The Day After Selling Your Business
Checking email every fifteen minutes for problems that no longer came. I wasn't waiting for a message. I was waiting for the feeling I'd mistaken for purpose.
Yes, the blog is still called that. I named it before I knew better.
Getting what you want doesn't stop the wanting.
I spent 27 years building a company, sold it, and found out nobody warns you about what comes next. Since then, I've watched peers who caught much bigger fish than I did go right back to chasing, most of them worse for it. A heart attack didn't end the chase. It just changed the questions. I'm writing it down, in case you're chasing something too.
Jeff Wiener.
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Twelve chapters. Read in order. About an hour.
Toronto · est. 1991, still figuring it out
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It's one story. Read it in order.
02
Down to My Last Five Hundred Dollars
Six months in, five hundred dollars left, grad school applications open. Then, on a drive to the bus station, my girlfriend said: you know what you could try?
03
The Year I Lost Sixty Percent
A bull market I mistook for skill. The crash took sixty percent and a company I loved, in the same year.
04
The Week the Bank Pulled My Loan
Lehman fell on a Monday. My financing vanished the same day. I bought the building anyway.
05
The Things I Never Told Anyone
A letter read to me over the phone in Greece ended our Nortel dealership. They were one hundred percent of our new business revenue. There was almost nobody I could tell.
06
The Day My Best Employee Quit
My best employee quit and told me the truth on his way out: the ceiling on the company was me.
07
The Six-Hour Walk
I went to the beach to plan how to double revenue. I came back six hours later having decided to sell.
08
The Year I Was Gone But Not Gone
Everyone was in the room. I made the announcement. And I knew that face, because I'd worn it as a kid.
09
A Letter to My Daughter About Money
The money talk I flew across the country to give, and the lesson my daughter gave back.
10
The Day the List Reordered
Training for a championship at 55 when a blocked artery called time. Five minutes, two wakings, and a list that finally flipped.
11
The Room After the Exit
Ten of us who had sold our companies, and the questions that don't appear on a balance sheet.
12
Success Solved Everything Except the Important Questions
Two more companies, one heart attack, and a reordered list. The honest accounting, nine years out.