At West Point, leadership isn’t just about giving orders; it begins with an honest audit of the person in the mirror. You cannot lead others effectively if you haven’t mastered leading yourself. This principle is built on two distinct but inseparable pillars.

The Mirror: Knowing Yourself

To “know yourself” requires a level of radical honesty that most people avoid. It means identifying your natural strengths so you can lean into them, but more importantly, it means identifying your weaknesses so they don’t become your team’s blind spots.

This process involves:

• Consistent Self-Reflection: Taking the time to analyze your performance and decisions.
• Adapting to Change: Recognizing when your old methods no longer serve the current mission.
• Seeking Feedback: Having the humility to ask subordinates and peers where you are falling short.

The Engine: Seeking Self-Improvement

The second half of the principle is where growth happens. Knowing you have a weakness is useless unless you have a plan to fix it. This is where the wisdom often shared by Dave Ramsey comes into play. Ramsey frequently quotes Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, who said:

“You’ll be the same person in five years as you are today, except for the people you meet and the books you read.”

This quote perfectly encapsulates the West Point mindset of perpetual growth. If you are not intentionally changing your inputs, you cannot expect your outputs to improve.

The Two Keys to Growth

Based on that philosophy, self-improvement is driven by two external forces:

1. The Books You Read: This represents the knowledge you seek out. At West Point, we were taught to be students of history, strategy, and psychology. In the professional world, this means being open to new ideas and constantly learning. If you aren’t reading, you aren’t growing.
2. The People You Meet: You are the average of the people you spend the most time with. Seeking self-improvement means finding mentors who challenge you and being open to diverse perspectives from new people. Mentorship is not a sign of weakness; it is a tactical advantage.

Final Thought

Self-improvement is an infinite game. By combining the discipline of West Point with the intentionality of Charlie Jones’s philosophy, you ensure that the version of you five years from now is wiser, stronger, and more capable than the version of you today.