flâneur

Founders: #226 Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle

podscripts.co · 13,090 words · saved by 1 readers

What I learned from reading Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:55] I have always had a soft spot for those who speak out against the conventional wisdom and who are not afraid to speak the truth, even if it puts them in a minority of one. [1:20] 4 traits of heroes: 1. Absolute independence of mind. Think everything through yourself. 2. Act resolutely and consistently. 3. Ignore the media. 4. Act with personal courage at all times regardless of the consequences to yourself. [2:25] Churchill by Paul Johnson [2:47] Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky by Paul Johnson and Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson. [3:34] Founders #196 Book link: The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitzby Erik Larson. “It’s slothful not to compress your thoughts.” —Churchill [4:58] They carved out vast empires for themselves and hammered their names into the history of the earth. [5:04] Each was brave, highly intelligent, and almost horrifically self-assu

[00:00:00] America prepared the way for the cult of the entrepreneur. In due course, the public applauded the outstanding steelmaker Andrew Carnegie and the oil man John D. Rockefeller. This new kind of hero was controversial, and it is a fact that throughout history, one person's hero has been another's villain, not only in his own day, but later. The heroes of America's emergence as the world's largest industrial power were clearly [00:00:26] genuine in one sense, since Carnegie's cheap, high-quality steel benefited everybody. Rockefeller's slashing of the price of kerosene by 90% was a…

related reading