Well done is better than well said, a short simple aphorism from Poor Richards Almanac by Benjamin Franklin with a powerful meaning. A quick simple explanation to this quote is what you do carries a much greater impact than what you say you will do. There is a similar saying by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who said “Well done is better than well said”
The phrase comes from Poor Richards Almanac. Almanac can be a book or booklet packed with information about the upcoming year and was prevalent in early eighteen-hundreds. It could contain future facts such as upcoming public holidays dates letting people know when public offices will be closed. Additionally, it could contain rough predictions, such as when the sun will set and rise or how long the moon will be visible on each month of the year. The latter could perhaps be used for harvesting crops.
Benjamin Franklin established a printing shop and started printing his very own Almanac under a pseudo name “Poor Richard”. Perhaps trying to distinguish himself amongst other publications at the time he came up with short axioms to add to his content. This made great impression on his fellow American readers in and it eventually got reprinted in Britain as well.
Examples from Ben Franklin`s Personal life
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Franklin`s life is filled with examples of taking action.
- When Ben Franklin was 12 years old his father pressured him to sign a contract to become an apprentice at his brother`s printshop. According to the contract he was obliged to work there until he turns twenty-one. The printshop was publishing a newspaper, the second that ever appeared in America at the time. After some time working there, Ben has noticed some of his brother`s friends writing small segments for the newspaper for their own amusement. Young Franklin, still only a boy, was keen to try his hand at writing. However, he knew that due to his age he would be swiftly dismissed by his brother. But instead of begging for a chance or bragging how good of a writer he is, he wrote an anonymous paper and left it outside the printing shop`s door. His brother`s friends later read it with admiration and approval. He continued this for some time until eventually confessing.
- After a number of years, now slightly older Franklin, decided that he no longer wanted to endure his brother`s vile treatment. Being regularly beaten and treated like a slave, he went to find a job in another printshop. This however proved difficult as his brother contacted all the printshops in town and asked them not to employ him. So in order to reclaim his freedom, then only seventeen years old, Franklin travelled 300 miles away from home to find himself a position as a printer boy. He eventually succeeded.
How can you apply this to your own life
Benjamin Franklin had distinguished himself from others by taking action and minimizing excuses. In a common day to day conversation, we are bound to hear at least one person who declares how they will make it big in bitcoin, will soon become an entrepreneur. Some will announce their New Years resolution or go around boasting how this year will just be different. “New year new me” they say. Now, small warning to the reader, I might be guilty of some of these examples myself, if not all. However, instead of trying to announce to the world how great you will become, start by taking these small actionable steps:
Actions you may take to start “Doing” rather than “Saying”
- Plan out your idea.
- Look for flaws.
- Look for others who tried your idea but failed.
- Commit, Break it down and Write it down.
- Experiment, Fail And Adapt.
Plenty of ideas have appeared in my head, luckily most of them I have not followed. Whenever I get an idea that excites me, I will think through several actionable items I might have to take to go through with it. Then I will move to the next point.
Every idea has countless flaws and must be adapted to circumvent them. Avoid thinking how happy you are going to be if this works, take the opposite approach and poke as many holes as you can to destroy the idea. Remember you want to have a bullet proof plan not an inflated ego.
Once you can no longer see flaws in your future endeavor, seek out the people who failed when trying something similar. Your main goal is to find the pitfalls others have fallen into and avoid them.
Now that you have a good idea of what needs to be done and how to avoid failures you need to break your plan up into small mini sized tasks and goals. The best way to do this is to create Milestones with sub goals. For example, a milestone can be creating fully functionable website for your business. The goals could be: Find hosting, buy a good domain, create a design. The tasks would be to compare hosting companies, search for a good domain name etc… To be frank, goal setting is non intuitive and should a post of it`s own
No matter how well you planned out your idea, not everything will go according to plan and that`s ok. The best approach is to put your plan into action and see what happens, experiment. I wrote a post on how to experiment and fail. Jump to this link I HAVE NOT FAILED I JUST FOUND 10000 WAYS if you want to learn more.
Asking others for Feedback
Once you have a stable prototype only then it would be a good idea to explain your plan to your friends, you want to hear out their opinion and much more important their criticism. You are not trying to make your plan sound good nor bad, you are trying to make your plan sound like it`s grounded in reality. Only then you can gather valuable feedback.