Benjamin Franklin

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Benjamin Franklin

• A Leader Who Shaped
• America
• By Todd Barnes

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Who is Benjamin Franklin?
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Who is Benjamin Franklin?

• Inventor, Scientist, Experimenter
• Self-taught, Enlightment Thinker, Philosopher
• Diplomat, Statesman, Ambassador
• Organizer, Revolutionary
• Printer, Author, Writer

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What did he accomplish?
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What did he accomplish?

• Founded Library 1731
• Founded Fire Department 1736
• Founded Pennsylvania Academy College 1743
• Invented the Lightening Rod 1750
• Awarded the Copley Medal 1753 (early version of
  Nobel Peace Prize)
• Founded Pennsylvania Hospital 1753
• Autobiography 1771
• Signer of Declaration of Independence 1776
• Secured French Alliance to help win war 1778
• Treaty of Paris 1783
• Constitution of the United States 1787

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Why did he think the way he did?
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Why did he think the way he did?

• Began in a time with no control over ones
  destiny
• Poor, Puritan family, youngest boy of 17 children
• Father wanted Ben to be a minister which equated
  to a future leader in society
• Self-taught in print shop
• Wanted to be his generations Cotton Mather, most
  influential clergyman
• Beat and taken advantage of by his brother
  causing him to leave his apprenticeship and
  change his life
• Fled to England and was influenced by the
  Enlightment
• Came back with a plan to control his destiny.

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Thirteen Virtues

• Temperance
• Silence
• Order
• Resolution
• Frugality
• Industry
• Sincerity
• Justice
• Moderation
• Cleanliness
• Tranquility
• Chastity
• Humility

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What Motivated Him?
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What Motivated Him?

• Freedom
• Gaining control and understanding over life
  through experimentation
• Couldnt get formal education self taught
• Couldnt become a minister preached practical
  maxims
• Brought up in a predestined culture controlled
  nature through the lightening rod
• Getting society to accomplish what couldnt be
  done
• Wanting people to think for themselves and act
  for themselves
• First Do It Yourself Manual for America

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Greatest Weaknesses
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Greatest Weaknesses

• Destroyer to create something new and better
• Very hard on family friends
• Abandoned wife for 15 yrs
• Left son in jail for betraying him in political
  beliefs
• Not a deep soul
• So adaptable that he sometimes seemed fickle
• Created many of his own problems that affected
  others
• Sent Private Letters which helped start war and
  alienate son
• Manipulator

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Greatest Strengths
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Greatest Strengths

• Great experimenter understood and improved life
  and world around us
• Intelligence genius
• Marketer understood audience
• Great entertainer humor, wit, social skills,
  flirtation with influential women
• Folksy charm
• Down to earth pragmatic person
• Adaptable
• Glorified God by doing good for the common man
• Created freedom for himself and others
• Visionary
• Negotiator of conflict

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Impact of Benjamin Franklin
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Impact of Benjamin Franklin

• Showed the world through the lightening rod that
  one could control nature and perhaps ones
  destiny
• Franklin helped save America by obtaining the
  Frenchs support
• Only person to sign Americas first three most
  important documents Declaration of Independence,
  Treaty of Paris, and Constitution of US

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What can we learn from Ben?
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What we can learn from Ben?

• Self-awareness
• Creating and executing a plan
• Teaching oneself
• Experimentation
• Understanding an audience
• Become an entertainer
• Pragmatism
• Adaptability
• Negotiator of conflict