1: Hollywood tells us that being an entrepreneur is all about being a “high-flying, confident risk-taker who beats the odds and retires young,” Ron Shaich writes in his outstanding book Know What Matters: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations.
This week, we’ve been analyzing Ron’s rise as the founder of Panera Bread. In 2017, he and his team would sell the company for $7.5 billion, one of the largest deals in restaurant history.
“But this isn’t a fairy tale,” Ron notes, “and it wouldn’t be fair for me to leave out another, darker chapter in my story. . .
He writes: “All through those seemingly sunny, optimistic years in the mid-nineties when we were conceiving and creating Panera Bread, I was also confronting distrust, a flat stock price, and a fast-decelerating growth curve that I had known was coming for some time.
“At the very same time that I was engaged in my most creative work—studying new-wave coffeehouses, discovering fast casual, prototyping what would become Panera—I was fighting with board members who told me I was washed up, finished, and out of touch.
“The very same month I was writing Concept Essence, my dad told me he had cancer. . .
“The very same time [I] . . . was proving the success of my vision, I was confronting the looming failure of my short-lived first marriage.
“And at the very same time that we were conceiving Panera, Au Bon Pain—my first child—was on life support.
2: “In retrospect,” Ron writes, “midwifing Panera’s birth looks like a happy heroic tale of breakthroughs and innovations. But those years were hard and sometimes harrowing.
“I was barely past forty, but some days I felt like I was twice that. Maybe I was washed up. I sure was tired. Part of me wished the board would go ahead and oust me so I could be free of this burden. It wasn’t so much that I was sick of running the business; I was sick of the business running my life.
“It’s an uncomfortable truth about being an entrepreneur or company builder: you don’t own the business; the business owns you.
“It’s with you night and day—when you’re taking a shower in the morning, when you’re out on a date with someone you want to be in the moment with, or when you’re taking a long-dreamed-of vacation. . .
“This addiction exacts a high price. For every great quarter you get to celebrate, there are dozens of family dinners missed.
“For every breakthrough innovation, there’s a personal tragedy that you just swallow while you keep showing up to work, every day.
“For every happy customer who shakes your hand and thanks you for creating something they love, there’s a disappointed spouse at home who doesn’t understand why you were late to dinner, yet again.
“For every milestone IPO or sale that proves the company made it, there’s a marriage that didn’t.
“For every day you see your vision come to life and think you’ve found God, there are countless nights when you wonder if there’s any rhyme or reason to the universe.
“Say the word ‘boss’ and most people imagine a well-heeled executive, jetting between meetings, bellowing directives that faithful employees dutifully execute.
“Entrepreneurship and leadership in the real world are a grind—filled with disappointments, setbacks, and failure. You’re constantly plagued by self-doubt. And even when your personal life is falling apart, you have to keep showing up for everyone else.
“My mother’s sudden death in 1992 kicked off a decade of loss and grief, during which I simultaneously felt acutely responsible for the morale and livelihoods of tens of thousands of employees and yet suffered extraordinary personal pain.
“I believed in Panera and the opportunity we were pursuing, but success would not be assured until the future played out. I could see the end zone, but I felt like I was trying to run down the field with eleven defensive tackles on my back. I had a failing company, a mutinous board, and a seemingly endless parade of personal trauma.
“I wondered if I’d ever get there, or if Panera would just get trampled into the mud somewhere midfield.
“To me, these are details that need to be shared—and not just as a dramatic prelude to the eventual happy ending. The tough times are ongoing, and anyone who is serious about building a business or making any kind of meaningful, sustained impact in the world needs to be prepared to embrace this reality.
“To be clear—in sharing the personal pain and heartache I went through, I’m not seeking sympathy. Believe me, I wouldn’t change any of it, because it was part of an amazing learning journey that made me the person I am today.
“And I did some of my best work under the looming cloud of a drawn-out existential crisis. My hope is only to offer a more authentic accounting of the entrepreneurial life—both the highs and the lows—because in reality they often can’t be separated. . .
Au Bon Pain had always felt like family, with my dad on the board and my partner, Louis, like a favorite uncle.
“As they both battled cancer, board seats were filled by different kinds of folks. They were good businesspeople, but it was just business for them.
“For me, it was intensely personal. I blamed myself—not necessarily for the limitations of the business model, but for the failure to find a new opportunity fast enough.
“Yes, we were ‘working on a dream,’ to quote one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, but we were also working in a reality that wasn’t pretty.
“Not only was Au Bon Pain running on fumes, St. Louis Bread Company was also bumping up against the limits of its infrastructure and operating processes as the old management team attempted to expand into new markets.
“I was commuting to St. Louis weekly to stop the bleeding because I felt like there was no one else I could trust with that task.
“All of the harsh realities of a weakening business bore down on me, every minute of every day. I agonized over whether we’d make payroll, worried about whether I could turn the ship before we all went down.
“The anxiety wouldn’t even leave me when I slept—it would well up in the middle of the night, jolting me awake and leaving me exhausted by the break of day.
“Compounding all the apprehension and uncertainty was the utter loneliness. I had no one else to turn to. I spent solitary hours contemplating challenges and weighing options before making hard decisions no one else wanted to make.
“The toughest ones were left to me, and their success or failure was ultimately my responsibility. And no one could spare me the self-questioning that inevitably accompanies such decisions. Even today, after decades of success, I still grapple with this agonizing doubt.
“At its best, the entrepreneurial life is filled with camaraderie and the joys of collaboration.
“But the hard truth is that when the winds blow against you, you often realize that you’re on your own. People who cheer you on or even join you for the ride still don’t carry the burden like you do. . .
“All through the mid-1990s, when I took my annual break at the close of each year—usually a time of reflection and planning—I would lie in bed at night, look up at the ceiling, and ask out loud, as if someone was listening: ‘How can things possibly get any worse? They can’t get any worse, right?’
“But, for so many years, I was wrong. The downward spiral continued.
3: “Of course, I wouldn’t wish a decade of death, divorce, and decelerating growth on anyone. But it happens. Life happens. And through times like that, you’ve got to be willing to accept that you’re not going to feel peace again anytime soon.
“To survive the challenges of the entrepreneurial life, there’s only one prescription I can offer: Love the work. And I do—that’s why, even in sharing these harsh realities of leadership, I’m not complaining. I love the work; I love it for its own sake.
“Nothing else—not the money, and certainly not the spotlight—will get you through the tough times. Those are wonderful by-products, but they can’t be the end you are shooting for.
“Every entrepreneur who hopes to succeed must have the fortitude to endure the tough times, to remember what matters, and to make the hard choices necessary to bring what matters to life.”
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: How can I better prepare myself—and my family—for the all-encompassing demands and emotional challenges of building something meaningful?
Action: Assess my current work-life boundaries and identify one step to reconnect with what truly matters to us, even in times of relentless pressure.
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