The Richest Man in Babylon: Many Lessons Learned

This is to serve as a summary of notes and lessons to keep as I live life one day at a time.

Lessons:

• Seek wisdom. It is free.

• Put your best foot forward, and you will succeed.

• Learn "laws that govern the building of wealth."

• Potency of wealth can help happiness and contentment.

• Time + Study = Prosperity

• Find how to acquire wealth and put all effort into it

• Be ready to take advice, to learn from those with years of knowledge

• Remember when you get paid, "a part of all I earned was mine to keep."

• "Save 1/10th of your earnings and in 10 years, you will have 1 year's worth of full pay

• Advice is free, but take only what matters.

• "Live upon less you can earn."

• Seek advice through those who have experienced it.

• Make gold work for you! (not vice versa)

• Opportunity doesn't waste time for those unprepared.

• See tasks through until completion. It creates confidence in you being able to complete important tasks.

• Be wary of difficult/impractical tasks. Love the leisure.

7 Cures for a Lean Purse:

1. Start thy purse to fattening (save 10% of earnings)

2. Control thy expenditures (necessary vs desire)

3. Make thy gold multiply (create a stream of wealth)

4. Guard thy treasures from loss (consult experienced money handlers). Keep principle safe with investment with fair rental.

5. Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment

6. Insure a future income

7. Increase thy ability to earn

"Budget thy expenses that thou mayest have cans to pay for thy necessities, to pay for thy enjoyments and to gratify the worthwhile desires without spending more than 9/10th of thy earnings."

To Respect Yourself:

1. Pay debts with promptness and don't pay when you cannot afford it.

2. Take care of family and gain their respect.

3. Make a will for your property.

4. Compassion to those injured and do deeds of thoughtfulness to those dear to him/her.

"Cultivate thy own powers, to study and become wiser, to become more skillful, to so act as to respect thyself."

Meet The Goddess of Good Luck:

• "To attract good luck to oneself, it is necessary to take advantage of opportunities."

• "Good luck can be enticed by accepting opportunity."

• "Procrastination is the enemy that prevents good luck and opportunity."

• "Men of action are favored by the Goddess of Good Luck."

• "Action will lead thee forward to the sucesses thou dost desire."

The Five Laws of Gold:

1. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family.

2. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.

3. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.

4. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in bussiness or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.

5. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.

The Gold Lender of Babylon:

• "If you desire to help thy friend, do so in a way that will not bring thy friend's burdens upon thyself."

• Those with great emotion do not fair well for the money lender

• Youth are inexperienced and cannot realize hopeless debt is quick to fall into and hard to struggle out of.

• Ask client their purpose of wanting the gold

• Gold is the merchandise of the lender of the gold

• Wise lender wishes not the risk, but the guarantee of safe repayment

• "Keep thy fifty pieces of gold. What thy labor earns for thee and what is given thee for reward is thine own and no man can put an obligation upon thee to part with it unless it do be thy wish."

• 1st desire of gold is its safety

• 2nd desire is earn more gold

• Before spending, make sure you can earn it back again.

To borrowers and lenders:

"Better a life caution than a great regret."

The Walls of Babylon:

• "Behind walls of insurance, savings accounts, and dependable investments, we are guarded.

• "We cannot afford to be without adequate protection."

The Camel Trader of Babylon:

• The hungrier one becomes, the clearer one's mind works, and also the more sensitive one becomes to the odor of food

• "Ill fortune pursues every man who thinks more of borrowing than of repaying."

• See the world in its right color.

• "My debts are my enemies, but the men I owed were my friends for they had trusted me, and believed in me."

• Life is a series of problems waiting to be solved, and a slave whines, "what can I do who am but a slave?"

"Where the determination is, the way can be found!"

The Clay Tablets From Babylon:

Tablet 1:

• Conditions upon this world have changed as much in five thousand years as one might expect.

• Dasabir's goals: future prosperity (1/10th savings), support and provide for his wife (finds additional strength and purpose in doing so) - 7/10 all I earn to provide a home, clothes, and food, with some to spend (life cannot lack in pleasure and enjoyment)

Tablet 2:

• My debts shall be paid (2/10 paid to debt)

• After debt is diminished, do not use unless wise

Tablet 3:

• Repay debts in small sums of earnings and explain to all creditors your system in place to give trust in ability to do so. Deal impartially with all.

Tablet 4:

In one moon Dabasir has 19 silver and camels:

• 1/10 - savings

• 7/10 - pay for living and wife

• 2/10 - apply to creditors

• (at end of next moon - 2 silver saved, creditors paid with 4 silver)

Tablet 5:

12 Moons have come and gone:

• Paid last of debts

• Respected among creditors

• Wife loves him, and it feeds his confidence

• Reward in following a financial plan vs drifting along

"Follow it and it will make you rich among men!"

The Luckiest Man in Babylon:

• "Work was made for slaves."

• The cynical youth, although unable to comprehend at first glance, can change with others' wisdom, should he wish to bestow upon him life's secrets to success.

• "Work well-done, does good to the man who does it, and makes him a better man."

• Make work a friend, not an enemy.

• "Why should a good baker like thyself seek another baker of inferior ways? Would it not be easier to teach a willing man like myself thy skilled ways? Look at me, I am young, strong, and like to work. Give me a chance and I will do my best to earn gold and silver for thy purse."

• "Bake bread as a slave until noon, then gain for himself the same afternoon." (to earn his freedom)

• Work helps me recover from my struggles, and then will help me buy my freedom, and then a farm of my own.

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