Near the end of “The Way To Wealth”, Benjamin Franklin wrote:

“…experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that, for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct, … however, remember this, they that won’t be counseled, can’t be helped, …and farther, that if you will not hear reason, she’ll surely rap your knuckles.”

I thought I’d share part of my purpose in writing these little messages. It can be summed up in four short words; “I want to learn.” I want to learn anything I can from as many of the greatest minds as possible. I want to let their experience be my experience. I want to think like they thought, and act as powerfully as they acted, and I want to make my own mistakes.

By that, I mean two things.

1. I want to make mistakes. I don’t want to make a lot of them, mind you, but I want to make them. You see, to me, making mistakes is a sign of movement and of progress. If I am constantly trying to reach my goals, I will naturally be making the occasional mistake. When I overcome the problems and learn from the mistakes, I have made progress.
2. I want to make my own mistakes. I don’t want to merely repeat the mistakes of others. That would be dumb. However, if I can learn from others’ mistakes, I can avoid making those ones myself. And if I can avoid those mistakes, I will jump ahead and get to making the ones no one else has made. I’ll be that much closer to my goals.

So that’s it. I want the mistakes I make to be unique to me. That may be an impossible desire, but look at it this way. The more I learn, the less I will make the mistakes that everyone else makes. What better place to learn than from those who have had both great mistakes and great success?