The Greatest Man who ever lived.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, according to perhaps the greatest american poet, Carl Sandburg.

5 MEN TO IMITATE

1. John Davison Rockefeller:  (1839-1937; Lived 98 years)  Richest Man in the World in the latter part of the 19th Century and in the first part of the 20th Century.  Said to be the richest man of all time. Worth $us 1 billion in 1913; equal to 2% of U.S. GDP then.

2. Simon I. Patiño:  (1863-1947; Lived 84 years)  Largest Fortune on Earth in 1941. 

3. Jean Paul Getty:  (1892-1976; Lived 83 years)  Richest Man in the World 1956 - 1976.  Worth $us 4 billion in 1956.

4. Samuel Walton:  (1918-1992; Lived 74 years)  Richest Man in the World 1985 - 1992. Worth $us 100 billion in 1992.

5. Warren Buffett:  (1930-      ; Now age 78)  Presently Richest Man in the World.  In 2007, worth $us 60 billion.

How did Warren Buffett buy up 8% of Coca Cola...

Well for days on in for months and months, he and Charlie Munger in the 80's bought one third of the volume of all Coca Cola stocks that were being traded each day, they spent more than a billion dollars doing this during those long months - that's how they did it!

"Where do we go from here?"

One of Winston Churchill's most famous lines, said, once World War II was won.

Albert Einstein was a Genius not a Polymath

Upon reading more of polymath men, it seems many of them were not geniuses, like EINSTEIN was, since he was a specialist in his subject area, and polymath men are not speicalists but generalists.  Thus, does that make a specialist, like Einstein who was a genius, superior in mind than other polymaths like Da Vinci or Jefferson or Franklin?

A Polymath Man is a Universal Man.

He is a man who has broad intellectual interests:  He is accomplished in areas of both the arts and the sciences, everything from how to gain weight to how to take care of legal work without being a lawyer.

"A man who can do all things if he will." Leon Battista Alberti (1407-1472).

Thomas Henry Huxley: To be a Polymath:

KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING ABOUT SOMETHING

Best Aaron Sorking Dialogue in The West Wing.

Joshua Lyman to Donatella Moss: "Well, if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer."

Donna's response: "If you were in accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights."

The Warren Buffett Style

"If you own 50 stocks, do you really know how each one is doing?" Warren Buffett

So own 5 or max 10 good ones that you can know how they are doing and also have some control over them!

HAITI and its over 7 point Earthquake

The Earthquake that hit Haiti this week was of over 7 points on the Richter Scale.  There hasn't been one of those in more than 200 years on this Earth.  The island could have sunk under water.

Haiti is the poorest country in this Western Hemisphere with 90% of its population living with less than $us 1 a day;  after this earthquake conditions in that very poor country are going to worsen.

Perhaps the U.S. could, and should, absorb it as another state or as a semi-state like Puerto Rico or Guam.

INDIA and the U.S.

Today India has a population of almost 1,3 billion people.  (Only China has more people: 1,6 billion.) (The U.S. has as of today 309 million people).

500 million people in India, survive with less than 1 dollar a day.

Of all the foreign students studying in the U.S., half of them are from India.

Richest Men today:

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are the richest men in the world today, each worth approximately $us 50 billion, depending on the year.  Today they are best friends.

The All Time Richest Man in the World:

John Davison Rockefeller, Senior

$us 1 billion in 1913 - not so far away from the U.S. GNP of those days.


Most Recently:

Sam Walton.  Worth $us 100 billion at the time of his death in 1992.

Had 5 children, left $us 20 billion to each.

The All Time Singing Mega-Legend:

Elvis Presley.

The Legend:

The Legend of the 20th Century: Frank Sinatra.

The All Time Movie Mega-Legend:

Marlon Brando.

The All Time American Megamacho:

STEVE McQUEEN.

The Best Movie of All Time

1983 film TERMS OF ENDEARMENT by Albert Brooks, starring Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jeff Daniels, and Jack Nicholson.

Something on Love and Marriage

"Love is a myth; it's comfort food for the weak!"

"And Marriage, marriage doesn't exist anymore." 

"Marriage makes you weak, dependent, and fat."

By Matthew McConaughey, in film Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

The 3 Greatest Men of the 20th Century - Were They Polymaths?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Winston Churchill

Albert Einstein

Well, indeed, they exceled in more than one field.  Thus, they could well be regarded as true Polymaths.

Some Possible Polymath Men

Here is a list of men who have been mentioned as possible Polymaths, but are they?

Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin, Von Humboldt, Thomas Huxley, Max Weber, José Ortega y Gasset, Lewis Mumford.   

Daniel Goleman

"Like parenthood, leadership is not an exact science, but there are ways to improve on both." Daniel Goleman, HBR, Jan., 2000.

There are several forms of leadership, but the objective of them all is to get RESULTS!

Daniel Goleman is an expert at imporving the art leadership.

Sunday, what a Day

Today the sermon at mass ended with the last four words of the Bible's Apocalypsis "Come O'Lord Jesus. Amen."

Among other subjects, who started his autobiography with the following words: "Three passions have governed my life..."  He lived to be 98.

Finally a thought for the coming week:   He who does the easy things will have difficult life, however, he who does the difficult things will have an easy life.

Next week will discuss the Michaels' of buisiness - those few giant business Michaels'.

The week of January 4 through the 10th

"A lasting relationship with a woman is only possible if you are a business failure."

Who said this?

2010

Three subjects today for the polymath blog:  The Polymaths:

1. Yesterday, Sunday, January 3rd, 2010, the sermon at mass was about the Star that guided the Three   
    Wise Men / Three Kings to the spot where Jesus had just been born in Bethlehem.

- Do we all have stars that guide our paths?  We should!

2. Saturday, January 2nd, 2010, my first cousin who was born on January 3, 1965 got married for the first   
    time.  Although we are both more or less close or at least I thought that, he did not invite me. But he took 
    meticulous interest in inviting my mother, sister, and all of our 33 first cousins and other relatives and 
    friends we have in common from my father's side, but not me...

    And this morning my mother and my sister went by plane to see my cousins from my  
    mother's side who are eight and were all gathering an our away from here by plane, but again, I was  
    specifically not invited...

   I must be doing something right!  Any polymath would immediately tell me that!  Or at least Buckminster  
   Fuller, who said that, "Common sense and making money are mutually excluding" - they expell each  
   other...

3.  When was the day the music died?    When was the day television died?

     I hope to be having answers to these questions soon.

Good evening and good night.

IRGUETTY Company

I hope this blog will help those of us in business learn quickly how to become wiser businessmen!

Polymath: "Renaissance Man," "Man of the World," "Generalist," "Universal Genius."

Polymath:  Person with superior intelligence, whose expertise spans a significant number of subject areas, and who excels in a wide variety of fields.

List of Famous Polymaths:

- Pythagoras, Aristotle, Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ghöete, Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell.