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Meet Peter J Guercio, the author of Off the Hamster Wheel and a former Tech CEO and entrepreneur who gave up a 28-year career at the Fortune 500 level to find the meaning of life. Welcome to “How I Escaped.” This Discovery Sessions interview series probes inspiring individuals who successfully ditched the rat race to inspire readers just like you. 

 

Where are you from or where do you feel local to?

Peter J Guercio: I was born in Manhattan, NY, and raised on the North Shore of Long Island. I relocated to Mesa, Arizona, in the early 1980s and have made Arizona my home for over 40 years. While I have traveled the world and seen many beautiful and wondrous places, there is no place like home, and to me, Arizona is one of the most diverse and complete places to live in the world.

 

 

How did you escape the rat race? Tell us the backstory of your former profession.

PJG: Well, the story of my escape is the subject of my book, Off the Hamster Wheel, which was released on July 12th, 2024. I am a self-made man. I started a company in the early 90s to support several local semiconductor companies. By the end of 2019, I was the CEO of a Global Business Group for one of the largest private companies in the world—165 on the Fortune 500 list. We served a veritable who’s who of the semiconductor world, including Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and many others. We became one of the top critical material suppliers in the world. Still, I was lonely, unhappy, overworked, stressed, exhausted, and tired of leaving my family to travel the world to support my business.

 

My life was extremely stressful due to the nature of our work, which could be dangerous (large-scale manufacturing, cleanroom operations, CVD, high-temperature reactors, and chemicals that could kill you were a few things I worried about), along with the growing responsibilities of managing hundreds of people all over the world. I had reached the top of my field and, by many accounts, the top of the workforce, but I was empty, physically and emotionally.

 

I had thought about retiring or finding a new career the year before I left after I got very sick on a trip to Asia in 2018. I was put on medical leave by my doctor, who told me to point blank, ‘If you keep this pace and this stress level, you will most likely die”, to which I replied, “I feel like I die a little each day.” I spoke to my wife, therapists, priests, and my own teammates, but I could not quantify how to have a work-life balance in this environment. It was a very difficult time for my family and me.

 

Fast forward to Europe in the spring of 2019. After several stressful months beginning in October 2018 and almost 200k in travel miles globally, I began to consider my long-term seriously. After countless discussions with colleagues, therapists, professionals like me, and most importantly, my wife and kids, I was on a long trip that started in Phoenix, took me to NY, then Frankfurt, then a week or more in Northern Europe, traveling between Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, and the Netherlands. I took a selfie at the airport in Vienna, Austria. I looked so bad, so tired, and so sad. I sent it to my wife and told her that I really wanted to quit. She told me she would support me no matter what I decided. I boarded my plane in Vienna, where I would fly to Shenzen, China, to attend the largest semiconductor show in the world, Semicon China. I felt so sick during the flight, and so I did what I normally did: I prayed. I asked God to help me find the path he wanted me on. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, it was as if God had answered me in my dreams, and I knew I would quit.

 

I landed in China and talked to my boss, who was not only the CEO of my group but a wise and caring friend. He listened and asked me to consider what I was telling him. I was a self-made man without the credentials or education to sit at the head of a big company, yet I made it, and I was doing just that. I told him it didn’t matter anymore; I needed to find a better balance. He told me to take a few weeks to figure out what I wanted, but he reiterated he wanted me on the team, and he thought I might regret my decision, so take the time I needed to figure things out.

 

I finished my trip a week later, after 20 days on the road, and went home. I remember the shower I took in LAX at the Flagship Admirals Club for American Airlines. As I showered in the grime of 30 years of work away, I knew I was done. I went back to Phoenix, hugged my wife, and told her I was going to resign and find a different path. And I did. Two months later, I was free, and on June 7th, 2019, I gave my last speech to my team and began to write a book about my experience.

 

 

What advice would you give someone looking to become an entrepreneur? 

PJG: My first piece of advice is to prepare yourself for what a leadership role looks like. It is important to understand leadership dynamics and which style you lead by. The second would be to start your own company. Ascending to the top of the corporate world requires a lot of education, even more time and experience, and for many, it can take an entire career. If you start your own company and are willing to put everything on the line, you can be the CEO on day one.

 

That all sounds simple, but in truth, you have to understand your skills first. You must understand your value; for many, this is a lifetime journey. My advice to anyone and everyone, regardless of their choice of careers, is to understand your value and commitment to what you do. Many people go to school for one thing and do something completely different. This is because they found their value was useful in other vocations, or others found value in something they did that they didn’t see at first. Creating or establishing your value is the first step in discovering your path.

 

Second, understand your commitment. Being a CEO or a business leader is a 24/7 lifestyle. No one expects you to punch a clock, and because the role demands so much time and attention, you have to prepare yourself for this type of commitment. Moreover, you must prepare them for that lifestyle if you have a family.

 

Finally, I would create a game plan, carve out time to maintain a work-life balance and personal time, and find a career you love. I love to serve others, as it is part of my Catholic faith. I derive great joy from being there for others. Find something you are passionate about, and you will never feel like you are going to work.

 

 

What does a typical day in the life look like for you (if you have one)? 

PJG: There is no such thing as a typical day in this new life. In general, I wake up at 5:30 AM, much to the chagrin of my wife, Wanda. I go downstairs to the bathroom, read the news, work out a little, feed our dogs, and then shower to prepare for the day.

 

I am usually on the phone, on a conference call, or driving to a location by 7:30 or 8 AM. Up until May, I also drove our kids to school in the morning on my way to work to help my wife and, even more importantly, to get some quality time with my kids (work-life balance).

 

I spend most of my days mentoring or guiding others. I also spend many days in my home office meeting on conference calls with teammates or traveling to different locations to meet with other businesses. I lead a portfolio of companies for a Private Equity firm, so my time is very open and flexible. I have a great leadership team that focuses on running the day-to-day so I can focus on the big picture, which includes more M&A activity and steering the portfolio. I spend many days just listening to others—their problems, fears, and needs. I find great peace in helping them find solutions to whatever troubles them, and I love it.

 

I usually visit our local offices on Monday and Tuesday for some in-person interactions. I spend Wednesday at home on calls for most of the day, and Thursday and Friday are open for whatever the business needs are. I dedicate these days to whatever offsite travel I need to accomplish. I travel to our other locations every few weeks, so I have structured my time to afford my family stability and the least time away from each other.

 

This is an important fact. I still work and am a CEO, but I have crafted a lifestyle outside the rat race because I understood my value, how to manage teams best, and created a clear vision of my role, my time, and the delegation of tasks. I am home pretty much every weekend because that is what I crafted. I did this because I used a word that many don’t understand. That word? That word is…no. Say no to the things that keep you from peace. Say no to things that take you away from your goals. Say no to things that rob you of your time.

 

 

What’s the biggest challenge of life as an entrepreneur? 

PJG: As a CEO in my current position, one of my biggest challenges is not falling into my old habits. I need to continually remind myself that I am unwilling to fall back into a race with rats.

 

 

What’s the biggest reward of life as an entrepreneur? 

PJG: Without a doubt, my greatest reward is joy. My joy. The joy I derive from helping others around me by leading with purpose and ethics, mentoring and teaching, and sharing in my life experiences. My reward is influencing the next generation of leadership and, hopefully, creating compassionate, smart, and focused leaders for the future who will share my ideals and create environments where their teams can grow, flourish, and excel.

 

Equally as important, I am teaching those leaders how to work hard, find success, and do it all by creating spaces where teams can work towards goals, but make time for personal development and healing. Work-life balance and servant leadership are two great skills to learn.

 

 

What does freedom mean to you? When do you feel the most free?

PJG: I feel most free when I sit at the beach or the lake, looking out over the great expanses of nature and reminding myself how insignificant most of what we focus on is. The things that matter are people, our families, ourselves, and others. We focus so much on getting ahead that we forget to live. I feel most free when I am living, doing the things I enjoy, in a place of great beauty with people I care about.

 

 

What advice would you give to someone wanting to become location-independent, work online, and maximize their freedom?

PJG: I would advise creating a vision of what that life looks like. How do you want to work? How much? Where? What are your goals? Planning is the key to anything successful, and I would always ask someone what elements of work are most important to them, then ask them to create a vision around those things. We create our realities, so my advice would be to tailor a scenario where they could maximize their exposure to things that were important to them. There is no right or wrong answer here; it depends on the person, but the common denominator would be to do the things that make you happiest.

 

 

What do you wish you did differently (in work or life)? 

PJG: It’s funny you ask that because, at this point in life, I fixed everything I didn’t like about my former lifestyle. I wish I had the courage to face my fears and depart my old life sooner. So much time was wasted trying to achieve goals I thought were important when I should have been trying to achieve goals that brought me closer to the people I love.

 

Freedom is very hard for many because they don’t have the resources to disengage. They are still rats, running a race where no one wins. If I could do one thing differently, it would have been to focus more on people rather than money. I do that now, and I live a much more fulfilling life. Of course, I have the money to do that; therein lies the rub. It’s easy to say, “just quit everything you hate,” but for many, that isn’t reality at all. So my advice is simple: find a path that makes you happy and work towards that goal.

 

Peter J Guercio’s book Off the Hamster Wheel is available now.