Nick Perry and a CEO discuss the unglamorous side of leadership: constant problem-solving, unpopular decisions, and work that never stops. The CEO describes it as always being in a problem, just leaving one, or about to enter another.
I wish somebody had told me this before I became CEO. It's a cuck job. It's really not a glamorous job. You have to do all the stuff that everybody else doesn't want to do. And you have to make all the decisions that everybody else doesn't want to make. Which means no one ever comes to you with good things. That's the point. Everybody wants to be the CEO. You don't want that because anytime someone comes to you, it's usually when they are stuck. So it's 8 to 5 of just managing stuff. And that's before you do your job. Between eight and five, you work for them. After five, you work for you. Your work literally starts after everybody else is lift.
Look, the reality of this is every day you are either in a problem, just got out of a problem, or are about to walk into a problem. It's like running a marathon, except the finish line keeps moving. And if you don't chase that line with the same enthusiasm as you did when you started, you may as well quit now because this isn't for you.
