Nobody’s Perfect!

With all the characteristics that worked in Benjamin Franklin’s favor to earn influence ( and the leadership that comes with that earned influence), he certainly wasn’t perfect; no one is - not even you or me! In his presentation at Grand Valley State University, Whitney mentioned Franklin’s limited opportunity to pursue a formal education - just two years in an actual school setting - and he also suggested that Ben was more than a little bit promiscuous during his time back in England during his early 20s. Even later in life, specifically while representing the then British Colonies back in England after he retired from business, Franklin made some poor decisions based on the limited information he had access to.

While I’m certainly not under the illusion that these three examples were his only weaknesses, I’m calling your attention to them specifically so we can learn from what he did to offset and even overcome each. Even today, it’s not uncommon to see our peers fall into a downward spiral after stumbling over any one of those things!

Because he wasn’t from a wealthy family, Franklin worked for a printer as a teenager rather than pursuing academics. But that definitely didn’t stop him from learning. If anything, it served to push him to use any available time he had to study on his own. During his work day, he was said to eat quickly then separate himself from his coworkers so he could read. That curiosity not only helped create a foundation for the inventions he would come up with later, it helped him start and run numerous successful businesses - yielding the wealth that allowed him to retire in his early 40s and put so much time into writing and those many inventions!

It’s said that on the ship back from England, while still in his early 20s, Franklin was already aware of the gaps in his character that led to the promiscuity Whitney mentioned. It was during that trip that he laid out the thirteen character traits that he intended to develop. And just as he read avidly to enhance his education, there were a number of ways he worked to develop each of those traits in his character - not the least of which was his intentional association with men who exemplified those characters!

With regards to making poor decisions based on the information he had, I’d guess we can all relate - and we have so much more access to any information we could ever need! How he moved forward after those decisions, and how he handled himself when being chastised for them, is what I believe really set him apart from the masses, then and still today. While serving in England as an ambassador for the Colonies in the early 1770s, some royalty bigshot called him on the proverbial carpet for one of his decisions. Rather than rebutting the Lord Farquad-type character, he took the chiding quietly. While many, myself included, would likely have been ready to fight, Franklin remained calm, but the scenario proved to be the turning point in his loyalty to the British Crown and what resulted in him being referred to as “The First American.” That same calmness in times of strife and uncertainty, made a significant impact in establishing our great nation through several of his addresses during the Constitutional Convention. Not the least of which coming about a month into the convention when many participants were at odds and on the verge of going their separate ways:

“I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of his truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without [H]is notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without [H]is aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without [H]is concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall be become a reproach and a bye word down to future age. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.”

Franklin’s awareness of his own limitations, along with his determination to improve them and his willingness to align himself with others who could supplement them made a lasting impact that you and I still benefit from today! With that in mind, we’ll pick up next time with a look at someone he wrote a critical document with - who just happened to live not so far from where I do now…