Life in the CEO Lane: A man wanting to have it all (which might not mean what you think)

Working from our shared office space in Shoreditch, I could be mistaken for a university lecturer hanging out in the student union rather than an entrepreneur sitting with my peers, all of us at the forefront of the technology industry.

That’s because I’m a serial entrepreneur and this isn’t my first time at the rodeo. Leaving the security of a high flying career fifteen years ago, I’ve been CEO of my start-up since 2000. While others sitting around the desks at Second Home might be worrying about where to go to for a drink later, I’m thinking about making my flight home to Slovenia in time to put my four kids to bed.

Working within the start-up industry since 2001, I’ve been able to witness great technological advances that have enabled a way of working never seen before. The world is so small now that my commute from London to Slovenia is considered fairly easy, and managing a company from the other side of Europe doesn’t even warrant a blink. But it wasn’t always this way.

At the outset, many saw my bi-country lifestyle as a sure-fire way to burn out, but for me it was the perfect opportunity to be the master of my universe and reclaim control over the way I live and work, without compromising either.

This was also around the time where organisations worldwide were experimenting with flexible working — primarily driven by the needs of women who wanted to balance careers with children. This led the way for the Marissa Mayer’s and Hilary Clinton’s of the world to head up companies and political parties while having a family.

But as Kevin Roberts, now ex-CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, very clumsily tried to point out last week — it’s not just women who want it all. As a man, husband, father and CEO I wanted to be an entrepreneur and head up a start-up all while having meaningful relationships with the people I love — which meant a lot more than just phone calls at birthdays.

This desire to make my life better, alongside the technological advances of the last 10 years, led me to make something that could help everyone, me included, to lead better and more fulfilling lives. My company 4th Office is revolutionising email to make it easier to focus on what’s really important, prioritising people — rather than content.

We are endeavoring to take back control of the high-speed digital aspects of our lives that are leading to a third of people in the UK taking a ‘digital detox’ of up to a month (according to last week’s report from Ofcom). Email, social media and collaboration tools all live on our computers, smartphones and tablets to help us stay connected, contactable, reachable and ‘on’ at all times.

The consequences are that psychologists said that push notifications are a “toxic source of stress” , while scientists at Loughborough University in 2013 found a direct link between email and stress with an increase in blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol levels when reading and sending messages.

Aside from the real health concerns, there is a human cost associated to it as too often technology is seen as a replacement for face to face contact.

Haven’t we all heard examples of high flying executives regularly reading their kids a bedtime story via FaceTime while on business trips? We can’t completely do away with those trips but surely we can find better ways to structure our lives so that we don’t miss out on valuable face to face contact with our family and friends?

Technology has made my current life — working in London and living in Slovenia — possible. Not in the traditional sense that I use it to stay in touch with people while working remotely or that I’m hooked to my devices 24/7 to keep all the plates spinning.

I use technology to help me live my life without compromise. I use it to work out how I can stay with my family and do the work I need to do, rather than keeping in touch while I’m away. I use it so that I don’t need to be remote in London all the time, but can actually join my family for real human interaction so that I can attend all parent/teacher meetings at the kids’ school, watch their football games and take my wife out for dinner mid-week when I want to.

Our always-on culture is a serious threat. Like flexible working before it, mastering control over technology is an absolute must. It has helped me to become a better person all round and I expect that it will help us all to become less stressed, more efficient and productive and lead more fulfilling lives.

Everyone — men and women — can have it all, if only we are willing to reinvent technology so that it fits around the lives we want to lead, not the other way around.