Red Lobster's next CEO once explained why he doesn't practice work-life balance

• Red Lobster's incoming CEO, Damola Adamolekun, said last year that he didn't have work-life balance.
• Adamolekun, formerly P.F. Chang's CEO, said he preferred to integrate work and his personal life.
• He added that people should focus on how work affects them individually.

Red Lobster's newly named CEO doesn't believe in practicing work-life balance — at least for himself.

Damola Adamolekun, who's set to take over Red Lobster as CEO pending court approval next month, told Fortune in an interview last year that he's never really "been a person that separated work and life."

"I worked in banking, so I was working all the time," he said. "But I liked it. I like what I did. I thought it was interesting."

Adamolekun, the former CEO of the Asian-fusion restaurant chain P.F. Chang's, previously told Business Insider that he liked to work out at 5 a.m. before starting his workday in his home office at 6 a.m., often going through dinner with partners, directors, or other executives.

In his interview with Fortune, Adamolekun said that while he didn't necessarily have to go into the office on Saturdays, sometimes he'd want to knock out some tasks or look into something for work.

"So even on a Saturday I'll be by my pool but I'll still be checking emails or responding to things," he said. "And it's me, it's fine. It doesn't stress me out."

Adamolekun isn't the first CEO to say he doesn't practice work-life balance. Some executives have gone so far as to criticize the phrase. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google , recently argued that the tech giant's remote-work policy and overfocus on work-life balance were the reasons it was falling behind other AI startups, though he later walked back his remarks.

Adamolekun described people's relationship with work as "an individual thing" and acknowledged his hustle-culture tendencies aren't the most effective for everyone.

"Now, if you're a person who work stresses you out, right, then you need to separate the two," he said, "so you have moments where you're not stressed, you're not thinking about work all the time."

That might be most people. In its 2024 trends report, the consulting firm Mercer cited a survey of employees in which 82% said they felt at risk of burnout.

Tina Armasu, a work psychologist who previously spoke with Business Insider , suggested minimizing talking about work after you've logged off.

"I think you need to know yourself," Adamolekun said, "and know how you react, how work impacts you."