Rags to Riches story: The Richest Man in Babylon

Many people who read '' The Richest Man in Babylon'' take away as it's core message, the seven cures for a lean purse. The lesson is an important one for it dwells on the matter many face as their first obstacle to being wealthy. What many over look though, is the story leading up to the cure. The chapter that is the title of the book itself. 

Chapter 2: The Richest Man in Babylon

In many ways it tells the story of us. People who are seeking to be free from this constant cycle of working day after day with little to no hope for a financially free future. 

I most enjoyed the use of words from the old english in the book, which gave it a type of historical lore and feeling. 

The story has resonated with me and I hope it stays with me, so that I too may pass on the knowledge held by the richest people in Babylon.

Once there was a young man who worked the scribes in the old city of Babylon. He laboured the whole day, in the hopes, that he could earn well for he desired to be rich. 

One day, Algamish, the money lender came to the master because he needed a copy of the Ninth Law. He promised the young man a gold coin, if he finished the task in two days. The young man was eager to earn the gold coin and laboured hard for two days, but alas the law was long and when the money lender returned, the scribes were not yet finished. The money lender was very angry, but the young man said,

'' Master Algamish, you are a very rich man, if you share your wisdom about your wealth and how I too can be rich , I will labour all night upon the clay and have the scribes ready by the morrow.'' 

Algamish smiled but nodded. 

All night long the young man worked, though his back ached and the smoke from the lamp did make his head hurt, he did not stop, and by the time the sun rose, he had the scribes ready before the money lender. He said '' Algamish, I have fulfilled my share of the bargain, now pray tell me what you promised.'' Algamish, the money lender agreed and said 

'' Just like the sun that is shining today, is the same sun that shone when our ancestors were alive, the wisdom of wealth remains the same no matter the passage of time.''

He warned, '' Mark my words, for if you do not, you will fail to grasp the truth that I wish to tell you, and your night's work will be in vain. I found the road to wealth when I decided that a part of what I earned is mine to keep.''

The young man was clearly confused. He asked '' Is not all of what I earn, mine to keep?''

''Far from it.'' He replied. 'Do you not pay the garment-maker for your clothes? Do you not pay the butcher for your meat or the farmer for the milk you drink? You pay everyone but yourself. Hence, why your purse is lean. You labour not for yourself but for others.If you save one-tenth of your earning every month, how much would you have in a year?'

The young man replied '' Why, I would have one-tenth of what I earn in a year.''

''What about in ten years?''

''I would have a year's worth.''

''That is but half the truth'' replied the money lender. ''Every gold piece that you save, is a slave to work for you. Every copper it makes is it's child that can earn for you. If you wish to be wealthy, what you save must earn, and it's children must earn, that all may work to give you the abundance that you crave. 

Wealth like a tree, grows from a tiny seed. The first copper you save is the seed from which your tree of wealth must grow.'' So saying, the money lender picked his tablets and went away.

The young man pondered on what he had learnt and decided that he would save a tenth of his monthly earnings.

After a year had passed, Algamish reappeared at the master's workshop and inquired about the young man. When he was bought to him, Algamish asked '' Son, have you paid to yourself every tenth of what you earned?''

The young man answered proudly, '' Yes master, I have.''

''That is good and what have you done with it?''

'' I have given it to Azzur the brick-layer, who was travelling across the sea to Phoenix, from whence he will buy gems, which we will sell for a tidy profit.''

'' Every fool must learn'' growled Algamish 'But why trust the knowledge of a brick maker about jewels? Would you go to the baker to inquire about the stars? No, you would go to the astrologer. You have uprooted your wealth tree and given it away. Plant another, but this time if you wish to get advice about jewels, go the jewel merchant. If you wish to know about sheep, go to the herdsman.'

So saying, the money lender left and returned after another year. He again inquired about the young man and asked him, 'What progress have you made since last I saw you?'

'I paid myself faithfully' replied the young man, 'and I have entrusted my savings to Aggar the shield maker, who buys bronze and pays me a rent every fourth month.'

'That is good, and what do you do with the rental?'

'I have a grand feast with honey and cakes with special wine. I buy a grand tunic and one day I will buy a horse upon which to ride.'

Algamish laughed, ' You have but, eaten the children of your savings. Then, how do you expect them to work for you? And how can they have children that will also work for you? First get thee an army of golden slaves and then you can feast without regrets.' So saying, he went away again.

The money lender returned after two years, he had deep lines upon his face and his eyes drooped and he tired easily. But he went to the young man and asked '' Hast thou yet achieved the wealth thou dreamed of?''

''Yes, I take advice from brick layers only in the business of laying bricks, and my golden army doth serve me well.'' replied the young man.

The money lender smiled and said ''You have learned your lessons well. First, you learnt to live upon less than you earn. Then, you learned to seek advice from those who were competent through their own experience. And lastly, you have learned to make gold work for you.

You have taught yourself how to acquire money, how to keep it and how to use it.''

The young man's name was Arkad who would go on to become the richest man in Babylon, and who spread the wisdom of wealth to his friends and neighbours. Many who left his teaching were skeptical, many failed to act on his advice but a few had new light in their eyes and a determination to act and succeed as he did.

Similary, We have the opportunity to save one-tenth of our income and plant seeds of wealth in our own lives, and live finacially free lives just as the money lender of Babylon hath advised.

Atomic Habits by James Clear: How you can turn your resolutions to habits

Over the years, like many people, I have made multiple resolutions to create a healthy and productive habit only to end up failing. After reading the Atomic Habit, author James Clear makes it clear that the reason we fail to develop these habits is because we do not follow the four laws of Behaviour change. We fail to make our new behaviour ''Obvious, Easy, Attractive and Satisfying.''Failing to abide by any one of these laws, means you will fail to adopt a new behaviour. 

What this means is, the next time you make an effort to go the gym you have to be aware that if you do not post obvious cue's like setting a reminder on your phone,or writing it down on a to-do list, you may not be inclined to follow up on that routine till it becomes a habit. Furthermore, if you make going to the gym a hassle or constantly complain about it being strenuous, you will not find it easy or attractive. And finally, if on a day to day basis you got more satisfaction from going to the bar with your friends than going to the gym that would mean that the act of working out wasn't satisfying enough to pull you away from other activities.

After reading Atomic Habits, I found two powerful strategies that can make every new habit obvious, easy, attractive and satisfying, so that you can become a happier, healthier and a more productive person.

Stack and Start:

The first strategy for developing a habit is called the stack and start. This is a strategy where you attach a new habit to a habit you already have. For eg: When I wanted to start the habit of flossing my teeth, I would grab my floss stick and floss one tooth as soon as I finished brushing my teeth. In this strategy, you use an old habit to trigger a new habit. Over time, my brain learnt that as soon as I was done brushing, I needed to floss my teeth. Thus, I managed to stack a habit on another habit.

When you stack habits, you are using the momentum of the old habit to make the new habit easier to initiate. This strategy makes the cue of the new behaviour obvious and it makes the requirements of the new behaviour easy.

Sync and Score:

Secondly, To make a new behaviour attractive and satisfying you need to synchronize and score. What this means is, you need to synchronize something you enjoy doing with a new habit. For eg: If I enjoy listening to a certain type of music, and I listen to it only when I am doing a certain workout, I will eventually look forward to doing the workout.

James Clear says ''if you only allow yourself to enjoy all your favourite experiences while you execute a healthy and productive new habit, you'll find the new habit is something you actually look forward to doing.''

Syncing is a great hack for habit building but to make a habit stick you must make the habit satisfying and you want to do that you must keep score.

Scoring let's us know how far we have come and motivates us to keep going in the long run. After a month of workout, how satisfying is it to see a calendar full of  red ticks that indicated a successful work-out five times a week. The calendar is a visual proof that you are someone that cares about your health and you should take pride in that. It acts as a score card and let's you stick to your new habit.

Everytime you write, you are a Writer 

Everytime you play an instrument, you are a Musician

Everytime you exercise, you are an Athlete

So when you stack new habits to old habits, and sync new habits with things you enjoy and keep score, you will be able to finally make that resolution a habit.

I hope you enjoyed this breakdown of the book Atomic Habits. Please share your thoughts down in the comments below. If  you have a recommendation, please let me know. Bye for now.

A Breakdown of: '' Ego is the Enemy'' by Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday had achieved extraordinary success early on in his life. He became the director of marketing for ''American Apparel at the age of 21. He went on to be a best selling author of four four books by the age of 29. 

With all this success, Ryan got to experience and witness the destruction of unchecked Ego in many of his employees and also within himself. In his book, he talks about when Ego appears in our life and how we can defeat it.

So what exactly is Ego? why is it a bad thing? And why does Ego have to be the enemy? 

In his book, Ryan defines Ego as an ''unhealthy belief in our own importance''. Ego takes a look at our self-image and 

turns it into an obsession. 

It takes confidence and turns it into arrogance. It is like a disease where the infected puts 'ME' first. 

Ego is the enemy because it sabotages our long term goals, and it distracts us from achieving Mastery in our craft. Ego is a threat to people's long term success.

Here are three ways you can notice Ego working against you:

1. Ego shows up when you aspire to do something great. When we start doing something prodcutive, Ego gets busy seeking out constant approval from others around us.

It's always asking us '' What are people thinking about me?'' It prefers talking about what you want to do, rather than actually doing it. 

2. The second way Ego shows up in our lives is when we experience noteworthy success. This could be anything like, launching a successful business or winning a sports Championship. Our Ego leads us to believe that all our future endeavours are likely to be a success. Instead of remaining focused and building upon our previous success, we have the tendency to be over-confident in our abilities and take on too much.

3. The third way Ego shows up in our lives is when we experience failure or set-back. At this time Ego shows up just in time to save face and try to dodge responsibility.

In an effort to defend our Ego, we lose sight of what we worked for and try to blame it on someone or something.

In all the three phases, ego distracts you from focusing on your work and producing something you can be proud of. So if Ego is the enemy, how do we defeat it?

One way we can defeat Ego is using the ''Plus (+), Minus (-), Equal (=)'' method, which was coined by the great UFC fighter Frank Shamrock

Frank says 

''For each fighter to be great, they need to have someone better to learn from (+), someone lesser they can

teach (-) and someone equal they can challenge themselves against(=)''.

For the first form of Ego which shows up when we are aspiring to something great, we need to find an equal(=), in order to challenge and defeat it. This means, we need to find another person with a similar ability to challange and grow. This way we have no time to obsess over public opinion as we will be busy trying to outperform our equal and not risk falling behind.

The second form of Ego that shows up when we are succeeding, needs a plus(+) or a person with more success to be look up to.When Ego starts generating stories of our greatness, we quickly need a dose of humility in order to remain focused on our ultimate goal. 

Humility comes from remembering that there is always someone better and something bigger than us. Reflecting on someone bigger than yourself is necessary to quieten the Ego and avoid getting caught up in your own personal story of greatness, preventing you from taking on too much and being careless with your time and resources.

To combat the third form of Ego, that shows up when we fail, we need a minus(-). 

A minus can be a person that we mentor or someone that we teach through a book or a blog. Having a minus forces you to look objectively at your failures and gather the lessons learnt to pass down.

When you have the responsibility to teach others, you spend less time complaining and more time looking for ways to improve.

So if you are in search of excellence and want to do work that you will be proud of one day, then know that Ego is the 

enemy, that will show up to stop you and in order to fight back that ego day after day, you will need the plus, minus

and equal rule.

This was another breakdown. Let me know what you think about Ego and if you have any other ideas to combat them. Also let me know which book you would like me to breakdown next on our series.