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His goal: Being a great soldier.
His obstacles: Outspoken.

George S. Patton was born in California in 1885. When he was a
child he would play solder and wanted to go into the army.
However he had a reading problem. So when he was young his
father would read to him and later when he went to school his
family secretly hired a tutor to help him. In 1903 he was enrolled
in VMI (Virginia Military Institute. His father, grand father and
several of his uncles went to VMI. At VMI he was an exceptional
student. With a lot of help from his father in 1904 he took the
exam to get into West Point and was one of three candidates.
Then he father went to work again and was able to get him into
West Point. The first year didn’t go very well and he had to repeat
the first year. As he began to command others he demanded a lot
from them and they all despised him. However he didn’t expect
any more from them then he did of himself. He graduated in
1909. He was now in the army. Now he had to make a name for
himself. One of the things he got changed was the saber from a
curved blade to a straight blade and is still used today and known
as the “Patton Sword.” In 1917 Patton was the first to use
automobiles in battle against Pancho Villa. In 1918 he was asked
to head the new U.S. tank school. There he saw the advantage to
using tanks in war. Many of the maneuvers that he developed are
still in use today.

Patton’s first action in WWII was in
planning Operation Torch which was the attack of North Africa by
the American forces. Later he led the attack on North Africa. His
motto was to hold them by the nose and kick them in the pants.
He became very outspoken and this got him in hot water with the
higher-ups.

As a leader he insisted that all his officers go to the front lines to
see what was going on, instead of having someone from the front
going back to give an update. His feeling was that it was easier to
go to the front and see for yourself then have someone reporting
what they saw. So even though he had problems with his reading
from when he was young, he overcame that obstacle and became
a true solder, retiring as a 4 star general. After the war the
German commander said that Patton impressed him the most of
all the other allied generals.

A coach will work with you as a sounding board to develop solutions
to your obstacles. Your coach will help you stay on track and when
you have to go away for a while they will remind you to get back on
track and not to get completely derailed.

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George S. Patton