It has been a long time since I've done this.

Many, many years ago when I first started the diary of a CEO, the central idea of the show was to read my diary every week.

I believe that it might be interesting to get to see inside the very personal diary of someone that was running a business with hundreds of team members at 25 years old,

while contending with all of life's problems, relationships, mental health challenges, mistakes, family problems, and more.

So late on a Sunday night once in a while, I would plug in a microphone, in my old apartment apartment and I would read through my diary entries.

The diary of a CEO took on a life of its own.

I went from reading my diary to interviewing other people about their diaries

to speaking to experts about all of the problems that I found in my diary.

But every single week, someone will come up to me and tell me that they found value in those early episodes,

and they'll ask me if I would ever share my diary again.

I've thought about it for years and years.

And this weekend, I finally decided to give it a go.

So what you're listening to today is my diary, the notes I've taken in the last few weeks, the original Diary of a CEO.

I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO.

I hope nobody's listening.

But if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

Here's the first thing that I've written in my diary this week.

Pedals over podiums.

I was driving through the streets of Los Angeles a few weeks ago

with a really good friend of mine.

It was late afternoon and the sun was hanging low in the sky,

painting everything in shades of amber and gold. As we navigated through the ebb and flow of Los Angeles traffic,

...