
He has been one of the leaders in American politics for years though he has long since passed away. He was a statesman, author, inventor, scientist, publisher and diplomat. He was born to a middle class family in Boston, was the leader of a start-up printing business in Philadelphia and died rich though he had little formal education. In fact, his formal education ended when he was ten years old. When your education ends in what we would call the second grade today you can’t really expect to do much with your life. He did like to read and read a lot. He was being published by the age of 16.
Regardless of his lack of education, he ran a prosperous printing business, started a library at a time when books were nor readily available, organized a militia, did fundraising to build the local hospital, was central to the program aimed at paving and lighting streets in Philadelphia, was influential in the start of a college, the Academy of Philadelphia, was a key figure in improving the colonial postal system and served as the postmaster general beginning in 1753. Let’s not even go into all of the history we already know about Benjamin Franklin except to say that he is the only one of our founding fathers to have signed the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the United States Constitution (1787).
This man was born into at best modest means with a second grade education and was instrumental in drafting, negotiating and then signing four of the most important documents through which the USA was formed. Were his life struggles meant as obstacles and encumbrances or were they the actual energizing path to possibility?
The Bean Series
You Are A Coffee Bean...Being Brewed to Perfection (Part 1)
Risk, Weeds and Mistakes Make Us Better (Part 2)
We Are Like The Sumatran Coffee Bean (Part 3)
Coffee Training & LINsanity (Part 4)