Richest man in Babylon

Richest Man in Babylon

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

A PART OF ALL YOU EARN IS YOURS TO KEEP

THE FIRST CURE

Start thy purse to fattening

THE SECOND CURE

Control thy expenditures

THE THIRD CURE

Make thy gold multiply

THE FOURTH CURE

Guard thy treasures from loss

THE FIFTH CURE

Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment

THE SIXTH CURE

Insure a future income

THE SEVENTH CURE

Increase thy ability to earn

"If a man be lucky, there is no foretelling the possible extent of his good fortune. Pitch him into the Euphrates and like as not he will swim out with a pearl in his hand Babylonia proverb 

MEN OF ACTION ARE FAVOURED BY THE GODDESS OF GOOD LUCK

THE FIVE LAWS OF GOLD

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

2. Gold laboureth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employ- ment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.

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

4. Gold slip peth away from the man who in- vests it in businesses 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 allur- ing advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.

THE FIRST LAW OF GOLD

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

THE SECOND LAW OF GOLD

Gold laboureth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profit- able employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.

THE THIRD LAW OF GOLD

Gold clingeth to the protection of the cau- tious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.

THE FOURTH LAW OF GOLD

Gold slippeth away front the man who in- vests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not

approved by those skilled in its keep.

THE FIFTH LAW OF GOLD

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.

BETTER A LITTLE CAUTION THAN A GREAT REGRET

WE CANNOT AFFORD TO BE WITHOUT ADEQUATE PROTECTION

WHERE THE DETERMINATION IS, THE WAY CAN BE FOUND

The rational male

BOOK I

UNDERSTANDING HYPERGAMY

Your Friend Menstruation

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE PART I

The Formative Years

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE PART II

The Epiphany Phase

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE PART III The Development and Security Phases

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE PART IV

The Redevelopment /Reinsurance and Security Phases

HIERARCHIES OF LOVE

Intersexual Hierarchies

CONDITIONING

Early Education

Equalism

OPEN HYPERGAMY Controlling Interests

BOOK II SUPPORT WORKS

REJECTION & REGRET

THE BURDEN OF PERFORMANCE

VULNERABILITY

THE CURSE OF POTENTIAL

DREAM KILLERS

MENTAL POINT OF ORIGIN

GAME CHANGERS

ΤΗE MΑLE EΧΡΕRIEΝCE

MIDLIFE EPIPHANIES

THE MATURE MAN

ΑΝEW HOPE

The Psychology of money

Introduction: The Greatest Show On Earth

1. No One's Crazy

2. Luck & Risk

3. Never Enough

4. Confounding Compounding

5. Getting Wealthy vs. Staying Wealthy

6. Tails, You Win

7. Freedom

8. Man in the Car Paradox

9. Wealth is What You Don't See

10. Save Money

11. Reasonable > Rational

12. Surprise!

13. Room for Error

14. You'll Change

15. Nothing's Free

16. You & Me

17. The Seduction of Pessimism

18. When You'll Believe Anything

19. All Together Now

20. Confessions

Postscript: A Brief History of Why the U.S. Consumer Thinks the Way They Do

A genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind."

-Napoleon

"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."

-Sherlock Holmes

Your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.00000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.

Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems.

Be careful who you praise and admire. Be careful who you look down upon and wish to avoid becoming.

Therefore, focus less on specific individuals and case studies and more on broad patterns.

When rich people do crazy things

1. The hardest financial skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving.

2. Social comparison is the problem here.

3. "Enough" is not too little.

4. There are many things never worth risking, no matter the potential gain.

$81.5 billion of Warren Buffett's $84.5 billion net worth came after his 65th birthday. Our minds are not built to handle such absurdities.

Good investing is not necessarily about making good decisions. It's about consistently not screwing up.

1. More than I want big returns, I want to be financially unbreakable. And if I'm unbreakable I actually think I'll get the biggest returns, because I'll be able to stick around long enough for compounding to work wonders.

2. Planning is important, but the most important part of every plan is to plan on the plan not going according to plan.

3. A barbelled personality-optimistic about the future, but paranoid about what will prevent you from getting to the future-is vital

You can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune.

Controlling your time is the highest dividend money pays.

No one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are.

Spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money.

The only factor you can control generates one of the only things that matters. How wonderful.

The first idea-simple, but easy to overlook-is that building wealth has little to do with your income or investment returns, and lots to do with your savings rate.

More importantly, the value of wealth is relative to what you need.

Past a certain level of income, what you need is just what sits below your ego.

So people's ability to save is more in their control than they might think.

And you don't need a specific reason to save.

That flexibility and control over your time is an unseen return on wealth.

And that hidden return is becoming more important.

Aiming to be mostly reasonable works better than trying to be coldly rational

History is the study of change, ironically used as a map of the future

1. You'll likely miss the outlier events that move the needle the most

2. History can be a misleading guide to the future of the economy and stock market because it doesn't account for structural changes that are relevant to today's world

The most important part of every plan is planning on your plan not going according to plan.

Long-term planning is harder than it seems because people's goals and desires change over time.

We should avoid the extreme ends of financial planning. Assuming you'll be happy with a very low income, or choosing to work endless hours in pursuit of a high one, increases the odds that you'll one day find yourself at a point of regret. The fuel of the End of History Illusion is that people adapt to most circumstances, so the benefits of an extreme plan-the simplicity of having hardly anything, or the thrill of having almost everything-wear off. But the downsides of those extremes-not being able to afford retirement, or looking back at a life spent devoted to chasing dollars-become enduring regrets. Regrets are especially painful when you abandon a previous plan and feel like you have to run in the

other direction twice as fast to make up for lost time.

We should also come to accept the reality of changing our minds. Some of the most miserable workers I've met are people who stay loyal to a career only because it's the field they picked when deciding on a college major at age 18. When you accept the End of History Illusion, you realize that the odds of picking a job when you're not old enough to drink that you will still enjoy when you're old enough to qualify for Social Security are low.

Everything has a price, but not all prices appear on labels.

Beware taking financial cues from people playing a different game than you are.

Optimism sounds like a sales pitch. Pessimism sounds like someone trying to help you

One is that money is ubiquitous, so something bad happening tends to affect everyone and captures everyone's attention.

Another is that pessimists often extrapolate present trends without accounting for how markets adapt.

A third is that progress happens too slowly to notice, but setbacks happen too quickly to ignore

Appealing fictions, and why stories are more powerful than statistics.

1. The more you want something to be true, the more likely you are to believe a story that overestimates the odds of it being true.

2. Everyone has an incomplete view of the world. But we form a complete narrative to fill in the gaps.

What we've learned about the psychology of your own money

Go out of your way to find humility when things are going right and forgiveness/compassion when they go wrong. Because it's never as good or as bad as it looks. The world is big and complex. Luck and risk are both real and hard to identify. Do so when judging both yourself and others. Respect the power of luck and risk and you'll have a better

chance of focusing on things you can actually control. You'll also have a better chance of finding the right role models.

Less ego, more wealth. Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don't see. So wealth is created by suppressing what you could buy today in order to have more stuff or more options in the future. No matter how much you earn, you will never build wealth unless you can put a lid on how much fun you can have with your money right now, today.

Manage your money in a way that helps you sleep at night. That's different from saying you should aim to earn the highest returns or save a specific percentage of your income. Some people won't sleep well unless they're earning the highest returns; others will only get a good rest if they're conservatively invested. To each their own. But the foundation of, "does this help me sleep at night?" is the best universal guidepost for all financial decisions.

If you want to do better as an investor, the single most powerful thing you can do is increase your time horizon. Time is the most powerful force in investing. It makes little things grow big and big mistakes fade away. It can't neutralize luck and risk, but it pushes results closer towards what people deserve.

Become OK with a lot of things going wrong. You can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune, because a small minority of things account for the majority of outcomes. No matter what you're doing with your money you should be comfortable with a lot of stuff not working. That's just how the world is. So you should always measure how you've done by looking at your full portfolio, rather than individual investments. It is fine to have a large chunk of poor investments and a few outstanding ones. That's usually the best-case scenario. Judging how you've done by focusing on individual investments makes winners look more brilliant

than they were, and losers appear more regrettable than they should.

Use money to gain control over your time, because not having control of your time is such a powerful and universal drag on happiness. The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as

long as you want to, pays the highest dividend that exists in finance.

Be nicer and less flashy. No one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are. You might think you want a fancy car or a nice watch. But what you probably want is respect and admiration. And you're more likely to gain those things through kindness and humility than horsepower and chrome.

Save. Just save. You don't need a specific reason to save. It's great to save for a car, or a downpayment, or a medical emergency. But saving for things that are impossible to predict or define is one of the best reasons to save. Everyone's life is a continuous chain of surprises. Savings that aren't earmarked for anything in particular is a hedge against life's inevitable ability to surprise the hell out of you at the worst possible moment.

Define the cost of success and be ready to pay it. Because nothing worthwhile is free. And remember that most financial costs don't have visible price tags. Uncertainty, doubt, and regret are common costs in the finance world. They're often worth paying. But you have to view them as fees (a price worth paying to get something nice in exchange) rather than fines (a penalty you should avoid).

Worship room for error. A gap between what could happen in the future and what you need to happen in the future in order to do well is what gives you endurance, and endurance is what makes compounding magic over time. Room for error often looks like a conservative hedge, but if it keeps you in the game it can pay for itself many times over.

Avoid the extreme ends of financial decisions. Everyone's goals and desires will change over time, and the more extreme your past decisions were the more you may regret them as you evolve.

You should like risk because it pays off over time. But you should be paranoid of ruinous risk because it prevents you from taking future risks that will pay off over time.

Define the game you're playing, and make sure your actions are not

being influenced by people playing a different game.

Respect the mess. Smart, informed, and reasonable people can disagree in finance, because use people have vastly different goals and desires. There is no single right answer; just the answer that works for you.

The psychology of my own money.

How my family thinks about savings

How my family thinks about investing