Alec Hogg: Ben Franklin’s 13 virtues – this week’s one rather BizNews-appropriate
At a Berkshire Hathaway AGM in Omaha some years back, I acquired the best coffee table-sized book ever. Called "Poor Charlie's Almanack" for Warren Buffett's wingman Charlie Munger, it's the one that gets pulled most often.
This 512-page tome of wisdom has opened many fresh paths of inquiry, a favourite being research into Munger's all-time hero, 18th century American polymath Benjamin Franklin. Indeed, the book itself is modelled on Franklin's creation, "Poor Richard's Almanack", which he published for 25 years from 1733.
A habit acquired from studying Franklin's life has been to replicate his lifelong practice of focusing each week on a different one of 13 "virtues". This week's one is "Industry – Lose no time. Always be involved in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions."
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