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it than that. Franklin was trying to re-create himself as a person who valued community above self and charity over wealth. It seems to me that the fundamental aspects of his program of self-improvement, the foundation of virtuousness and the cornerstone of success in his mind, were found in his dictum in Poor Richard’s Almanack: “The noblest question in the world is What Good may I do in it? ”2

It is not a coincidence that Franklin suggested that he began each day of his course by asking himself this question. Selflessness, though not a specific virtue, is the beginning of understanding of self (that sounds almost profound; I must have stolen it from somebody else). The more we do for others, the better we feel about ourselves; the better we feel about ourselves, the more we are prepared to do for others. So . . . here is another “big” answer that I discovered—one more universal truth—from following Franklin. When I talked to Peter Short, I asked him why people want to sacrifice, to do good for others. His reply, a quote from Nelson Henderson, expresses this last truth more eloquently than I ever could. He said, “The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”

Well, I don’t know if I’ve planted any trees, but I have for thirteen weeks followed one of the world’s greatest figures and felt his eye on me throughout the process. I have tried to be better and, in doing so, learned my last great truth. Once I articulated why I wanted to be better—to have a more meaningful life—the how came easily. The secret to being better is to try. I may not have succeeded, but for these thirteen weeks I tried, and maybe, for these thirteen weeks, I was just a little more stallion than sloth.

Go with Ben.

{I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.}

{FURTHER READING ABOUT BENJAMIN FRANKLIN}

Benjamin Franklin is one of the most extensively researched and written about figures in American history. Indeed, the volume of material can be overwhelming, as I discovered in writing this book. For anyone interested in learning more about Franklin, here are some books that I found particularly useful:

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Edmund Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002)

Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003)

Esmond Wright, Franklin of Philadelphia (Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986)

Page Talbott, ed., Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005)

Willard Randall, A Little Revenge: Benjamin Franklin and His Son (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984)

{NOTES}

Prologue

1 Isaacson, Walter, “Citizen Ben’s Great Virtues,” Time 162, no. 1 (July 7, 2003), www.time.com/time/2003/franklin/bffranklin.html.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 McGee, Micki, Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

5 Salerno, Steve, Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless (New York: Crown, 2005).

6 Cicero, Marcus T., c. 106-43 BC.

7 Isaacson, “Citizen Ben’s Great Virtues.”

8 Dalton, Kathleen, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), p. 254.

The Preparations

1 Herman, Arthur, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001), p. 64.

1. Temperance

1 Randall, Willard, A Little Revenge: Benjamin Franklin and His Son (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984), p. 4.

2 “The Temperate Doctor,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 162, no. 12 (June 13, 2000).

3 Ibid. See also Plato, The Republic, chapter 16, 430d.

2. Silence

1 Palatnik, Lori, and Bob Burg, Gossip: Ten Pathways to Eliminate It from Your Life and Transform Your Soul (Deerfield Beach, FL: Simcha Press, 2005).