Do you have a hero? Do you have several? I think it’s good to have heros, and have had many over my life. Anytime that you can model yourself after successful, respectful, courageous, and high integrity people, you have the opportunity to better yourself.
One of my favorite hero’s is Ben Franklin. He was someone who constantly tried to learn and grow. He was an entrepreneur at heart, along with being an inventor, scientist, diplomat and one of our founding fathers. When I read Walter Isaacson’s, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life about 7 years ago, I was amazed at all he did for our country at its founding. He was the one person that was integral in the documents surrounding the founding of our country, peace treaty negotiations with England, and the treaty of alliance with France. His famous kite experiment proved that lightning was electricity.
One of the key things about him that stood out to me was that he could have started the first Forum over 250 years before it officially began. In Philadelphia as an early printer, he brought other business owners and key people together to share ideas and help each other be better. This group was called Junto, and even though a somewhat private group, word spread and many affiliate groups started. If you’ve read my previous blogs, you know how strongly I feel about forum and how it has helped me. Forums like this have helped thousands of business people participating with groups like EO, YPO, WPO and CEO.
I was doing a call with my life coach, Steve D’Annunzio yesterday and he talked about Carey Grant, the movie star of years past, as a model for any would be gentleman. Steve talked about how Grant’s movie character consistently handled himself with grace and respect, and even when he had to dispatch the bad guy, he did it with grace.
Another group of hero’s that I have are my many entrepreneur friends. So many have gone through incredible challenges and some have lost most of what they created. Others hit major lows and pulled themselves out to have great success again. My very successful friend Joe recently said that being in business is like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote; he gets beat up, blown up, run over, but picks himself up, dusts himself off and goes right back at it.
So to all of our hero’s out there that make us better, we thank you for being you and for giving us a higher path to follow.