While searching for answers to problems in their businesses, business owners should turn to the past for advice. Marsilio Ficino counseled Cosimo de Medici, a banking magnate and one of the most prominent entrepreneurs of the Renaissance. In Italy, where the Renaissance had begun, even the Medicis found it hard to balance their private lives with the draining demands of commerce. In 1489, Ficino put the ideas he had learned about seeing work within a larger context of the self into a volume called The Book of Life. The Book of Life addresses issues that include: 1. the importance of fulfilling work, 2. working with malcontents, 3. the benefits of leisure, and 4. the benefits of taking action.