The Forge

On a Monday morning in November 2023, Tim Leman opened a patient portal over breakfast and read two words his doctor hadn't seen yet: neoplasm suspected.

He had spent eighteen years turning Gibson from a one-market insurance agency into a company that could open offices in cities where nobody had heard of it. He'd also spent those years promising himself that a slower, more present life would start later.

The tumor was benign. The wake-up call wasn't.

The Forge is Tim's candid account of three seasons in one leader's life. He learned to lead by getting it wrong: an open letter to his partners that landed in silence, a recession that exposed every weakness he'd been working around, and a hiring instinct he trusted more than any process. He built a legacy by trading heroics for systems and sharing ownership with the people doing the work. And he started letting go when his oldest son, over one last round at a bar in Mexico City, said what Tim couldn't admit to himself.

What followed was a nine-figure sale closed from a London restaurant, and a harder decision still: walking away from the bigger job everyone expected him to take.

Tim paid the tuition. This book hands you the lessons.