Once you're comfortable with your company's success, you can hire people to take some work off your plate, he adds.

Delegating tasks can be challenging for individuals accustomed to working long hours or managing multiple responsibilities, regardless of their position. To overcome this challenge, it is important to trust the abilities of those around you and remember that different people can complete tasks in ways that may differ from your own approach, according to career experts.

"Amanda Augustine, a career expert, advised Make It in 2017 that it can be tempting to get lost in the details of your team's work, especially if you enjoy that discipline and genuinely find it interesting. However, she cautioned against getting so wrapped up in the little details that you neglect your management duties, such as setting the strategy and developing your people, and delay a project because you just can't let go."

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