Transcription
I'm really happy to see you in today's lesson of the Everyday Hero Manifesto Method. And today's lesson is another valuable one.
Well, I'm a huge fan of Benjamin Franklin. I think I was probably 18 when I read his autobiography. Uh, you might want to write down the title. It's called The Autobiography of Ben Franklin. You might say, "Oh, that's a strange title for the autobiography of Ben Franklin." No, I'm just joking, but it is called The Autobiography of Ben Franklin.
And Ben Franklin was an inventor, and he was a statesman, and he was a printer, and he was a polymath. So reading his autobiography was fascinating to me that he could be so good at so many things, he could be so productive in his lifetime. And what really fascinated me and spoke to me about Benjamin Franklin was he was so honorable. He was, he was a man of great discipline. He was trying to make himself better every single day by strengthening his character.
And in the autobiography, he talks about the 13 virtues and his program to live by the 13 virtues. And what he did was, I actually write about it in The Everyday Hero Manifesto at page 163. So let's go to it together. And it's Ben Frank, the chapter is called "Ben Franklin's 13 Virtue Habit Installer."
And essentially, I'm going to read the section from his autobiography. He said, "It was about this time that I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish to live without committing any fault at any time. As I knew that as I knew what was right and wrong, I did not see that I might not always do one and avoid the other. But soon I found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined."
And then I write, "Although Franklin knew what he had to do to become a deeply moral man, he often found that he slipped. The solution was to build a system to break weak habits by meticulously installing stronger ones." And so he created these 13 virtues of greatness, and he created a table like this. And let's go to the screen so we can go through it together.
So it's the 13. I call them the 13 virtues of human greatness. And the virtues themselves are:
1. Temperance, which is really, temperance is just not being extreme. No, carefulness in food and drink is how Ben Franklin talks about temperance. The second, this is one, temperance, carefulness and food and drink.
2. Silence, and he says, "Avoid trivial conversations and using words that are harmful."
3. The third value of, or virtue of human greatness, Order. "Practice austerity and physical spaces and perform each pursuit precisely."
4. Virtue number four, Resolution. "Be like, be resolute. Do what you promise yourself you'll do without fail."
5. Frugality. Really important in the world we live in right now where so many people overspend. Frugality. "Be cautious with your expenses and avoid waste." I've been thinking about that a lot, a lot, over the period since I wrote that chapter, like avoiding waste, right? Even if there's a little bit of extra toothpaste, a little bit of toothpaste left in the toothpaste container, I'm going to use it now because I want to protect the planet. I don't want to waste. If there's food, sometimes I'll see the serving in a restaurant, I'll say, "You know what? I'm happy to pay the price, the full price, but just give me a half serving because I don't really eat that much." So frugality is very powerful as a virtue.
6. Number six, one of my favorites, Industry. Industry is managing your time well and avoiding unnecessary activities. Be a minimalist. Do only a few things really, really well. That is what industry is about. Real work versus fake work. Just do master work and forget all the extra things that keep you busy.
7. Number seven. Number seven is about Sincerity. "Never deceive anybody and be yourself under all conditions." Sincerity is such a gargantuan competitive advantage. Being sincere, people trust you and they follow you.
8. Justice. "Treat everyone equally and do nothing wrong." Beautiful. Love it. Don't just do that for the world, do that for yourself. That'll make you so powerful. It'll promote self-love.
9. Uh, gets us to number nine, Moderation. Remember in The Everyday Hero Manifesto, my four-course chocolate croissant evening, that was not about moderation. So moderation. "Avoid the extremes of both sloth and asceticism." Okay, you don't want to be sloppy, and you don't want to be extreme.
10. Cleanliness.
11. Tranquility. "Maintaining inner peace and do not ruminate over small matters." So key to positivity.
12. Ben Franklin talked about Chastity. "Don't participate in meaningless sexual pursuits," is what he recommended.
13. And Humility. Remember the chapter in The Everyday Hero Manifesto, vote that time my family and I met Muhammad Ali. And he couldn't have been nicer. But we, we, we were in this Chrysler K car. We might, we raced up to him. It was the most bizarre and hilarious experience of my childhood, or one of them. And Muhammad Ali wondered what was going on. He rolled, or he was in his convertible. My mom reached out of the window and said, "Mr. Mr. Ali, Mr. Ali, could we get an autograph?" And he sort of looked at us and said, "Okay." And he pulled over. And he saw, took pictures with us. And then he saw that my father was taking pictures of me and my brother and my mother with the great world champion boxer. And Mr. Ali said to my father, "Would you like to have a picture too?" And he was so humble, and he was so tranquil. And it reminded me that the greatest is the humblest.
So these are the 13 virtues of human greatness. And then what Ben Franklin did was for a period, and you can read the chapter in the book, but he would literally measure himself against each one. So he'd spend a week on temperance, and he'd see how he lived during the day. And at the end of the day, he'd go, "Yeah, I did it. I was, I." And then the next day, "Yes, how did I live my day measured against temperance, which is carefulness in food and drink?" "Yeah, I did it." And then Tuesday and Wednesday, "Oops, not so much."
But with better awareness, you can make better choices. And with better choices, you will see better results. My three-step success formula. You see how powerful this is. This exercise, this gradient, this habit installer is for installing the 13 virtues of greatness. So it's a great tool to practice. You've got the actual grid in The Everyday Hero Manifesto, so you can actually make your notations right in the book.
And then he would do the entire 13 virtues, and then he'd start again. And imagine if you did this on a consistent basis, every day working on a specific, every week, one of the 13 virtues. You do all 13 virtues over 13 weeks, and then you start again. You would be an everyday hero, absolute world-class, which is my great prayer for you. So hope this lesson has been helpful to you.