Is it just you?
The 2026 CEO Reality Report
What's actually hard about running a company in 2026?
Take the Questionnaire (8 minutes)
There's a question I get asked, in different words, almost every week:
"Is it just me or do other CEOs feel this too?"
It comes up when a CEO admits how alone the big decisions feel. Or how long it's been since they had real clarity. Or that they've quietly stopped enjoying the company they built. And every time, underneath the words, the same worry: maybe something is wrong with me specifically.
It almost never is. But CEOs rarely get to find that out, because nobody compares notes honestly. You compare revenue. You compare growth. You don't compare what's actually hard.
So I built something that lets you.
It's called the 2026 CEO Reality Report. It's a short study (14 questions, about 8 minutes) and it asks you two things most CEOs never separate.
First: what's hardest about being in the CEO role right now? The personal side. The weight you carry.
Second: what's hardest about the company you're leading? The business side.
Most leaders only ever diagnose the second one. The business gets meetings and dashboards. The personal side gets carried in silence. The gap between those two answers is where the real story lives, and almost nobody looks at it directly.
When you finish, you get your answers back, and a link to a findings page that grows as more CEOs respond. You're not taking a finished report. You're adding your reality to a picture that's still forming and you can come back anytime to see how it's evolving.
I'll be honest about why I built it. I coach CEOs for a living. I have 25 years of my own experience and hundreds of conversations to pattern-match from, but instincts aren't data. I wanted to actually measure what's hardest about this role in 2026. The findings will shape how I work. And they'll be useful to you immediately, because you'll see where you stand.
If you've ever wondered whether what you're carrying is normal, this is the 8 minutes that tells you.
The study is anonymous, and it's genuinely 8 minutes. I've kept it tight on purpose. The two ranking questions are the ones that tend to stay with people afterwards. You may find that just answering them honestly is its own kind of clarity.