“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Teach Different with Benjamin Franklin

Transcript

Dan Fouts (00:10)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Teach Different podcast. We are back this time with Benjamin Franklin, who’s gonna share some wisdom through a, well, we’re gonna share his wisdom through a quote that we found on preparation, the importance of preparation. And here we are with yet another life theme interacting with the conversation method. And you know, we get asked all the time, who can use these quotes? And it’s teachers, it’s community members, it’s parents, it’s really anyone who has a need to bring an audience together to have better interactive discussions that are trusting that are empathetic. We work on our skills of listening and speaking. And I mean, the bottom, it’s needed everywhere in our society right now. So that’s probably the broadest possible definition that I could possibly give, but.

 

Steve Fouts (01:19)

And it’s also thought provoking and big ideas. It’s like philosophizing. If you have someone you know and you want to have a one-on-one conversation and just to see how they tick, see how they think about something, see if they can come up with a disagreement with themselves. Some people struggle with that and it’s fun to watch people struggle with it, you know, because you can show them that there actually is more than one way of looking at something. And I just think that it is the key to citizenship. It’s the key to justice. It’s the key to freedom. It’s the key to learning how to live with other people and compromising when needed But also strengthening your convictions about everything and you’re going to be a better More convincing person when you go through this method Because you’re going to see so much more you’re you’re wise

 

Dan Fouts (02:17)

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. It does make your opinions more you are to be listened to more. Because your opinions have been thought out and you’ve understood multiple sides to things, you will speak with more conviction. So this, again, this will help your self-esteem. You kind of alluded to that. teaching, they call conversations a soft skill. As if it’s not really a skill, it’s just sort of a soft skill. This is though, I would argue, one of the most important skills to learn in any setting, in the workplace, in the family and everything. So it just cannot be underestimated how important this kind of stuff is. It is, it’s communicating and thinking. Yep, and it takes practice like anything else.

 

Steve Fouts (03:19)

It’s the foundation of education, being able to do this.

 

Dan Fouts (03:29)

which is why this podcast exists. We are practicing this method with all of you so that you can take this method and bring it to your audience, your son, your daughter, your students, your community, because it’s for everyone. All right, so here’s Benjamin Franklin. Now, this is something that was in the poor Richard’s almanac, okay, that he’s responsible for and had a huge influence on. And this is Benjamin Franklin. He had a lot of wise, you know, words of wisdom, so to speak, about life and his virtues and so on. I’ll read it twice. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. A little tongue twister. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Steve, what is, in your own words, which is what we always start with, right? What is this saying?

 

Steve Fouts (04:31)

Thanks. You’re never going to succeed at anything unless you prepare for it.

 

Dan Fouts (04:47)

Preparation is the key to success.

 

Steve Fouts (04:50)

Type A, personality stereotype.

 

Dan Fouts (04:54)

What do you mean by that?

 

Steve Fouts (04:57)

There are certain people that need to know what’s going to happen to have confidence and to look at the future and feel comfortable. They need a plan. They need to feel like they’ve done everything to put themselves in a situation where, okay, I’m prepared. I mean, I’m thinking of boy scouts. I’m thinking of people that want to write out the entire script of their speech that they’re giving in front of people.

 

Dan Fouts (05:23)

Okay, you’re a planner, a planner. Mm-hmm. Yeah, by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. So failure then will result from lack of preparation. That’s an interesting claim here, Benjamin.

 

Steve Fouts (05:52)

Yeah.

 

Dan Fouts (05:53)

That you have to prepare in order to succeed.

 

Steve Fouts (05:54)

And it’s true. It is true.

 

Dan Fouts (05:59)

And if you don’t, you’re setting yourself up for bad things. And okay, let’s relate to this here. This is absolutely true. It’s true in a classroom. If you don’t prepare for an exam, you won’t do well in the exam. If you don’t prepare on a sports team, you will not perform well the day of the game.

 

Steve Fouts (06:00)

It is true.

 

Dan Fouts (06:24)

There is a cause and effect relationship. Preparation connotes leads to success. It’s also true with so many things. we could, okay, so I get this. think what he’s saying has a lot of, it resonates and could resonate with a lot of young people as well. you wanna go counter?

 

Steve Fouts (06:52)

Yeah. Fly by the seat of your pants. And I’ve had some of my best classes as a teacher when I’ve been, like, rushing and I go in there and I’m not thinking about what I have to do or what I’m supposed to do. And I’m actually connecting with people, the environment. I’m adapting better.

 

Dan Fouts (06:54)

What? Yeah, I know.

 

Steve Fouts (07:22)

I mean, personally, just personally, prepare, I prefer to not prepare too much for even this podcast. Think about this. You know, we thought we knew the quote coming in. did do some thinking about it before we started, but part of this is supposed to be spontaneous and you have to be able to be open to react to things happening that you can build on. And if you’re overly prepared, you become not someone who is moving with the conversation. You’ve got an agenda.

 

Dan Fouts (08:05)

You’re not listening. You’re not listening to what’s being said. You’re preparing preconceived remarks or a plan. You’re executing a plan and you’re not listening and intentionally. And that is, okay, I don’t wanna repeat what you just said, but teaching is such a great example of this. And I will definitely say this. I bet every teacher out there will agree with me on some level, hopefully.

When you start out in the profession, you definitely do more preparing. You think that by preparing, you’re gonna control the environment and succeed if you are prepared. And what I have found is that the more experience I get, it almost has flipped to go with what you’re saying. That I find if I prepare now, I feel like I fail because I’m not in tune to what is happening in front of me. My best lessons are the ones where I roll with, I mean, you say fly by the seat of my seat of your pants. It’s more just kind of bouncing and taking opportunities to move in innovative, spontaneous directions. It’s my lack of preparation that leads to my success.

 

Steve Fouts (09:24)

Yeah?

 

Dan Fouts (09:25)

When else would this be true? What’s another good example? Counterclaim.

 

Steve Fouts (09:30)

Of when not preparing is a good idea?

 

Dan Fouts (09:33)

I’m going to say parenting. Oh my gosh.

 

Steve Fouts (09:36)

You can’t prepare to parent.

 

Dan Fouts (09:38)

You can, but I’m saying if you bring your kids somewhere, sometimes not preparing and letting the day unfold and not trying to micromanage their every move, it creates for a more joyous experience for them. Parenting, teaching.

 

Steve Fouts (10:02)

Overly structuring. You know, but then again, kids need, to have counterclaim, kids need structure. If everything is open, they won’t benefit from it. They might like it for a while, but then freedom is overrated. You know, it is a balance and just kind of, it’s a balance between preparing and well, here’s something I did recently. I got, look at, got my, my Remy is my cat and he’s deciding to interrupt me, but I got a chance to give a lay sermon at the church And I’d never given a sermon. So I went in there and I thought, how do you give a sermon? Do you? Do you write it out? Do you script it? Do you and I’ve never really liked scripts So what I ended up doing was just creating like these bullets and an outline and I just had kind of these points where there was like a word that made me think of something. And then I decided to tell a story. And it was a blend between planning it. Yeah, I knew what I was getting to, but I didn’t plan on what I was gonna say. I just had to be, try to be authentic and I hope it worked out.

 

Dan Fouts (11:26)

Yeah, that’s a good example where you need both. And this method, hopefully, I think when it works the best, this method expresses both of those sentiments. There’s preparation. You have a quote, you have a claim and a counterclaim in your head. You might even have an essential question in your back pocket. But you also don’t prepare so much that you’re not listening to students share their personal experiences and then go with a tangent with that personal experience and be flexible and spontaneous and organic. So this method itself tries to achieve a similar blend as you described in you doing a sermon. It’s interesting. Maybe it’s both then.

 

Steve Fouts (12:11)

Yeah, I actually felt comfortable. I felt comfortable because you could share personal experiences and then you find parts in the Bible that just are perfect themes that fit and it’s fun. It’s enlightening and I don’t, yeah. What’s the question? Well, there it is. What’s the best way to prepare? Because I’m going to assume that it’s good that you should prepare something, but what’s the best way to prepare? And that’s going to be all contextual.

 

Dan Fouts (12:30)

Okay, question. Yeah.Yeah. Yeah. Does failing to prepare always lead to failure? When does lack of preparation lead to failure? And when does lack of preparation open yourself up for success. That’s contextual. Yeah, what does that mean is, what situation, see, gosh, if I had students in front of me or a bigger crowd or a community crowd, you know, what are some, just to ask the group, what are some times when you’ve over prepared for something, what happened?

 

Steve Fouts (13:07)

How about this? What does over-preparing mean?

 

Dan Fouts (13:30)

Tell me a time when you didn’t prepare and it turned out well, where it just kind of spontaneously became something that was beautiful. my gosh. And then when did you get it right? Where you prepared and you allowed for flexibility. And that’s when you would have jumped in with the sermon example.

 

Steve Fouts (13:38)

Those are fun to… Those are fun. You know what I just thought of your son, when he was at Yellowstone, I think it was, and one of his friends had a seizure or something that obviously he didn’t prepare for, but he just jumped right in, dealt with the situation. There’s some people that do feel comfortable in, kind of unstructured, spontaneous environments.

 

Dan Fouts (14:01)

right, right. Yes, yes. Well, but, okay, you brought that up. I think of first responders, firefighters, police officers. You know, they have to prepare immensely or they will fail. Okay, however, they also have to respond spontaneously in situations for which they can never receive.

 

Steve Fouts (14:28)

Yeah, their job.

 

Dan Fouts (14:45)

All of the training. They’re not gonna train for every single situation. So maybe first responders have that magic balance going on too. They can ⁓ adapt, yet they’re also really prepared. This is great. Benjamin Franklin, wonderful. This was in the Poor Richard’s Almanac, which is such a great book. Lots of wisdom from Franklin. All right, well, thanks everybody for listening and hopefully you can use this in whatever setting you have and stay with us and check us out for the next conversation and the next profound quote. All right, take care.

 

Steve Fouts (15:24)

See you soon.