What I learned from reading Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd[3:06] If you had to summarize Charles Kettering this is the way you would do it: “As symbol of progress and the American way of life—as creator of ideas and builder of industries and employment—as inspirer of men to nobler thoughts and greater accomplishments—as foe of ignorance and discouragement—as friend of learning and optimistic resolve—Charles F. Kettering stands among the great men of all time.”[3:36] He was an American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents. He was a founder of Delco, and was head of research at General Motors from 1920 to 1947. Among his most widely used automotive developments were the electrical starting motor and leaded gasoline. He was also responsible for the invention of Freon refrigerant for refrigeration and air conditioning systems. He developed  the world's first aerial missile. He led the advancement of practical, lightweight two-stroke diesel engines, revolutionizing the locomotive and heavy equipment industries.[4:42] This is Ket talking about why it is so important to approach your work with the mindset that you are a professional amateur: We are simply professional amateurs. We are amateurs because we are doing things for the first time. We are professional because we know we are going to have a lot of trouble. The price of progress is trouble. And I don’t think the price is too high.[6:52] There is a quote from Thomas Edison that says “We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.” Ket has that same belief. This is Ket echoing Thomas Edison: “In reality, we have only begun to knock a few chips from the great quarry of knowledge that has been given us to dig out and use. We are like the two fellows who started to walk from New York to San Francisco. When they got over into New Jersey, one said: “We must be pretty nearly there. We have been walking a long, long time.” That is just how we are in what we know technically. We have just barely begun.[9:57] I am enthusiastic about being an American because I came from the hills in Ohio. I was a hillbilly. [10:21] I thought the only thing involved in opportunity was whether I knew how to think with my head and how to do with my hands.[13:37] One lesson from his childhood that stuck with him his whole life is that you need to only worry about things you can control. One of the older men is teaching him this through a story: Besides learning about water power and flour mills, he got from the wise old miller some bits of philosophy which he stored in his young mind. “A lot of people are bound to worry,” the miller once told him. “If you can do something about it, you ought to worry. I would think there was something wrong with you if you didn’t. But if you can’t do anything, then worrying is just like running this mill when there is no grist to grind. All that does is to wear out the mill.”[14:49] He is not interested in rote memorization. He wants to understand the principles behind the thing. He wants to know the why.[18:12] The man from whom he learned most was Hiram Sweet, the wagon maker. But Sweet was more than a wagon maker. He was, as Kettering said long afterward, “an engineer of such keen ability as to be remarkable. You would no more think of running across such a man in a small town than you would of flying without a flying machine.” Hiram Sweet had invented and built a self-computing cash register which was in daily use at the drugstore. He had also made an astronomical clock. “Where did you find out all this?” Kettering asked Sweet. “I work in this wagon shop ten hours a day,” he replied, “from six-thirty in the morning until five-thirty in the afternoon; and when I have no wagon work to do I work on Sweet’s head.” Years afterward, when Kettering had become a noted man, he recalled the days spent in Sweet’s wagon shop, “Letting him work on my head . . . I learned more from that old wagon mak