I used to work for a guy who was a family man, good at his (demanding) job, and ran triathlons. This is doubly impressive, as I see many fat programmers who mig

I used to work for a guy who was a family man, good at his (demanding) job, and ran triathlons. This is doubly impressive, as I see many fat programmers who might be successful in their families and careers but are neglecting their health. As far as I could tell, his method was: 1)Be very focused while on the job and have mounds of energy. 2)Be very smart. 3)Be very clear about your goals and what you want from life. 4)Do not care about appearances. He would regularly come in and leave at odd hours. But his superiors didn't care because he got good results. 5)Be insanely likeable. Maybe his superiors or his clients would have grumbled about his hours if they didn't think he was a swell guy. Note: being good at your job and likeable is a killer combination for being able to bend the rules and get away with it. Either quality alone is probably not enough. 6)Pick reliable underlings and delegate. This is related to point (5). Everybody wanted to work for him, you couldn't know the guy and NOT want to work for him, so he was able to choose competent people for his team. I don't know that I could be like my old boss. Right now, I can barely keep grad school and my health together. But I have an example to emulate.