The most memorable advice I ever got as a founder came from David Sable, an advisor at UpdateAI. I was going through a rough patch — of every variety — and one of them was with a member of my team. David told me:

"You have one job as founder and CEO. Eat shit."

He could have said "leaders eat last," or reached for some other tidy analogy. But that's not David's Madison Avenue style. It's not mine either.

What he meant, of course, is that you have to take it. As the leader, you have one mission: put the welfare of the company first. And if that means burying your ego all the way down your own throat, then that's what you do. Be firm. But in the end, you may just have to swallow whatever gets thrown at you — fair or not.

It stuck. I took it to heart, and I still pass it along to other founders today. Funny how the two most useful words you'll ever hear can be those two.

I'm writing this book because not every founder has someone to tell them to eat shit. And even the ones who do don't always have that person in the room — or that person's experience doesn't reach the exact moment of truth you find yourself in.

So think of this as a handbook for the hard moments. Told a little less bluntly than David told me — through the stories of other founders, the ones who lived the ups and downs and came out the other side. You learn the lessons through what they went through. And the more you listen, the less shit you'll have to eat yourself.