If you constantly find yourself getting caught up spending more than you earn or if you want to make money work for you – read this book.

The Richest Man in Babylon is written by George S Clason. This book teaches sound financial principles in the form of parables.

Once upon a time, Babylon was the wealthiest city in the world and the people of Babylon were enterprising individuals who built the city employing ingenious methods in spite of lack of natural resources.

Though a city might be called the ‘wealthiest city’ it doesn’t necessarily mean that all the individuals are equally wealthy.

Based on this premise this story is written.

Two people set out to find how the rich people make money. They seek counsel of a wealthy man in the city. They find that the wealthy man to be generous fellow willing to share his secrets of getting rich.

The wealthy man speaks to a large group of people who are desperate to find answers for their financial problems. He gives them 7 sound financial principles to follow in order to make, keep and multiply their money.

The beauty of these principles is that they are still relevant today. If you decide to get this book do not read it like a story book. This is a mistake I made when I read ‘The Greatest Salesman in the World’ by OG MANDINO. It was in story form and I read it as a story instead of looking at it as a philosophy – a way of life.

If you want to get the most out of Richest Man in Babylon take your time and study every page carefully and as you read every chapter think what is the unspoken message in that lesson. I’m sure you will find this experience valuable and rewarding. You will also begin to notice some changes in the way you handle your finances. After you read this book, you will never see money as papers and coins but as diligent servants that can serve you to build a fortune.

The story starts as Bansir – a chariot maker stares at a half-completed chariot. He is wondering about the ways he will be able to provide for his family in future. While he is deeply engrossed in his thoughts, his friend, a musician comes along and requests Bansir to lend him some money. The musician is surprised to find that Bansir himself is suffering from lack of money. In an effort to find answers to how they can become wealthy they seek the council of Arkad, who is the richest man in Babylon during that period. The rest of the book is how Arkad and his students brainstorm about how to keep, make and multiply money.

This book is highly recommended if you are looking for ways to improve your finances. Its a good idea to avoid reading any counterproductive philosophies until you have learned and applied the principles of The Richest Man in Babylon.

Whether you are a student, businessman, or a professional, keeping a journal can help you to save time, make better decisions and improve the quality of your life.

Its interesting to note that one of America’s greatest motivational speaker Jim Rohn always suggested people to keep a journal. He credits his habit of keeping a journal as one of the major reasons for his success.

Here’s a list of ten reasons to keep a journal

Serves as a personal record
A journal serves as a personal record of what you are doing in your life. It can be a ready reference to see what you have done on a particular day.

Improves your Focus
It lets you see where you are focusing your time and energy and helps you to improve focus on things that are essential to your success

Identify Time Leaks
Its ok to mindlessly spend some time on a day, but its not ok to do it everyday. By keeping a journal you will be able to identify the time leaks and remove the time wasters from your routine.

Improves Self-esteem
Keeping a journal is an indirect way of improving self-esteem. Imagine, 2 years from now you are looking at your journal and you find hundreds of valuable nuggets recorded inside. How will it make you feel? Wouldn’t you feel more valuable? Wouldn’t you feel that you have some valuable information to offer to the world?

Key to Better Health
By recording information about nutrition and exercises you will have a collection of tips that will help you to lead a healthy life style.

Better Financial Decisions
By looking at a past financial decision you made you can figure out how its affecting your life now. which will help you to take better financial decisions in future.

Yardstick for progress
If you are like most people you are going through life without stopping to think where you are going. A journal can help you to see whether you are making progress or not. As you reflect more on where you are going, you can make better decisions in future.

Key Takeaways
Jim Rohn used to say “Most people get through the day but Instead we should try to get from the day” A journal can help you to record the lessons you learned during the day.

Improves Self-awareness
Recording important events can help you spot new opportunities and to act on them quickly. You will be more aware of what is going on in the world and how its affecting your life.

A gift for the next generation
Just like a good book a journal can be a great thing to pass on to the next generation. In fact, a journal of an individual can teach more valuable lessons than any best selling self-help book.

I hope you found this information valuable and if you haven’t started already its time to start your own journal.

Here’s a tip if you are concerned about privacy issues, you can write your journal in Microsoft Word and have it password-protected or if you are on Mac try Google Docs.

It’s a common question many people ask after watching the movie ‘The Secret’ or after reading books like the Think and Grow Rich and The Attractor factor.

The good news is that no matter how hopeless it seems you may be able to make it work for you. The best way to test a method is to try it for yourself and a few minutes spent on a method that has worked for thousands of others is not a bad thing to do.

These tips have helped many people to fix the problems when trying to make the Law of attraction work. It can help you too. Some of the tips may seem odd , but they’re not. Just follow the steps and you will have a very good chance of attracting things in your life.

Another word of warning, don’t expect this to happen quickly. It will take anywhere from several days to several weeks and I know you are in a hurry to see the results but think about it if this is your first experience with LOA, all these days your mind has been programmed in a different way

So it takes several reinforcements to change the pattern. If you dig deeper in to what makes people successful you will see that winners think and do things differently. But you do know that ‘doing’ comes after ‘thinking’ don’t you?

So, basically what LOA does is, it changes your thinking pattern. It lets you to see beyond limitations. It helps you to dream bigger and activates your mind to come up with ideas.

In the book Rich Dad Poor Dad Robert talks about two types of statements. When you cannot afford a thing are you saying ‘I can’t afford it’ or are you asking yourself ‘How can I afford it?’ The former closes your thinking capabilities the latter pushes your brain to come up with solutions.

This is what LOA does but subtly. You won’t understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ it causes changes in your life circumstances. But if you are like me you are more concerned about the results than the inner workings of a system.

This reminds me of the experience I went through when I called Dell to order my computer. The technician asked me what amount of memory, RAM and type of processor I wanted but I simply said “I want a system that will let me check my emails and browse some websites” I also mentioned that I don’t use any graphic applications he took care of the rest and suggested the system that was right for me. See I didn’t know what type of RAM or memory will meet my requirements but I knew exactly ‘what I wanted’.

This is the most important concept of LOA. You must be clear on ‘what you want’ Again the question is not ‘what you want is plausible or not’ it is simply ‘what do you want?’. If you are honest with yourself you wouldn’t ask for impossible things but you would ask for things that are ’seemingly impossible’. For instance, you wouldn’t say I want to be the president of United States but you might say you want to be an author of a best selling book, or a multi-millionaire or you want to start a company.