“Work Your Hardest When Times Are Toughest And The Good Times Will Come” With David Wolfe, CEO of Leesa Sleep

I had the pleasure to interview David Wolfe, the CEO of Leesa Sleep

What is your “backstory”?

“Simply by virtue of the fact that I am 55-year old CEO of a fast growing start-up, means I have a longer backstory than most. When I graduated from business school in 1987, it was unusual to want to start your own business. In those days nobody ever said, “I want to be an entrepreneur.” It was just in my blood. Interestingly, I don’t subscribe to the view that entrepreneurs are risk takers. The decisions we take look like risks to others but to us, the biggest risk is standing still. When you are almost tormented by constantly visualizing what success looks like and when failure is not an option in your mind, it is not difficult to take the plunge. At the age of 27, just nine weeks after becoming a partner at what is now BDO in London, I resigned to start my first fully independent business. I wanted and needed more of everything. I jumped into the unknown, but to me, not knowing what lies ahead has been the most exciting part of my life. I think my comfort with the unknown comes from the fact that I went to seven different schools before I went to University. I was always the new kid, so what we now call networking wasn’t something I wanted…