This post is first in a series of twelve as I read through the book Ben Franklin’s 12 Rules of Management. In these posts I will bring to you some of the points that I have found interesting or stimulating. So far I have found this book to be very motivating and thought provoking. I would recommend that you pick up a copy to extract maximum benefit. There is much more packed in the pages than the tidbits that I am pulling out.

Today I am going to be dealing with the first chapter, “Great Managers Rarely Have Great Beginnings.” This sets forth Franklin’s first rule, “Finish better than your beginnings.”

There are three key sections contained within this chapter that I will be covering. The first is excuses that could have been used by Ben Franklin that would have stopped him from becoming such a huge success. Next skip ahead a couple pages to the “Prisons of Our Own Making” and also in this chapter I will highlight the segment “Three Mistakes Franklin Never Made.” Please keep in mind that these are merely small segments of the chapter, which contains a wealth of information.

Excuses-
Ben Franklin had plenty of chances to offer excuses based on his childhood and given circumstances. He could have easily let one of these dissuade him and stop him from being successful, but he didn’t. The excuses that he could have used included the following…
1) The youngest son – In his time the youngest son was last on the list of priorities and therefore was given very little assets or direction.
2) Beaten by his brother – Ben Franklin worked for a while as an apprentice to his brother who constantly beat him both for mistakes and on random whims.
3) No education – Ben was given the absolute minimum training in school, he only received a basic amount in grammar school.
In spite of all these easily available excuses, Ben declined them all and pushed on anyways.

Prisons of Our Own Making-
This section of the book talks about the myths that we are led to believe or just sort of assume over time. You have to be born greatness and into a wealthy family if you want to grow up to be great and wealthy. This station has been proven wrong time and time again, so don’t make your own prison with close-mindedness.

Mistakes Franklin Never Made
1) Accepting the status quo: All around us there are situations that we just accept, which is everyone except Ben Franklin.
2) Waiting for something good to happen: When Franklin didn’t have luck. He worked to create his own.
3) Waiting for the generosity of others: Franklin didn’t sit around waiting for handouts. He believed in working for what he received, and graciously accepted what he was given.

This is only a small section of the information that I have found insightful in the chapter. Once again I would highly recommend that you pick up a copy for yourself. There is so much more in this chapter alone.

Check back next Thursday for the discussion and my review from the second chapter, “A Simple Recipe for Lifelong Learning.”