Ron Shaich is the founder and former chairman and CEO of Panera Bread. The following has been excerpted from his book, KNOW WHAT MATTERS: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations, published October 24th.
In retrospect, 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 40, 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. Most people who build businesses can neither turn off nor throttle down their commitment to their pursuit. For me, it’s an addiction of sorts. I thrive on solving problems no one else can—and often those solutions begin to unfold while I’m out for a run or sitting on the beach with my business challenges right by my side.
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.
The Hollywood version of the entrepreneurial story is about highflying, confident risk-takers who beat the odds and retire young. 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 that 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.
Reprinted with permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from KNOW WHAT MATTERS: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations by Ron Shaich. Copyright 2023 by Ron Shaich. All rights reserved.
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