Hi Everyone,

Happy 4th of July! Thanks for spending part of it reading The Lake Street Journal.

This week we’re talking about Harry Truman’s road trip, plus I’m sharing a few things I enjoyed this week. Short and sweet for the holiday weekend. Let's get into it.

30,000 Miles

Since today is America's birthday, I wanted to share a leadership story from my favorite president, Harry Truman. It also ties in with what we discussed last week—taking your work seriously.

Before the United States was involved in WWII, Truman—a senator at the time—was receiving complaints from his constituents. They were concerned about waste and profiteering from the construction of Fort Leonard Wood.

Truman decided to investigate. Entirely on his own, he set out on a cross country road trip from Washington to Florida, Michigan to Missouri. He claimed he covered 30,000 miles in his trip—clearly an exaggeration. Along the way, he visited Army installations and defense plants. He would arrive unannounced and poke around looking for fraud, waste and abuse. 

He found plenty of it.

Nearly everywhere he stopped, he found extra materials rotting and rusting in the rain. He found hundreds of workers standing around doing nothing but collecting paychecks. And he found contractors running projects who had no prior construction experience. 

When he returned to Washington, Truman proposed a committee to monitor defense spending. Eventually the committee was approved, and Truman was in charge. Some estimates stated The Truman Committee saved the country $15 billion, and Truman was named “one of ten men in Washington whose services had been most important to the war effort.”

How easy would it have been for Truman to ignore the complaints from his constituents? Certainly nobody expected him to embark on a cross-country journey to see for himself. But that’s what good leaders do. They take every task seriously—more seriously than the average person would. Like Truman, they drive around the country putting their feet on the ground and their eyes on the problem to see for themselves and find a solution.

Being a leader is serious business. The only way to be a good one is to take it seriously.

Long Weekend Links

It's a holiday weekend, so I don't want to take up too much of your time. The following are a few things I enjoyed this week:

Stephen Wilson Jr. at The Print Shop - I've recently been getting into Stephen Wilson Jr.'s music, and it's excellent. Exactly how country music should be. This is a great performance/interview that will give you an intro to his music and his backstory, which is amazing in and of itself. If you want a small taste, start with this clip. It blew me away.

The Cost of These Dreams - A collection of Wright Thompson's ESPN profiles on towering figures from MJ to Ali to Urban Meyer. The through line is the sacrifices made to achieve greatness. The intro alone is worth the price of the book. A few lines from the intro:

"[These stories] are about people who get the things they wanted and must make an accounting of what they exchanged for them."

"The most interesting place exists between how people see themselves and how other people do."

"It seems to me that the point of studying other people, whether through a sports story or a novel or a song or a movie, is to organize our thoughts and construct a framework that might help us better understand ourselves."

Stay in Your Three Foot World - Short, practical advice you can apply to any difficult task you encounter.

Being Informed - I've been talking and writing about how I don't watch the news for a long time. This is a great piece explaining why Americans are obsessed with the news and why it used to be a better source of information than it is now. My takeaway is that we need to read more history.

Workout of the Week

I first did this workout last year on the 4th of July. I had the garage door open, shirt off, blasting Born in the USA, and feeling American af, so I called it Springsteen.

"Springsteen"

5 rounds for time:

• 10 American kb swings (53)

• 10 kb goblet squats (53)

• 10 cal assault bike

My time was 8:39. Let me know if you beat it.

Quote of the Week

“If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly.” - David Hackworth

Have a question or a comment? Respond to this email.

Talk soon,

Joe