I happened to stumble on an article today about Benjamin
Franklin. So captivating was the piece that it has caused me to change focus on
what I wanted to write about today. Indeed, I have no idea how this piece is
going to end but it may have no bearing on business start ups but a lot to do
with life in general.
After reading, I found myself contemplating the qualities of
the many world leaders that have gone before us and what made them such good
leaders. Most importantly, could we draw on some of the lessons they preached
about to enhance our modern day hustle. During my research I found the
ideologies of Benjamin Franklin, perhaps, the most compelling. Most things he
said and did, while not directly pertaining to business, forms a fundamental
recipe of any successful endeavour and running your own business is no
different.
The more I read about Benjamin Franklin, the more I came to
understand that as people, we are not just one thing; we continually evolve to
become different things in our lifetime and we should give ourselves the chance
to be that change. Benjamin Franklin was a man of many things. He was different
things to different people. To some he was a printer and for a while to the
readers of 1700 Boston,
he was a widowed writer addressing some of the issues of women and his multifaceted personality didn’t stop there. He was an entrepreneur, an
inspirational leader, a husband, a father and the list goes on. It is apparent
this was a man who was not afraid of change or being known as something
different to different people.
As I pondered over the life of Franklin, I took a look around me and indeed
at myself and realised how steadfast some of us are to hold on to one single
identity. Take a look at your identity card or perhaps at the application form
you just completed and look at the career section. What do we find? I’m an
Investment Banker, I’m an accountant, I’m a Lawyer, financial Analyst, doctor, engineer,
administrator and we keep churning the titles from one status to the other. We
even go as far as pay to have these titles conferred on us. As great as these
titles are, they become our limit when we allow them to define who we truly
are. We loose ourselves and in turn, take on the identity of this vague title.
Indeed, we would be lost without these titles; we will start to question – WHO
AM I?
I guess today’s piece is really about getting us to look
beyond the forced identity we have bought for ourselves and to think of the
possibility that we can be more than one person. We can be better than we are
and by doing so who knows the joy we will unleash into our own lives and to
those of others. For instance, if I look at myself; to the professor who graded
my dissertation - I am an academic; at work I’m a Banker/Financial analyst and a lot of people see me as either one of
these but for my clients at Paserelle, I am a small business entrepreneur trying
to bring a concept to life. Neither one of these titles sounds very sexy, but I
resolve to take on each one of these identities when the need arises and each
day I look for new ones because as people we evolve and I choose to allow that
evolution and not be afraid of it.
We don’t have to settle in life for half of something.
Sometimes and indeed most times it is possible to get all that we want out of
life. We don’t get the things we want out of life by using our titles, if
anything, that limits us. We get what we want by going after them. And Benjamin
Franklin gives some of the most forward thinking action-inducing lessons to get
what we truly want out of life.
Unsurprisingly, the first lesson is centred on talking with
no associated action. We all know
someone or at some point have been that person who talks about their plans to
do this and that and that is all it ever is, talks and plans that never materialises
into real action. Talk, my friend, is so cheap you could literally buy it from Pound-land or the 99p store. You keep talking so much without any action and
soon you lose credibility. Remember, ‘well-done will always be better than
well-said’.
Secondly, don’t procrastinate. I personally call
procrastination a glorified word for laziness. Sit down today and get your
life’s objectives written down and then start going after them now. Not
tomorrow, not in the next hour or when you land that new job- you have to go
after them now!! ‘Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today’
There are so many more lessons I could imbibe in you today
but I choose to leave you with this one. Don’t
Fight Change. The day you wake up and you think to yourself, there is not
much else for me to do or aim for or adapt to, that is the day you know you are
finished. Rather than shying away from change, we should thrive on it because,
guess what? It is inevitable, it will happen. As a child you will learn to
walk, you will start talking, then you run and soon you grow taller and
eventually the greys arrive and old age sets in and we die (Yes that is also
change) – WE CHANGE so give up the fight
against change and join in it and figure out a way to make change work for you.
In all this, we should remember that we are human and
therefore highly fallible. We should give ourselves permission to make mistakes
because that takes the pressure off and we save time because once mistakes
happen, we accept it as a necessary part of getting to where we want to go. We
spend less time moping, accept and assess the mistake for what it truly is,
pick the lessons we need from it and quickly move on.
A person, who never makes a mistake, is one who has never
taken any risks, one who always shades within the dotted lines and never took a
chance on something truly EXCEPTIONAL.
I never met any man who was great beyond belief who had not made mistakes. Have
you?
For me, I am going forth
now, making sure I get the most out of life. My journey started a minute ago.
This is my Truth.
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