Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

Most founders who try to write their own book never finish it.

Not because they lack intelligence or experience.

Not that they don’t have the desired skill or time.
But because they are too close to their own story.

When you’ve lived something for 20–30 years:
• Everything feels important
• You struggle to decide what to leave out
• Reflection keeps getting mixed with justification

Founders don’t lack content.
They lack distance. That is:

Founders are emotionally entangled with their decisions.

Inside their own life, everything feels unique.

Distance separates thinking from self-protection.

Distance turns memory into meaning.

Distance is what allows experience to become insight.

A serious book is not a chronology of events.
It’s an act of selection.

What matters.
What repeats.
What endured beyond one company, one market cycle, one role.

That distance is hard to achieve from inside your own head.

This is why most enduring leadership books are not “written alone”.

They are thought through with someone who can listen without ego.

Writing your own book is possible.
Writing a clear, honest, lasting one—much harder.