The Retelling of The Richest Man in Babylon CHAPTER 8: Can We All Become Rich?
We’re now in the second to the last chapter of the book. This is an interesting chapter because it’s when Arkad summarizes the basic laws of money to his friends. Some of them still insist on the role of Lady Luck. Some find the laws too simple.
These two observations point to the excuses a lot of people use to justify their not so pleasant financial state, “Wala talaga akong suerte sa pera, hindi ako yayaman.” “Hindi ko naman kasi alam yong mga pasikot-sikot ng pagiging mayaman, simpleng tao lang ako.”
But the truth is most of the laws in life, be it about money, health, relationships are quite basic. We just have a human tendency to complicate things as we get older. As Robert Fulghum said in his famous book, “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
This is the very reason why I wrote this Clason classic in easy to understand language. I wanted to give every child the head start on the basic laws of money and I also wanted to remind every adult how simple the laws are!
A third observation of Arkad’s friends is that if the laws were that simple and everyone can become rich, then there won’t be enough for everybody. This is a dangerous mindset. It is the opposite of the abundance mindset. And most of the time, this scarcity mindset is the reason why a lot of people get stuck with envy at the success of others instead of being happy for, and inspired by them. I like how Arkad explained that there is no limit to what man do. While he was explaining how the value of a property can increase when one builds a palace on it, I couldn’t help but think of how Henry Sy built SM North EDSA, his first huge mall in the middle of nowhere during a crisis period in the 1980s. And this story is true in a lot of successful businesses.
I chose Riza Mantaring, the CEO of Sun Life Financial Philippines to read Chapter 8 because it also talks about the importance of insurance. Sun Life is the number one insurance company in the country today. It was also the first to set up insurance business in the Philippines over a hundred years ago.
It might not be public knowledge but insurance has been in existence since the golden era of Babylon. The terms and conditions are part of the Code of Hammurabi, a well-preserved Babylonian law code dating back to about 1754 B.C.
On Wednesday, I will share with you a video interview with Riza Mantaring. For the meantime, let’s watch her read Chapter 8 of The Retelling of The Richest Man in Babylon. (Please click the link below or at the top of article.)
CHAPTER 8 The Retelling of The Richest Man in Babylon read by Riza Mantaring
