LinkedIn presents.

I'm Caleb Bissinger and this is the next big idea.

Today, happy 4th of July. I am descended from Benjamin Franklin. I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, who're thinking, who're thinking, whoa Ben Franklin, founding father? Lightning, tamer, inventor, humorist, diplomat?

No relation. I'm talking about my grandfather, Benjamin Franklin McDonald, who was born not in 1706 but 1930, and who didn't invent bifocals. He wore them.

To tell you the truth, I always felt kind of bad for my grandfather,

having to go through life with that famous namesake, not because it set a high bar,

but because I always sort of thought of Ben Franklin as a little bit of a doofis.

Why? Because I grew up in Philadelphia, a city that has embraced Ben as its patron saint, but in the process somehow managed to demote him from hero to mascot. We have Griddy, we have the Philly fanatic, and we have Ben. True story. I once

saw one of the city's Franklin impersonators dressed in full colonial get-up. I'm talking

powder wig, knee-length britches at the gas station filling up his Honda

Civic. This was the guy my grandfather is named after. Uf. But something

happened recently that made me change that, to a hmm I knew we had an unfilled interview slot for today's episode July 4th and I thought

wouldn't it be fun to have a conversation that has an independent stay theme. So I went hunting in the

database where we keep track of hundreds of new books and one of them caught my eye.

It's called Ben and Me in search of a founder's formula for a long and useful life.

And it's by Eric Weiner.

I'm a fan of Eric's last two books, both New York Times bestsellers, the geography of genius, which our friend Dan Pink called witty, informative, and compulsively readable, and the geography of bliss, which Apple TV Plus recently turned into a docu series.

And so I thought, hey, let me give Benamy a try.

And man, I'm glad I did.

For one thing, the book showed me just how wrong I was about Benjamin Franklin.

I'd always sort of picture the American Revolution as a prom com,

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