At the core of these habits are important avenues for self fulfillment: exercise, healthy relationships, and non-work pursuits. We should certainly aspire to include some of them in our lives.
The issue for me isn't how exaggerated or true these claims are, but how they are being used by C-suite executives to justify their pay scale, power, and prestige.
The goal of these image obsessed executives is to build a myth of superiority both inside and outside of their organization that they are fundamentally different and better (and willing to sacrifice more) than the lowly ones who don't make it to the top. Further reinforcing this is the difficulty us mere mortals have in achieving a good paying job, financial solvency, healthy lifestyles, and strong relationships, but these people do it breathlessly easily. What choice do us mere mortals have but emulate these super-people with ever increasing amounts of our time in working to keep up?
Is it that much different than the Pharaohs and Emperors who fed the myths of their own super human or divine heritage to justify their privilege and power? The truth is that these CEO's retain an ever larger piece of the organization's surplus to spend on nannies, maids, and every other service imaginable while we in the middle class must work longer and longer hours to retain our salaried positions, leaving little if any time left to pursue a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
When will we realize these CEO's don't deserve these sky high salaries, CEO's need us for these organizations to function, and force them to return some of the surplus to their employees? They have no monopoly on aspirations or working hard to achieve them.