January 2, 2012
by Jordan
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The Richest Man in Babylon is a parable of sound personal financial management. I decided to share what I have learned from the book.
The Richest Man in Babylon is a series of stories. The stories in the book are:
- The Man Who Desired Gold
- The Richest Man in Babylon
- Seven Cures For A Lean Purse
- Meet The Goddess of Good Luck
- The Five Laws Of Gold
- The Gold Lender Of Babylon
- The Walls Of Babylon
- The Camel Trader Of Babylon
- The Clay Tablets From Babylon
- The Luckiest Man in Babylon
- An Historical Sketch Of Babylon
In The Man Who Desired Gold we meet two men who are not as well off financially as they would like. They decide to ask a successful friend of theirs, who is the richest man in Babylon to teach them to be more successful.
What I learned from this story is to seek advice from those who are successful. Find a mentor, or teacher. Wisdom can help us not make as many mistakes as we otherwise would have made.
In The Richest Man in Babylon we learn how Arkad became wealthy.
The Lesson from this story I found was:
- Save a part of all of your income.
In the Seven Cures For a Lean Purse the king of Babylon asking the Arkad to teach others to become rich, so they can teach even more.
The lessons I learned from this story were:
- Save a part of all your income
- Control your expenses
- Invest wisely
- Guard your money from loss
- Make your home a profitable investment
- Insure a future income
- Increase your ability to earn.
The next story is Meet The Goddess of Good Luck. We get a discussion on luck, and chance. The result of the discussion is the lesson from this story:
- When we take action we are more likely to be lucky.
The next story is The Five Laws of Gold. This is the story of Arkad testing his son about being able to be wealthy. He is given a tablet with the five laws of gold his father had learned, and a bag of gold.
The lessons I learned from this story were:
- Save 10% of all your income
- Money will multiply when invested wisely and securely
- Find a mentor to help you invest wisely
- Invest in businesses you are familiar with
- If an investment looks to good to be true it usually is
The next story is The Gold Lender of Babylon. This is the story of a character gaining a bonus for excellent work, he is asked to lend his money, which is equal to 50 years of savings to let his brother-in-law go into business. He has doubts, and so he turns to his friend who is a money lender. The lessons I learned from this story are:
- When we are doing well financially there will always be people who want to share what we have.
- Sometimes when we want to help another person we end up only hurting ourselves.
- The safest loans to make are to people with more assets than the size of the loan.
- When emotions are involved lending or borrowing money is not a good idea.
- It is better to be cautious than to have regrets
The Walls of Babylon is about how the Walls of Babylon held back invasions. The lesson is:
- Do not be without adequate protection
The next story is The Camel Trader of Babylon. This is the story of a man who started out financially ok. He then lost his finances, and took on debts. Then he hit bottom, but found the determination to pay off his debts. The lesson learned is:
- A way can be found if there is determination
The Clay Tablets of Babylon tells the story of how the camel trader paid off his debts. What I learned was:
- Save 10% of Income
- Live on 70% of Income
- Pay debts with 20% of Income
The Luckiest Man in Babylon is the story of a man who was sold into slavery to pay his brother’s debts. He found a way by working to earn money to buy his freedom. He made a friend, and inspired him. After that when he was seized again his friend bought his freedom. Together they became successful, and he is trying to teach his friend’s grandson how to work. What I learned is:
- Work hard, there is no substitute.
An Historical Sketch of Babylon gives a cultural and historical background to the stories.