The 'Conviction' That CEOs Who Survived Life-Ending Crises Finally Grasped
On the day I read Jun Ikeido's 'Akira and Akira',
I was reminded of the words of the CEOs I have met as a salesperson.
These are not success stories.
They are about the point further back,
the moment they genuinely thought, 'This might be the end.'stories.
However, today,
I will write about how they grasped 'So, how should I live from here on?' beyond that point.
1. The story of a CEO pushed to the limit by cash flow issues
There were sales.
Work was not drying up.
Yet, the end-of-month payments didn't add up.
'Even though the numbers showed a profit,
the account balance was always in the red.'
Every time I went to the bank, my stomach hurt.
I would wake up in the middle of the night and trace the cash flow statement in my head over and over.
'If things go on like this, both my company and my life will be over.'
He said he thought that not just once or twice.
Even so, this CEO is still running the company today.
Why?
One day, he said this:
'I stopped trying to carry everything on my own to protect the company.'
He disclosed the situation to his employees,
spoke honestly to his business partners,
and told the bank, 'What is impossible is impossible.'
The conviction that CEO grasped
As long as you carry everything alone, the future will not open up
The moment you show weakness, rather than the relationship breaking, 'reality begins to move'
What is needed to continue is not grit, but 'disclosure'
This person said:
'I understood when I was nearing the end.
Survival management was about the courage not to act tough.'
2. The story of a CEO betrayed by someone he trusted
A right-hand man who had been with me for years.
I had entrusted everything to him—the work, the numbers, and the people.
One day, he suddenly became unreachable,
and I later discovered his embezzlement and poaching of clients.
“Before the anger,
the feeling of ‘I’m scared to work with people anymore’ came first.”
For a while, he said he couldn't entrust anything to anyone.
Even so, this CEO says:
“But you know,
if that hadn't happened,
I never would have escaped from ‘management where I try to oversee everything myself.’”
The conviction that CEO grasped
Betrayal is not a reason to doubt people, but a 'signal to change the system'
Trust is something to be protected by 'structure,' not 'feelings'
The more painful the experience, the more realistic it makes a manager
Now,
I clearly separate authority, numbers, and decision-making lines,
creating a system that doesn't depend on one person.
“It’s not that I stopped believing in people.
I just became someone who doesn't leave everything up to others.”
That’s what he said.
3. The story of a CEO who lost an important sales channel
A client that was a pillar of our sales
suddenly switched to a different route one day.
“It wasn't so much that the company was tilting,
but that I felt my own value as a person had disappeared.”
I didn't know how to explain it to my employees.
Even when I went home, it wouldn't leave my mind.
Even so, that CEO now says this:
“I think the one who was in the most danger
was me, for relying on a single pillar.”
The conviction that CEO grasped
Stability is born from a 'structure that does not depend on a single company'
A crisis is also an opportunity to rebuild the core of your business
When you look at the 'remaining strength' rather than what you lost, you can see what comes next
Now, they say they are conscious of
having multiple sales channels, even if they are small, and
a 'form that allows you to stand back up even if you lose everything'.
What I myself became convinced of from these stories
I am not a CEO.
But I was on the verge of breaking down.
After listening to the CEOs' stories,
there is one thing I understood clearly.
The moment life hits a dead end is
not 'when you are struggling.'
It is when you think, 'From here on, I can't change anything anymore.'
Conversely,
Disclose
Change the structure
Reduce dependency
The moment you choose any of these,
you can move forward once again.
The CEOs
did not recover because they succeeded.
They came back because they decided, 'This is how I will live next.'
What this note records
This place
is not a place to write stories of distinguished successful people.
It is a record of people who went through life's trials
and still grasped their 'next move' is.
I myself
am still in the middle of it.
But,
I have become clearer than before about 'how to live'.