Providing context for the next decade (and the work ahead)
Back to the Table of Contents of “Build Your Roadmap”
It’s pretty typical: the start of a new year — or new decade — is the opportunity to take stock of what we’ve done (check out all the best-of lists) and where we’re going (resolutions, anyone?).
This year also marks a half-decade of life for me, as I am in my last 365 days before I turn 50 years old. It seems like a good time to begin a project that’ll do both. Inspired by my work at USTomorrow and Grayline and by a recent on-line book project by Brett Hurt, I’m going to write about my experiences and lessons learned, publish them, and invite your interaction. (I’m a prolific note take and have had many notebooks through the years. Much of what I write will be what I’ve captured over the years.)
Looking back, I realize I got where I am today by reading articles and books by people who had blazed a path before me. I could visualize the future I occupy today after countless hours of reading and listening…and then acting on what I learned. Lots of mistakes along the way, but each was an opportunity to grow. People will be what they can see.
Each of us has a story. You’ll find that my posts, like each of our experiences, will be all over the map (in my case, literally, including deployments to Iraq and business with a European multinational corporation). Twenty years as an Army officer taught me plenty about leadership, both good and bad. After that career, my experiences co-founding a tech startup stretched me further, providing fantastic opportunities to put my ideas to work in business and technological environments. At the same time, I took advantage of the chance to serve in a number of nonprofits in areas I’m passionate about, like veteran entrepreneurship, clean energy, government innovation, and transportation solutions. Throughout my life, I’ve participated in academia, too, teaching at West Point and the University of Texas. In fact, I taught American politics at West Point — and then put those lessons to use when I ran for US Congress in 2018.
What have I learned over these five decades, in experiences that have spanned the academic, military, business, tech, nonprofit, and community-building areas? Well, here’s one for starters: It’s about people. You cannot go it alone.
Solutions to our problems take cooperation and imagination. In a complex, changing world, America needs great ideas and excellent leadership. Petty bickering, name-calling, and extreme partisanship won’t get us there. Neither will ignoring the truth when it disagrees with the position we hold or hurts us in some way. (Whether you are in business, government or non-profits, facts are sticky things.) We have to overcome our tendency to retreat to our camps. We have to be willing to listen…and learn from one another.
That’s what I’ll be exploring in my writing going forward. How can we talk about the trends in our society, and how they advance towards or retreat from our goals? How can we together — regardless of political party, religion, ethnicity, gender or other metric — work together for the common good? The founding fathers argued about the nature of big things like justice, equality, and democracy. Discussing those things is good and right, and we need to do it with open ears to hear.
We must also remember that the smaller things matter, too. I remind my daughters and all I’ve ever worked with, “Be happy, do the right thing and have a good thing to stay.” The simplest things matter in business, school, and everyday life.
Ours is the greatest nation the world has ever known. We enjoy security, prosperity and global power on a scale few others have imagined. At the same time, we’re divided and many are hurting.
I’m optimistic, though! I’ve got three amazing daughters who are forging their own way through life, and I’m convinced the future is bright. The question is this: what’s the work we need to do now — right now — to ensure we leave the next generation a world and a nation stronger than we found it?
Sound complex? It is. But it is exactly the hard and complex ideas that are worth discussing. Don’t expect to strap in for a history lecture here, we’ll be exploring as many mistakes as solutions, probably more. At my core, I’m pretty much a boots, blue jeans, and bottled beer kinda guy…so I don’t plan to get too fancy pants.
There’s plenty I want to work through in this project — so many stories to tell, and so many ideas to investigate and I’ll be working through many of them as I write. Which means that you never know what you’ll get. One week, you might get thoughts on smart cities or blockchain. The next, I might post a leadership lesson I learned from my Army days, and the next could be what I’ve gained from working with just-transitioned veterans who are making their way into the civilian workforce. Whether you’re starting out in business, searching for ways to unite a divided country, or looking for a way to reinvent yourself with a career change, you’ll find something here. Most importantly, you’ll find what I have learned from other people. How you apply it will be entirely up to you.
I hope to contribute to the conversation that can move my work, your progress, and our country forward. As one decade closes and another opens, it’s the way I’ve chosen to take stock of what’s come before — and look to what’s ahead.
I invite you to join me on the journey. Let me know what you what stories you would be most interested to read about.
Joseph Kopser
Here is a quick summary of my background: www.JosephKopser.com
Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn as well for more thoughts, ideas and opinions.
