The Principle: Every business owner has to do things we don’t want to do. Don’t hide from it. Don’t sugarcoat it. Don’t keep putting it off. Make the hard call, take the hit, learn what you need to learn, and move on. You already know there will be hard days. The goal isn’t to avoid them. The goal is to get through them and keep moving.
If you’re going to eat shit, don’t nibble.
The Hard Truth
In business, some things are going to hurt. Don’t make them hurt longer than they have to.
Executive insights 👥 Let me tell you how that played out in my company.
⌨️ Add Your Insights or Book Review to Rule No. 50
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the Rules matter.
đź“– the book behind the Rule
The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitz doesn’t romanticize leadership. He tells the truth: running a company is messy, lonely, and full of problems no textbook prepares you for. The book walks through the brutal realities of building, fixing, and leading organizations, layoffs, near-death cash situations, firing friends, making irreversible decisions, and managing your own psychology while everything around you burns. Horowitz doesn’t offer quick fixes or corporate clichĂ©s; he gives practical, battle-tested guidance forged in crisis. The message is simple: the hardest part of leadership isn’t the strategy, it’s having the stomach to do what must be done when you least feel like doing it.
Executive Takeaway: The job doesn’t get easier, you get stronger. Great leaders aren’t defined by perfect plans or genius insights. They’re defined by their willingness to face the hardest problems directly, make the decision no one else wants to make, and keep going long after comfort and certainty have left the room.
“There are no silver bullets for this, only lead bullets.”
— Ben Horowitz
Have the conversation. Make the decision. Fire the person. Cut the loss. Shut down the product. Whatever it is, deal with it. Nibbling around the edges doesn’t make hard things easier. It just drags them out and makes you look indecisive in the process. If you’re going to eat shit (and you are, now and then), don’t nibble.
🎓 MASTER Rule No. 50 —If you’re going to eat shit, don’t nibble.
- When to Apply | Red Flags
- Rule Overview
- Ask the Right Questions
- Contrarian View
- Actionable Strategies
- Real World Scenarios
- Leadership Team Discussion
- Rules to Results Workshop
- The Right Track | Green Flags
- Key Terms
- Book Summary
- Author Links
- Executive Insights
- Worth Watching
- Related Reading
October 2026
This Master Class is in development.
Help us build each of the 50 Master Classes, by adding your insights and sharing your entrepreneurial stories.
Class begins Monday, January 4, 2027, with each Rule being built out as we go. Each will contain the study sections listed above and will continue to evolve through your contributions. As business leaders continue to challenge these ideas, the Institute becomes more and more valuable, not because it’s finished, but because it never will be.