It Worked for Me by Colin Powell

Colin Powell is a retired four-star general in the United States Army and has earned numerous military, civilian, and foreign honors. He served four presidential administrations in a variety of roles, most recently as Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. In this great book, he shares the wisdom he gained that, as per the title, worked for him in life and leadership. It's fantastic. Big Ideas we explore include a super-quick look at his Thirteen Rules, the power of perpetual optimism (it's a force multiplier!), starting with "It can be done" (but making sure we're optimists and not stupid :), entering the Zone of Calm (essential for a leader), the fact that good leaders know that good plans are revised immediately, and how to deal with fear and failure.

Meet your guide

Brian Johnson is the creator of Optimize and the Founder + CEΦ of Heroic. He’s spent half of the last twenty-five years as a Founder/CEO and the other half as a Philosopher.

As a Founder/CEO, he’s raised $20M+ and built and sold two market-leading social platforms. As a Philosopher, he’s served tens of thousands of people from nearly every country in the world with his Optimize membership and trained over 3,500 people from 90+ countries with his Optimize Coach program—which has been scientifically proven to change lives.

His YouTube channel has 200,000+ subscribers and 20 million views while his podcast has another 13 million downloads. He was also featured in the documentary Finding Joe on Joseph Campbell and the modern hero’s journey alongside Deepak Chopra, Laird Hamilton, Tony Hawk and the late Sir Ken Robinson.

Most recently, in March 2021, with the support of 2,500+ Founding Investors from 75+ countries around the world, his business, Heroic Public Benefit Corporation, made history as the first company to close a $5M Reg CF equity crowdfunding as part of their $11M Seed round.