Benjamin Franklin’s Rules For Failure: His Hidden Roadmap To Success

You may wonder why anyone would make up their own rules for failure. Particularly if that person were Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was obviously one of the most successful people in American history.

The late Jim Rohn (America’s leading business philosopher) used to say that losers should give seminars. Because? Where else could one safeguard your life for success? Think about it. If a loser taught us everything he knows about living a life of failure, all we would have to do is walk away from what he did and do something different.

Ben Franklin’s success strategy of avoiding the rules of failure is quite a wise one. In fact, in his autobiography, Franklin admits that he learned this the hard way by following the rules of failure at one point in his life.

So here we go. On November 15, 1750, Benjamin Franklin wrote in the Pennsylvania Gazette his Rules for becoming an unpleasant partner. Franklin knew what the flops thought. They recklessly believe that “Your business is to shine, therefore you must prevent others from shining…” To achieve this dubious distinction, here are Franklin’s rules.

1. If possible, absorb the entire Discourse; and when other matters fail, speak much of yourself, your education, your knowledge, your circumstances, your successes in business, your victories in disputes, your own wise sayings and observations on particular occasions, etc. . &vs. &vs.

I think we’ve all met a person like the one Franklin describes. Self-centered, arrogant, a dropper, a know-it-all. How did you like spending time with them? We waited for it every day, right? Not likely. Usually we try to avoid such people like snow on a summer day.

Now, the big question. When did you behave like the person Franklin describes? Notice the word “when.” If we’re honest with ourselves, I think most of us have probably been that person multiple times in our lives. Now is the time to walk a different path. The next time you’re in a conversation, ask questions instead of talking. Listen instead of discuss. Serve instead of drink.

2. If when out of breath one of the Company should take the Opportunity to say something; observe his Words and, if possible, find something in his Feeling or Expression, immediately to contradict and raise a Dispute. Instead of failing, criticize even their grammar.

There is a business partner that I work with from time to time that is very similar to this description. It’s like he works hard to find areas to criticize. That’s sick… and hard. In fact, he once criticized my grammar. How did it make me feel? He annoyed me… but I remind you (as well as myself) the reason why people are ugly souls. Usually it’s because they feel bad about themselves. They feel inferior, lacking and worthless. It’s sad but true. So the next time you run into one of these unpleasant people, instead of standing up for yourself, feel sorry for them. Understand that they themselves are suffering… and forgive them. And… commit to never, ever behave the same way.

3. If another should be saying something indisputably good; or do not pay attention to it; or interrupt it; or divert the attention of others; or, if you can guess what he’d be up to, be quick and say it in front of him; or, if he tells you, and you perceive the pleas of the Company‘d with him, Locke himself, Bayle, or some other eminent writer; thus you deprive him of the Reputation that he could have earned‘d by it, and win something yourself, as here you show your great Reading and Memory.

Bottom line, don’t be an arrogant, selfish headache that no one wants to be around.

4. When modest Men have been treated thus by you a few times, they will choose forever to remain silent in your Company; then you can shine without fear of a rival; bringing them together at the same time by his clumsiness, which will be for you a new fund of wits.

In deception, the unpleasant individual takes the silence of his comrades as a victory, when in reality it is the ultimate defeat when it comes to human interactions.

So we can choose success by doing the opposite of Franklin’s rules. The wise old man leaves us with a final warning: “Thus you will be sure to please yourself. The courteous man aims to please others, but you must go beyond him even in that. A man can be present only in one Company, but can at the same time be absent in twenty. He can only please you where he is, and you where you are not.” Hmmm, chew on those words for a while.