04/02/2025

One vital lesson from Robert Burns…

To mark and acknowledge the recent Burns Night – celebrating Scotland’s National Poet. Read on for one vital lesson from Burns that has stood the test of time…

It was Burns Night on Saturday 25 January.

Scotland’s National Poet, Robert Burns, was born in 1759 and died in 1796. 

Here is one vital lesson from Robert Burns over 200 years on from his passing that is as relevant today as it was then.

The importance of sheer hard work.

Many people from the 18th century onwards have described him as the ‘Heaven-taught ploughman’.

People believed he was a unique poetical bolt from the blue who only needed nature’s fire. (I thought this too until I studied him in detail a few years ago at Glasgow University).

But this is only part of the story.

The reality is that hard work and dedication paved the way for his success. 

He studied French and Latin

He studied Theocrites

He studied Virgil

He studied Demosthenes

He studied Cicero

He studied Shakespeare

He studied Shenstone

He studied Milton

He studied Gray

He studied Pope

He studied Solomon’s Proverbs

But he didn’t just read these works, he digested them. 

He described his approach to reading a book called The Collection of English Songs:

“I pored over them, driving my cart or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender or sublime from affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe much to this for my critic-craft such as it is”.

And this was all before his seventeenth year!

In short, he worked harder than almost everybody else out there.

Take the spirit of his approach to heart the next time you prepare and deliver a presentation.

When you add hard work to nature’s fire, great things can happen.

Things that are still treasured several hundred years later.

One vital lesson from Robert Burns that has stood the test of time.

For further inspiration and presentation advice, as relevant then as they are now. Check out the following article – with advice from one of the world’s great philosopher’s Aristotle…

Solid Presentation Advice from Aristotle

 

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