Jason Kander’s Shelfie
I kept meaning to write a Shelfie and I kept forgetting, but it's Saturday and I have a minute. I seem to remember my friend Leland suggesting at some point I take a picture of books my wife and I have written and write about them — or maybe that was a dream I had? — can't remember. Nonetheless, I'm following Leland's advice (or perhaps I'm doing the thing I made up — but here ya go!)
All in Startup: Launching a New Idea when Everything is on the Line by Diana Kander
In 2012, my wife Diana had her first failure as an entrepreneur. She likes to say she spent some time in the fetal position before she decided to start writing about it, but when she did write about it, she approached it in the same unique and original fashion she does all things. Eager to write a book about entrepreneurship people might actually read, she chose to lay out the lessons she'd learned in success and in failure through a story. So instead of a standard non-fiction business book, she wrote a novel about a man trying to save his failing startup while simultaneously advancing in the World Series of Poker.
When she took on this challenge, I was skeptical she'd find an audience for a "business novel," since there was no business fiction section in any bookstore I'd ever visited. The book came out in 2014 and became a New York Times bestseller, was translated into numerous languages, and is still taught in over 100 universities. She frequently receives emails to the tune of: "Your book is the only assigned reading I've ever actually finished."
Outside the Wire: Ten Lessons I've Learned in Everyday Courage by Jason Kander
By 2017, I was starting to get pretty serious about running for president in 2020. And because that wasn't much of a secret, publishers came knocking asking what they always ask potential presidential candidates: "Wanna write a book?" I find "I'm gonna run for president" books boring and I don't read them, so I decided not to write a typical memoir or policy prescription. Instead, I broke it up into ten lessons I'd amassed in my vast wisdom earned over 37 whole years on Earth, and then broke those up into little vignettes and stories. It's mostly stories from my time in the Army or my time in politics, but there's some childhood stuff thrown in there too. They weren't in order chronologically, but they were grouped by lessons.
The book is pretty good I think. It's funny. Much funnier than most "I might run for president" books in my not so humble opinion. Diana quarterbacked the promotional campaign for Outside the Wire and it just barely cracked the New York Times bestseller list. The book came out a couple weeks before our 15th wedding anniversary and she said the bestseller list was my present. Of course, shortly before the book came out I decided not to run for president and shortly after it came out I dropped out of public life to go get therapy for PTSD from the VA. My publisher wasn't super excited about that I don't think, but that wasn't my top concern at the time.
The Curiosity Muscle: How Four Simple Questions can Uncover Powerful Insights and Exponential Growth by Diana Kander and Andy Fromm
After several years traveling and speaking about her first book, Diana realized the lessons weren't just useful for startups. Increasingly, big companies and associations and non-profit organizations were hiring her to give talks and workshops about her first book. So she decided it was time to write a book specifically geared toward readers working in established companies and organizations. The Curiosity Muscle is a spin-off from the first book as one of the supporting characters returns and is now giving advice to the manager of a seemingly doomed gym location at a company recently taken over by his brother's private equity firm.
Courage Is . . . by True and Jason Kander
My son True and I used to make up a lot of great stories at bedtime. I recorded many on my phone and sometimes at night I play them at my daughter's request. True is about to turn thirteen and not so into bedtime stories, but Bella is about to turn six and she loves hearing them and lately she's been recording her own. Anyway, in the midst of all that storytelling we were doing, a children's book publisher reached out and asked if I wanted to do a children's book that played on the theme of my first book. I agreed to do it on one condition: My second grade son would be my co-author. "Sure, why not?" they said, probably not expecting True to be an equal partner in the creative process, be on every conference call, and have the final word on all the art. But that's what happened, and it was really fun. He even did the media interviews with me.
The result is a book about the idea that kids get the chance to show courage all the time: on the first day of school, at a dentist's appointment, or just when making a new friend. I've had a lot of people tell me their kids request the book all the time, and True is even asked to sign copies occasionally, which is pretty cool.
Invisible Storm: A Soldier's Memoir of Politics and PTSD by Jason Kander
A few years after dropping out of public life and going to therapy at the VA, I decided I was ready to write about it. I'd reached a post-traumatic growth phase of my life and I knew I'd learned a lot I could share with others. I wrote this book with a very clear reader in mind: me from ten years earlier - a guy who had PTSD but refused to admit it to himself. As it turned out, the book has proven valuable to a lot more than just combat veterans. I've had people from all walks of life tell me how much the book means to them, and I wish everyone who ever decided to prioritize their mental health received the sort of positive feedback and gratitude I've had the privilege to absorb. There are several passages in the book written by Diana sharing her first person point of view, and those are my favorite parts.
This one was a New York Times bestseller too, but what means the most to me is how many trauma therapists have told me it changed the way they approach their practice. Also, by the way, it's funny. Like it has a lot of jokes, because when you think about it there is something inherently funny about running for the presidency while suffering from a psychological disorder so secret even the candidate doesn't know about it.
Go Big or Go Home: Five Ways to Create a Customer Experience That Will Close the Deal by Diana Kander and Tucker Trotter
This is my favorite book of Diana's. She's a brilliant writer and an internationally sought-after keynote speaker, but one of her greatest gift is sales. She's just fantastic at it, and she spent a year studying the art and science of sales, which made her even better! Then she took those lessons, wrote them up as incredible stories, and BOOM that's a book. There's no one in any line of work who wouldn't benefit from reading Go Big or Go Home.
OK, that's my shelfie. It has to be the most self-absorbed one on this whole dang website, but hey, you asked a guy who wrote two memoirs before his 40th birthday to write about the books on his bookshelf, so what do you expect?
Jason Kander is an Afghanistan veteran, a former Missouri Secretary of State, and a guy who ran for president until he decided to go to PTSD therapy instead. Today he is an advisor at Veterans Community Project, the co-host of the Majority 54 podcast, a bestselling author, the founder of American Rescue Project, and a men’s amateur baseball player.
Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin.
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