Ben Horwitz wrote about the CEO struggle (in his book: “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers”)
Every entrepreneur starts his/her company with a clear vision for success, “It’s going to be awesome”.
Then, after working night and day to make your vision reality, you wake up to find that things did not go as planned: You lose a competitive battle, your product has issues that will be very hard to fix, the market isn’t quite where it was supposed to be, you lose a loyal customer.

The walls start closing in. Where did you go wrong? Why didn’t your company perform as envisioned? Are you good enough to do this? As your dreams turn into nightmares, you find yourself in The Struggle.
It’s at this point that you start to question things. This is when things get dark. Depression sets in. Options look narrow. You just want to hit snooze repeatedly and hide under the covers. The Struggle, however, is also where greatness is born.

• The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place.
• The Struggle is when food loses its taste.
• The Struggle is when you don’t believe you should be CEO of your company.
• The Struggle is where self-doubt becomes self-hatred.
• The struggle is when you and your co-founders can’t stop fighting with each other.
• The Struggle is when you want the pain to stop.
• The Struggle is unhappiness.
• The Struggle is when you go on vacation to feel better and you feel worse.
• The Struggle is when you are surrounded by people and you are all alone.
• The Struggle has no mercy.
• The struggle is within.

What is your CEO struggle?
How don’t you feel alone in it?