Issue 166, Part Time CEO Newsletter

Hey, it's Dhiren 👋,

Happy New Year.
(Are we still saying that? I think we get five days. It's January 3rd, so I'm safe.)

Welcome to the first issue of 2026.
I had a different newsletter planned.
The usual January stuff - goals, planning frameworks.
How to make this year count.

But I keep coming back to the retreat a few weeks ago.
Twelve founders. Three days.
And a theme that kept surfacing that I wasn't expecting.

Spoiler alert:
It wasn't about business strategy.
It was about something running underneath everything else
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🧠 The Retreat

Twelve founders showed up ready to plan their 2026.
Laptops out. Revenue goals drafted. Profit targets mapped.

They came to work on the business.
I took the laptops away.

We started with the Wheel of Life instead.
Not revenue. Not metrics.
Health. Relationships. Fun.
The things that don't fit in a spreadsheet.

And suddenly there was nowhere to hide.

Founders who'd spent the entire year sprinting suddenly had to sit with themselves.
No revenue to hide behind.
No execution bias to keep them busy.
No metrics to prove they were okay.

Because work is the most socially acceptable place to hide from ourselves.

The details varied, but the patterns repeated.
Meals eaten standing.
Spouses and kids scheduled like clients.
Fun forgotten entirely.

These aren't business problems.
But they're the problems that make business problems unsolvable.

It's only now, looking back, that I see what was running underneath.
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🧠 What's Running Underneath

Here's what I've come to realize.

Every January, we look outward.
New clients. New hires. Revenue targets.
Trying to fix our lives by rearranging the people in it.

But the most important relationships in our lives aren't with people.
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They're with time, money, and how we treat ourselves.

Our relationship with time shapes every interaction.
Always running five minutes late?
That's not personality.
It's a daily statement about whose time matters more.

Our relationship with money shows up everywhere.
Pricing. Negotiation. Investment decisions.
Consistently undercharge?
That's not a pricing problem.
That's a worthiness problem dressed in business clothes.

Our relationship with ourselves reveals more than we'd think.
What we eat.
How we sleep. Whether we move.
When we're stressed, where does it show up first?
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Get these three wrong, and it doesn't matter how hard we work on everything else.

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Your Turn

Before you set a single goal for 2026, pause.

Look at where your time actually went last month. Not where you planned it to go. Where it went.

Notice how you've been treating your body. What you eat. How you sleep. Whether you ever slow down.

Look at how you handle money. Where you hesitate. Where you overthink. Where you play it safe.

The outer goals will take care of themselves. But only if the foundations underneath them are solid.

Start there.

🧭 Know a founder who needs to hear this?
Forward this. It could be the push they need.
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📢 Dhiren’s Updates

The retreat I've been talking about? I'm running a second cohort.

January 16th–18th in Dubai. Three days. Same format.
Wheel of Life, the hard conversations, building a plan that starts with the foundations instead of the revenue targets.

If anything in this newsletter hit a nerve, this might be the right room for you.

Spots are limited. Reply if you want details.

📌 Dhiren’s Pick of the Week

Not one but three this week.

As I wrap up 2025, these are the books that stuck with me, one for each relationship:
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Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (time) ​
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel (money) ​
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk (self/body)

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ps: did someone forward this to you?​
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Cheers,