![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/US_POLO_CEO_298e0c.png?w=2048\")
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The average CEO pulls 62-hour workweeks\u2014around 10 hours a day plus a few more on the weekend. And they\u2019re even at it on holiday. For workers, it can mean a steady stream of out-of-hours demands, whether they\u2019re on duty or not. But after losing \u201cyears\u201d of his life to overworking, you won\u2019t catch U.S. Polo\u2019s CEO J. Michael Prince contacting his team on a Saturday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I try to respect is\u2014and this never really happened to me throughout my career\u2014unless there\u2019s something major going on, I try to leave people alone in the evenings, so you rarely ever get an email or text from me after the office,\u201d Prince exclusively tells Fortune<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite running a $2.7 billion 24\/7 global brand, complete with 1,200 stores across 190 countries and charity polo events at Windsor Castle alongside Prince William, he leaves the office at 5:30 p.m., his team won\u2019t get a text from him after hours unless urgent, and even on long weekends he gives everyone Friday to Monday and goes dark.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI leave the office, and I really try to respect people\u2019s weekends, because I feel like that\u2019s your family time, that\u2019s your personal time, that\u2019s your friendship time, that\u2019s your time to reset, recharge spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a rare feat for someone who runs a business that spans retail and weekend sporting events\u2014and even his own routine reflects the same logic. But Prince knows too well the toll being always on takes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Prince is up at around 5:15 a.m. \u201cI don\u2019t like the fours, but I like the fives,\u201d he jokes, adding that he works out for an hour, has a cup of coffee, checks his emails and always makes time for breakfast with the family.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead of rushing to his commute, the CEO likes to savor his mornings, taking turns with his wife doing the school run and opting to get into the office \u201ca bit later\u201d to miss the traffic. \u201cBecause I know once I get to the office, there goes my day, no matter how well it\u2019s planned,\u201d Prince explains.<\/p>\n Once through the door, it\u2019s calls from sport partners, international licensees, and team meetings. \u201cBut I usually try to get out of the office around 5: 30 p.m. to get home and have dinner with the family,\u201d he adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unless there\u2019s an urgent matter\u2014in which case, Prince tells his team they can reach him at any time, day or night\u2014he has one final check of messages, and then he switches off for the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t always that way. To get to where he is today, Prince pulled 90-hour work weeks, including all-nighters.<\/p>\n \u201cI probably lost some years on the front end from some of those \u2018good habits\u2019 that could also be considered bad habits,\u201d he recalls.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLooking back, I could have worked a little smarter,\u201d Prince adds. \u201cI could have eaten differently, I could have been a little more thoughtful about my sleep, about my routine around working out, my travel\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n When you\u2019re grinding for as many hours as he was, taking care of yourself naturally falls down the priority list. But now in his 50s, Prince has the benefit of hindsight: a career runs from your 20s until your late 60s, and skipping lunch daily, burning the midnight oil and running on four hours of sleep simply isn\u2019t sustainable for decades on end.<\/p>\n \u201cWork hard, but also take care of yourself,\u201d he advises ambitious professionals. \u201cIt\u2019s a marathon, not a sprint.\u201d<\/p>\n Prince isn\u2019t the only major CEO who\u2019s installed some boundaries\u2014and told their teams to do the same.<\/p>\n Netflix cofounder Marc Randolph said he kept a hard cutoff every Tuesday at 5 p.m. for over 30 years, even while running the $310 billion entertainment giant to keep himself \u201csane.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve worked hard, for my entire career, to keep my life balanced with my job,\u201d he wrote in a LinkedIn post that went viral. And \u201cno meeting, no conference call, no last-minute question or request\u201d would get in the way of that. Even if there was a \u201ccrisis,\u201d you\u2019d still catch him going to a movie or having dinner with his best friend every single Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel makes time to work out twice a day and \u201cfully uses up\u201d all his annual leave every year\u2014despite being in a minimum of 10 meetings a day and near-constant business travel.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cI think it\u2019s important for me to help set that example,\u201d Buechel previously told Fortune<\/em>, adding that he\u2019ll even make a point to \u201calways ask\u201d his team members about what they\u2019ve planned for their next vacation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n He even capped how many hours employees can sell to \u201cmake sure they are taking PTO\u2026and ultimately having a great work-life balance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And although he\u2019s the CEO of the world\u2019s largest bank, JPMorgan\u2019s Jamie Dimon, takes all of his annual leave and tells his work-force they need to \u201cwork smart\u201d to prioritize their work-life balance.<\/p>\n The CEO told students at Georgetown: \u201cYou have to take care of your mind, your body, your spirit, your soul, your friends, your family, your health.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Polo #Assn #CEO #work #90hour #weeksnow #hes #p.m #dark #weekends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The average CEO pulls 62-hour workweeks\u2014around 10 hours a day plus a few more on the weekend. And they\u2019re even at it on holiday. For workers, it can mean a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11973,2783,11971,424,426,369,7252,1285,2786,5093,2782,1071,892,1287,1102,2401,4119,7258,2781,10125,887,4978,12415,12414,3089,12413,1105,3042],"class_list":["post-10658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-90hour","tag-and-wellness","tag-assn","tag-career-advice","tag-careers","tag-ceo","tag-ceo-wellness","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-dark","tag-day-in-the-life-of-a-ceo","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-hes","tag-jamie-dimon","tag-jpmorgan-chase","tag-lifestyle","tag-netflix","tag-p-m","tag-personal-health","tag-polo","tag-productivity","tag-view-from-the-c-suite","tag-weekends","tag-weeksnow","tag-well-being","tag-whole-foods","tag-work","tag-work-life-balance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The CEO is working \u2018smarter\u2019 after pulling 90-hour weeks and all-nighters to get to the top<\/h2>\n
Netflix cofounder stopped work at 5 p.m. every Tuesday for 30 years to stay \u2018sane,\u2019 no matter the crisis<\/h2>\n