When I was 21, someone handed me a book called Wild at Heart and told me it would change my life.
I was skeptical. Then I noticed it kept referencing Braveheart and Gladiator, which is basically a cheat code for getting a 21-year-old guy to keep reading.
I read it with a group of friends who all wanted the same thing: to live a life that actually meant something. We wanted a mission. We wanted adventure. We wanted to be the kind of men who showed up with courage, even if our battlefield was mostly a college campus.
A few years later, during a summer internship, I read The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino with about 20 other college students. Again, something clicked. It changed how I thought about sales, service, and discipline. For the first time, I believed I could become successful by building good habits and becoming someone who consistently did the right things.
Looking back, those two books had something in common. They didn't just give me information. They changed how I saw myself.
They also taught me something about myself: I didn't just love reading. I loved reading with people.
My Car Was a Classroom with One Student
My first career was in sales, working with independent restaurant owners. I loved it. I got to help business owners solve problems and grow.
But our salespeople mostly worked alone in their own territories. There wasn't a strong team dynamic, and culture was non-existent. The consistent message from leadership focused on a singular goal: sell more.]
Results matter, but at 25 I was trying to figure out how to become a good husband, dad, friend, and leader, and I wanted more than a sales target.
I took matters into my own hands. I spent hours driving through western Montana listening to audiobooks on business, parenting, habits, and leadership. My car became a classroom.
However, it was a classroom with exactly one student. No one to argue with, nobody to challenge my thinking, and no one to help me put into practice what I was learning. There was no collaboration or accountability.
I didn't just want to learn. I wanted to learn together.
What We're Building at Glidewell
I came to Glidewell seven years ago and instantly fell in love with our Core Pillars.
At Glidewell, we organize our values around three words: Care. Purpose. Results.
We want our people to grow in six areas of health (financial, relational, spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual), to find real purpose in their work, and to become excellent at what they do. We don't think those goals compete. We think they feed each other.
Book clubs are one small way we pursue those goals together.
What a Roman Emperor Taught Our Team
We run two book clubs.
Our New Hire Book Club meets Wednesday mornings with team members in their first year. We've read The Greatest Salesman in the World (yes, that one), The Energy Bus, and The Go-Giver.
Our company-wide club has tackled 12 Rules for Life, Never Split the Difference, Man's Search for Meaning, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Right now, we're reading C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.
The format is simple. Read the chapters, show up, share what stood out, and talk about how to actually make use of what we learn. We aren't trying to finish books so that we can give ourselves a pat on the back. We're trying to become people who do something with what we read.
Meditations hit our team especially hard. Marcus Aurelius keeps coming back to the same ideas: take responsibility, remember your time is limited, and don't let your ego or other people's opinions run your life.
We talked about how much energy we waste worrying about what others think, inventing stories about their intentions, and letting circumstances decide how we respond.
Then one of our teammates, who's been with us for three years, shared what the book had done for him. He said it made him a better husband. It made him more willing to do hard things. And it helped him stop making up stories in his head about what other people thought of him. The book became a catalyst that helped him complete a ½ ironman race this past summer!
A 1,900-year-old book written by a Roman emperor changed how a guy in Missoula approaches his life and helped him transform into a better person.
That's a much bigger outcome than finishing another book.
Why This Matters to You
Our book clubs aren't about insurance. But the people who answer your calls, review your policies, and help you through a claim are better at it when they're growing as people. Serving people well takes more than technical knowledge. It takes listening, empathy, good judgment, and a real interest in helping others.
Those qualities are worth developing.
I think about 25-year-old me, driving across Montana with an audiobook and nobody to talk to about it. Today, I get to help build the environment I wished I'd had: a place where people learn alongside each other and become better at living the lives they want.
We don't always get it right. We're still figuring it out. But we read books because we believe people can grow.
And we'd rather grow together.
Now it's your turn: what's one book that changed the way you think? Hit reply and tell us. We might just add it to the list.
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