Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money

by Rabbi Daniel Lapin

one tugging toward short-term gratification while the other is heard issuing warnings in the background.

Constantly struggling to follow head rather than heart,

has been one of the keys to Jewish success.

Wealth is produced by transactions. You need to drastically increase the number of transactions in which you get involved.

Luckily, you have the ability to show those with whom you live and work that you can follow that small, internal voice of noble authority.

Doing so consistently causes others to perceive you as a leader and eventually turn you into a true leader.

The phrase “resisting temptation” may have an old fashioned ring to it, and that is exactly the point.

What makes the challenge even harder for us is that once our emotions have selected a preferred course of action, those emotions get to work on our brains.

More and more, information is in the hands of almost everyone—just

just think of the Internet—and information available to everyone isn’t terribly valuable.

The more common a commodity, the lower the market price. The more rare a commodity, the more valuable it is. Your value in business derives from possessing rare commodities. Strength of character is like gold, and there is not...

psyching

In the same way that it is valuable for you to understand exactly what drives other people, it is even more useful to get to know what drives yourself.

By understanding your own motivations, you can far more easily determine why you do things and how to change your conduct.

that truly motivated and drove humans along certain tracks.

A sense of personal growth and development of themselves in understanding how the world works. 2. A feeling of expanding personal power, which diminishes their sense of vulnerability and of being victims of capricious fate. 3. The basic necessities of life, including food, clothing, and shelter. 4. The esteem of other people.

The answer is that he was probing the roots of human motivation; and because Ben Zomah accurately understood the place of humans in the cosmos, he knew of the critical two by two matrix that yields four elements.

It means that people have a real need for keeping up with current events, learning new skills, maintaining professional knowledge, and staying abreast of developments in their field. It could include becoming knowledgeable in areas needed for your children’s homework or simply setting out to know more about music or the geography and culture of China. Whatever it is, you should know that like most people you have a very

real need for a sense of intellectual growth. Even if you don’t feel it, you have it. Satisfy this need for intellectual growth, and you will better situate yourself at the crossroads of economic creativity in your community.

you can try to control your environment.

power. Can you jump into your car anytime and go wherever you please in silent, heated comfort just by turning a key instead of waiting in the rain for a drafty bus that always runs late except when you too are late? If so, congratulations to you! You have succeeded in securing a measure of power. Could you afford to go hiking up a mountain last Sunday? If so, welcome to the ranks of the powerful. You are so successfully extracting a living from the planet that not only can you afford a day to hike instead of work, but you also own sufficient clothing to keep you warm at high altitudes. I’m impressed. Power,

control into the world around you.

If you are working all day, seven days a week, and merely surviving,...

Basically “wealth” means the ability to survive on this earth.

the person is wealthy who is satisfied with his or her portion.

Esteem of Others

Maintaining a Ben Zomah state of life balance makes it much easier to resist the temptation of premature retirement. Instead of promising yourself that you will play golf, read good books, and enjoy time with the family when you retire, you should heed Ben Zomah’s advice and take constant little slices of retirement as it were, each and every day of your life.

The word is shalem, from which is derived the far better known shalom, meaning “peace.” The root meaning of the word is “totality” or “comprehensiveness.”

Of course not. So as appealing as it may be to block out all distractions and only focus your attentions on the one specialized area of your obsession, such is not the road to success.

In this sense, Judaism frowns on specialization. I may have to specialize in my professional occupation, but I should not do so in the totality of my life.

If you spend all your time and vitality exclusively trying to make money, you will make less than if you had properly balanced your efforts in all four vital areas of human motivation.

This is because wealth is considered to be the consequence of a life well lived, in the company and companionship of others doing the same, rather than a purpose of life in itself.

As I made clear at the beginning of this book, if who you are and what you do fail to bring the success you desire, it is not sufficient to merely do different things; you also need to become a different person.

The best way (and perhaps the only way) to become a different person is by forcing yourself to do different things until they become second nature.

There is never any circumstance that demands that you become angry. Please note that I do not say, “Never display anger.” Instead, I say, “Never be angry.” In other words, there may well be many management situations, both at home and at work, where radiating an impression of being really upset, even angry, might be called for.

The best way of dramatically reducing your own stress as well as that of all those who must interact with you is simply to stop allowing yourself to react angrily to anyone. Take a deep breath, take a walk, or take an aspirin; but whenever you feel anger welling up inside you, do not allow it past your teeth.

One of the marks of sanity is seeing yourself pretty much as others see you.

Set aside a short period each day during which your sole purpose is to become your own harshest critic. Rigorously maintain an utterly private record of each day’s successes and failures in winning the struggle.

Seek out small battles to win in your private life. If you are committed to a diet regimen or to an exercise routine, you know only too well the compelling call of that destructive voice that earnestly reassures you that weight loss isn’t terribly important. Winning that round will make you feel invincible and will endow you with additional spiritual resources for winning the next round.

First, chart how you use your time for a period of a week, two weeks, or even a month; it depends on what works best for you.

Determine the difference between important things that may not be urgent and urgent things that may not be important.

However, they are not very important to your future wealth.

Neither neglect the imperfect nor expend yourself on futile pursuit of perfection, while failing to make the most of less perfect circumstances.

Judaism teaches that people should operate as best they can within the imperfection because idealistic perfection is unattainable by human beings.

an attempt to wrestle the most comfortable life possible from an often reluctant earth.

If you try to endure, each of you on your own, then your life will be hard and short.

However if you learn how to cooperate with others and you structure a peace loving society that follows certain basic rules, there is no limit to how comfortable you can become. Now you choose.

It is seldom Ethical Capitalism at fault; it is the fault of those who practiced capitalism without the ethics.

You are going to have to be generous and giving to one another.

However, perhaps the ultimate method is reading something aloud. Somehow, when your ears hear your own mouth say something, you absorb it and believe it. I am sure you have watched how some liars eventually come to believe, literally, the lie they constantly repeat.