When I walk through an airport, I usually find myself wandering into the newsstand to take a look at the hottest book offerings. And yes, I gravitate toward the business books. This probably happens because, like most of you, I’m mesmerized by the thought-provoking titles and eye-catching covers we see on the bestsellers shelf. How can you not stop and peruse books with titles like: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich, or, my personal favorite: How to Get Filthy, Stinking Rich and Still Have Time for Great Sex! An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Wealth and Happiness. I mean, don’t we all want to be rich and have great sex? These books are designed to get your attention (and your 20 bucks) as you race to your next flight.

Like most entrepreneurs and CEOs, I’ve got a stack of these books sitting on my nightstand. And, if I’m being honest, I can’t get through any of them. Turns out, the old adage holds up—never judge a book by it’s flashy, too-good-to-be-true cover.

The authors of these tomes—not to mention the glossy business magazines on the adjacent shelf and the stream of clicky headlines and tweets pouring in on your phone—paint a picture of business I simply don’t recognize. Sure, there are usually a few good nuggets in each story. But there’s too much fluff, too many buzzwords and cutesy acronyms, too many stories of rainbows and unicorns, and not enough straight talk about everything that can and inevitably does go wrong in business.

Being an entrepreneur or middle-market CEO doesn’t look like the life of a well-curated Instagram model. It’s not all happy times at the beach with your perfect body, your perfect dog, and that perfect margarita. Growing a business comes with messy setbacks, huge obstacles to overcome, and often outright failures that can’t be softened by even the best filter. And no matter what your own nightstand full of books says, no CEO ever found success by working an hour a day or drinking a magic protein shake.

That’s why I’m here. Simply, to pull back the curtain and tell the truth. The unvarnished, ugly, and yes, uplifting truth about what it’s really like to build a business.

Success is HARD. Most successful people have struggled mightily. They have fallen down, pulled all-nighters, thought about quitting, stressed about making payroll, busted their asses. Most importantly, they have failed.

It has been said that we learn more in the valleys than on the mountaintop. I absolutely agree. I find it so much more powerful to learn from challenges—the mistakes and the missteps—than to look through my rose-colored rearview mirror. Maybe members of the business chattering class really do believe their path to success was a 10-lane highway and have blocked out the potholes and flat tires. I’ve been guilty of that. I did it when I started my 2nd and 3rd businesses—hell, I did it when I had my 2nd and 3rd kids! I truly forgot how damn hard it was; otherwise maybe I wouldn’t have done it again. (Just don’t tell my wife or my boys that!)

Trust me, I get it. I try to tell my kids how successful I was in my high school football career. I conveniently forget to mention the time I fumbled away a game-winning touchdown or forced the evacuation of the postgame locker room because I kicked a gas pipe loose in frustration. But ultimately those are the types of lessons that shaped who I am and led to my future successes—in business and beyond.

I appreciate the challenges we face as entrepreneurs, because I think we learn far more from failure than from success. I’ve hit many snags on my road to success and I want to use those hard-earned lessons to help others. My personal mission is “to challenge and inspire those around me.” I live that mantra in a variety of ways: From teaching life lessons and fundamental skills as a youth-sports coach, to challenging and inspiring business leaders here in Austin and across the country. I also get to play coach to my team and candidates-in-transition through my work as CEO of HireBetter, as well as to founders in whom I’ve invested through Bee Cave Capital. Whether it’s guiding an 0-for-20 Little Leaguer to his first hit or helping a frustrated founder finally bring his back-of-napkin product to market, I’ve seen the failure-to-success narrative play out over and over again.

Not coincidentally, at HireBetter, our mission is “to impact lives by connecting and empowering good people to build great companies.” We work with the leaders of high-growth, middle-market companies and help them leverage the lessons we’ve learned from working with hundreds of companies, across a broad spectrum of industries. But we also encourage them to contemplate their own journeys and utilize lessons learned from their troubles as much as their triumphs. It’s far from a one-way conversation; as CEO of HireBetter, I relish the opportunities to learn from our clients’ and candidates’ stories as well.

Look, none of us got to where we are overnight. I fell on my ass, a lot. In fact, I failed more times than I like to admit. But I am now in a position to offer advice because I got back up, learned from the lesson God was teaching me, and worked my tail off.

And I’ve taken a lot of notes along the way. I’m here to challenge and inspire you, with stories of my own failures and successes, the story of HireBetter, and stories from the CEOs, clients, and peers who inspire me. It won’t always be pretty, but I can promise you, I always shoot straight.

I invite you to join me on the real entrepreneurial journey, bumps and all.