Your Company Has Grown. Now It's Your Turn

If your self-worth is dependent on your startup's success, you're in need of some personal growth.

- Chip conely

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, but I've learned the hard way that I don't know my limits (or my company's limits) until I've surpassed them. This can be a painful lesson, the raw material for your future wisdom.

I love passing on that wisdom to aspiring entrepreneurs. My metaphorical "skinned knee" could save a younger entrepreneur from the same mistake. It's part of the reason I've written a half-dozen books and been a mentor to younger CEOs from organizations as diverse as Airbnb, Burning Man, and Zappos.

As an undergrad at Stanford (which has been dubbed the Farm since its founding), I sold two-quart calf-nursing bottles at football games that I had bought from a farm near Stanford and filled with booze. But my entrepreneurial career really started at 26, when I launched one of America's first boutique hotel companies, the San Francisco-based Joie de Vivre, which grew to 52 hotels over the two dozen years I was CEO. I loved that this company of 3,500 employees was a laboratory at the intersection of psychology and business; I was always cooking up new ideas that innovated our culture, strategy, and approach to customer service.

My ego, though, grew as fast as the company. People often asked me, "Chip, how are you doing?" and my immediate answer would be an attempt to impress them with my company's growth. Then my friend Vanda-an executive coach-took me by the shoulders, looked me in the eye, and said, "No, Chip, I asked you how you were doing, not your company." I heard her, but I also got distracted by seeing my picture on the cover of magazines and being asked to deliver TED Talks.