Can you have work-life balance at the top? Three ex-executives on managing yourself: habits, inboxes and stress.

John Newton, Tarek Anwar and Robin have run schools, banks and global businesses. This month they tackle the discipline none of them found easy: managing yourself. Between them they have coached dozens of senior executives, and more than half of those conversations end up in the same place - how do I get my life back?

Tarek explains the 90-day rule for rewiring your brain: pick one behaviour, practise it intentionally, and it becomes a new neural pathway. He shares the habit that mattered most - uncoupling his self-worth from outcomes - and why ego is what stops leaders asking for help. Robin reveals the coaching question most executives cannot answer ("other than work and family, what is your passion?") and his hard rule for email: once a chain hits five replies, kill it and pick up the phone. John owns up to doing emails on Christmas Eve in the south of France, and the three trade honest stress management techniques: spotting your own warning signs, treating emotions as waves that pass, and why staying calm at the top steadies everyone below you.

Key takeaways:

• Change starts with self-awareness: notice one behaviour, question it, then practise its replacement for 90 days until it rewires.
• Your self-worth is not the promotion, the deal or the bonus. Uncouple identity from outcomes and you become easier to lead and to live with.
• Have a passion outside work and family - and be able to name it. If you cannot answer the question, that is the work.
• Work-life balance is real but moving: it shifts with career stage, family, elderly parents. Review it, adjust it, and do not let the balancing itself become a stress.
• Inbox rules that work at the top: a trusted EA clearing 60-70%, no weekend emails (schedule send instead), and the 4-reply rule - if an email chain is not resolved in four replies, kill it and have the conversation.
• Stress is a killer, but not all stress: planned, managed pressure builds trust in teams. Learn your own early warning signs and get to your outlet before it gets to you.

Chapters:

(00:00) Which Beatle are you?
(02:05) Managing yourself: the topic
(03:30) Self-awareness starts change
(06:25) Rewire your brain in 90 days
(09:12) Self-worth vs outcomes
(10:14) Name your passion
(12:05) Is work-life balance real?
(17:40) When we got it wrong
(20:26) Inbox management rules
(22:35) The 4-reply email rule
(25:40) How to manage stress
(27:45) Emotions as waves
(29:56) Who can a CEO offload to?

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