It’s been five years since I founded Gerber Leadership Advisors, so it seems like a good time to reflect on my entrepreneurial journey so far.

To paraphrase Tim Ferriss, if you’re going to be your own boss, you want to be a better boss than the previous ones you’ve had. You have no one else to blame, and you are also stuck with all of your own tendencies, biases, fears and foibles.

Viewed through this lens, the past five years have met or exceeded my expectations. I set out to serve interesting clients who are facing big challenges, and that’s exactly how it has turned out.

One of the nice things about working in large consulting firms—as I used to do—is they have methodologies whose value has been proven over time. But one of the reasons I pursued a PhD is because I wanted the ability to self-author solutions; not every circumstance calls for the same intervention. To put this another way, every day is interesting and five years in, I remain highly engaged and excited about the work.

On a human level, I’m the son of an entrepreneur. I was ready and willing to accept more risk in return for more freedom, flexibility and compensation. The toughest challenge was in the first half of 2020, when for a few months it wasn’t clear how bad things would get. A number of clients (understandably) started pulling back and I wondered how deep and prolonged the contraction would be. Fortunately, things turned around quickly.

Having gone through that experience, I’m reminded that the sense of security I may have felt working for a larger company is often not real. In truth, I wasn’t any more vulnerable as an entrepreneur. Many times, the reverse is true.

When I worked for larger firms, few of my clients went out of their way to recommend us to others. But as an entrepreneur, many people are rooting for you and I often am fortunate to receive referrals.

Perhaps my greatest lesson is the wisdom—at least for me—of my decision to have Gerber Leadership Advisors be a firm focused on developing senior leaders and their teams. These are the problems I am passionate about solving and without trying to offer other services, all my energy goes into helping my clients grow and improve every day.

I’m extremely excited about the next five years and beyond, and to all my clients: thank you for the privilege of working together. It’s been an honor to serve you and I appreciate each of you enabling me to do what I love every day.