How Do You Learn To Become A Startup CEO?

‘If I knew you weren’t going home for Thanksgiving, I would have asked you to have Thanksgiving with my family,” One of roommates, Paul, said to me.

“Thanks Paul,” I said. “I need to study. That’s why I didn’t go home this year.”

It was my junior year of college. I had four upper division Electrical Engineering courses that first quarter, and they were all really tough.

No distractions. That was my mantra that quarter.

No distractions meant only focusing on my courses. No distractions meant no girls. And no distractions meant studying every night, even on Thanksgiving.

I was out for blood. Or maybe, said a better way, I was really, really focused on just surviving.

You need to grind if you’re going to be a successful startup CEO.

And grind I did my Junior year in college.

I believed at the time that I could do anything if I got through that ridiculously hard first quarter. So I did what I had to do to make it through.

I trudged off to the medical school classroom that I liked to study at Thanksgiving night. I didn’t feel sorry for myself because I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself.