How A True Polymath Learns

Benjamin Franklin didn’t go to college. He didn’t have any formal teachers. He started working at the age of 10. And yet, he was able to become one of the greatest scientists and inventors who ever lived. But just how exactly was he able to do this? I just finished reading this Benjamin Franklin biography, and I am honestly just so amazed at how much he was able to accomplish in his life. What I was even more amazed by, though, is that Benjamin Franklin wasn’t a natural genius like Newton or Einstein, but he was entirely self-made. He literally made himself into a polymath by having these consistent learning habits that just appear over and over again in his biography. So what I did was I took this book and I split it up into eight principles that show his learning methods and his principles for knowledge because you don’t need to have a high IQ or to be born with crazy genetics in order to become a genius. But sometimes you simply need to learn how to learn. So let me take you through the learning habits that made Ben Franklin a genius. This first one is super important, especially if you are someone who is always learning but constantly forgetting what you learn. This is literally the exact strategy that Benjamin Franklin used to get over this problem. What he would do when he was younger is he would read these essays of people who admire or concepts that he admired. And then after reading the essay, he would put it aside for a couple days. After a few days passed, he would take a pencil and paper and try to reconstruct the entire essay strictly from memory. After he did this, he compared his own essay which he made from memory to the original essay and then made these sort of mental notes for how he could improve for next time. This is a phenomenal learning habit for two reasons. The first is space repetition because he gave his mind a gap to absorb the information. He read the essay and then he put it away for a couple days. In those couple days, his mind was forgetting, but then he refreshed it as soon as he was going to forget the information. This is known as fighting the forgetting curve, which ensures that the knowledge stays in your mind. The more of these space repetitions that you do, then the less likely it is that you’re going to forget what you learn because you’re constantly refreshing your mind on it and it’s constantly storing it in its long-term memory bank. The second reason is something called the Fineman technique. Richard Fineman, one of the greatest physicists of all time, would say, “If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it.” And so, by literally recreating the essay completely from his mind, he had to sort of teach the subject to himself. Because he was teaching the subject to himself, he was constantly ensuring that he fully understood what it is that he learned. You can’t teach something that you don’t understand. And so this is a really, really good habit when you’re trying to understand a concept completely. When you’re trying to learn something so well so that no one can expose any gaps in your line of thinking. And what’s funny is that you actually see this habit repeated all throughout history. Richard Fineman, of course, is the best example. He was able to explain really hard physics concepts from memory in a very simple and entertaining way. And this is what made him great. Abraham Lincoln trained himself in this way by rewriting his arguments and his speeches by memory as best he could. Malcolm X while in prison copied down a dictionary by hand trying to learn as much as he could so that he could recreate ideas in his own words. Overall, you just see this pattern repeating over and over again. You take a source, you consume it, and then a couple days later, you try to put that same thing into your own words. So, if you want to learn something in its entirety, something that you know really well and never forget it. I would definitely recommend this. Take a source. It can be a book or an article or an essay, read it, and then after a couple days, put that source in your own words. You can use your YouTube channel or a Substack or any sort of platform where you can teach it. But just find somewhere where you can take all these new ideas, all this input that’s coming at you and put it into your own words. Trust me, this will help your learning curve a ton. So in the biography, it actually says this one method which he had developed during his mock debates with John Collins in Boston and then when discoursing with Kimer was to pursue topics through softscratic inquiries. that became the preferred style for Janto meetings. Discussions were to be conducted without fondness for dispute or desire of victory. So, one thing that Ben Franklin was constantly doing when it came to learning was using a strategy called the Socratic method. The Socratic method is a way of teaching developed by Socrates all the way back in ancient Greece. Socrates didn’t like the way society taught. So, he developed his own teaching style. What he would do is he would ask his students a question, a very simple question that anyone could answer, and then after they gave an answer, he would simply continue to question them. He would literally repeat this process for hours, constantly questioning them, constantly finding holes in their arguments, and asking questions to exploit them until the answers were as refined as possible. One of his students, Plato, actually wrote down an example of this. Socrates, went up to a group of soldiers and he asked the soldiers, “What does courage mean?” One of the answers that one of the soldiers gave was that courage means standing firm in battle. So Socrates takes this answer and he continues to ask more questions. Is a general who strategically retreats and wins more or less courageous than the one who stands his ground and dies? You could probably make an argument for both, but the idea is to keep asking questions and exploiting holes in the person’s argument until the answer is as refined as it can possibly be. Ben Franklin was actually obsessed with this style of teaching and learning. And in the book, it actually talks about how he used to be really aggressive and he would constantly debate people, but then at some point in his life, he switched to this more software Socratic inquiry where he would learn a lot more by questioning people. The book says, “Instead, after stumbling across some rhetoric books that extolled Socrates method of building an argument through gentle queries, he dropped my abrupt contradiction style of argument and put on the humbler inquirer of the Socratic method. By asking what seemed to be innocent questions, Franklin would draw people into making concessions that would gradually prove whatever point he was trying to assert. I found this method the safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against I used it. Therefore, I took delight in it. So, of course, you can take this method and you can use it to destroy people in arguments like Benjamin Franklin did. But you can also use this habit a lot to learn safely without offending anyone. There are so many times in the book where Ben Franklin goes up to people and he just questions them. He questions them about their stance on a certain topic and he continues to question them to really understand their line of thinking. And on top of this, asking a bunch of questions makes it feel less like an argument and more of like a search. Like you’re going on a journey with the other person to find an answer with them. By doing this, you can actually learn a lot because you don’t just learn what they know, but you learn about their line of thinking. Another thing is that one thing that stops people from learning aggressively is that their ego gets in the way. The ego stops you from learning anything because you think that the person in front of you doesn’t know anything and you can’t learn anything from them. But Ben, on the other hand, was constantly seeking to learn something from everyone. That’s why he had his gentto group where he brought in all sorts of different types of people. Some doctors, some lawyers, some of the lowerass, just worker people that are part of the nation. This is actually one of the later points in the video, but the point is that he was always looking to learn from everyone. And he did this using the Socratic method. Instead of using the traditional methods of arguing, try a more Socratic approach. ask questions and really get down to the base assumptions, the axioms on what their line of thinking stems from. So, one thing about Franklin was that he was always extremely pragmatic. He was always looking to do the most reasonable thing. And this philosophy really seeped into how he learned. You see, he was always learning, not just for the sake of learning, but for the sake of applying what he learned. Here’s how Walter Isacson describes it. He added his opinion that learning how nature acted was more important than knowing the theoretical reasons why. Nor is it much important to us to know the manner in which nature executes her laws. It is enough if we know the laws themselves. It is of real use to know that China left in the air unsupported will fall and break. But how it comes to fall and why it breaks are matters of speculation. It is a pleasure indeed to know them, but we can preserve our China without it. This attitude and his lack of grounding in theoretical math and physics is why Franklin, ingenious as he was, was no Galileo or Newton. He was a practical experimentter more than a systematic theorist. As with his moral and religious philosophy, Franklin’s scientific work was distinguished less for its abstract theoretical sophistication than for its focus on finding out facts and putting them to use. And so because he had this philosophy, he was always learning by experimenting and not just from books. This is a problem for a lot of people in academics and that’s that when they’re studying, when they’re learning, it all comes from books. And by books I mean videos or podcasts or articles or anything that you sort of consume. This in theory is really great and it works really well. But in order to build an intuition about the world and how the world acts in order to build your way of thinking then you have to interact with the world. You have to test your theories against reality. This is why Da Vinci and the Wright brothers studied birds and why Newton was inspired by an apple following. Even though at least Da Vinci’s or Newton’s discoveries were more theoretical, they still applied what they learned and used it in the real world. At one point, Franklin was studying liquids and he started doing a bunch of experiments with oil. What he was doing is he was putting oil in the water to see the effects of it. The idea though and the pragmatism behind it is that he always thought that he could maybe make the water less turbulent and save ships from going over. The funny thing though is that pouring oil in water is actually how the discovery of the oil molecule was developed a 100red years later. The book says Franklin had actually correctly determined the scale of magnitude of molecular dimensions, the first ever to do so. but he did not recognize it. Franklin was always better at practical applications than theoretical analysis. And so that just shows how strict he was in his learning about being practical rather than theoretical and abstract. The world definitely needs both. But so often technology and innovation, it becomes stalled by being too abstract when it’s really the pragmatists that make the most progress. When the Wright brothers were making their flying machine at one point, they were using the theoretical wind calculations of another scientist, but they realized that the numbers were wrong. So, they didn’t try to fix the calculations by doing math. They literally built a wind tunnel and tested a kite inside of it to get their own calculations. And this is one of the reasons for why they were able to win the race to the sky. You get the point here. It’s so easy to separate learning from the real world, to never actually connect with the outside reality. But that is exactly where innovation stops. In order to build your intuition, then you have to test your thoughts and your theories against reality. And only then can you refine your thinking like Ben Franklin. This one is huge for Ben Franklin and it’s one that’s going to largely separate you from everyone else. Today, argument mapping is brilliant. And what it is is when you argue both sides of a subject before coming to a certain conclusion. In his autobiography, he actually talks about whenever he had to make a difficult decision, he would divide a paper into two sections and spend days, sometimes week, writing down pros and cons. Ben Franklin was like actually obsessed with pro and con list. It’s it comes up in everything that I’ve read about him all the time. Abraham Lincoln actually used this a ton as well. Not many people know this, but in Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation, he actually spent months before writing memos and writing arguments for why they shouldn’t free the slaves. He considered things like a longer war, the risk of losing border states, and if it would fracture the United States. At the same time, though, he also wrote down the strongest case for freeing the slaves. The point here is is that when a lot of these great men came to a difficult decision, when they had to make the tough choice, they would spend time and make both sides of the argument as strong as humanly possible and only then commit to a side. So many people are unable to do this nowadays. It’s actually mind-blowing. And that’s why you see so many people stuck on one side of the argument. They can only see one side. I mean, it would be like playing chess, although you can only see your side of the board. The great minds of history force themselves to see both sides of an argument. When it comes to the overall discussion of ideas, this also lets you seem way more informed because you know a lot and you know the strongest cases for both sides and you don’t appear one-dimensional. You can think of it like you’re a judge for a court case. When you’re in court, you don’t just listen to one side and then decide that someone is guilty. Instead, you take time and you let both sides present their strongest arguments. You hear her out everyone and only then do you make a decision as a judge. If it works for the court system, why would it not work for learning? And I mean, when you really think about it, even at the lightest level, it would make no sense to only educate yourself on one side of the topic. So next time you’re about to study something where there’s a lot of theories that have a lot of debate around them. It can be some sort of political thing or some sort of theories in physics that people argue about. Take the time and make the strongest possible argument for all of them and only then come to a conclusion. Ben Franklin was hands down one of the greatest polymaths to ever live. For those who don’t know what a polymath is, a polymth is someone who is a master at multiple fields. Ben Franklin started out as an author and then he became a businessman and then he became a scientist and then he ended his life as a statesman. But he didn’t really see these categories as different fields. They were all kind of the same to him. Leonardo has a great quote that goes, “Realize that everything connects to everything else.” And this is extremely true. Ben Franklin had this remarkable ability to take a concept from one field and apply it to a different field that he was also in. For example, early in his life, he was trying to be a more virtuous person, but he didn’t go at this self-improvement journey the way normal people go about self-improvement. Instead, he took a completely sciencebacked analytical approach to this. He literally broke down what his idea of a good person was into 13 virtues that he would track himself on this chart. But he was mixing self-improvement and religion with a more scientific approach. And when it came to his careers in scientists, he also didn’t really act like a scientist, but he took a very business-minded and practical approach to science. And that’s why he was always experimenting. I mean, when he discovered lightning, most people’s first thoughts would be, “How can we advance on this?” But his first thought was, “How can I use this to help people?” And this business approach led to the lightning rod, which deflected lightning from buildings that, you know, don’t want to get struck by lightning. The problem is that most people tend to see different fields as different fields, but they’re not. realize that everything connects to everything else. And Charlie Munger used to say, “To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” To most people who are stuck in one field, they can only see the problems in that field and come up with solutions from that same field. But Benjamin Franklin, who was a polymath, was able to take solutions from other fields and apply them to concepts in different fields. How you can apply this polymath way of thinking is to make sure that you look for principles instead of facts. If you’re learning about science, it’s good to know the facts, but what’s even more important is the underlying principles beneath the facts. The principles that can be applied across multiple fields. Learning about compound interest in the stock market is great, but learning about the exponential principle under it is even better because you can apply that principle to any field. This is what a polymath really is. It’s finding the underlying principles and applying them to a variety of fields. Franklin was the consmate networker. This approach was displayed when he formed a club of working men in the fall of 1727, shortly after his return to Philadelphia that was commonly called the Leather Apron Club and officially dubbed the Janto. Franklin’s small club was composed of enterprising tradesmen and artisans rather than the social elite who had their own fancier gentleman’s clubs. There they discussed the issues of the day, debated philosophical topics, devised schemes for self-improvement, and formed a network for the furtherance of their own careers. The Gentto Club was super important to Ben Franklin’s life and he talks about it a ton in his autobiography. What it was was it was a club that Benjamin Franklin made where they would meet up every week and they would talk about different topics that could benefit society. Not just that, but they would also talk about a lot of philosophical ideas, a lot of politics. The discussion kind of went here and there, but they talked about whatever it was to further their intellectual understanding about the world. There’s a Bible verse that says that iron sharpens iron. And I really do think that’s what was happening here. It was people sharpening other people and ideas refining other ideas. I don’t think I can overestimate how important it is to have a group of people around you who are constantly sharpening you, who are constantly pushing you forward. A lot of geniuses are born in solitude. That is definitely true. And a lot of new ideas are born in solitude. That’s also true. But I think it’s really in the public in a group where those ideas become refined where they actually get a practical use or a practical nature to it. This is true for the period after Newton’s two miracle years, just as it is true for the period after Einstein wrote his worldchanging letters. Jensen Huang actually has this philosophy at Nvidia called sharpening the sword. And what it is is that debate and discourse is always encouraged in meetings because he believes that there needs to be back and forth on an idea for it to become the best idea. In other words, it’s like forging a blade and sharpening it against another blade. The Gentto Club was a place where people could debate and argue and come up with new ideas and share their own ideas. But it was all in the name of becoming more sharpened people in society. They had one rule and that one rule was that discussions were to be conducted without fondness for dispute or desire of victory. If you have a group like this, I’m sure your thinking has greatly been sharpened. And if you don’t have a group like this, consider joining the biography society where I literally made it because I read about the Janto and I was so inspired by it that I wanted this group of my own. We meet weekly and we talk about history, we talk about business, and we just refine each other and refine our ideas. So, the link will be in the description. Check it out for sure. This one I talk about a lot because it doesn’t matter what type of biography I’m reading. It can be about a conqueror, it can be about a genius, it can be about an inventor. They were all, every single one of them, they were all relentless readers. Ben Franklin, no different, relentless reader. And he might be even more of a relentless reader than everyone else. The book says once he began working in his brother’s print shop, Franklin was able to sneak books from the apprentices who worked for book sellers as long as he returned the volumes clean. Often I sat in my room reading the greatest part of the night when the book borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning lest it should be missed or wanted. I love sharing stories like this because it just goes to show how much of a reader these people were where even if they didn’t have access to book, even if they didn’t have access to curriculum material, they always find a way. Remember that at this point in time in history, you had to like pay to rent books. You had to rent books. You couldn’t just go to a library and check out books. But Benjamin Franklin didn’t have any money. And so what he would do is he would sneak into the library and then take some books and have them for the entire night, read them throughout the night, and then put them back early the next morning before anyone noticed that they were missing. I also love this next paragraph in the book because it just shows you how important reading is. like how it changes your mind so that when you interact with other people in the world it really does make you appear sort of above others. The book says once again it was young Franklin the willing and witty conversationalist rather than the slovenly master who befriended the dignitaries. My mind having been much more improved by reading than kimers. I suppose it was for that reason my conversation seemed more valued. They had me to their houses introduced me to their friends and showed me much civility. Especially in the modern world, reading is so important because so much of your thinking can be outsourced nowadays. Whether it is to your employees or to AI, you really only have to do as much thinking as you want. And so, how I see reading is sort of like a gym for your mind. I mean, the act of reading a book literally forces you to just focus on one line of thought for an extended period of time. And when everyone is constantly distracted by social media and notifications and other people, it is so valuable to just have this ability to zone in and focus. And like I said before, your mind is a muscle, so you have to take it to the gym and build this focus. All of the greats in history were relentless readers. And there’s a quote that I probably repeat in just about every video I make. History repeats itself over and over again. Human nature does not change. So if you want to be a genius or a conqueror or an inventor or whatever it is, become a relentless reader. The print trade was a natural calling for Franklin. From a child, I was fond of reading, he recalled. And all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. One of the things that I see repeated in many of the biographies I read, almost all of them, is that these people become obsessed with a craft. They become obsessed with something and sort of devote their lives to it. Steve Jobs was obsessed with computers. Leonardo da Vinci was obsessed with painting. And Walt Disney was obsessed with animation. and Ben Franklin was obsessed with reading. This love of reading is actually what led him into the printing business and it’s where his career really skyrocketed. In modern day, people tend to go with the trend. They tend to go with which Marcus will will grow the most in the future, where they can make the most money. But what people should really do is they should follow their interests. Part of the reason people were able to make these amazing inventions or these genius discoveries was simply because they loved what they were doing and they had fun while they were doing it. It’s weird because one of the commonalities in between a lot of them is that they were very big pranksters. Steve Waznjak when he was a kid one time went to jail because he made a device that had a timer that was beeping so that it would look like a bomb and he put it in a school locker for his principal to find. Nicola Tesla used to give handshakes to people being electrically charged so they would feel a sharp jolt. Benjamin Franklin was the exact same way. The book says electricity also energized his antic sense of fun. He created a charged metal spider that leaped around like a real one. He electrified the iron fence around his house to produce sparks that amused visitors. And he rigged a picture of King George II to produce a high treason shock when someone touched his gilded crown. Friends flocked to see a shows and he reinforced his reputation for playfulness. About electricity, the American businessman Van Doran said he found electricity a curiosity and left it a science. This feeling of playfulness and sort of mischievous with all these inventions, it comes from following your interest and that’s why a lot of the greats were able to do what they did. They simply found a sense of fun while they were doing it. This is another quote that I constantly constantly mention, but Steve Jobs would always say, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” And for everything that Benjamin Franklin did, he genuinely loved it. He started a printing business because he loved sharing ideas and reading and talking to others. He became a scientist because he found joy in studying electricity. And he became a statesman because he loved community service as well as the concept of civic virtue. So this final lesson of how to learn like Benjamin Franklin is simply to follow your interest. Think very deeply into it. Strengthen all sides of the argument and make sure to experiment like an inventor. Thank you so much for watching this video. If you like this video, you might like this video where I go over Leonardo da Vinci and how to become a polymath thinker. And if you want a community of people just like the Junto group that Benjamin Franklin was a part of, consider joining the Biography Society. That’s it. See you.