Benjamin Franklin’s Top 5 Tips on Becoming Successful

Derek — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:52:53 +0000

Do you want to learn how to make your company successful? Join Prevential and follow the Success Factors blog series daily in January 2009.

Photo courtesy of Florian Dreyer

You’ve heard Benjamin Franklin quotes a million times. So, I won’t finish these two:

“a penny saved is…”
“early to bed, early to rise, makes a man…”

But, other than his most common lessons, what can he teach us about success?

He was a successful entrepreneur, an inventor, and a scientist. He helped people see (created bifoculs), published a top-selling book (Poor Richard’s Almanac), and helped build the foundations of electricity (I know you remember the kite and the key). But what can he do for you and your business?

To find out, lets take a look at five more Benjamin Franklin quotes:

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”

Self-made people don’t believe in luck and how could they? Many of them worked through millions of obstacles and came out ahead every time. But do you think it was an accident? Do you think the same people come out on top by sheer chance?

Benjamin Franklin didn’t think so and you shouldn’t either.

But what was the secrets to success?

They hold themselves accountable. They don’t talk about luck or the economy. They talk about what they need to do right now to get what they want.

“Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.”

I know you have heard expressions like, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” but realistically, that is where you find money. “Oh, it’s only a dollar,” is how iTunes makes Apple millions of dollars. Or, how about we look at mutual fund fees? Those little numbers after the decimal point makes banks billions of dollars. This small stuff makes big things. So, you need to find your niche and “sweat the small stuff.”

“Well done is better than well said.”

People are obsessed with their ideas. They talk about them and say things like, “if only I had the time…” But lets look at this realistically. If Larry Page and Sergey Brin just talked about creating a search engine that tracked incoming links, we wouldn’t have Google. If Steve Jobs just talked about creating a consumer-friendly PC, we might have been stuck using mainframes and punchcards.

As Henry Ford would have said, “you can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”

“Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.”

Procrastination kills business and success. I have wanted to start Prevential.com for more than 2 years and for some reason I waited. Now instead of competing with 200 business blogs, I’m competing with 2,000,000. I’m fighting a war with a pellet gun and it is my own fault for waiting. So, don’t make the same mistake as me.

“Lost Time is Never Found Again”

Have you ever had someone ask you, “where do you find the time?” What a funny question, right? How can someone find time? We all have 24 hours a day. Yet, I still squandered my time.

When I started working, I had to commute for 45 minutes. I would sit on the train and either doze off or listen to music. After doing this for a few months, I thought to myself, “90 minutes a day, 5 days a week, 25 days a month” and I realized I was wasting a full week every month.

It was unbelievable. I was tossing 30 hours of my life out the window every month. So, I decided to start using it. In 2008 I read around 70 books by reading on the train. To put this in perspective, most people read less than 5 books a year.

Now tell me, can you “find any times?”

Do You Have A Favorite Benjamin Franklin Quote?

Why don’t you share it in the comments and talk about it?