The Plan

Chapter 9 from, The Richest Man in Babylon, is different from the others. The chapter is entitled, The Clay Tablets from Babylon and takes place in 1939. The focus is on some clay tablets that seem valueless – old relics – and the message they contain, gems that are invaluable to those who take the time to look closer…

The clay tablets contain nothing new, nothing to see here! Just kidding! What we see unfolding before our eyes as we read it is the importance of having a plan AND executing it. I am good at having a plan BUT I am not consistent, which can be devastating in all areas of your life. Dabasir, the camel trader of Babylon that we met in chapter 8 has left the legacy of planning and budgeting as a means to realizing wealth. Over the years financial experts talk about tracking your spending, budgeting and planning ahead. To think you can get this advice free of cost, if you have a chance to read the contents of this book. All you have to do is download it or listen to it on YouTube. But seriously, the chapter gives a detailed account of Dabasir’s determination to repay his debts, rebuild his life and thrive. Once a slave, he rose to become a prominent member of his society. All those years a slave, but in his mind, though his body was captive, he was never one.

We can take heart at Dabasir’s action, for even in the toughest battles when everything point to our defeat, if in our minds we are always victorious, we can never be defeated.

“Yet it is the plan that hath made my success…for I am convinced that if I follow it further it will make me rich among men”.

Those clay tablets had survived for centuries, to one day help those who needed the wisdom they contain the most. Dabasir’s legacy survived through the actions of those who followed the tablets instruction, a formula that made him one of the richest men in Babylon. Do you have a plan and if you do, have you started to work on it or are you still waiting, thinking and talking?