Everything a CEO does can be boiled down to 3 main things: Setting direction, enabling people, and driving outcomes.

The best leaders know which of these matters most at any given time, and they shape their schedule around it.

Companies led by someone who understands that balance have a clear edge over those that don't.

When the newborn comes into your life, everything changes. It doesn't matter what your current habits are - your fitness, your diet, your time with your wife - it all kind of goes out the window. Everything starts shifting around the newborn: the schedule, the mayhem, the process of learning their personality and cues - are they hungry or just needy?

Then you start figuring out the schedule. In the first stage, you barely sleep, and both of you attend to the baby, which quickly becomes unsustainable. So you start adjusting, taking turns, shifting things around to make it work.

Everything shifts around the baby, and you end up giving up on the small things - even something as simple as going out for a walk, let alone exercising.

Two weeks in, though, you start to really enjoy the moment. You realise it's a new life - a new person with their own personality, thoughts, and habits. It's amazing to watch it unfold.

But it's also important not to forget everything else. Once you've got a bit more structure in your schedule, start bringing back those other habits - eating properly, going out, spending time with your wife, exercising, looking after yourself, and maybe spending a bit more time on your side projects too.

Only recently, I thought I didn't have time. I knew that would change soon, and I also knew I'd adapt - especially since I've done it twice before.

My third daughter (yep, I'm a girl dad) was recently born and already seems to be the boss.

In between naps, feeding, and endless nappy changes that look suspiciously like mustard, I'm doing a couple of extra things:

• building a community of product managers and;
• creating a flashcard system in Notion to help me memorise things I want to learn, from historical dates to topics related to my job - assuming I can stay awake long enough to use it.

Leaders push for speed so hard they forget the basics - a clearly communicated direction.

Everyone understands the direction eventually...once it's downhill.

The way people in an organisation work together towards shared goals forms the core of its culture.

No shared goals? No shared culture. Just meetings with snacks.

The best PMs are detail-oriented.

Even when under pressure to start executing, they still do the work in the background to make sense of it. If it doesn't, they bring it up in a non-confronting, logical way.

I've seen big decisions being reversed because of that, saving the company tens of thousands of dollars that could have been lost by going in the wrong direction where the maths does not stack up.

Hold on to these PMs.

Guard time like budget...work expands to fill the day. Block focus hours. Lock family time. Prioritise exercise. Treat them as non-negotiable.

The best way to kill your product instincts is to outsource your customer research.

When you get answers neatly packaged in a fancy PDF with cool graphs and slick design, you feel good about it. It looks like the hardest part has been done, and you just need to look at the numbers and insights. On the surface.

As you go through the research prepared by someone else, you realise you only gain surface-level knowledge of the space.

Real research is about developing a good understanding of what your customers are experiencing - the small problems they face, along with all the nuances and frustrations.

You have to speak to them. No surveys or written responses will give you true insight into their challenges.

When you outsource research, someone else builds that understanding - not you.

Your product instincts start to fade over time.

Prioritising customer requests purely by volume is a bad choice.

Volume doesn't mean this is the right problem to solve. But it still blinds teams.

Yes, customer feedback is great for spotting patterns and surfacing needs. But raw demands don't point to the best answer. Building features based solely on who shouts loudest will result in bloated products or patchwork fixes that don't scale.

A client might demand Feature X but their request likely reflects a deeper pain point solvable in a more elegant, cheaper, faster and more beneficial way.

Strong product teams distil customer insights. Instead of asking: "What do customers want?" ask: "What problem are they trying to solve?".

Your customer problems are your problems.

Harbour 10 is done! ✅

When I signed up, I picked the 55–65 min group and didn't think I'd break 55. Ended up finishing under 53 (5:12/km).

I ran the first 8 km at a comfortably hard pace then gave it everything in the final stretch (4:30/km last km). The first half was pretty packed...narrow paths and lots of weaving through the crowd. Ended up overtaking around 900 people.

Really stoked with the result, especially the pace in that last km.

Skills can be taught. Values can't...or at least not fast enough.

Don't waste interviews checking boxes or handing out take-home builds. Run live Q&A sessions. Watch how they think, how they ask questions, how they handle trade-offs under pressure. That's where you find the right fit.

Love your job. But don't let it eat your life.

Work gives you purpose, adrenaline and praise. But it also wants more. More time. More mindshare. More of you. And if you're good at it, even more will be asked.

Your energy is finite. Use it well. Set a time to log off and don't cheat it. Book your workouts like meetings. Put family time on the calendar and guard it like an investor call. Say no to evening slacks. Skip the weekend emails. Make space for life outside your inbox.

Work hard. Just don't forget who you're doing it for.

Went for a run this morning - really enjoying getting out early on the weekend. The goal was to go sub-55 for 10km, then take it easy for the final 5km. I cooled down with a gentle pace, pushed a little at the end and ended up with a 15km PB as well.

Loving these runs across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Stunning views - running past the Opera House, through the Botanic Gardens and finishing in Barangaroo. One of the best spots in the world ❤️

Love lunches with my team.

It's the sideways stories, the throwaway jokes, the unfiltered glimpses into who people really are.

You won't find those in meetings or sprint reviews. They happen over a sandwich. When the pressure's off. When people exhale.

Moments like that stay with you.

The best PMs demand clarity. They don't rush ahead until the problem, the why and the how are nailed down. Then they spread it. With sharp words. With tight updates. With documents people actually read.

Over the weekend, I've been playing around with some Vibe Coding to tackle a challenge I've been thinking about.

There are probably existing products that do something similar, but for me, it's more about getting hands-on with AI and building something myself. I used to be a software engineer, so tinkering with things like this comes naturally - and I really enjoy it.

The problem I'm exploring is related to my work in the health industry, which is a broad and complex space. To give you an idea: there are general practitioners, specialists, allied health professionals like physios and psychologists, private and community clinics, hospitals (public and private), private health insurers, Medicare and government services, regulatory bodies like ADHA and AHPRA, My Health Record, and the underlying tech infrastructure like Best Practice, MedicalDirector, and Genie.

Then there are patient-facing platforms like HealthShare (where I work), HotDoc and Health Engine plus areas like patient education, pharmacies and aged care.

This is a lot!

As a product leader, I try to stay on top of market news and emerging trends but it takes a lot of time and constant context switching.

That's the problem I'm trying to solve. See MarketRippa