The 51-year-old exec says he’s always been a morning person—on weekdays, at least—and that starting his day while others slept is why he got ahead faster than most.

“I was kind of built that way,” he told Fortune last summer, adding you set “benchmarks based on your life experiences.”

While Gen Z and millennial workers are rewriting the rules of corporate life—demanding flexibility, autonomy, and strict boundaries around “me time”—Shipchandler isn’t convinced you can reach the C-suite without long hours and sacrifice. 

“Every one of us has to make certain work-life choices,” the Gen X boss.  “This work-life choice obviously has certain consequences. I wasn’t there for all of my son’s tennis matches.” 

“If you want to work eight-to-five, coach your kids sports teams, have the evenings for yourself, and maybe another hobby or interest, that’s awesome,” Shipchandler adds—but he caveats that he’s “never spoken to a peer” who doesn’t have a similar routine and level of balance as him. My parents were the classic immigrant success story, and as with many immigrant parents, they wanted their kids to do better than them and to create the opportunities for them,” he reflected on his family, who moved to the U.S. from Mumbai.

“They really pushed working hard and playing hard—which, by the way, I do play hard when I’m not working—so that was the goal,” he added. 

Shipchandler graduated from Indiana University—Bloomington in 1996 and that summer began his career at the industrial conglomerate. And that drive paid off early. By the time he was 31, Shipchandler was already CFO of a multi-billion-dollar GE business.

“If you were willing to put in the effort, they were willing to give you the opportunity,” he added. “So I got a lot of opportunities there.”