This candid discussion morphs into a masterclass on leadership evolution, as we chart the transformation from a neophyte at the helm to a seasoned navigator of the corporate seas. Emotions are part and parcel of the leadership package, and we dissect the courage required to make those tough calls amidst the fog of uncertainty. The voyage of a CEO is one of constant learning—an odyssey without a final port, where every challenge weathered and every decision steered adds to the rich tapestry of experience. So, tune in and discover how the mettle of true leadership is tested and forged in the crucible of corporate command.
This candid discussion morphs into a masterclass on leadership evolution, as we chart the transformation from a neophyte at the helm to a seasoned navigator of the corporate seas. Emotions are part and parcel of the leadership package, and we dissect the courage required to make those tough calls amidst the fog of uncertainty. The voyage of a CEO is one of constant learning—an odyssey without a final port, where every challenge weathered and every decision steered adds to the rich tapestry of experience. So, tune in and discover how the mettle of true leadership is tested and forged in the crucible of corporate command.
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Speaker 1:
This is Unleashing Leadership, and I'm your host, travis Moss, and we are with Dave Nurchi again after lessons learned from the book the Hard Thing about hard things with Ben Horowitz. I promise I wasn't going to make any furniture jokes, so Dave has graduated from our special guest to the furniture, to the co-host of the hard things season. Sorry about that, all right. So our topic for today the psychological battle. If I'm doing a good job, why do I feel so bad? No CEO ever has a smooth path to a great company. Every CEO learns to be a CEO by being a CEO, and so all the CEO stuff is brought to you by Cutthroat College, where we're helping people avoid going broke because of the cost of college.
Speaker 1:
Now there's a podcast for Cutthroat College. You can get more information by going to nqrmediacom. You can go any place where podcasts are. You can look it up or you can go to our YouTube channel if you want to watch them in action. But there's also a program about preparing for college and there's scholarships available for that, and you can get more information on that at Seeds of Hope, which is at SOH. So, like as in Seeds of Hope, soh team dot org. So SOH team dot org. You can get more information on their college boot camp and some scholarships that are available for that. Alright, so, dave, be my psychologist. Kick this off. What's you? Work closely with me. You see me in the good times and the bad times. How do you think we should start this one?
Speaker 2:
yeah, I think we could go a lot of different ways with it, but if we kind of stick more to the books message or the CEO perspective, it's an interesting question of I feel like I'm doing a good job one day, or most days, however you look at that, but why do I have this feeling that either maybe it's not enough or I could have done better or I could have done this differently? I mean, those are normal thoughts I would think to have, so I guess I'd throw it back to you in your role at Seed as CEO what makes you think that way? Or if you you know, when you go home or you're thinking about what happened right, like what is it that?
Speaker 1:
is there something specific that makes you think, or you know? There's an obsession for growth that I have? Nope. And there's a obsession for trying to develop people and take people along this path with me, and that lives with me and it doesn't stop when I leave the office and it doesn't start when I get to the office. It's a 24-7 obsession. It takes over your life. When I go home and my wife and I talk about things, she wants to know what's the updates. These are like going home and sitting at the table and asking your kids what they did at school. Today. We go home and we talk through the goods and the bads and you carry these things with you, all the goods and the bads because you're the decision maker, you're the guy or woman who, ultimately, has either shaped or allowed the shaping of the situation that you're in and the situation that everybody who has entrusted you with their future is in, and you and I were talking before this episode a lot about reflection and introspection. And this is, you know you're these.
Speaker 1:
Being a CEO can fill your closet with demons, if you let it, because, yeah, there will be situations where you have to make decisions that are not good for certain people for the benefit of everybody else. Whether it be there's going to be some customers mad at you because you changed something, because 90% of the customers need something different. Or there's going to be employees that are mad because you changed something and it doesn't match up with their skill sets or where they thought they were going with their job or something, or there's a product change or just something right. There's always going to be something that you change that's going to make somebody mad. If you're trying to please everybody and you're a CEO, you're nuts, right, you're absolutely nuts You're going to make people mad, and especially when you're new at being in charge, making people mad hurts, you know, or maybe not making people mad, sending somebody home crying hurts, yep, right, and and and you have to you own that, and we talked about you know business, being business and and having. You know sometimes it's just business, but you can't just say it's just business all the time.
Speaker 1:
And the tool that that I have, you know, worked hard on and that I encourage you and every one of our employees to work on, we talk about often, as I mentioned earlier, reflection and introspection, like you have to look at the situation and say how did I handle the situation? What did I do in that situation, understanding that you're going to screw up a lot, right, like, and even if you don't screw up, you should be looking at it, saying how could I do it better, right, and, and even in that, if you're ocd about this stuff, you're going to be like I didn't screw up, but I could do it way better. I want to do it way better. I want to do it way better, like it. Just it's an obsession that you have with improvement and that's the introspection part. Like it's like okay, I'm gonna look at the situation, I'm going to think about me. I don't think about what I could have done or should have done or would have done. And the problem with that and the reason why you can be doing a great job and feeling so bad, is because you tend to beat yourself up with if I did this or if I pivoted then or if I listened sooner.
Speaker 1:
People bring up stuff and somebody will say, hey, here's the situation. You're like thanks for the information. Then you don't act, and you don't act for a reason. Maybe it's a good reason, but then the situation devolves and it becomes worse and then you have more of a fire that you have to deal with and in retrospect you go I should have dealt with it sooner. But at the same time, you know, in the situation that you were in, if I deal with it sooner and I'm and and I don't want to say that I'm wrong, cause you shouldn't be afraid of being wrong but, um, I, I have not done due diligence on the situation. I could potentially cause equal or more harm.
Speaker 1:
Right, because you know, once damage has been done, sometimes, once damage has been done in some places, sometimes it doesn't matter how much more is done. It's just kind of like you know it blew a hole in it and now you got to go patch it. Right, and it's not going to get to be bigger, it's not going to be more work, it's just the hole's already blown. So you're better off understanding the real reason why the hole's been blown. And so you live with these what if? Scenarios until I think you get more experience where you're like that's infinite, man, if you're good at this, you are going to have infinite scenarios where you think about man, I did not do that right.
Speaker 1:
Or I came out of a meeting the other day that was pretty contentious I was very proud of myself. I'm like man. That was a big growth for me. I got through this meeting without doing X Y Z. I'm really proud of myself. Now I can still look at it and say, and I wish I had done X Y Z more.
Speaker 1:
But it's the maturation of the leader to realize that sometimes it's just business, right, if they want to be mad, let them be mad. If they want to be sad, let them be sad. If you're making the decisions for the right reasons and if you're constantly looking at yourself and saying, hey, I want to improve, I want to get better at this, the the. The truth of it is is everybody talks about they want to be in charge and and you know why does that guy get paid so much to be in charge and stuff like that. Go, try to make some of these decisions and go to sleep at night. Right, learn what that means.
Speaker 1:
Because a lot of people won't make decisions on very benign things, and they won't make decisions on benign things because they're afraid of upsetting somebody. I won't. I won't tell somebody what I need to tell them, or or I can't do that because I don't have enough information, or or whatever the reason is they won't tell somebody what I need to tell them, or I can't do that because I don't have enough information, or whatever the reason is, they won't do something and so they have inaction. Inaction is more deadly than the wrong action in most cases. So the CEO's job is to take action to make sure that things are moving forward. It doesn't always mean that it's the perfect decision on every decision moving forward. It doesn't always mean that it's the perfect decision on every decision, but you know learning that that's part of the job, that's the hardest part. And so and I think Ben talks about his whole experience from you know, rookie CEO all the way through. I mean he's pretty phenomenal now, right, I bet he'd still say he's learning right.
Speaker 1:
And he's probably still inspired from people that he works with and that's it's. It's the ever. It never stops. You keep getting to different levels but there's no max level, so you always are looking back, going I should get better. But the further along you get, the more you realize if I'm doing it for the right reasons and I'm holding myself accountable, then business is business.