The Real Job of a CEO: Emotional Chaos

Everyone thinks being a CEO is glamorous. They’re wrong. People see the title and assume it’s all fun and freedom. ✈️ Travel. 🗣️ Speaking opportunities. 💰 Success. Here’s the truth: being a CEO means doing the shit nobody wants to do. It’s carrying the cognitive load that no one else feels. It’s worrying about the dozens (or hundreds) of people who rely on you for their livelihoods. It’s questioning if you’re giving enough to your team… and your family. It’s sleepless nights, hard conversations, and impossible tradeoffs. One of my favorite ways to understand people is through a simple interview question I always ask:  “What’s the biggest misconception people have about you?” It’s eye-opening.  For me, the biggest misconception is that everything I do as a CEO is glamorous.  The truth couldn’t be further from it. It’s not about perks or the fun parts of the job.  It’s about shouldering responsibility, making the hard choices, and taking hits so your people don’t have to. I keep a sign in my office that my old EA sent around the company on Boss’s Day.  Everyone added words they’d use to describe me.  I love that it captures how people see me—and reminds me that perception and reality are often very different. Leadership isn’t about perks. It’s about pressure. It’s about showing up when it’s hard — especially when no one’s watching. It’s about doing whatever needs to be done. I’m proud of what I’ve built. But I’m also honest enough to say this: No job — not even mine — is perfect. If you think being a CEO is about glamour, you’re chasing the wrong dream. - Hey, I’m Oz. 👋 I’ve helped companies like Blackstone, Amex, and Condé Nast hire similar to the top 1%. Now I’m building AI to shape the future of management—and help professionals gain the skills they need for the jobs of tomorrow. Message me for more information! #MSH #AeonHire #Leadership #CEO #Entrepreneurship #RealityCheck #PeopleFirst #Accountability #Resilience #Mindset #Culture #BusinessTruths #OzRashid

The day she quit, everything broke. I thought I’d lost a person. But I’d actually lost a 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮. She wasn’t just a team member. She was the glue. The knowledge base. The one who saw problems before they happened. When she left... Projects stalled. Clients escalated. And I was back in firefighting mode — again. That’s when I realized: We hadn’t built systems; we’d built 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘴. And dependencies are silent risks. They don’t hurt... until they snap. Most founders I coach make the same mistake. They don’t build resilience into delivery. They build reliance around a few rockstars. The fix isn’t hiring another “rockstar” It’s designing a company that runs even when someone leaves. Here’s how: - Document every recurring process. - Cross-train at least two people for each key role. - Build dashboards, not dependency chains. People come and go. Systems make sure the business doesn’t. If this hit home, repost ♻️ Some founder in your network is one resignation away from chaos. Question for you: Would your business survive a surprise resignation tomorrow? 👀 P.S. I made a free cheat sheet on this — 𝘙𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘦 𝘒𝘦𝘺-𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘙𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘋𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺. Save it, use it to build a founder-free, resilient organization. 👆 -- If you liked this post, you will love my newsletter: 𝗖𝗘𝗢 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆. 2200+ founders read it every week. I write from my personal experience of building, scaling, and exiting 2 MM$ businesses and now coaching founders and executives. 🔗 Click “View my newsletter” above 👆

Monday Systems: 🧭Why do some Scale Up CEOs hit 10x growth while others plateau at 2x? It's not what you think. Every Scale-Up CEO knows the thrill of a big win — a record month, a marquee client, a viral launch. But the truth is: Growth built on random wins is fragile. The best Scale Up CEOs I know stopped chasing the next big win and started building the machine that creates consistent wins. They've learned that sustainable growth isn't about hitting lucky streaks—it's about designing systems where success becomes inevitable, not accidental. While others celebrate random victories, they're busy aligning their people, processes, and priorities into a growth engine that compounds over time. When that alignment clicks, momentum feels effortless: ⚙️ Marketing and Sales stop competing for credit — they start compounding outcomes ⚙️ Product decisions respond to a shared narrative, not market noise ⚙️ Teams move without constant supervision — because the system itself drives clarity Here's what I've observed working with Scale Up leaders: - The companies that break through plateaus don't have better ideas or more talented teams—they have better systems. - They've moved beyond the founder-dependent hustle that got them to where they are, and they've built repeatable frameworks that work whether they're in the room or not. The difference is stark: Average CEOs react to problems as they surface 👉Exceptional CEOs design systems that prevent those problems from happening in the first place Average CEOs hire great people and hope for the best 👉Exceptional CEOs create environments where great people can consistently do their best work The mindset shift? ⚡ This isn't about perfection—it's about intentionality. It's about stepping back from the tactical firefighting that feels urgent and investing time in the strategic infrastructure that actually moves the needle. The irony? Building systems feels slower in the moment but creates exponentially faster results over time. What's one system in your business that you've been putting off building because you're too busy chasing opportunities? 💭

The most productive leaders I know are terrible at being productive. They miss calls. Skip meetings. Disappear for hours without explanation. And they consistently outperform all the desk jockeys who are proudly grinding 80-hour weeks. I recently heard a story about a high-powered CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world who literally sits silent in the dark for 1-hour before starting his day. I used to think stuff like this was irresponsible. Then I started tracking what actually drives results. Peak productivity isn't about doing more. It's about protecting your capacity to do what matters. The hustle culture lie tells you that busy equals valuable. That visible effort equals results. But the leaders delivering breakthrough outcomes? They've mastered strategic unproductivity. They know their brains aren't machines. They understand that breakthrough thinking happens in the spaces between tasks, not during them. While everyone else optimizes for output, they optimize for outcome. Here's how the top 1% actually structure their time: - Morning protection: The first 2-3 hours are sacred. No meetings, no emails, no interruptions. This is when their best thinking happens. - Strategic boredom: They schedule empty time. Walks without podcasts. Drives without calls. Boredom is where breakthrough ideas are born. - Energy mapping: They track when they're sharpest and guard those windows fiercely. A 30-minute focused session at peak energy beats 3 hours of distracted grinding. - Ruthless elimination: They say no to 90% of requests. Not because they're lazy, but because they know their yes is only powerful when it's rare. The hardest part isn't learning these principles. It's unlearning the guilt that comes with them. You've been conditioned to believe that rest is earned, that downtime is lazy, that being unreachable is unprofessional. I still fight this conditioning daily. The voice that says I should be doing more, responding faster, being more available. But what if the opposite were true? What if your biggest competitive advantage isn't how much you can handle, but how intelligently you choose what to handle? Join 4,000+ founders and CEOs reading the Mink in a Minute newsletter. 👉 Link under my name to subscribe. What would happen if you protected your peak hours as fiercely as you protect your biggest accounts? #productivity #leadership #entrepreneurship #management #performance

Nobody talks about the shadow side of being a CEO. The burnout that creeps in when you're always "on." The loneliness of making decisions nobody else can make. The comparison trap—seeing other founders crushing it while you're barely keeping up. (In reality, they feel the same way about you). The never-ending expectations from your board, team, customers, and yourself. You signed up to build something great. You didn't sign up for this weight. But here's the thing: acknowledging it doesn't make you weak. It makes you real. The best CEOs I work with don't avoid these feelings. They name it. They work through it. They build support systems. Anxiety melts away when you take the first step. You can't pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself so you can take care of your company. Enjoy this? Subscribe to my newsletter and get a 22 page presentation on the secrets of Limitless CEOs https://lnkd.in/gWqQBd-n

When companies hit hard times, they all make the same mistake. They cut people first. Why? Because people are the largest “intangible” cost on the balance sheet. It’s fast. It’s visible. It looks decisive. But it’s also lazy leadership. You’re not solving the root problem, You’re just asking fewer people to do more work…with broken processes. That’s not resilience. That’s madness. Here’s a better approach: • Start by cutting inefficient processes ≠ not people • Eliminate the systems that waste time, energy, and morale • Fix what’s broken before asking people to carry more weight • Because if your workflows are bloated or misaligned…   → Reducing headcount just speeds up burnout • People cuts should be the last resort ≠ not the first instinct If you want a business that’s lean & durable, Start with how work gets done, Not just who’s doing it. Disagree? Tell me why I’m wrong. PS - The pyramid is a simple way to show how most companies approach it. I do wonder why this is. ~~~ ♻️ Repost if this resonates with you. Follow Brendan for more authentic thoughts on LinkedIn.

I feel like my brain is just a browser with 70 tabs open, 69 of which are "things I had to do like yesterday." Who else knows this feeling? Back when I was working with companies like CNN, that was my life. Every idea sounded urgent. Every task felt important. Before long… burnout. Even now, as CEO of Machine Mythology, I still catch myself wanting to do everything. It’s a hard habit to kill. But here’s what I do to stop being a disorganized mess. I focus on; 💡 Must do Tasks→ the 20% that actually moves revenue, pipeline, or visibility. 💡 Should do Tasks→ only after must-do’s are wrapped up. 💡 Everything else → someone else’s lane. Let them shine. If you’re in tech sales, engineering, or marketing leadership, this is everything. Your job isn’t to juggle it all. Protect your energy and focus on the levers only you can pull. And I have to say this again: burnout is not progress. If you’re seeing this when you ought to be offline, close this tab! 😉

"When people in my company would complain about something or other being broken such as the expense reporting process, I would joke that it was all my fault. The joke was funny, because it wasn’t really a joke. Every problem in the company was indeed my fault. As the founding CEO, every hire and every decision that the company ever made happened under my direction. Unlike a hired gun that comes in and blames all of the problems on the prior regime, there was literally nobody for me to blame." insightful read for all leaders.

The hardest days as a founder are rarely about business, they’re about people. You can model growth and churn, but you can’t model how to tell someone their role needs to evolve faster than they expected. Most things in business have a clear path forward, you gather data, make a plan, and execute. But when it comes to people, there’s rarely a clean formula. The nights I lay awake usually are about specific conversations, not targets or funding rounds. How to give feedback that’s honest but still kind. How to help someone grow even when it means changing their role, or sometimes letting them go. Over time, I’ve learned a few things that help. Difficult conversations doesn’t get easier if you wait. Clarity matters more than comfort. And once you’ve made a decision, following through with empathy makes all the difference. Leadership, to me, is also about having the courage to handle the human parts with care. It’s something I’m still learning, and probably always will be.