This viral email from General James 'Mad Dog' Mattis about being 'too busy to read' is a...

"… The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men's experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others' experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead."

The key take away... A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise one learns from the mistakes of others. We are in a business where we sometimes only get one chance.