The Power Family in Business Success.

Walking on the beach in Northumberland with my daughters and dog

Burnout, once whispered about in hushed corners of HR departments, is now a universal reality, one I know too well. The pressures of modern life weigh heavy—especially as a father of two daughters and husband to a full-time professional. In my twenties, ambition drove me. Work was both my anchor and my horizon. The notion of “balance” belonged to yoga classes, not career paths.

Back then, the stakes were clear: work hard, make your mark, and perhaps along the way, find a partner. Parenthood was a hazy, distant idea. Fresh out of university, I wasn’t just inexperienced— I was unmoored. A year of medical school had already convinced me that stethoscopes and scrubs were not my destiny. Switching to a course I enjoyed and thrived in was an act of liberation, but by graduation, I was still charting my course.

Cue the wine trade. It was a fortuitous meeting of passion and opportunity. Customer-facing roles suited me, and the hedonistic pleasures of the industry—think Bordeaux vineyards and Burgundian cellars—were intoxicating in every sense. For a while, my professional identity aligned neatly with my personal enjoyment. Selling wine was about more than sales; it was storytelling, culture, and connection

But the arrival of children changes more than your sleep patterns. Work had to transform from pleasure to purpose. The demands of fatherhood are relentless and varied—school runs, packed lunches, and the endless logistics of extracurriculars. If modern parenting were a sport, it would resemble a decathlon, with less glory and more laundry.

Yet, I’ve learned the hard way that something must give. My solution was the four-day workweek, a shift I embraced not out of luxury but necessity. This wasn’t just a choice to “spend more time with family” (the perennial political cop-out) but to recalibrate my priorities entirely. Work, once an identity, became a tool—a way to build something meaningful without sacrificing what matters most: time with my children and wife.

Purposeful work, however, is not optional. To dedicate less time to it, it must be more than a pay cheque. It has to energise, inspire, and align with my values. This clarity has reshaped my definition of success. It’s no longer just about professional milestones or financial benchmarks. Success, for me, is a life lived with integrity and balance.

A revelation came in 2023 via a Father’s Day card from my youngest. It featured an innocent Q&A: “What does Dad say most often?”—I love you. “What’s his job?”—Looking after me and my sister. These simple answers hit harder than any performance review ever could.

My family doesn’t measure my value in projects delivered or revenue targets hit. To them, my job is to be present—to nurture, support, and love unconditionally. This perspective doesn’t diminish my professional ambitions; it reframes them. My daughters have taught me that my real legacy lies not in business success but in bedtime stories, not in spreadsheets but in hockey practice.

The truth is, family grounds me. It motivates my work but keeps it from consuming me. For some, career is everything. For me, it’s a means to an end—a way to provide but never at the cost of what money can’t buy. I won’t measure my life by business triumphs alone, nor do I aspire to a lonely retirement, surrounded by wealth but bereft of love.

The most valuable asset, after all, is time. And how we choose to spend it defines who we are.