Learning From Biographies
Read more biographies!! Why? you get to learn about someone’s life in a few hours!
Within The Knowledge Society, TKS, there is an interesting program called Velocity.
This week, my velocity person of the week was Sam Altman. I loved that since I got into a wormhole about him and found out he is quite interesting. He was the original point of this post but decided to switch it after listening to David Senra — Lessons from the Founder Historian from the Art of Investing podcast
David talked about how all the greats have an inspiration from their early ages, Elon Musk has Benjamin Franklin, Sam Altman had Steve Jobs and even Steve Jobs wrote Edwin Land when he was about to die.
Edwin Land, the Founder of Polaroid, talked about Alexander Graham Bell, Michael Faraday and Thomas Edison. Ideas flow from one person to another.
A great way of getting inspired ideas from such impactful people is by reading their biographies. They are the closest thing to learning about people you are interested in, within a few hours while learning key lessons and ideas from their life experiences
There’s a pattern between all of these influential people.
They all had unorthodox ways of thinking and living.
Elon 🚀 — Do I need to explain how Elon stands out? From his kid’s famous name XAE A-12 to founding a company named “The Boring Company” that made flamethrowers which isn’t directly related to its other products. Reeve also talks about defying the odds when something is important enough even if the odds aren’t in your favour.
Ben 🪁 — He tried creating a better English alphabet, wrote an essay on how to make passing gas smell good, was a fashion icon in France, was the Micheal Phelps of his time, only had two years of formal education but went on inventing and impacting America so much until they decided to have him as the face of the $100.
Sam 🤖 — He warns us on how AI could kill us all but still wants the world to use it. Sam is working towards making Artificial General Intelligence, AGI, a reality that will lead to global change, especially in education. AGI will be able to perform any task a human being can do so humans will be forced to become more adaptive to all the changes & upcoming tools, resilient and creative.
Steve📱- He highlighted when you grow up, you’re told not to bash into the walls by people who are no different than you. Everything around you in life was made by people no smarter than you, you can influence it, you can change it and once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again
Edwin aka “Din” 📸 — was just like any other inventor, blowing up and discovering things from an early age. He was even scolded by his dad at a time but vowed “Nothing or nobody could stop me from carrying through the execution of an experiment”
Alexander ☎️ — Bell’s mother, Eliza, was extremely hard of hearing, and his father was an elocution teacher to the deaf. His life experiences lead Bell to exploring the physiology of speech and educating deaf students.
Faraday ⚡️ — Even the father of electricity did not receive formal scientific education, he was self taught and worked on various inventions we use in our day to day lives without knowing he made them.
Edison 💡 — “ I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”, this famous quote by him says a lot about his character
As much as all their stories are interesting and unique, they all had self-drive, self-belief and let their curiosity go wild as they worked on their passions and crafts plus had a sprinkle of adventurous risk-taking without the fear of failure.
Crazy to think about how Velocity’s Person Of The Week requirements & shared podcasts led me here. If you are in TKS and aren’t in velocity but you feel like you’re up for the challenge and ready to grow, join velocity!
If you aren’t in TKS, read biographies from people you are inspired by!!