George – mhmhmm, Books!, yummy! 🙂 Great post!

I’ve read “Leaders Eat Last” and it was good! I was able to read it very quickly because I found alot of parallels with military training. But I enjoyed how simply and straightforward Sinek explained things without being (let’s face it) overly hooah like ADP & ADRPs can be. I found it helpful and enlightening to learn vocab that wasn’t military centric for things I associated (incorrectly) as military-only practices.

My favorite darkhorse of a resource book is “Steal Like an Artist” by Austin Kleon. I’ve attached an excerpt below that I’ve got on my desk right now. I referred to this book nearly constantly during my KD time for inspiration and guidance for creative ways to massage, hammer, crack, or otherwise deal with problems. Kleon talks about, yes, “soft skills” (even though I find that term vague), but is filled with suggestions for different ways to work and implement creativity. One thing he recommends is balancing what you work digital and what you work analog. For me, I find that tactile incorporation of what will eventually become a PPT, spreadsheet, or project is really powerful to help me get ideas from my brain to my hands through the process to production/execution. Another idea he talks about is “know your family tree”. He talks about artists here, but this applies to military tacticians, historians, or other leaders. Pick someone you admire, then study their 3 influences, then those influences 3 influences each, and keep going. It’s so important to know where traditions, practices originate from (just like knowing the difference between what the AR says vs. what unit practice says about something). Inevitably, the painful, helpful growth process will germinate from doing that kind of self-improvement. It’s full of frustration, denial, and failure, but leads to confidence and experiences (just like the previous post on Failure mentioned!).

On the note about Family Trees and personal history, I’d also add “Grey Emminence” to your list. I read this while deployed, it really opened my eyes to the transformative experiences I had and seeing things differently than I had before (note: I did not say “better”, just “different”).  Everyone says that you’re overall LT or staff or CC experience is not unique, but a lot of times that comes as patronizing.  I found it very enjoyable to read about other’s experiences to consider that notion from that perspective.