Leading yourself through crisis: lessons from a year without food

Executive overview

Business growth stalls when the leader stops growing. Jeff Harris, interim CEO and scaling up practitioner, was diagnosed with esophageal achalasia — a rare disease that shut down his ability to eat solid food. Forced onto a liquid diet for nearly a year, he applied the same leadership principles he used with clients to lead himself through the crisis.

The parallel is direct: the biggest mistake CEOs make is ignoring the person in the mirror. You deserve the company you have — and changing it starts with changing yourself.

The disease and the diagnosis

• Esophageal achalasia: the muscles and neurons of the esophagus stop working, leaving the patient reliant on gravity to move food
• A stricture at the lower esophagus blocks food from reaching the stomach — surgery required to cut the muscles
• Jeff's esophagus had distended to four times its normal size; fluid was draining into his lungs
• Doctors told him he had 48 hours left without intervention
• Prognosis: liquid diet for months, no work, no travel, no exercise until surgery

Refusing the fixed mindset

• Jeff applied the Marine Corps principle — improvise, adapt, overcome — rather than adopting a victim identity
• Reframed the disease as an opportunity: "What if the story I'm living is intended to serve as somebody else's survival guide?"
• Asked himself daily: "Would you follow you?" — using the standard he held for other leaders
• Told his wife: challenge me if you see me complaining; he wanted accountability, not sympathy
• Connected with other achalasia patients online — many had given up; he chose to set a different example

The Stockdale Paradox applied

• Insurance denied coverage for surgery, citing no recurring health issues since hospitalisation
• Initial focus on a short-term fix (surgery in April, eating again in weeks) left him vulnerable to setbacks
• Switched to the Stockdale approach: confront the brutal facts daily, but maintain infinite long-term hope
• Fell in love with "the methodically boring process" — the same discipline cadence he preached in scaling up

Doing what doctors said was impossible

• Doctors said: don't work, don't travel, don't train
• Jeff took an interim CRO role remotely for a New Zealand company — leading entirely via Zoom
• Resumed travel, learning to navigate airports and restaurants on a liquid diet
• Started training again; discovered nutrient-dense smoothies gave him energy levels he hadn't felt since age 18
• Completed a triathlon — swim, bike, run — without formal training
• Summited a 14er (14,000-ft Colorado peak) and took on an interim CEO role, all while on liquids

The leadership mirror

• Every team is only as effective as its leadership lid — the ceiling must be raised deliberately
• The company you have is an expression of your current leadership level; struggling results are feedback, not bad luck
• You can't take others where you haven't been — personal adversity builds the credibility to lead through hard times
• Setting the example is the most powerful form of leadership; it changes what others believe is possible
• Bill Gallagher's corollary: he did triathlons for years, people around him saw it and stepped up themselves

Practical mindset tools

• Growth mindset (Carol Dweck): "I'm in this valley — how do I lead myself out?"
• Stockdale Paradox (Jim Collins): face reality every day; never tie hope to a specific date
• Slight edge: discipline compounds — small daily choices determine outcomes over months
• Comfort zone as a practice: Jeff kept returning to the grocery store precisely because it was painful, until it wasn't
• Reframe motivation moment to moment — find whatever works (bragging rights, family example, personal values)