#302 Napoleon (The Mind of Napoleon)

What I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas ---- (3:45) A man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree. (4:45) He knows that men have always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present. (5:15) Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine. (6:05) Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell (Founders #294) (9:25) To aim at world empire seemed to Napoleon a most natural thing. (10:00) To have lived without glory, without leaving a trace of one's existence, is not to have lived at all. (10:55) The greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent. (11:45) The best way to understand a person is to listen to that person directly. —  Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words (Founders #299) (12:55) The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it—the precise time when it is too late. (16:10) The worst way to live according to Napoleon: When on rising from sleep a man does not know what to do with himself and drags his tedious existence from place to place; when, scanning his future, he sees nothing but dreadful monotony, one day resembling the next; when he asks himself, "Why do I exist?”—then, in my opinion, he is the most wretched of all. (17:45) Instead his (Steve Jobs) ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed a notch above, people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and D