Grit Diaries
Dave Chauhan · 46 min
A former corporate executive who spent nearly two decades chasing titles and paychecks discovers that real leadership has always been about uplifting humanity — and walks away from everything to prove it.
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Dave Chauhan spent nearly two decades climbing the corporate ladder, chasing titles and paychecks in roles that felt hollow. He grew up pulled between two sets of values: his grandmother taught him that who you are matters more than what you achieve, while his birth parents believed success meant status, degrees, and money. For years, he chose the ladder. Then, finishing his MBA at the University of Illinois, he asked himself a harder question: what will I leave behind? Not another zero on a paycheck or another title on a resume, but something that actually mattered. He walked away from his job with no plan.
What followed was unexpected. Alone at home, journaling to make sense of his unease, Dave discovered he had something to say. His wife Sari read his early pages and told him the first part was rough but the pain showed through, and the real work was only beginning. Over fifteen grueling revisions, a book took shape. Captain Set Sail is not a business manual. It is a guide to leadership that starts in the cot with your first caregiver, not in a boardroom with your first title. Dave argues that modern business inherited a broken definition of leadership from economist Milton Friedman in the 1960s: profit above all else. But leadership, Dave insists, is something older and more human. It is about trust, vulnerability, and the courage to say I don't know.
Through the Beacon, Wayfinder, and Seafarer model, Dave shows what it means to lead with purpose anchored in values, to stay adaptable in chaos, and to position yourself where you can actually see your team and protect them. His message is simple: if you cannot step back from firefighting, something is wrong. Real leadership means knowing when not to decide, and always staying humble enough to learn from others who know more.
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