Acouple of years ago I started jotting down stories, anecdotes, and experiences that had lodged firmly in my memory and for which I felt an affection. None of them was especially heavy or deep. None offered profound thoughts on the major issues of the day or on grand strategy. They were mostly human interest stories I thought I might use in speeches and public appearances. President Reagan used to keep a file of jokes. I had something similar in mind.
Most of my stories gave me a smile. For instance, one night Alma and I went to a movie in a local mall. As we headed back to our car, the lady parked next to us spotted us approaching. “Oh,” she said, “I recognize you. You’re . . . ?” She couldn’t retrieve the name, and so I stood there for a moment to give her a chance to search her memory. Alma got into the car. After another long minute, I said to her, “Ma’am, I’m Colin Powell.” She looked at me, bewildered, and said, “No, that’s not it.” She then got in her car and drove off. I’m often recognized as somebody who should be recognized, but I’m often mistaken for somebody else. Just the other day in the Atlanta Airport, a German tourist pointed me out to his wife. “That’s General Schwarzkopf,” he told her. When these mistakes happen, Alma won’t allow me to immediately tell people I’m Denzel Washington. . . . If only we could choose who we’re mistaken for.
Over time, the stories piled up, and I began to wonder if they might form the basis for a book. Most were similar to the stories I told in the first half of my memoir, My American Journey—personal stories about how I grew up, learned from good and bad experiences, and developed as an Army officer. People remember those stories far more than my coverage in the second half of the book of the serious and profound events of the 1980s and ’90s—the end of the Cold War, Desert Storm, reorganization of the armed forces, the unification of Germany, and many more. Maybe historians will find interest in those pages, but seventeen years after My American Journey was first published, I am still asked about the personal stories, the stories about ordinary people. I have adapted many of them for this book.
When my pile of scribbled stories got to be sufficiently weighty, I showed them to a few close friends and trusted agents. Their response was gratifying. “These stories don’t just make pleasant reading,” I was told. “They show you learning something important about life and leadership. Other people may also learn from them. Why don’t you turn them into a book?”
Most of the chapters in the book that has emerged from my pile of scribbled stories are about people I have encountered in my life—family, friends, colleagues, bosses, followers, adversaries, an enemy or two, some rich, some poor, some high and mighty, some not so high and mighty.
I have learned from most of the people I’ve met, and I have tried to inspire the people I have led. Life and leadership can’t be about me. They have to be about us. They have to be about people. I remember attending a small office promotion ceremony in Washington in the early 1970s. I can’t remember who was being promoted or where the ceremony was held. But I vividly remember that Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy, spoke there. Rickover was as crusty and demanding a leader as anyone has ever seen, with enormous pull on Capitol Hill.
After the promotion ritual, Rickover was asked to say a few words. His words have stayed with me: “Organizations don’t get things done. Plans and programs don’t get things done. Only people get things done. Organizations, plans, and programs either help or hinder people.”
The wisdom of his words has shaped my life.
Back in 1972 I was a White House Fellow. Ever since I’ve felt close to the Fellows; every year I speak to their incoming class; and every year I make this point to them: No good idea succeeds simply because it is a good idea. Good ideas must have champions—people willing to believe in them, push for them, fight for them, gain adherents and other champions, and press until they succeed. I follow up with a related truth: Bad ideas don’t die simply because they are intrinsically bad. You need people who will stand up and fight them, put themselves at risk, point out the weaknesses, and drive stakes through their hearts.
A life is about its events; it’s about challenges met and overcome—or not; it’s about successes and failures. But more than all of these put together, it’s about how we touch and are touched by the people we meet. It’s all about the people. I hope that comes through clearly in the pages you have just read.
The people in my life made me what I am.