I’m reading Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
Why?
Many reasons.
First, the most successful people in the world read Ben Franklin… Warren Buffet, Charlie Munger, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates to name a few.
And I don’t think that’s a surprise.
Franklin was a renaissance man, highly practical, curious, and built a great legacy built on values, not achievement.
In the back of my mind, I feel compelled to counteract the temptations that seem to swallow up ambitious people… greed, envy, sloth, and the like. And my antidote is the timeless writings of men and women who were far wiser than me…
I believe we live in a world too focused on attaining the goal immediately and at any cost.
This pressure to keep up with the Jones’s is something I’m frankly just not interested in… yet, we become like those we surround ourselves with and many of the people I work with are in that race that leads to nothing of real, lasting value.
It’s a dangerous place to live and someone as dense as me must be reminded of that frequently.
Franklin is a reminder of the real truth that:
Good thoughts lead to good actions;
Good actions lead to good habits;
Good habits create your destiny.
That’s why I’m reading Franklin.
