Indeed! I love reading Benjamin Franklin for exaclty that. If you haven't read it, Walter Isaacson's biography on Franklin is absolutely fascinating. Brilliant, hilarious, driven, and wildly accomplished. The dude was (IMHO) one of the most interesting humans to have ever lived. Highly recommend.
Benjamin Franklin _was_ a successful businessman/entrepreneur. He became very wealthy as a publisher, and retired at 42 to pursue science and politics.
Benjamin Franklin. Went from being a runaway boy to the only person to sign all four documents of the founding of the United States. He dropped out of second grade and taught himself math and reading/writing. He says in his autobiography how he taught himself to write: just rote copying of other people's writing.
His family was not wealthy, but he did have a solid upbringing in a stable family and knew a trade at the professional level by the age of 17, plus has apprenticed at several other trades. He says that his apprenticeship at many trades helped his ability to do science as he could build the experiments himself without asking for help.
What a small world. I was looking at purchasing the Walter Issac's Ben Franklin book from Audible yesterday. I remember seeing a Discovery documentary about him a few years back and found Ben to be fascinating (before that documentary, he was the guy who flew a kite).
I do know that after a while he did do away with his 13 virtues since many of then conflicted with each other (after all, the dude was a ladies man). I guess its a decent experiment to try, but I think its over doing it to have it as your way of life (well 13 virtues anyway).
I do like the virtue of being Proactive and Silence. Maybe I should practice them for a week.
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