Ashley Faithful, founder of AF Training, reveals how top Australian executives structure their days around protecting mental bandwidth and strengthening relationships
What’s happening: Ashley Faithful, founder of AF Training, has identified consistent patterns among Australia’s highest-performing executives after years of working closely with top-tier business leaders.
Why this matters: Understanding how top leaders structure their time, protect their cognitive resources, and maintain resilience offers practical insights for anyone managing high-pressure roles where decision-making quality and consistent output are critical to organisational success and personal wellbeing.
High performance among Australia’s top executives isn’t about working longer hours or pushing through exhaustion. It’s about engineering daily routines that protect cognitive resources and amplify energy when it matters most.
Ashley Faithful, founder of AF Training, has spent years working closely with some of Australia’s most effective business leaders. Across industries, ages and leadership styles, the patterns are remarkably consistent.
“High performance isn’t accidental, it’s engineered,” Faithful said. “The executives who consistently deliver results, navigate complexity with clarity, and inspire their teams do so not by chance, but through deliberate choices and disciplined routines.”
Outsourcing structure
One of the most striking habits Faithful observes is how top executives conserve decision-making energy by removing or outsourcing choices that don’t require their direct input.
“High-performing executives have to make tough decisions constantly and therefore, need to conserve their energy to make the right calls when it’s needed the most,” Faithful said.
Instead of deciding when and what to train, or what to eat each day, they hand that responsibility over to a coach or system. This protects their mental bandwidth and ensures cognitive reserves are saved for critical business decisions.
The approach reflects a broader understanding that energy, focus and resilience are finite resources requiring intentional management.
Data over opinions
Nearly every top executive Faithful trains prefers metrics over opinions when it comes to performance information. They track business KPIs alongside sleep quality metrics and training load data.
“Data gives them confidence in the process,” Faithful said. “It also satisfies their need for measurable outcomes. Something that is deeply ingrained in important leadership roles.”
When the numbers show progress, they stay consistent. When data signals fatigue, they adjust without ego. This focus on metrics improves both physical progress and mental sharpness throughout the day.
The preference for objective information over subjective advice extends across all aspects of their routines, from business strategy to personal wellbeing.
Training as strategy
High-performing executives view their bodies and minds as integral tools for leadership, with training sessions representing deliberate investments in these assets.
Exercise isn’t about appearance or ticking boxes. It’s about boosting cognitive performance and maintaining high energy levels throughout long days.
“They know the far-reaching benefits of training. How resistance training is needed to improve longevity, strength, and resilience,” Faithful said. “How cardiovascular work, mobility, and recovery practices are also equally as important to achieving their optimal energy levels, goals, and readiness data.”
These leaders aren’t fitting exercise in around work. They’re structuring everything around maintaining and optimising their most critical resource: themselves.
Faithful also observes that top executives consistently invest in strengthening key relationships both at work and in their personal lives. Professionally, they nurture connections with peers, clients and teams through regular check-ins and mentoring. Personally, they make time for family, friends and their own mentors.
“The leaders I work with know that sustainable success isn’t just about strategy or productivity, it’s also about people,” Faithful said.
Strong personal support networks enhance resilience, perspective and overall wellbeing, creating foundations for sustained high performance.
What Faithful has learned from observing these patterns is that excellence in executive leadership requires designing days that protect and amplify finite resources. These aren’t just theoretical concepts but actionable, repeatable habits that transform leaders’ performance, wellbeing and influence.
This article is based on insights provided by Ashley Faithful, founder of AF Training.
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