Harry S. Truman famously said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders must be readers.”  

I aspire to fall into the latter group, so I tend to view myself now as being the catalyst of my own personal and professional development.  As I’m sure you can relate, being an entrepreneur is a choice we all make, so our development is an ongoing, evolutionary process where reading and study should form a cornerstone in our foundation.  

I tend to average somewhere between 15 and 30 books consumed annually, depending upon their size (pages), scope (subject matter) and magnitude (exploratory thought and provocation).  I turn 55 in December and if I live another 30 years, that’s only around 600 books left to consume…which doesn’t feel like many.  Yet another lesson in the “quality over quantity” argument.  

I’m constantly looking to add “worthy reads from credible sources” to my personal reading list, so if you have some good ones to share, please send me an email with a few of your favorites along with a sentence or two about why you liked the book(s) you’re recommending.  We all “get better together.”

All of that being said, here are the best books I read in the last 90 days(ish) and would recommend them as part of your professional development and worthy of your personal evolution…

“It’s Your Ship” by Captain Mike Abrashoff & “Leading Change” by John Kotter

By now, many of you have read, seen or heard that I hosted most of my group in Los Angeles (back in September) for our first annual “CEO Working Group” Session.  This was two days of thought-provoking application oriented at becoming a more confident and effective executive of the business we have taken the risks to create.  There was a lot to it, but two salient themes were oriented around creating a culture of performance and, well, leading change…

“It’s Your Ship” by Captain Mike Abrashoff came out in the early 2000s and is his story as the Captain of the USS Benfold, a U.S. Navy destroyer that he took from “worst to first” in overall performance.  I first read this book in the early stages of my Patterson career and the principles therein ring every bit as true today as they did then.  

Today’s zeitgeist centers around tech platforms and products as well as the CEOs who lead those companies.  They deserve their fair share of the accolades they get, but almost none of that is relevant to running a services-based healthcare business.  If you want to learn the timeless principles behind getting the best performance out of your existing team, “It’s Your Ship” is the best place to start.  You’ll quickly see why this is on my top shelf.

In preparation for the session in L.A., I also had my group read “Leading Change” by John Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor.  Healthcare practices tend to lend themselves to becoming “Groundhog Day” in a lot of ways, so creating change when you seemingly don’t have to can be fraught with danger.  That being said, I shared a quote on the topic from the former CEO of General Electric, the late Jack Welch: “When the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”

If you’re going to compete and win in the marketplace, you must constantly evolve.  Intentionally creating this evolution and leading the changes necessary requires a methodical process.  Kotter’s book lays that formula out in sequential fashion.  While most of it is oriented toward a Corporate America setting, there is a ton of application for a healthcare practice or group.  

The common theme of both of these great books is that they connect leadership to results through people – an art that is seemingly lacking in today’s tech-enabled world.  As leaders and executives, I think we would all do well to recalibrate how we approach our businesses given the rate of change “outside.”

“Open” by Andre Agassi

Um…OK.  I grew up playing tennis competitively and was a fan of Andre Agassi, so how did I manage to miss this autobiography?!  I mean, we were both born in 1970 and when we were 16, I was ranked #14 and Andre was ranked #91.  Granted, my ranking was in the state of South Carolina and his was in the World Rankings, so maybe there’s some resentment in there somewhere…

In any event, this book is absolutely epic.  It’s thorough and, for me, somewhat nostalgic with a lot of names of players I remember.  It’s raw, vulnerable and at times humorous.  It’s also incredibly well-written.  Junior tennis is filled with overbearing parents and kids with destroyed self-esteem.  Amongst childhood sports, I’m sure it’s not unique.  

Agassi had every opportunity and practically every reason to go off the deep end, never to be heard from again.  Just another wasted talent.  He finds a surrogate father figure in his trainer, Gil Reyes, and a coach who believes in him for all of the right reasons in Brad Gilbert.  You think it’s the ultimate championship team in a solo-sport until he meets someone who literally out-ranks him, Steffi Graf.  

I hate it when book reviewers say they “couldn’t put it down,” but truly could.  Not.  Put.  It.  Down.  Agassi uses his fame, fortune and influence to create a school for disadvantaged kids in his hometown of Las Vegas – certainly a bit ironic for a guy who never graduated from high school.  It’s also quite poetic for a champion of a solo sport who often only competed to please those other than himself.  

“The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel

Our family joined a new church about a year ago, which was the culmination of a lengthy process both for us as a family as well as for me personally.  I was raised in a family that attended Christian services, but I can’t say that faith was a driving force in my life.  Without going into unnecessary detail, I’ll just say that the last few years have brought a lot of that into question.  And “question” often necessitates exploration.  Asking “what” and “why” often don’t yield easy answers.  

I’m a bit too analytical in too many ways.  It’s part of my charm.  I’m kidding…mostly.  It’s a pretty daunting challenge to be analytical when it comes to most belief structures.  Lee Strobel would agree.  He was an atheist as well as an investigative journalist for the Chicago Tribune.  

When his wife unexpectedly announced her conversion to Christianity, Strobel decided to apply his training and experience to disproving aspects of the Bible centered around aspects like: the New Testament; who Jesus really was; and the entire Resurrection itself.  He “cross-examines” recognized authorities on fascinating aspects of history, archeology and the manuscripts of the Gospels.  

I’m not going to write a review here because there are many who don’t care for religious subjects and there are many others who are already grounded in their faith.  There are, however, a few who may find themselves in my same camp – believing, but wanting some evidence to satisfy our analytical minds.  “The Case for Christ” connects the dots like nothing I’ve ever read on the subject.  If you’re “wandering and wondering,” this might be a good place to start.  

“The Daily Pressfield” by Stephen Pressfield

I think I wrote a passage (somewhere..?) a few years ago about a book called “Gates of Fire” by Stephen Pressfield.  It’s a novel narrated from the perspective of a freed slave about the Spartans stand at the Gates of Thermopylae against the Persian army of Xerxes – which is the tale of “the 300.”   “Gates of Fire” is one of the best novels I’ve ever read.  Period.  Pressfield is a great storyteller, so it made me wonder how someone gets to be great at their creative craft.   

“The Daily Pressfield” is over a year’s worth of daily insights grouped into weekly themes about all aspects of being an artist.  Which art specifically?  Well, that’s for the reader to decide.  

When I made the decision to exit Polaris last year, I knew I was venturing out into a world that was completely new for me.  I jokingly told a few people that I had spent 20+ years being a business strategist and that I had abruptly transitioned into an artist seemingly overnight.  I laughed about it…until I realized it was the truth.  

My professional life now is nothing like what it was in 2024 or any year before it.  That’s both liberating and terrifying.  Being a solo-preneur is equal parts frightening and fulfilling.  I made the conscious decision that I wasn’t going to set any goals or expectations for 2025 in an effort to let the business become what it would be organically.  I was going to spend the year focusing on thought leadership and creating something valuable for a specific set of people.  I was going to embrace the creative process behind the art itself.

This daily book from Pressfield is part how-to; part inspiration; and part though-provoking journal for me.  Not all of it is 100% relevant to what I do or will do, but the parts that are have unlocked a creative vein in me that doesn’t have a lid.  And I think 2025 would’ve turned out differently if dear old Steve hadn’t been there with me every day.  

Public Service Announcement

I’m an entrepreneur like many of you.  I run a small business like many of you.  I marvel at corporations that change the economic landscape at scale…like many of you.  Amazon is one of those businesses, but I don’t buy books there unless I have no other means of finding them.  

I buy physical books because I love the practice of reading with a book in my hand and a highlighter and a pencil on my desk.  I highlight passages.  I make notes.  I underline things.  I come back and re-read passages repeatedly.  I realize you can do all of the above on a Kindle, but I spend far too much of my life in front of a computer, so reading for me is a release from that obligation.  

I also enjoy going into a bookstore and browsing the shelves.  I enjoy the inefficient task of buying a book for myself, not simply opening a cardboard box that appears “24 hours later.”  It makes me feel good to support local entrepreneurs who are trying to earn a living by sharing their love of books and taking a risk to create something that a corporation can’t.  Park Road Books in Charlotte is one of those stores.  

So, here’s my challenge to you.  Instead of downloading your next book off of Amazon, buy a physical book from your local bookshop.  Just try it once.  

Keep going.  Keep growing.  And keep grinding beans.