January 30, 2025 • 33 mins
Looking for financial wisdom that's stood the test of time? Then you NEED to check out "The Richest Man in Babylon." This classic book, often disguised as entertaining stories set in ancient Babylon, is packed with practical advice on saving, investing, and building wealth. In this podcast, we dive deep into the core principles, breaking down each parable and discussing how its lessons apply to our modern lives. We explore everything from the importance of paying yourself first to the power of long-term investing and the crucial role of protecting your investments. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting your financial journey, this podcast offers valuable insights and actionable steps to help you achieve your financial goals. Tune in for a fun, engaging, and ultimately enriching experience that might just change your financial future!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
[Don Mespelt]The budget shows up the leaks from thy
[Don Mespelt]purse and enables thee to stop them and
[Don Mespelt]control the expenditures for definite and gratifying purposes.
[ken ouellette]Oh, beautiful. Yep.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. It shows thy leaks.
[ken ouellette]Wow. Shows thy leaks.
[Don Mespelt]I mean, that guy.
[ken ouellette]Yep. I've seen lots of budgets that are
[ken ouellette]leaking.
[Don Mespelt]Welcome to a life well lift. Grow, preserve,
(00:21):
[Don Mespelt]and transfer your wealth with Ken Ouellette, CPM
[Don Mespelt]certified portfolio manager and founder of Orca Wealth
[Don Mespelt]Management. In this podcast, he will provide some
[Don Mespelt]clarity and setting goals needed to build, preserve,
[Don Mespelt]and transfer wealth and overcome some of life's
[Don Mespelt]financial obstacles. Ken provides actionable steps to help
(00:41):
[Don Mespelt]you plan through your financial ups and downs
[Don Mespelt]in a way everyone can understand. Join us
[Don Mespelt]on this journey where Ken will explore many
[Don Mespelt]financial avenues, drawing from his three decades of
[Don Mespelt]experience in helping others avoid risking a lifetime's
[Don Mespelt]worth of work and savings by not having
[Don Mespelt]a plan and a strategy in place. Now,
(01:02):
[Don Mespelt]on to the show.
[ken ouellette]Well, good morning, Don. Good morning, Ken. Yes.
[ken ouellette]So we just had you know, we always
[ken ouellette]start with a little weather segment. Right?
[Don Mespelt]Because it's just kinda
[ken ouellette]segues. Pertinent. Yeah. It's pertinent. We've had we've
[ken ouellette]had six to eight inches of snow here
[ken ouellette]on the coast of of North Carolina.
(01:23):
[Don Mespelt]Wow.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. The kids kids kids got three
[ken ouellette]snow days.
[Don Mespelt]Does that happen often?
[ken ouellette]Basically never. So, like, once a decade.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Yeah. Well and on the flip side,
[Don Mespelt]we've had no rain in Oregon on the
[Don Mespelt]coast.
[ken ouellette]Well, it's coming.
[Don Mespelt]Well, yeah. That is. But I'm just saying
[Don Mespelt]it's kind of amazing how the the nature
[Don Mespelt]is nature is fickle.
(01:44):
[ken ouellette]It is. It is. And today, we've got,
[ken ouellette]we got something new. We're gonna do a,
[ken ouellette]little book review. And for the listener that,
[ken ouellette]has not been allowing for every podcast, Don
[ken ouellette]is on his retirement journey. It's about to
[ken ouellette]wrap up in a year or two. And
[ken ouellette]so I gave Don a homework assignment of
[ken ouellette]a book to read. And that book is
(02:05):
[ken ouellette]Don?
[Don Mespelt]That book is The Richest Man in Babylon
[Don Mespelt]by George s Clayson.
[ken ouellette]Yes. The for the listener that may not
[ken ouellette]have seen that in, on the Amazon top
[ken ouellette]ten list because it was written, what, nineteen
[ken ouellette]twenty six?
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Yeah.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. It's a classic. It's a classic. But,
[ken ouellette]as we're gonna as we go into it,
(02:25):
[ken ouellette]we dive into it, we're gonna see that
[ken ouellette]these principles have not changed.
[Don Mespelt]So I'm just gonna say it from a
[Don Mespelt]start point. He mentioned Ken mentioned that he
[Don Mespelt]Ken mentioned this book to me, and I'm
[Don Mespelt]like, I've never heard of it. I mean,
[Don Mespelt]you know, I was all in engineering junk
[Don Mespelt]in college, and and, you know, this is
[Don Mespelt]a money book. But it's not really a
[Don Mespelt]money book. It's actually kind of a life
[Don Mespelt]but it could be in two sections, like
(02:47):
[Don Mespelt]the finance section, but also in the self
[Don Mespelt]help. Yeah. Yeah. Because, really, there's a lot
[Don Mespelt]of things I think that this could go
[Don Mespelt]into self help as well. But just to
[Don Mespelt]read off the back real quick, George s
[Don Mespelt]Clason wrote the collection of parables set in
[Don Mespelt]Babylon, ancient Babylon, and provided guidance to one's
[Don Mespelt]financial well-being. And one thing I didn't know
[Don Mespelt]as well is these guys at the US
[Don Mespelt]banks and insurance customers, they they created pamphlets
(03:10):
[Don Mespelt]out of these because they they wanted to
[Don Mespelt]help people. And and so they actually had
[Don Mespelt]them in their air stores and stuff and
[Don Mespelt]his parables. And so they combined them all
[Don Mespelt]together to make this book. Yeah. And it
[Don Mespelt]was also during the Great Depression, which I
[Don Mespelt]found interesting. And people were trying to find
[Don Mespelt]anything to save and help and then try
[Don Mespelt]to better themselves during the Depression. And this
[Don Mespelt]is one of the books that, actually came
[Don Mespelt]through the whole thing as a success.
(03:32):
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, the reason
[ken ouellette]I how I came across this book was
[ken ouellette]somebody slid it across my desk when I
[ken ouellette]first started. Said, listen. This is a this
[ken ouellette]book is what a it's not very many
[ken ouellette]pages. How many pages is it?
[Don Mespelt]Well, I was gonna say, though, they slid
[Don Mespelt]the clay tablet across because you started, like,
[Don Mespelt]that long ago. But, it's like a hundred
[Don Mespelt]and sixteen pages.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a hundred page
(03:52):
[ken ouellette]book. It's a real simple read. You read
[ken ouellette]it in one evening. But it's got some
[ken ouellette]profound, timeless, little nuggets in there. And like
[ken ouellette]you said, you know, a lot of a
[ken ouellette]lot of finance crosses over into life. And
[ken ouellette]so that's why I think, this book is
[ken ouellette]really, really interesting for the listener to to
[ken ouellette]give it a chance.
[Don Mespelt]For the foreword, the very first line of
[Don Mespelt]the whole freaking book, I was like, well,
[Don Mespelt]that sets it up. And here's the line.
(04:15):
[Don Mespelt]Our prosperity as a nation depends upon the
[Don Mespelt]personal financial prosperity of each of us as
[Don Mespelt]individuals. Wow. Doesn't that just sum it up?
[ken ouellette]Yeah. That sums up today, doesn't it?
[Don Mespelt]I mean, it is. It's like, wow. This
[Don Mespelt]is nineteen twenty seven. I just thought that
[Don Mespelt]was amazing.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. You you know, things things, history doesn't
[ken ouellette]repeat itself. It rhymes. And, and this book
(04:37):
[ken ouellette]is really so let let's get into the
[ken ouellette]meat of the book.
[Don Mespelt]Well, he starts out, and he and he
[Don Mespelt]gives you a little, like, you know, seven
[Don Mespelt]pages of here's Babylon. It's great. It's beautiful.
[Don Mespelt]It's, you know, big walls, all that stuff.
[Don Mespelt]And then he starts out the very first
[Don Mespelt]one of his first one. And the thing
[Don Mespelt]is he talks in parables, which I thought,
[Don Mespelt]you know, a lot. You know, if you
[Don Mespelt]wanna help get your story across, people will
[Don Mespelt]take it more meaningful with parables. That's, you
(04:59):
[Don Mespelt]know, Jesus. Yeah. Talked in parables too.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. So a parable just takes a a
[ken ouellette]complex subject and puts it into layman's terms
[ken ouellette]in a short little story that
[Don Mespelt]that Easy to understand.
[ken ouellette]That parallels the actual concept.
[Don Mespelt]So here, he starts it off with Banzir,
[Don Mespelt]the chariot builder of Babylon, and his friend.
[Don Mespelt]And he's sitting well, Banzir is sitting there
(05:20):
[Don Mespelt]going, you know, I make a lot of
[Don Mespelt]money, but why am I still poor? I
[Don Mespelt]mean, I have to work every day. And
[Don Mespelt]then he comes up to his buddy who
[Don Mespelt]says, you know, I can't loan you any
[Don Mespelt]money because I don't got any myself. So
[Don Mespelt]they start talking about it, but and they
[Don Mespelt]say, well, let's go talk to Frankie over
[Don Mespelt]here, who's the well, it's actually Alcazar. He's
[Don Mespelt]the richest man in Babylon. So then they
(05:40):
[Don Mespelt]go over and they start talking to him.
[ken ouellette]Okay. And he gets the wisdom. Right?
[Don Mespelt]Oh, yeah. He starts talking about, you know,
[Don Mespelt]how great it is that people wanna learn
[Don Mespelt]and and learn from him. And one of
[Don Mespelt]the biggest things he goes off of right
[Don Mespelt]then is just talking about well, out of
[Don Mespelt]every ten what's the word? Ten coins or
(06:01):
[Don Mespelt]ten chuckles or Shuckles. What? Shuckles? Yeah. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]You you know, you could spend nine, but
[Don Mespelt]put that tenth away. Don't touch.
[ken ouellette]Yes. And I think, you know, what we'll
[ken ouellette]try to do is take the principles of
[ken ouellette]the book and kinda put them in today's
[ken ouellette]terms. So what we like to deem that
[ken ouellette]is ten percent of your earnings, you should
[ken ouellette]pay yourself first. So just like you have
(06:22):
[ken ouellette]an electric bill, just like you have a
[ken ouellette]mortgage payment, we try to get particularly younger
[ken ouellette]people to think of their retirement as a
[ken ouellette]bill that's gonna come due because it does.
[ken ouellette]And so you need to pay yourself that
[ken ouellette]first ten percent or that first shekel. At
[ken ouellette]one shekel out of ten, you need to
[ken ouellette]pay yourself.
[Don Mespelt]And and it Vance here goes, I I
(06:42):
[Don Mespelt]wish an income that will keep flowing into
[Don Mespelt]my purse whether I sit upon the wall
[Don Mespelt]or travel to far lands.
[ken ouellette]Wow.
[Don Mespelt]That's a that's a dream for all of
[Don Mespelt]us.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. I would think.
[Don Mespelt]And that's when, the the, the man, Artzir
[Don Mespelt]and I'm I'm killing his name. That's why
[Don Mespelt]he says you should always keep a part
[Don Mespelt]of what you earn. You should always keep
[Don Mespelt]it yourself. And he coined the phrase, pay
(07:03):
[Don Mespelt]yourself first.
[ken ouellette]There you go. See, it stuck. I read
[ken ouellette]that book thirty years ago, and here it
[ken ouellette]is. It said, just pay yourself first.
[Don Mespelt]But, I mean, I've heard that other places.
[Don Mespelt]It's just it's never been coined back to
[Don Mespelt]him, or I thought that's kinda impressive too.
[Don Mespelt]And then wealth grows whenever men exert energy.
[Don Mespelt]Wow. Arc Arcad.
(07:25):
[ken ouellette]Alright. So
[Don Mespelt]These are just my highlights as I go
[Don Mespelt]through. I thought it was kinda fun. But
[Don Mespelt]pay yourself first, and that was one of
[Don Mespelt]the next quotes I really love. Wealth grows
[Don Mespelt]grows wherever men exert energy. Okay. And that's
[Don Mespelt]the truth. So I mean but it takes
[Don Mespelt]effort to put away that one shekel.
[ken ouellette]Yes. I would yeah. That's okay. It takes
[ken ouellette]energy.
[Don Mespelt]That's my thought. And then he goes off
[Don Mespelt]and says, okay. When he was young, he
(07:47):
[Don Mespelt]actually paid, that well, this all changed around
[Don Mespelt]to Joey, the, brick builder. He gave him
[Don Mespelt]some money to go over to the next
[Don Mespelt]town and buy some diamonds.
[ken ouellette]Okay.
[Don Mespelt]Unfortunately, Joey, the brick builder, didn't know what
[Don Mespelt]he was doing. And so he, he came
[Don Mespelt]back with some glass, and he got he
[Don Mespelt]got frauded. So he lost all of his
[Don Mespelt]shackles that he saved.
[ken ouellette]So the the parable there is telling you
(08:10):
[ken ouellette]be very mindful of the ten percent that
[ken ouellette]you provide and who you provide it to.
[ken ouellette]Vet that person to make sure that they
[ken ouellette]are going to do well by the monies
[ken ouellette]that you save.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. And and then the coins, how he
[Don Mespelt]has it in his little book too is
[Don Mespelt]guide your treasures.
[ken ouellette]Guide your treasures.
[Don Mespelt]Guard your treasures.
[ken ouellette]Guard your treasures. Excellent. So don't be maybe
(08:32):
[ken ouellette]in today's terms, don't try to hit home
[ken ouellette]runs. Don't try to be too speculative. Don't
[ken ouellette]try to catch the latest fad or or
[ken ouellette]investing craze, but guard your treasure. I like
[ken ouellette]that.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. And and then he goes off, and
[Don Mespelt]I I jumped ahead that one because I
[Don Mespelt]was kinda excited because I thought that was
[Don Mespelt]pretty funny how we paid some dude to
[Don Mespelt]that doesn't know anything about diamonds to go
(08:52):
[Don Mespelt]get diamonds. And that's a true story in
[Don Mespelt]today's world with all the people clumps. Say,
[Don Mespelt]hey. Do I have a deal for you?
[ken ouellette]Yes.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. So one of the next ones
[ken ouellette]good. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]How's it going? I'm sorry.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. You have to do this now, or
[ken ouellette]you're gonna miss out on this opportunity. That's
[ken ouellette]usually
[Don Mespelt]the reason.
[ken ouellette]Yes. The fear of missing out. Excellent. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. So, and then he goes off the
[Don Mespelt]second one he really says after he says
(09:13):
[Don Mespelt]you pay yourself. He says, get a budget.
[Don Mespelt]Nice. So and he says, control your expenses,
[Don Mespelt]and do not confuse the necessary expenses with
[Don Mespelt]thy desires.
[ken ouellette]Oh my goodness. That's a good one in
[ken ouellette]today's society, isn't it?
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Well, isn't that the truth, though? I
[Don Mespelt]mean, it's just yeah. It it's crazy how
[Don Mespelt]this is nineteen twenty. Well, it's money. Right.
(09:34):
[Don Mespelt]And even as they pointed out, this is,
[Don Mespelt]because this is what he said Babylon was,
[Don Mespelt]like, you know, two thousand years before this
[Don Mespelt]and everything else. And even in Babylon, two
[Don Mespelt]thousand years ago, money is money. And you
[Don Mespelt]have to know how to control it and
[Don Mespelt]make your little your dollars work for you.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. And it it the budget thing is
[ken ouellette]important because if you don't have the if
(09:55):
[ken ouellette]you don't start with the budget, it becomes
[ken ouellette]difficult to pay yourself the ten percent first
[ken ouellette]because you don't know where all of your
[ken ouellette]money is going. So So a lot of
[ken ouellette]people will have the conversation with, particularly younger
[ken ouellette]people. Well, things are very expensive now. I
[ken ouellette]just don't have money to put away from
[ken ouellette]myself, or I can't I hear that one.
[ken ouellette]X out my four zero one k, or
(10:16):
[ken ouellette]I can't even do the company match if
[ken ouellette]it's five percent. I I can only do
[ken ouellette]two or three percent. Well, if you start
[ken ouellette]with a budget, there's gonna be places in
[ken ouellette]that budget where you're gonna be able to
[ken ouellette]find an additional two or three or four
[ken ouellette]percent. Now it may be may be something
[ken ouellette]that you're used to doing. You know, it
[ken ouellette]might be making your own coffee versus buying
[ken ouellette]coffee.
(10:37):
[Don Mespelt]It might
[ken ouellette]be, you know, cooking dinner more often than
[ken ouellette]going out. It might be there might be
[ken ouellette]some forms of, discipline that you're gonna have
[ken ouellette]to do, but in the end, your that
[ken ouellette]that bill's coming, so we need to carve
[ken ouellette]out a space for that ten percent.
[Don Mespelt]His bow his, quote is, the budget shows
(10:57):
[Don Mespelt]up the leaks from thy purse and enables
[Don Mespelt]thee to stop them and control the expenditures
[Don Mespelt]for definite and gratifying purposes.
[ken ouellette]Oh, beautiful. Yep.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. It shows thy leaks.
[ken ouellette]Wow. Shows thy leaks.
[Don Mespelt]I mean, that guy.
[ken ouellette]Yep. I've seen lots of budgets that are
[ken ouellette]leaking.
[Don Mespelt]So when I was talking about, giving it
[Don Mespelt]to, Jimmy Joan, the, these are just fictional
(11:19):
[Don Mespelt]names I'm throwing out, of course, not to
[Don Mespelt]offend anyone. But Jimmy, the, the brickmaker, that's
[Don Mespelt]what this one is. The next one is
[Don Mespelt]this. He says, make thy gold multiply.
[ken ouellette]Make thy gold multiply. And that's a good
[ken ouellette]one too. So we have seen throughout history,
[ken ouellette]sometimes people confuse, safety with with lack you
(11:41):
[ken ouellette]know, or or not getting purchasing power. So
[ken ouellette]they're trying to they're trying to be very
[ken ouellette]safe and conservative with their money, but it
[ken ouellette]doesn't grow, keep pace with inflation. You have
[ken ouellette]to have some form of multiplier in there.
[Don Mespelt]So he, he talks about this whole section
[Don Mespelt]is about having a lean purse, which is
[Don Mespelt]a great way of saying that I'm broke.
(12:03):
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Yeah. So his his his lean purse,
[Don Mespelt]he says, for a lean purse to a
[Don Mespelt]man no longer able to earn or to
[Don Mespelt]a family without its head is a sore
[Don Mespelt]tragedy. It's just like, wow. This guy. Man.
[Don Mespelt]But he he puts it straightforward. It's it's
[Don Mespelt]such a great way of doing it, I
[Don Mespelt]think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and then, another
(12:26):
[Don Mespelt]one that he talks about with investments was
[Don Mespelt]talking about, the sheep dude. This guy comes
[Don Mespelt]up with a bunch of sheep, middle of
[Don Mespelt]the night. Said, oh, I can't. I gotta
[Don Mespelt]get rid of these. I don't have time.
[Don Mespelt]My wife's sick. I gotta go back home.
[Don Mespelt]I can't show him right now. But if
[Don Mespelt]you wanna buy them, you can. I'll give
[Don Mespelt]you this great price. And the guy's like,
[Don Mespelt]I don't know. Anyway, turns out he it
[Don Mespelt]was a good deal, but he lost money
[Don Mespelt]on it because he didn't take advantage of
[Don Mespelt]it. So, I mean, he shows you both
(12:47):
[Don Mespelt]sides.
[ken ouellette]Right. So then you're talking about opportunity cost.
[ken ouellette]You know, if you have an an opportunity
[ken ouellette]to invest in something that's got a nice
[ken ouellette]track record, you have to have some faith
[ken ouellette]that it's gonna work out and be able
[ken ouellette]to take advantage of those opportunities. So have
[ken ouellette]a growth mindset. I think that that is
[ken ouellette]what he's getting out there.
[Don Mespelt]That works. I didn't quite get that same
(13:09):
[Don Mespelt]well, I got the same take, but you
[Don Mespelt]you say it much nicer in today's world.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. So what what is your take?
[Don Mespelt]You know, the opportunities are around, but you
[Don Mespelt]have to use your smarts and figure out
[Don Mespelt]what's actually good.
[ken ouellette]Yes. You have to be you have to
[ken ouellette]have a discerning eye. No doubt about it.
[Don Mespelt]You're making me sound here really bad.
[ken ouellette]Well, you you're you're you're doing the nineteen
(13:31):
[ken ouellette]twenty six version. I'm doing the two thousand
[ken ouellette]and twenty five update.
[Don Mespelt]Well, I'm trying to actually do the middle
[Don Mespelt]version to bring it in a little bit.
[Don Mespelt]I'm doing the abridged
[ken ouellette]I'm doing the abridged version of of richest
[ken ouellette]man in Babylon for the listener.
[Don Mespelt]Well and then when he was talking about,
[Don Mespelt]the the brickmaker, he one of the things
[Don Mespelt]he says is to get expert advice. That
[Don Mespelt]was one other another one of his cures
(13:53):
[Don Mespelt]for a lean purse. And you've gotten into
[Don Mespelt]that.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. So use a financial adviser. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]Men of action are favored by the goddess
[Don Mespelt]of good luck. Wow. You could take that
[Don Mespelt]one a lot of different ways. But, I
[Don Mespelt]mean, if you don't try something, you you're
[Don Mespelt]never gonna
(14:13):
[ken ouellette]Yeah. My view on that is, once again,
[ken ouellette]do what I found throughout my career is
[ken ouellette]there's really two types of people. There's the
[ken ouellette]half half full, the glass is half full
[ken ouellette]people, and then there's the half empty people.
[ken ouellette]The people that have an optimistic attitude make
[ken ouellette]very, very good investors because they're patient. They're
(14:33):
[ken ouellette]willing to to have their their investments do
[ken ouellette]bear fruit. Whereas the people that are pessimistic,
[ken ouellette]they tend to not have faith in the
[ken ouellette]process and the markets. They're just so critical
[ken ouellette]that they have that makes them react. And
[ken ouellette]so I think what he's trying to say
[ken ouellette]there is is that you have to have
(14:55):
[ken ouellette]patience and and have faith in after you
[ken ouellette]vetted the the investment process you're gonna use
[ken ouellette]and the adviser that things are gonna work
[ken ouellette]out.
[Don Mespelt]Is that right? He was big on that
[Don Mespelt]one. He talked about, don't just talk to,
[Don Mespelt]you know Right. Silly willy down the corner
[Don Mespelt]and stuff or, you know, get advice from
[Don Mespelt]TikTok. Well, I said it.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You wanna be
(15:17):
[ken ouellette]able to because your financial plan should be
[ken ouellette]specific to you, and the financial adviser should
[ken ouellette]have a history of dealing with good, bad
[ken ouellette]markets, and you should be able to put
[ken ouellette]your faith in in that individual who you
[ken ouellette]so desire to hire.
[Don Mespelt]And one thing that, in going and I
[Don Mespelt]left this book, it kinda it's all it's
[Don Mespelt]all the same idea with different stories, and
[Don Mespelt]it kinda goes around a little bit. But
(15:38):
[Don Mespelt]one thing he did talk about is, is
[Don Mespelt]just in the beginning, he talked to Akbar,
[Don Mespelt]the richest man in Babylon. He he himself
[Don Mespelt]learned from someone else.
[ken ouellette]Right.
[Don Mespelt]And this dude came in, and he's like,
[Don Mespelt]well, hey. You gotta do that. Pull one
[Don Mespelt]aside and and do it. And he did
[Don Mespelt]that. That's when he told the story about,
[Don Mespelt]you know, giving it to and buying some
[Don Mespelt]glass and not gold diamonds. And the other
[Don Mespelt]one is after he learned to live on
(15:59):
[Don Mespelt]less, which I thought was interesting too. And
[Don Mespelt]he liked it in the long run because
[Don Mespelt]he could actually see his shackles growing.
[ken ouellette]Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there's there is definitely
[ken ouellette]a you grow in confidence through experience in
[ken ouellette]the investing market. And sometimes the the investment
(16:21):
[ken ouellette]process, you know, teaches you to become more
[ken ouellette]patient or or it teach or it kinda
[ken ouellette]we we have a saying that people that
[ken ouellette]use speculative measures, it kinda spits you out
[ken ouellette]at the bottom. If you use margin, if
[ken ouellette]you use here in the recent news, you
[ken ouellette]know, there were a lot of people that
[ken ouellette]were using exchange traded funds that were two
[ken ouellette]times the leverage of the individual item. So
(16:43):
[ken ouellette]a stock that's all over the news had
[ken ouellette]a real bad day yesterday, was down seventeen
[ken ouellette]or eighteen percent, and there were individuals that
[ken ouellette]were trying to gain a little bit more
[ken ouellette]advantage on the upside of that by two
[ken ouellette]times. So it would move two times up
[ken ouellette]or two times down. So if that's down
[ken ouellette]seventeen percent, they're down thirty three percent a
[ken ouellette]day. Uh-huh. So that through that process, either
(17:04):
[ken ouellette]you learn from that and you see your
[ken ouellette]shackles deteriorate quickly, and you learn from that
[ken ouellette]process and never do it again. But when
[ken ouellette]you do learn from it and you don't
[ken ouellette]do it and you see your shackles grow
[ken ouellette]over a period of time, and shackles were
[ken ouellette]meaning dollars, you grow in confidence, I think.
[ken ouellette]I think is that is that what he's
[ken ouellette]gonna try to say there in the book?
[Don Mespelt]Well, I think that's how I got it.
(17:24):
[Don Mespelt]I mean, you you develop you develop this
[Don Mespelt]sounds I'm sound like a motivational speaker, which
[Don Mespelt]I might add, do you know this was
[Don Mespelt]one of Jim Rohn's favorite books?
[ken ouellette]Oh, really?
[Don Mespelt]For those I mean, for those of you
[Don Mespelt]that don't know Jim, I mean, he's a
[Don Mespelt]motivational speaker from nineteen seventies, I wanna say.
[Don Mespelt]Well, no. And yeah. Oh, he is the
[Don Mespelt]man. But, yeah, it was one of his
[Don Mespelt]favorite ones, and he would actually, talk about
(17:45):
[Don Mespelt]it in some of the speeches just about
[Don Mespelt]how because it's so positive and it has
[Don Mespelt]there's nothing wrong. There's no bad advice in
[Don Mespelt]this book. Right. I mean, it doesn't say,
[Don Mespelt]like, you know, go out there, and and
[Don Mespelt]if you sleep upside down for five days
[Don Mespelt]in a row, you're gonna make money. It's
[Don Mespelt]like yeah. It's straightforward.
[ken ouellette]Very, very straightforward and very, very, principled advice.
(18:06):
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. So, I mean, you develop, as you're
[Don Mespelt]saying, that that that that I the the
[Don Mespelt]idea is kinda like when you start working
[Don Mespelt]out. At first, it sucks, but after a
[Don Mespelt]while, you get used to it, and you
[Don Mespelt]start building a little you feel them better,
[Don Mespelt]you feel them better, and it builds on
[Don Mespelt]it. And then you you actually feel like,
[Don Mespelt]oh, I'm gonna go do that again. You
[Don Mespelt]can't it motivates you to keep going forward.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. And that's what he's talking about. Akbar
[Don Mespelt]is trying to build them up, and he
(18:27):
[Don Mespelt]learns
[ken ouellette]that from the first guy. Yeah. And I
[ken ouellette]think, you know, Charlie Munger, who was, Warren
[ken ouellette]Buffett's partner for decades, who recently passed away
[ken ouellette]last year, he used to always say that
[ken ouellette]the the most difficult, process of investing is
[ken ouellette]getting to your first hundred thousand. Once you
[ken ouellette]get to your first hundred thousand, it it's
[ken ouellette]like you get momentum. You get confidence, and
[ken ouellette]you see the process. And so, he was
(18:49):
[ken ouellette]he was famous for saying that.
[Don Mespelt]What I find interesting about that is I
[Don Mespelt]don't even remember when that happened. I mean,
[Don Mespelt]because that's, like, you know, early early on.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. And it just kinda you know, I
[Don Mespelt]mean, for me, at least, I don't I
[Don Mespelt]never looked at it early on. It's only
[Don Mespelt]been as of late as I start actually
[Don Mespelt]thinking, can I actually retire when I start
[Don Mespelt]looking at it?
[ken ouellette]Well, you started to put these principles in
(19:10):
[ken ouellette]into effect without even really without knowing they
[ken ouellette]were principles. You were just doing it. And
[ken ouellette]all of that
[Don Mespelt]made me.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. That that's part of it. But
[ken ouellette]then also, you know, once when you're working,
[ken ouellette]your head's kinda down. As long as you
[ken ouellette]get the budgetary process down, you're just putting
[ken ouellette]the money in, and then all of a
[ken ouellette]sudden you're seeing it growing, and you're getting
[ken ouellette]confidence that this is gonna work out over
(19:30):
[ken ouellette]a thirty, forty year retirement. And then those
[ken ouellette]those kind of those those bellwether marks, the
[ken ouellette]hundred thousands, the million, they kind of fade.
[ken ouellette]Whereas if you're not if you if you're
[ken ouellette]not as experienced and you're trying to you'd
[ken ouellette]kinda hang on to those benchmarks.
[Don Mespelt]So I'm gonna lead into the the five
(19:53):
[Don Mespelt]laws of gold Okay. Which this is straightforward.
[Don Mespelt]And I'm gonna delete a little hit header
[Don Mespelt]on each. Gold cometh gladly and increasing quantity
[Don Mespelt]to any man who will put not less
[Don Mespelt]than one tenth of his earnings to to,
[Don Mespelt]create an estate for his future and that
[Don Mespelt]of his family. Jack. That's the one we
[Don Mespelt]just talked about. That was a beautiful one.
[Don Mespelt]The second law of gold. Gold laboreth diligently
(20:14):
[Don Mespelt]and contently for the wise owner who finds
[Don Mespelt]it for a profitable and joint employment, multiplying
[Don Mespelt]even as the flocks of the field.
[ken ouellette]Compounding? Yes. Yeah. Jack.
[Don Mespelt]Third law. Gold clingeth to the protection of
[Don Mespelt]the cautious owner who invested under the advice
[Don Mespelt]of men wise in its handling.
[ken ouellette]So be consistent in your investment process. Know
[ken ouellette]what you're doing. Buy good solid things that
(20:37):
[ken ouellette]are gonna just grow over time, and you're
[ken ouellette]not having to worry about bankruptcies, bad markets,
[ken ouellette]things of that nature making your gold or
[ken ouellette]your investment portfolio go away.
[Don Mespelt]The fourth law of gold. Gold slippeth away
[Don Mespelt]from the man who invested in the businesses
[Don Mespelt]or purposes for what she is not familiar
(20:57):
[Don Mespelt]or what she is not approved by those
[Don Mespelt]skilled in its keep.
[ken ouellette]Excellent. Stay in your lane, I call that.
[ken ouellette]So if you have and and, you know,
[ken ouellette]I can I can speak to myself? I
[ken ouellette]know dividend stocks and dividend investing. That's my
[ken ouellette]lane, and that's what I stay in. That's
[ken ouellette]what I know. And I tell my clients
[ken ouellette]if they wanna speculate, I'm not against that.
(21:19):
[ken ouellette]You know, there there's a certain portion of
[ken ouellette]money, but you'd have to either find somebody
[ken ouellette]that knows that area of technology stocks or,
[ken ouellette]commodities or things of that nature, which I
[ken ouellette]cannot speak wisely about.
[Don Mespelt]Uh-huh. The fifth law of gold. Gold flees
(21:39):
[Don Mespelt]the man who would force it it to
[Don Mespelt]impossible earnings or who fall with the alluring
[Don Mespelt]advice of tricksters or schemers or who trust
[Don Mespelt]it in his own inexperience and romantic desires
[Don Mespelt]in investment.
[ken ouellette]Boy, do I see this all the time.
[ken ouellette]I mean, I could go we could spend
[ken ouellette]an hour and a half of me counseling
[ken ouellette]clients that have come to me after chasing
(22:01):
[ken ouellette]some fad securities, or investment scheme that didn't
[ken ouellette]work out. And every single cycle has new
[ken ouellette]schemes. Every single one. It's repetitive. It's going
[ken ouellette]to go on forever. And, whether it be
[ken ouellette]in two thousand and eight when everybody was
[ken ouellette]buying homes, you know, on margin, on leverage,
(22:25):
[ken ouellette]assuming that the house values were gonna go
[ken ouellette]up forever, and they would have workshops about
[ken ouellette]real estate. It just goes on and on
[ken ouellette]and on, and the the dot coms of
[ken ouellette]the two thousand and two thousand, nineteen ninety
[ken ouellette]nineties. Yeah. You know, so what do we
[ken ouellette]have now? We've got we've got, you know,
(22:47):
[ken ouellette]gold is getting up there in in the
[ken ouellette]speculative area. You've got a lot of these
[ken ouellette]tech stocks that AI, you know, may has
[ken ouellette]that kind of that that Allure. Allure to
[ken ouellette]it. You know, easy, quick money. I'm going
[ken ouellette]to be able to make twenty percent a
[ken ouellette]year. As soon as you you start to
[ken ouellette]think that I can make that there was
[ken ouellette]an old saying we had. When you think
[ken ouellette]you've got the key to Wall Street figured
(23:09):
[ken ouellette]out, they always change the lock. I've
[Don Mespelt]seen that with an orangutan on the poster.
[ken ouellette]I thought I had all the questions, and
[ken ouellette]then they changed all the answers.
[Don Mespelt]I mean Yeah.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. That Yeah. You kinda feel like an
[ken ouellette]orangutan after that. Something like that happens. So
[ken ouellette]we wanna avoid that for sure. That's that's
[ken ouellette]good advice.
[Don Mespelt]One of the, second to last chapter of
[Don Mespelt]it is, the gold lender of Babylon, and
(23:32):
[Don Mespelt]I think this is kinda it's it's kinda
[Don Mespelt]awesome. Again, some guy makes a lot of
[Don Mespelt]money, and he goes over to this guy
[Don Mespelt]and says, hey. I see that you have
[Don Mespelt]a lot of money, and you're rich and
[Don Mespelt]stuff. And I just got this. What do
[Don Mespelt]I do with it? And, of course, he
[Don Mespelt]goes on the same things. How do he
[Don Mespelt]wants you to make your, you know, make
[Don Mespelt]your dollars, make your shekels bro, and will
[Don Mespelt]work for you kind of thing. Mhmm. And,
(23:53):
[Don Mespelt]he's like and he's like, woah. Does that
[Don Mespelt]mean I should help my, you know, my
[Don Mespelt]brother-in-law who needs this and stuff? And his
[Don Mespelt]quote for helping out family, which I shouldn't
[Don Mespelt]say family, family and friends. And in general,
[Don Mespelt]it's always, you know, do what you it's
[Don Mespelt]whatever. But, if you desire to help thy
[Don Mespelt]friend, do it in a way that will
[Don Mespelt]not bring the friend's burden upon thyself.
(24:13):
[ken ouellette]Oh, boy. That's a classic.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. That way, that I think you could
[Don Mespelt]do a book on that alone, can't you?
[ken ouellette]Yes. Yeah. And then so I think in
[ken ouellette]the last podcast, we talked about the client
[ken ouellette]who did the second wedding for forty five
[ken ouellette]thousand dollars. And I said, well, that's fine.
[ken ouellette]You can do that, but it it blows
[ken ouellette]up your plan a little bit of what
[ken ouellette]you've worked so hard for. So the daughter,
(24:36):
[ken ouellette]at some point when you're eighty, is going
[ken ouellette]to have to give that money back to
[ken ouellette]you. So I think that's the prudence that
[ken ouellette]he's talking about there. And we see this
[ken ouellette]too, like professional athletes. Right? They wanna buy
[ken ouellette]cars. They wanna buy their they've got a
[ken ouellette]lot of friends that they wanna try to
[ken ouellette]take care of, that they grew up with
[ken ouellette]or what have you, and they've come into
[ken ouellette]money quickly. They wanna buy their parents a
(24:57):
[ken ouellette]house, but then their career is relatively short,
[ken ouellette]and then all of that money is gone.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]You just have to do it in a
[Don Mespelt]way where it's not gonna hurt you in
[Don Mespelt]the long run.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. I always I always say exactly. So
[ken ouellette]whenever whenever somebody wants something like that, it's
[ken ouellette]gotta be something that won't affect the plan.
(25:18):
[ken ouellette]And then if they never pay you back,
[ken ouellette]it's it's not going to it's it's gonna
[ken ouellette]have zero emphasis on your long term strategy.
[Don Mespelt]So and and this is why the gold
[Don Mespelt]lender of Babylon is a very rich man
[Don Mespelt]because if he does loan something out to
[Don Mespelt]people, he says, I want something in return.
[Don Mespelt]Right. And that has to be something of
[Don Mespelt]value to the person. Otherwise, they're not gonna
(25:38):
[Don Mespelt]bother with it. Right. And so, he he
[Don Mespelt]goes off here and it's and he says
[Don Mespelt]this one person gave him a scarlet cloth,
[Don Mespelt]and he learned that one is, the bitter
[Don Mespelt]remorse, she threw herself into the Euphrates and
[Don Mespelt]killed herself, and the loans will never be
[Don Mespelt]repaid. And so everything he borrows from people,
[Don Mespelt]he puts into a chest, and he says,
[Don Mespelt]the chest tells you, Rodin, that was the
[Don Mespelt]name of the guy who came to him
[Don Mespelt]with a lot of money, that human in
(25:59):
[Don Mespelt]the throes of great emotions are not safe
[Don Mespelt]risks for the gold lender.
[ken ouellette]Wow. That's pretty profound. Human.
[Don Mespelt]I know it's nineteen twenty seven, this dude.
[Don Mespelt]Humans in the throes of great emotions are
[Don Mespelt]not a safe risk for the gold lender.
[Don Mespelt]That's true. Yeah. That's straightforward. I mean, it's
[Don Mespelt]just right up there. Yeah. So so he
(26:20):
[Don Mespelt]gives you a few other examples of, you
[Don Mespelt]know, how you shouldn't just loan to this
[Don Mespelt]from various people and stuff without having something
[Don Mespelt]that's meaningful that makes them gonna come back.
[Don Mespelt]And he also talks about this dude that
[Don Mespelt]he's grown to really like and the not
[Don Mespelt]like, but they've done a lot of work
[Don Mespelt]together, and he trusts them. And he doesn't
[Don Mespelt]even require him to give him anything in
[Don Mespelt]the in the future or for future loans
[Don Mespelt]because he shows a habit. He always repays
(26:41):
[Don Mespelt]them on time and early.
[ken ouellette]So, basically, I guess, he's speaking to prudence
[ken ouellette]there. Who's she? No. Prudence. I'm joking. Oh,
[ken ouellette]okay. Yeah. So be prudent in who you
[ken ouellette]you lend money out to. If it you
[ken ouellette]know, we we so I have historically, regardless
(27:02):
[ken ouellette]of if it's if it's friends or family,
[ken ouellette]I like to use an amortization chart, and
[ken ouellette]provide that just so there is a written
[ken ouellette]principal and interest payment that is done. We
[ken ouellette]recommend that to our clients, just because it
[ken ouellette]makes it official, and then there's no questions.
[ken ouellette]But, you know, that that is how we
(27:22):
[ken ouellette]we we attack that prudence.
[Don Mespelt]And the final chapter of the book, Ken,
[Don Mespelt]and it talks about how the, they find
[Don Mespelt]these clay tablets, and they start talking about
[Don Mespelt]them in in in college, not in college,
[Don Mespelt]but in the, in a archaeology kind of
[Don Mespelt]profession.
[ken ouellette]Mhmm.
[Don Mespelt]And, it's kinda hokey, but it just reiterates
[Don Mespelt]everything not hokey. It just reiterates everything that
(27:43):
[Don Mespelt]they've gone through in the book and and
[Don Mespelt]how they're transcribing and figuring it out. And
[Don Mespelt]the guy can't believe that this is actually
[Don Mespelt]written that many years ago. And he goes,
[Don Mespelt]I must live upon this portion and never
[Don Mespelt]use more nor buy what I may not
[Don Mespelt]pay for out of this portion. And it
[Don Mespelt]just it just talks about the pretty much
[Don Mespelt]the same thing we just talked about everything
[Don Mespelt]we've had here. One tenth I have set
[Don Mespelt]aside to keep my own. Seven tenths have
(28:04):
[Don Mespelt]I divided with my good wife to pay
[Don Mespelt]for our living, and two tenths have I
[Don Mespelt]divided among my creditors. It it's just kind
[Don Mespelt]of funny. He just kinda surmises the whole
[Don Mespelt]thing, and then it goes on to say
[Don Mespelt]the luckiest man in Babylon, talks about how
[Don Mespelt]he was once a slave to money and
[Don Mespelt]everything else and owed everyone in the world.
[Don Mespelt]And and then he goes off, and he
[Don Mespelt]actually becomes a slave because he he he
(28:25):
[Don Mespelt]does a bad deal with, some other guy
[Don Mespelt]doing running cattle. And Chris is not cattle,
[Don Mespelt]but he got me. Yeah. And, yeah. So
[Don Mespelt]he gets picked up as a slave and
[Don Mespelt]everything. And then finally, this person says, oh,
[Don Mespelt]you're good enough. You you know, go back.
[Don Mespelt]So he goes back to the town where
[Don Mespelt]he was there, and he pays back all
[Don Mespelt]of his creditors, builds up his whole his
[Don Mespelt]wife gets his wife back, everything. Great story.
[Don Mespelt]And it's kind of like the moral story
(28:46):
[Don Mespelt]is, you know, I mean, he is the
[Don Mespelt]luckiest man in Babylon because he was given
[Don Mespelt]a second chance to rebuild and pay, and
[Don Mespelt]and he became a person that everyone wanted
[Don Mespelt]him to be.
[ken ouellette]Right. And and he learned these principles, which
[ken ouellette]he can apply in his life, even though
[ken ouellette]he had that setback.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Yeah. So I just this is the
[Don Mespelt]richest man at Babylon. Like you said, it's
(29:08):
[Don Mespelt]a hundred and sixteen or so pages. You
[Don Mespelt]know? And then I I highlighted it, so
[Don Mespelt]it probably took me an hour and a
[Don Mespelt]half. But the principles are here. And this
[Don Mespelt]is kinda one of those books that you
[Don Mespelt]can almost give to, you know, I mean,
[Don Mespelt]people that I love, younger kids, and just
[Don Mespelt]say, read this.
[ken ouellette]Right. And that's what somebody did for me.
[ken ouellette]And I think that's kind of a pass
[ken ouellette]down type of thing. And it can makes
(29:28):
[ken ouellette]these sometimes when you're when you talk about
[ken ouellette]financial things, you know, investments and, the process
[ken ouellette]and what you need to do, it because
[ken ouellette]it's got its own acronyms and its own
[ken ouellette]language, people tend to get a little overwhelmed
[ken ouellette]initially on it. And I think that this
[ken ouellette]book, because it puts it into these the
(29:50):
[ken ouellette]the parable type language, people can understand it,
[ken ouellette]and then they can apply it. And the
[ken ouellette]it really applies across the board to everybody,
[ken ouellette]and everybody should utilize these type of parables
[ken ouellette]and principles.
[Don Mespelt]Well, like I said, he was, wrote this
[Don Mespelt]right before the depression, And everyone, during depression,
[Don Mespelt]of course, was trying to figure out look
(30:11):
[Don Mespelt]for ways to they could help themselves to
[Don Mespelt]get out of this depression and get through
[Don Mespelt]it. And that was one of the things
[Don Mespelt]that actually made him famous because he actually
[Don Mespelt]survived it unlike his business. He, and another
[Don Mespelt]interesting point, he started a map company, and
[Don Mespelt]he was the first one to publish a
[Don Mespelt]road atlas, the United States and Canada.
[ken ouellette]Oh, that's true. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. So he's and then, and like I
(30:32):
[Don Mespelt]said, his businesses didn't survive. But that but
[Don Mespelt]this parable book and everything else, of course,
[Don Mespelt]through history, and and we're reading it right
[Don Mespelt]now. And he has the phrase, pay yourself
[Don Mespelt]first.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, for the listener
[ken ouellette]out there, this is a nice addendum to
[ken ouellette]to well, these podcasts, I think we we
[ken ouellette]try to cover almost every one of these
[ken ouellette]subjects, every time we there's a there's a
(30:56):
[ken ouellette]sprinkling of the richest man in Babylon, I
[ken ouellette]think, in every one of our podcasts that
[ken ouellette]we do because they're timeless. And so, you
[ken ouellette]know, we encourage anybody to pick up a
[ken ouellette]copy of this. I mean, you could buy
[ken ouellette]it on Amazon. I think it might even
[ken ouellette]be a free Kindle download. I don't know.
[ken ouellette]It's it's been around for so long, but,
[ken ouellette]you know, you could pick this thing up
[ken ouellette]for three bucks, I think, anywhere, and it'll.
(31:19):
[ken ouellette]It see? He's still working even since nineteen
[ken ouellette]twenty six.
[Don Mespelt]Yep.
[ken ouellette]That's awesome.
[Don Mespelt]Alright, Ken. Thank you for an enjoyable read,
[Don Mespelt]and thank you for recommending this. And taking
[Don Mespelt]your knowledge and spreading the wealth, thank you
[Don Mespelt]again. How do I get a hold of
[Don Mespelt]you?
[ken ouellette]Orca Wealth, o r c a w e
[ken ouellette]a l t h dot com. And as
(31:42):
[ken ouellette]always, my phone, seven two seven seven four
[ken ouellette]one six zero seven seven. Orca Wealth Management,
[ken ouellette]that is our landing site, our web page,
[ken ouellette]which, has the podcast, pertinent information on the
[ken ouellette]team that we have put in place. Seven
[ken ouellette]two seven seven four one six zero seven
[ken ouellette]seven. I can always be reached by phone.
(32:02):
[ken ouellette]And then, you know, grab a copy of
[ken ouellette]this book, and, let's have a conversation about
[ken ouellette]it.
[Don Mespelt]Yep. Akbar is awaiting you. Akbar. I didn't
[Don Mespelt]think I don't know if that's his name.
[Don Mespelt]But, Ahmed Akbar, it it was a a
[Don Mespelt]Babylonian ish type name.
[ken ouellette]Awesome. Yeah. Well, thanks for the day, Don.
[ken ouellette]I enjoyed it.
(32:22):
[Don Mespelt]I had a great time. Thank you, Ken,
[Don Mespelt]for bringing this book to my attention.
[ken ouellette]Alright. Till next time.
[Don Mespelt]Cheers. Bye.
[Don Mespelt]Thank you for listening to a life well
[Don Mespelt]lived. Grow, preserve, and transfer your wealth with
[Don Mespelt]Kinolett CPM. Click the subscribe button below to
[Don Mespelt]be notified when new episodes become available. The
(32:45):
[Don Mespelt]information covered and posted represents the views and
[Don Mespelt]opinions of the guest and does not necessarily
[Don Mespelt]represent the views or opinions of Orca Wealth
[Don Mespelt]Management LLC. The content has been made available
[Don Mespelt]for informational and educational purposes only. The content
[Don Mespelt]is not intended to be a substitute for
[Don Mespelt]professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of
[Don Mespelt]your financial adviser or other qualifying financial service
(33:06):
[Don Mespelt]provider with any questions you may have regarding
[Don Mespelt]your investment planning. Orca Wealth Management LLC does
[Don Mespelt]not provide legal or tax advice. Clients should
[Don Mespelt]seek the advice of a qualified attorney or
[Don Mespelt]The budget shows up the leaks from thy
[Don Mespelt]purse and enables thee to stop them and
[Don Mespelt]control the expenditures for definite and gratifying purposes.
[ken ouellette]Oh, beautiful. Yep.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. It shows thy leaks.
[ken ouellette]Wow. Shows thy leaks.
[Don Mespelt]I mean, that guy.
[ken ouellette]Yep. I've seen lots of budgets that are
[ken ouellette]leaking.
[Don Mespelt]Welcome to a life well lift. Grow, preserve,
(00:21):
[Don Mespelt]and transfer your wealth with Ken Ouellette, CPM
[Don Mespelt]certified portfolio manager and founder of Orca Wealth
[Don Mespelt]Management. In this podcast, he will provide some
[Don Mespelt]clarity and setting goals needed to build, preserve,
[Don Mespelt]and transfer wealth and overcome some of life's
[Don Mespelt]financial obstacles. Ken provides actionable steps to help
(00:41):
[Don Mespelt]you plan through your financial ups and downs
[Don Mespelt]in a way everyone can understand. Join us
[Don Mespelt]on this journey where Ken will explore many
[Don Mespelt]financial avenues, drawing from his three decades of
[Don Mespelt]experience in helping others avoid risking a lifetime's
[Don Mespelt]worth of work and savings by not having
[Don Mespelt]a plan and a strategy in place. Now,
(01:02):
[Don Mespelt]on to the show.
[ken ouellette]Well, good morning, Don. Good morning, Ken. Yes.
[ken ouellette]So we just had you know, we always
[ken ouellette]start with a little weather segment. Right?
[Don Mespelt]Because it's just kinda
[ken ouellette]segues. Pertinent. Yeah. It's pertinent. We've had we've
[ken ouellette]had six to eight inches of snow here
[ken ouellette]on the coast of of North Carolina.
(01:23):
[Don Mespelt]Wow.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. The kids kids kids got three
[ken ouellette]snow days.
[Don Mespelt]Does that happen often?
[ken ouellette]Basically never. So, like, once a decade.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Yeah. Well and on the flip side,
[Don Mespelt]we've had no rain in Oregon on the
[Don Mespelt]coast.
[ken ouellette]Well, it's coming.
[Don Mespelt]Well, yeah. That is. But I'm just saying
[Don Mespelt]it's kind of amazing how the the nature
[Don Mespelt]is nature is fickle.
(01:44):
[ken ouellette]It is. It is. And today, we've got,
[ken ouellette]we got something new. We're gonna do a,
[ken ouellette]little book review. And for the listener that,
[ken ouellette]has not been allowing for every podcast, Don
[ken ouellette]is on his retirement journey. It's about to
[ken ouellette]wrap up in a year or two. And
[ken ouellette]so I gave Don a homework assignment of
[ken ouellette]a book to read. And that book is
(02:05):
[ken ouellette]Don?
[Don Mespelt]That book is The Richest Man in Babylon
[Don Mespelt]by George s Clayson.
[ken ouellette]Yes. The for the listener that may not
[ken ouellette]have seen that in, on the Amazon top
[ken ouellette]ten list because it was written, what, nineteen
[ken ouellette]twenty six?
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Yeah.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. It's a classic. It's a classic. But,
[ken ouellette]as we're gonna as we go into it,
(02:25):
[ken ouellette]we dive into it, we're gonna see that
[ken ouellette]these principles have not changed.
[Don Mespelt]So I'm just gonna say it from a
[Don Mespelt]start point. He mentioned Ken mentioned that he
[Don Mespelt]Ken mentioned this book to me, and I'm
[Don Mespelt]like, I've never heard of it. I mean,
[Don Mespelt]you know, I was all in engineering junk
[Don Mespelt]in college, and and, you know, this is
[Don Mespelt]a money book. But it's not really a
[Don Mespelt]money book. It's actually kind of a life
[Don Mespelt]but it could be in two sections, like
(02:47):
[Don Mespelt]the finance section, but also in the self
[Don Mespelt]help. Yeah. Yeah. Because, really, there's a lot
[Don Mespelt]of things I think that this could go
[Don Mespelt]into self help as well. But just to
[Don Mespelt]read off the back real quick, George s
[Don Mespelt]Clason wrote the collection of parables set in
[Don Mespelt]Babylon, ancient Babylon, and provided guidance to one's
[Don Mespelt]financial well-being. And one thing I didn't know
[Don Mespelt]as well is these guys at the US
[Don Mespelt]banks and insurance customers, they they created pamphlets
(03:10):
[Don Mespelt]out of these because they they wanted to
[Don Mespelt]help people. And and so they actually had
[Don Mespelt]them in their air stores and stuff and
[Don Mespelt]his parables. And so they combined them all
[Don Mespelt]together to make this book. Yeah. And it
[Don Mespelt]was also during the Great Depression, which I
[Don Mespelt]found interesting. And people were trying to find
[Don Mespelt]anything to save and help and then try
[Don Mespelt]to better themselves during the Depression. And this
[Don Mespelt]is one of the books that, actually came
[Don Mespelt]through the whole thing as a success.
(03:32):
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, the reason
[ken ouellette]I how I came across this book was
[ken ouellette]somebody slid it across my desk when I
[ken ouellette]first started. Said, listen. This is a this
[ken ouellette]book is what a it's not very many
[ken ouellette]pages. How many pages is it?
[Don Mespelt]Well, I was gonna say, though, they slid
[Don Mespelt]the clay tablet across because you started, like,
[Don Mespelt]that long ago. But, it's like a hundred
[Don Mespelt]and sixteen pages.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a hundred page
(03:52):
[ken ouellette]book. It's a real simple read. You read
[ken ouellette]it in one evening. But it's got some
[ken ouellette]profound, timeless, little nuggets in there. And like
[ken ouellette]you said, you know, a lot of a
[ken ouellette]lot of finance crosses over into life. And
[ken ouellette]so that's why I think, this book is
[ken ouellette]really, really interesting for the listener to to
[ken ouellette]give it a chance.
[Don Mespelt]For the foreword, the very first line of
[Don Mespelt]the whole freaking book, I was like, well,
[Don Mespelt]that sets it up. And here's the line.
(04:15):
[Don Mespelt]Our prosperity as a nation depends upon the
[Don Mespelt]personal financial prosperity of each of us as
[Don Mespelt]individuals. Wow. Doesn't that just sum it up?
[ken ouellette]Yeah. That sums up today, doesn't it?
[Don Mespelt]I mean, it is. It's like, wow. This
[Don Mespelt]is nineteen twenty seven. I just thought that
[Don Mespelt]was amazing.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. You you know, things things, history doesn't
[ken ouellette]repeat itself. It rhymes. And, and this book
(04:37):
[ken ouellette]is really so let let's get into the
[ken ouellette]meat of the book.
[Don Mespelt]Well, he starts out, and he and he
[Don Mespelt]gives you a little, like, you know, seven
[Don Mespelt]pages of here's Babylon. It's great. It's beautiful.
[Don Mespelt]It's, you know, big walls, all that stuff.
[Don Mespelt]And then he starts out the very first
[Don Mespelt]one of his first one. And the thing
[Don Mespelt]is he talks in parables, which I thought,
[Don Mespelt]you know, a lot. You know, if you
[Don Mespelt]wanna help get your story across, people will
[Don Mespelt]take it more meaningful with parables. That's, you
(04:59):
[Don Mespelt]know, Jesus. Yeah. Talked in parables too.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. So a parable just takes a a
[ken ouellette]complex subject and puts it into layman's terms
[ken ouellette]in a short little story that
[Don Mespelt]that Easy to understand.
[ken ouellette]That parallels the actual concept.
[Don Mespelt]So here, he starts it off with Banzir,
[Don Mespelt]the chariot builder of Babylon, and his friend.
[Don Mespelt]And he's sitting well, Banzir is sitting there
(05:20):
[Don Mespelt]going, you know, I make a lot of
[Don Mespelt]money, but why am I still poor? I
[Don Mespelt]mean, I have to work every day. And
[Don Mespelt]then he comes up to his buddy who
[Don Mespelt]says, you know, I can't loan you any
[Don Mespelt]money because I don't got any myself. So
[Don Mespelt]they start talking about it, but and they
[Don Mespelt]say, well, let's go talk to Frankie over
[Don Mespelt]here, who's the well, it's actually Alcazar. He's
[Don Mespelt]the richest man in Babylon. So then they
(05:40):
[Don Mespelt]go over and they start talking to him.
[ken ouellette]Okay. And he gets the wisdom. Right?
[Don Mespelt]Oh, yeah. He starts talking about, you know,
[Don Mespelt]how great it is that people wanna learn
[Don Mespelt]and and learn from him. And one of
[Don Mespelt]the biggest things he goes off of right
[Don Mespelt]then is just talking about well, out of
[Don Mespelt]every ten what's the word? Ten coins or
(06:01):
[Don Mespelt]ten chuckles or Shuckles. What? Shuckles? Yeah. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]You you know, you could spend nine, but
[Don Mespelt]put that tenth away. Don't touch.
[ken ouellette]Yes. And I think, you know, what we'll
[ken ouellette]try to do is take the principles of
[ken ouellette]the book and kinda put them in today's
[ken ouellette]terms. So what we like to deem that
[ken ouellette]is ten percent of your earnings, you should
[ken ouellette]pay yourself first. So just like you have
(06:22):
[ken ouellette]an electric bill, just like you have a
[ken ouellette]mortgage payment, we try to get particularly younger
[ken ouellette]people to think of their retirement as a
[ken ouellette]bill that's gonna come due because it does.
[ken ouellette]And so you need to pay yourself that
[ken ouellette]first ten percent or that first shekel. At
[ken ouellette]one shekel out of ten, you need to
[ken ouellette]pay yourself.
[Don Mespelt]And and it Vance here goes, I I
(06:42):
[Don Mespelt]wish an income that will keep flowing into
[Don Mespelt]my purse whether I sit upon the wall
[Don Mespelt]or travel to far lands.
[ken ouellette]Wow.
[Don Mespelt]That's a that's a dream for all of
[Don Mespelt]us.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. I would think.
[Don Mespelt]And that's when, the the, the man, Artzir
[Don Mespelt]and I'm I'm killing his name. That's why
[Don Mespelt]he says you should always keep a part
[Don Mespelt]of what you earn. You should always keep
[Don Mespelt]it yourself. And he coined the phrase, pay
(07:03):
[Don Mespelt]yourself first.
[ken ouellette]There you go. See, it stuck. I read
[ken ouellette]that book thirty years ago, and here it
[ken ouellette]is. It said, just pay yourself first.
[Don Mespelt]But, I mean, I've heard that other places.
[Don Mespelt]It's just it's never been coined back to
[Don Mespelt]him, or I thought that's kinda impressive too.
[Don Mespelt]And then wealth grows whenever men exert energy.
[Don Mespelt]Wow. Arc Arcad.
(07:25):
[ken ouellette]Alright. So
[Don Mespelt]These are just my highlights as I go
[Don Mespelt]through. I thought it was kinda fun. But
[Don Mespelt]pay yourself first, and that was one of
[Don Mespelt]the next quotes I really love. Wealth grows
[Don Mespelt]grows wherever men exert energy. Okay. And that's
[Don Mespelt]the truth. So I mean but it takes
[Don Mespelt]effort to put away that one shekel.
[ken ouellette]Yes. I would yeah. That's okay. It takes
[ken ouellette]energy.
[Don Mespelt]That's my thought. And then he goes off
[Don Mespelt]and says, okay. When he was young, he
(07:47):
[Don Mespelt]actually paid, that well, this all changed around
[Don Mespelt]to Joey, the, brick builder. He gave him
[Don Mespelt]some money to go over to the next
[Don Mespelt]town and buy some diamonds.
[ken ouellette]Okay.
[Don Mespelt]Unfortunately, Joey, the brick builder, didn't know what
[Don Mespelt]he was doing. And so he, he came
[Don Mespelt]back with some glass, and he got he
[Don Mespelt]got frauded. So he lost all of his
[Don Mespelt]shackles that he saved.
[ken ouellette]So the the parable there is telling you
(08:10):
[ken ouellette]be very mindful of the ten percent that
[ken ouellette]you provide and who you provide it to.
[ken ouellette]Vet that person to make sure that they
[ken ouellette]are going to do well by the monies
[ken ouellette]that you save.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. And and then the coins, how he
[Don Mespelt]has it in his little book too is
[Don Mespelt]guide your treasures.
[ken ouellette]Guide your treasures.
[Don Mespelt]Guard your treasures.
[ken ouellette]Guard your treasures. Excellent. So don't be maybe
(08:32):
[ken ouellette]in today's terms, don't try to hit home
[ken ouellette]runs. Don't try to be too speculative. Don't
[ken ouellette]try to catch the latest fad or or
[ken ouellette]investing craze, but guard your treasure. I like
[ken ouellette]that.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. And and then he goes off, and
[Don Mespelt]I I jumped ahead that one because I
[Don Mespelt]was kinda excited because I thought that was
[Don Mespelt]pretty funny how we paid some dude to
[Don Mespelt]that doesn't know anything about diamonds to go
(08:52):
[Don Mespelt]get diamonds. And that's a true story in
[Don Mespelt]today's world with all the people clumps. Say,
[Don Mespelt]hey. Do I have a deal for you?
[ken ouellette]Yes.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. So one of the next ones
[ken ouellette]good. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]How's it going? I'm sorry.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. You have to do this now, or
[ken ouellette]you're gonna miss out on this opportunity. That's
[ken ouellette]usually
[Don Mespelt]the reason.
[ken ouellette]Yes. The fear of missing out. Excellent. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. So, and then he goes off the
[Don Mespelt]second one he really says after he says
(09:13):
[Don Mespelt]you pay yourself. He says, get a budget.
[Don Mespelt]Nice. So and he says, control your expenses,
[Don Mespelt]and do not confuse the necessary expenses with
[Don Mespelt]thy desires.
[ken ouellette]Oh my goodness. That's a good one in
[ken ouellette]today's society, isn't it?
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Well, isn't that the truth, though? I
[Don Mespelt]mean, it's just yeah. It it's crazy how
[Don Mespelt]this is nineteen twenty. Well, it's money. Right.
(09:34):
[Don Mespelt]And even as they pointed out, this is,
[Don Mespelt]because this is what he said Babylon was,
[Don Mespelt]like, you know, two thousand years before this
[Don Mespelt]and everything else. And even in Babylon, two
[Don Mespelt]thousand years ago, money is money. And you
[Don Mespelt]have to know how to control it and
[Don Mespelt]make your little your dollars work for you.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. And it it the budget thing is
[ken ouellette]important because if you don't have the if
(09:55):
[ken ouellette]you don't start with the budget, it becomes
[ken ouellette]difficult to pay yourself the ten percent first
[ken ouellette]because you don't know where all of your
[ken ouellette]money is going. So So a lot of
[ken ouellette]people will have the conversation with, particularly younger
[ken ouellette]people. Well, things are very expensive now. I
[ken ouellette]just don't have money to put away from
[ken ouellette]myself, or I can't I hear that one.
[ken ouellette]X out my four zero one k, or
(10:16):
[ken ouellette]I can't even do the company match if
[ken ouellette]it's five percent. I I can only do
[ken ouellette]two or three percent. Well, if you start
[ken ouellette]with a budget, there's gonna be places in
[ken ouellette]that budget where you're gonna be able to
[ken ouellette]find an additional two or three or four
[ken ouellette]percent. Now it may be may be something
[ken ouellette]that you're used to doing. You know, it
[ken ouellette]might be making your own coffee versus buying
[ken ouellette]coffee.
(10:37):
[Don Mespelt]It might
[ken ouellette]be, you know, cooking dinner more often than
[ken ouellette]going out. It might be there might be
[ken ouellette]some forms of, discipline that you're gonna have
[ken ouellette]to do, but in the end, your that
[ken ouellette]that bill's coming, so we need to carve
[ken ouellette]out a space for that ten percent.
[Don Mespelt]His bow his, quote is, the budget shows
(10:57):
[Don Mespelt]up the leaks from thy purse and enables
[Don Mespelt]thee to stop them and control the expenditures
[Don Mespelt]for definite and gratifying purposes.
[ken ouellette]Oh, beautiful. Yep.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. It shows thy leaks.
[ken ouellette]Wow. Shows thy leaks.
[Don Mespelt]I mean, that guy.
[ken ouellette]Yep. I've seen lots of budgets that are
[ken ouellette]leaking.
[Don Mespelt]So when I was talking about, giving it
[Don Mespelt]to, Jimmy Joan, the, these are just fictional
(11:19):
[Don Mespelt]names I'm throwing out, of course, not to
[Don Mespelt]offend anyone. But Jimmy, the, the brickmaker, that's
[Don Mespelt]what this one is. The next one is
[Don Mespelt]this. He says, make thy gold multiply.
[ken ouellette]Make thy gold multiply. And that's a good
[ken ouellette]one too. So we have seen throughout history,
[ken ouellette]sometimes people confuse, safety with with lack you
(11:41):
[ken ouellette]know, or or not getting purchasing power. So
[ken ouellette]they're trying to they're trying to be very
[ken ouellette]safe and conservative with their money, but it
[ken ouellette]doesn't grow, keep pace with inflation. You have
[ken ouellette]to have some form of multiplier in there.
[Don Mespelt]So he, he talks about this whole section
[Don Mespelt]is about having a lean purse, which is
[Don Mespelt]a great way of saying that I'm broke.
(12:03):
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Yeah. So his his his lean purse,
[Don Mespelt]he says, for a lean purse to a
[Don Mespelt]man no longer able to earn or to
[Don Mespelt]a family without its head is a sore
[Don Mespelt]tragedy. It's just like, wow. This guy. Man.
[Don Mespelt]But he he puts it straightforward. It's it's
[Don Mespelt]such a great way of doing it, I
[Don Mespelt]think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and then, another
(12:26):
[Don Mespelt]one that he talks about with investments was
[Don Mespelt]talking about, the sheep dude. This guy comes
[Don Mespelt]up with a bunch of sheep, middle of
[Don Mespelt]the night. Said, oh, I can't. I gotta
[Don Mespelt]get rid of these. I don't have time.
[Don Mespelt]My wife's sick. I gotta go back home.
[Don Mespelt]I can't show him right now. But if
[Don Mespelt]you wanna buy them, you can. I'll give
[Don Mespelt]you this great price. And the guy's like,
[Don Mespelt]I don't know. Anyway, turns out he it
[Don Mespelt]was a good deal, but he lost money
[Don Mespelt]on it because he didn't take advantage of
[Don Mespelt]it. So, I mean, he shows you both
(12:47):
[Don Mespelt]sides.
[ken ouellette]Right. So then you're talking about opportunity cost.
[ken ouellette]You know, if you have an an opportunity
[ken ouellette]to invest in something that's got a nice
[ken ouellette]track record, you have to have some faith
[ken ouellette]that it's gonna work out and be able
[ken ouellette]to take advantage of those opportunities. So have
[ken ouellette]a growth mindset. I think that that is
[ken ouellette]what he's getting out there.
[Don Mespelt]That works. I didn't quite get that same
(13:09):
[Don Mespelt]well, I got the same take, but you
[Don Mespelt]you say it much nicer in today's world.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. So what what is your take?
[Don Mespelt]You know, the opportunities are around, but you
[Don Mespelt]have to use your smarts and figure out
[Don Mespelt]what's actually good.
[ken ouellette]Yes. You have to be you have to
[ken ouellette]have a discerning eye. No doubt about it.
[Don Mespelt]You're making me sound here really bad.
[ken ouellette]Well, you you're you're you're doing the nineteen
(13:31):
[ken ouellette]twenty six version. I'm doing the two thousand
[ken ouellette]and twenty five update.
[Don Mespelt]Well, I'm trying to actually do the middle
[Don Mespelt]version to bring it in a little bit.
[Don Mespelt]I'm doing the abridged
[ken ouellette]I'm doing the abridged version of of richest
[ken ouellette]man in Babylon for the listener.
[Don Mespelt]Well and then when he was talking about,
[Don Mespelt]the the brickmaker, he one of the things
[Don Mespelt]he says is to get expert advice. That
[Don Mespelt]was one other another one of his cures
(13:53):
[Don Mespelt]for a lean purse. And you've gotten into
[Don Mespelt]that.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. So use a financial adviser. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]Men of action are favored by the goddess
[Don Mespelt]of good luck. Wow. You could take that
[Don Mespelt]one a lot of different ways. But, I
[Don Mespelt]mean, if you don't try something, you you're
[Don Mespelt]never gonna
(14:13):
[ken ouellette]Yeah. My view on that is, once again,
[ken ouellette]do what I found throughout my career is
[ken ouellette]there's really two types of people. There's the
[ken ouellette]half half full, the glass is half full
[ken ouellette]people, and then there's the half empty people.
[ken ouellette]The people that have an optimistic attitude make
[ken ouellette]very, very good investors because they're patient. They're
(14:33):
[ken ouellette]willing to to have their their investments do
[ken ouellette]bear fruit. Whereas the people that are pessimistic,
[ken ouellette]they tend to not have faith in the
[ken ouellette]process and the markets. They're just so critical
[ken ouellette]that they have that makes them react. And
[ken ouellette]so I think what he's trying to say
[ken ouellette]there is is that you have to have
(14:55):
[ken ouellette]patience and and have faith in after you
[ken ouellette]vetted the the investment process you're gonna use
[ken ouellette]and the adviser that things are gonna work
[ken ouellette]out.
[Don Mespelt]Is that right? He was big on that
[Don Mespelt]one. He talked about, don't just talk to,
[Don Mespelt]you know Right. Silly willy down the corner
[Don Mespelt]and stuff or, you know, get advice from
[Don Mespelt]TikTok. Well, I said it.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You wanna be
(15:17):
[ken ouellette]able to because your financial plan should be
[ken ouellette]specific to you, and the financial adviser should
[ken ouellette]have a history of dealing with good, bad
[ken ouellette]markets, and you should be able to put
[ken ouellette]your faith in in that individual who you
[ken ouellette]so desire to hire.
[Don Mespelt]And one thing that, in going and I
[Don Mespelt]left this book, it kinda it's all it's
[Don Mespelt]all the same idea with different stories, and
[Don Mespelt]it kinda goes around a little bit. But
(15:38):
[Don Mespelt]one thing he did talk about is, is
[Don Mespelt]just in the beginning, he talked to Akbar,
[Don Mespelt]the richest man in Babylon. He he himself
[Don Mespelt]learned from someone else.
[ken ouellette]Right.
[Don Mespelt]And this dude came in, and he's like,
[Don Mespelt]well, hey. You gotta do that. Pull one
[Don Mespelt]aside and and do it. And he did
[Don Mespelt]that. That's when he told the story about,
[Don Mespelt]you know, giving it to and buying some
[Don Mespelt]glass and not gold diamonds. And the other
[Don Mespelt]one is after he learned to live on
(15:59):
[Don Mespelt]less, which I thought was interesting too. And
[Don Mespelt]he liked it in the long run because
[Don Mespelt]he could actually see his shackles growing.
[ken ouellette]Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there's there is definitely
[ken ouellette]a you grow in confidence through experience in
[ken ouellette]the investing market. And sometimes the the investment
(16:21):
[ken ouellette]process, you know, teaches you to become more
[ken ouellette]patient or or it teach or it kinda
[ken ouellette]we we have a saying that people that
[ken ouellette]use speculative measures, it kinda spits you out
[ken ouellette]at the bottom. If you use margin, if
[ken ouellette]you use here in the recent news, you
[ken ouellette]know, there were a lot of people that
[ken ouellette]were using exchange traded funds that were two
[ken ouellette]times the leverage of the individual item. So
(16:43):
[ken ouellette]a stock that's all over the news had
[ken ouellette]a real bad day yesterday, was down seventeen
[ken ouellette]or eighteen percent, and there were individuals that
[ken ouellette]were trying to gain a little bit more
[ken ouellette]advantage on the upside of that by two
[ken ouellette]times. So it would move two times up
[ken ouellette]or two times down. So if that's down
[ken ouellette]seventeen percent, they're down thirty three percent a
[ken ouellette]day. Uh-huh. So that through that process, either
(17:04):
[ken ouellette]you learn from that and you see your
[ken ouellette]shackles deteriorate quickly, and you learn from that
[ken ouellette]process and never do it again. But when
[ken ouellette]you do learn from it and you don't
[ken ouellette]do it and you see your shackles grow
[ken ouellette]over a period of time, and shackles were
[ken ouellette]meaning dollars, you grow in confidence, I think.
[ken ouellette]I think is that is that what he's
[ken ouellette]gonna try to say there in the book?
[Don Mespelt]Well, I think that's how I got it.
(17:24):
[Don Mespelt]I mean, you you develop you develop this
[Don Mespelt]sounds I'm sound like a motivational speaker, which
[Don Mespelt]I might add, do you know this was
[Don Mespelt]one of Jim Rohn's favorite books?
[ken ouellette]Oh, really?
[Don Mespelt]For those I mean, for those of you
[Don Mespelt]that don't know Jim, I mean, he's a
[Don Mespelt]motivational speaker from nineteen seventies, I wanna say.
[Don Mespelt]Well, no. And yeah. Oh, he is the
[Don Mespelt]man. But, yeah, it was one of his
[Don Mespelt]favorite ones, and he would actually, talk about
(17:45):
[Don Mespelt]it in some of the speeches just about
[Don Mespelt]how because it's so positive and it has
[Don Mespelt]there's nothing wrong. There's no bad advice in
[Don Mespelt]this book. Right. I mean, it doesn't say,
[Don Mespelt]like, you know, go out there, and and
[Don Mespelt]if you sleep upside down for five days
[Don Mespelt]in a row, you're gonna make money. It's
[Don Mespelt]like yeah. It's straightforward.
[ken ouellette]Very, very straightforward and very, very, principled advice.
(18:06):
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. So, I mean, you develop, as you're
[Don Mespelt]saying, that that that that I the the
[Don Mespelt]idea is kinda like when you start working
[Don Mespelt]out. At first, it sucks, but after a
[Don Mespelt]while, you get used to it, and you
[Don Mespelt]start building a little you feel them better,
[Don Mespelt]you feel them better, and it builds on
[Don Mespelt]it. And then you you actually feel like,
[Don Mespelt]oh, I'm gonna go do that again. You
[Don Mespelt]can't it motivates you to keep going forward.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. And that's what he's talking about. Akbar
[Don Mespelt]is trying to build them up, and he
(18:27):
[Don Mespelt]learns
[ken ouellette]that from the first guy. Yeah. And I
[ken ouellette]think, you know, Charlie Munger, who was, Warren
[ken ouellette]Buffett's partner for decades, who recently passed away
[ken ouellette]last year, he used to always say that
[ken ouellette]the the most difficult, process of investing is
[ken ouellette]getting to your first hundred thousand. Once you
[ken ouellette]get to your first hundred thousand, it it's
[ken ouellette]like you get momentum. You get confidence, and
[ken ouellette]you see the process. And so, he was
(18:49):
[ken ouellette]he was famous for saying that.
[Don Mespelt]What I find interesting about that is I
[Don Mespelt]don't even remember when that happened. I mean,
[Don Mespelt]because that's, like, you know, early early on.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. And it just kinda you know, I
[Don Mespelt]mean, for me, at least, I don't I
[Don Mespelt]never looked at it early on. It's only
[Don Mespelt]been as of late as I start actually
[Don Mespelt]thinking, can I actually retire when I start
[Don Mespelt]looking at it?
[ken ouellette]Well, you started to put these principles in
(19:10):
[ken ouellette]into effect without even really without knowing they
[ken ouellette]were principles. You were just doing it. And
[ken ouellette]all of that
[Don Mespelt]made me.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. That that's part of it. But
[ken ouellette]then also, you know, once when you're working,
[ken ouellette]your head's kinda down. As long as you
[ken ouellette]get the budgetary process down, you're just putting
[ken ouellette]the money in, and then all of a
[ken ouellette]sudden you're seeing it growing, and you're getting
[ken ouellette]confidence that this is gonna work out over
(19:30):
[ken ouellette]a thirty, forty year retirement. And then those
[ken ouellette]those kind of those those bellwether marks, the
[ken ouellette]hundred thousands, the million, they kind of fade.
[ken ouellette]Whereas if you're not if you if you're
[ken ouellette]not as experienced and you're trying to you'd
[ken ouellette]kinda hang on to those benchmarks.
[Don Mespelt]So I'm gonna lead into the the five
(19:53):
[Don Mespelt]laws of gold Okay. Which this is straightforward.
[Don Mespelt]And I'm gonna delete a little hit header
[Don Mespelt]on each. Gold cometh gladly and increasing quantity
[Don Mespelt]to any man who will put not less
[Don Mespelt]than one tenth of his earnings to to,
[Don Mespelt]create an estate for his future and that
[Don Mespelt]of his family. Jack. That's the one we
[Don Mespelt]just talked about. That was a beautiful one.
[Don Mespelt]The second law of gold. Gold laboreth diligently
(20:14):
[Don Mespelt]and contently for the wise owner who finds
[Don Mespelt]it for a profitable and joint employment, multiplying
[Don Mespelt]even as the flocks of the field.
[ken ouellette]Compounding? Yes. Yeah. Jack.
[Don Mespelt]Third law. Gold clingeth to the protection of
[Don Mespelt]the cautious owner who invested under the advice
[Don Mespelt]of men wise in its handling.
[ken ouellette]So be consistent in your investment process. Know
[ken ouellette]what you're doing. Buy good solid things that
(20:37):
[ken ouellette]are gonna just grow over time, and you're
[ken ouellette]not having to worry about bankruptcies, bad markets,
[ken ouellette]things of that nature making your gold or
[ken ouellette]your investment portfolio go away.
[Don Mespelt]The fourth law of gold. Gold slippeth away
[Don Mespelt]from the man who invested in the businesses
[Don Mespelt]or purposes for what she is not familiar
(20:57):
[Don Mespelt]or what she is not approved by those
[Don Mespelt]skilled in its keep.
[ken ouellette]Excellent. Stay in your lane, I call that.
[ken ouellette]So if you have and and, you know,
[ken ouellette]I can I can speak to myself? I
[ken ouellette]know dividend stocks and dividend investing. That's my
[ken ouellette]lane, and that's what I stay in. That's
[ken ouellette]what I know. And I tell my clients
[ken ouellette]if they wanna speculate, I'm not against that.
(21:19):
[ken ouellette]You know, there there's a certain portion of
[ken ouellette]money, but you'd have to either find somebody
[ken ouellette]that knows that area of technology stocks or,
[ken ouellette]commodities or things of that nature, which I
[ken ouellette]cannot speak wisely about.
[Don Mespelt]Uh-huh. The fifth law of gold. Gold flees
(21:39):
[Don Mespelt]the man who would force it it to
[Don Mespelt]impossible earnings or who fall with the alluring
[Don Mespelt]advice of tricksters or schemers or who trust
[Don Mespelt]it in his own inexperience and romantic desires
[Don Mespelt]in investment.
[ken ouellette]Boy, do I see this all the time.
[ken ouellette]I mean, I could go we could spend
[ken ouellette]an hour and a half of me counseling
[ken ouellette]clients that have come to me after chasing
(22:01):
[ken ouellette]some fad securities, or investment scheme that didn't
[ken ouellette]work out. And every single cycle has new
[ken ouellette]schemes. Every single one. It's repetitive. It's going
[ken ouellette]to go on forever. And, whether it be
[ken ouellette]in two thousand and eight when everybody was
[ken ouellette]buying homes, you know, on margin, on leverage,
(22:25):
[ken ouellette]assuming that the house values were gonna go
[ken ouellette]up forever, and they would have workshops about
[ken ouellette]real estate. It just goes on and on
[ken ouellette]and on, and the the dot coms of
[ken ouellette]the two thousand and two thousand, nineteen ninety
[ken ouellette]nineties. Yeah. You know, so what do we
[ken ouellette]have now? We've got we've got, you know,
(22:47):
[ken ouellette]gold is getting up there in in the
[ken ouellette]speculative area. You've got a lot of these
[ken ouellette]tech stocks that AI, you know, may has
[ken ouellette]that kind of that that Allure. Allure to
[ken ouellette]it. You know, easy, quick money. I'm going
[ken ouellette]to be able to make twenty percent a
[ken ouellette]year. As soon as you you start to
[ken ouellette]think that I can make that there was
[ken ouellette]an old saying we had. When you think
[ken ouellette]you've got the key to Wall Street figured
(23:09):
[ken ouellette]out, they always change the lock. I've
[Don Mespelt]seen that with an orangutan on the poster.
[ken ouellette]I thought I had all the questions, and
[ken ouellette]then they changed all the answers.
[Don Mespelt]I mean Yeah.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. That Yeah. You kinda feel like an
[ken ouellette]orangutan after that. Something like that happens. So
[ken ouellette]we wanna avoid that for sure. That's that's
[ken ouellette]good advice.
[Don Mespelt]One of the, second to last chapter of
[Don Mespelt]it is, the gold lender of Babylon, and
(23:32):
[Don Mespelt]I think this is kinda it's it's kinda
[Don Mespelt]awesome. Again, some guy makes a lot of
[Don Mespelt]money, and he goes over to this guy
[Don Mespelt]and says, hey. I see that you have
[Don Mespelt]a lot of money, and you're rich and
[Don Mespelt]stuff. And I just got this. What do
[Don Mespelt]I do with it? And, of course, he
[Don Mespelt]goes on the same things. How do he
[Don Mespelt]wants you to make your, you know, make
[Don Mespelt]your dollars, make your shekels bro, and will
[Don Mespelt]work for you kind of thing. Mhmm. And,
(23:53):
[Don Mespelt]he's like and he's like, woah. Does that
[Don Mespelt]mean I should help my, you know, my
[Don Mespelt]brother-in-law who needs this and stuff? And his
[Don Mespelt]quote for helping out family, which I shouldn't
[Don Mespelt]say family, family and friends. And in general,
[Don Mespelt]it's always, you know, do what you it's
[Don Mespelt]whatever. But, if you desire to help thy
[Don Mespelt]friend, do it in a way that will
[Don Mespelt]not bring the friend's burden upon thyself.
(24:13):
[ken ouellette]Oh, boy. That's a classic.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. That way, that I think you could
[Don Mespelt]do a book on that alone, can't you?
[ken ouellette]Yes. Yeah. And then so I think in
[ken ouellette]the last podcast, we talked about the client
[ken ouellette]who did the second wedding for forty five
[ken ouellette]thousand dollars. And I said, well, that's fine.
[ken ouellette]You can do that, but it it blows
[ken ouellette]up your plan a little bit of what
[ken ouellette]you've worked so hard for. So the daughter,
(24:36):
[ken ouellette]at some point when you're eighty, is going
[ken ouellette]to have to give that money back to
[ken ouellette]you. So I think that's the prudence that
[ken ouellette]he's talking about there. And we see this
[ken ouellette]too, like professional athletes. Right? They wanna buy
[ken ouellette]cars. They wanna buy their they've got a
[ken ouellette]lot of friends that they wanna try to
[ken ouellette]take care of, that they grew up with
[ken ouellette]or what have you, and they've come into
[ken ouellette]money quickly. They wanna buy their parents a
(24:57):
[ken ouellette]house, but then their career is relatively short,
[ken ouellette]and then all of that money is gone.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]You just have to do it in a
[Don Mespelt]way where it's not gonna hurt you in
[Don Mespelt]the long run.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. I always I always say exactly. So
[ken ouellette]whenever whenever somebody wants something like that, it's
[ken ouellette]gotta be something that won't affect the plan.
(25:18):
[ken ouellette]And then if they never pay you back,
[ken ouellette]it's it's not going to it's it's gonna
[ken ouellette]have zero emphasis on your long term strategy.
[Don Mespelt]So and and this is why the gold
[Don Mespelt]lender of Babylon is a very rich man
[Don Mespelt]because if he does loan something out to
[Don Mespelt]people, he says, I want something in return.
[Don Mespelt]Right. And that has to be something of
[Don Mespelt]value to the person. Otherwise, they're not gonna
(25:38):
[Don Mespelt]bother with it. Right. And so, he he
[Don Mespelt]goes off here and it's and he says
[Don Mespelt]this one person gave him a scarlet cloth,
[Don Mespelt]and he learned that one is, the bitter
[Don Mespelt]remorse, she threw herself into the Euphrates and
[Don Mespelt]killed herself, and the loans will never be
[Don Mespelt]repaid. And so everything he borrows from people,
[Don Mespelt]he puts into a chest, and he says,
[Don Mespelt]the chest tells you, Rodin, that was the
[Don Mespelt]name of the guy who came to him
[Don Mespelt]with a lot of money, that human in
(25:59):
[Don Mespelt]the throes of great emotions are not safe
[Don Mespelt]risks for the gold lender.
[ken ouellette]Wow. That's pretty profound. Human.
[Don Mespelt]I know it's nineteen twenty seven, this dude.
[Don Mespelt]Humans in the throes of great emotions are
[Don Mespelt]not a safe risk for the gold lender.
[Don Mespelt]That's true. Yeah. That's straightforward. I mean, it's
[Don Mespelt]just right up there. Yeah. So so he
(26:20):
[Don Mespelt]gives you a few other examples of, you
[Don Mespelt]know, how you shouldn't just loan to this
[Don Mespelt]from various people and stuff without having something
[Don Mespelt]that's meaningful that makes them gonna come back.
[Don Mespelt]And he also talks about this dude that
[Don Mespelt]he's grown to really like and the not
[Don Mespelt]like, but they've done a lot of work
[Don Mespelt]together, and he trusts them. And he doesn't
[Don Mespelt]even require him to give him anything in
[Don Mespelt]the in the future or for future loans
[Don Mespelt]because he shows a habit. He always repays
(26:41):
[Don Mespelt]them on time and early.
[ken ouellette]So, basically, I guess, he's speaking to prudence
[ken ouellette]there. Who's she? No. Prudence. I'm joking. Oh,
[ken ouellette]okay. Yeah. So be prudent in who you
[ken ouellette]you lend money out to. If it you
[ken ouellette]know, we we so I have historically, regardless
(27:02):
[ken ouellette]of if it's if it's friends or family,
[ken ouellette]I like to use an amortization chart, and
[ken ouellette]provide that just so there is a written
[ken ouellette]principal and interest payment that is done. We
[ken ouellette]recommend that to our clients, just because it
[ken ouellette]makes it official, and then there's no questions.
[ken ouellette]But, you know, that that is how we
(27:22):
[ken ouellette]we we attack that prudence.
[Don Mespelt]And the final chapter of the book, Ken,
[Don Mespelt]and it talks about how the, they find
[Don Mespelt]these clay tablets, and they start talking about
[Don Mespelt]them in in in college, not in college,
[Don Mespelt]but in the, in a archaeology kind of
[Don Mespelt]profession.
[ken ouellette]Mhmm.
[Don Mespelt]And, it's kinda hokey, but it just reiterates
[Don Mespelt]everything not hokey. It just reiterates everything that
(27:43):
[Don Mespelt]they've gone through in the book and and
[Don Mespelt]how they're transcribing and figuring it out. And
[Don Mespelt]the guy can't believe that this is actually
[Don Mespelt]written that many years ago. And he goes,
[Don Mespelt]I must live upon this portion and never
[Don Mespelt]use more nor buy what I may not
[Don Mespelt]pay for out of this portion. And it
[Don Mespelt]just it just talks about the pretty much
[Don Mespelt]the same thing we just talked about everything
[Don Mespelt]we've had here. One tenth I have set
[Don Mespelt]aside to keep my own. Seven tenths have
(28:04):
[Don Mespelt]I divided with my good wife to pay
[Don Mespelt]for our living, and two tenths have I
[Don Mespelt]divided among my creditors. It it's just kind
[Don Mespelt]of funny. He just kinda surmises the whole
[Don Mespelt]thing, and then it goes on to say
[Don Mespelt]the luckiest man in Babylon, talks about how
[Don Mespelt]he was once a slave to money and
[Don Mespelt]everything else and owed everyone in the world.
[Don Mespelt]And and then he goes off, and he
[Don Mespelt]actually becomes a slave because he he he
(28:25):
[Don Mespelt]does a bad deal with, some other guy
[Don Mespelt]doing running cattle. And Chris is not cattle,
[Don Mespelt]but he got me. Yeah. And, yeah. So
[Don Mespelt]he gets picked up as a slave and
[Don Mespelt]everything. And then finally, this person says, oh,
[Don Mespelt]you're good enough. You you know, go back.
[Don Mespelt]So he goes back to the town where
[Don Mespelt]he was there, and he pays back all
[Don Mespelt]of his creditors, builds up his whole his
[Don Mespelt]wife gets his wife back, everything. Great story.
[Don Mespelt]And it's kind of like the moral story
(28:46):
[Don Mespelt]is, you know, I mean, he is the
[Don Mespelt]luckiest man in Babylon because he was given
[Don Mespelt]a second chance to rebuild and pay, and
[Don Mespelt]and he became a person that everyone wanted
[Don Mespelt]him to be.
[ken ouellette]Right. And and he learned these principles, which
[ken ouellette]he can apply in his life, even though
[ken ouellette]he had that setback.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. Yeah. So I just this is the
[Don Mespelt]richest man at Babylon. Like you said, it's
(29:08):
[Don Mespelt]a hundred and sixteen or so pages. You
[Don Mespelt]know? And then I I highlighted it, so
[Don Mespelt]it probably took me an hour and a
[Don Mespelt]half. But the principles are here. And this
[Don Mespelt]is kinda one of those books that you
[Don Mespelt]can almost give to, you know, I mean,
[Don Mespelt]people that I love, younger kids, and just
[Don Mespelt]say, read this.
[ken ouellette]Right. And that's what somebody did for me.
[ken ouellette]And I think that's kind of a pass
[ken ouellette]down type of thing. And it can makes
(29:28):
[ken ouellette]these sometimes when you're when you talk about
[ken ouellette]financial things, you know, investments and, the process
[ken ouellette]and what you need to do, it because
[ken ouellette]it's got its own acronyms and its own
[ken ouellette]language, people tend to get a little overwhelmed
[ken ouellette]initially on it. And I think that this
[ken ouellette]book, because it puts it into these the
(29:50):
[ken ouellette]the parable type language, people can understand it,
[ken ouellette]and then they can apply it. And the
[ken ouellette]it really applies across the board to everybody,
[ken ouellette]and everybody should utilize these type of parables
[ken ouellette]and principles.
[Don Mespelt]Well, like I said, he was, wrote this
[Don Mespelt]right before the depression, And everyone, during depression,
[Don Mespelt]of course, was trying to figure out look
(30:11):
[Don Mespelt]for ways to they could help themselves to
[Don Mespelt]get out of this depression and get through
[Don Mespelt]it. And that was one of the things
[Don Mespelt]that actually made him famous because he actually
[Don Mespelt]survived it unlike his business. He, and another
[Don Mespelt]interesting point, he started a map company, and
[Don Mespelt]he was the first one to publish a
[Don Mespelt]road atlas, the United States and Canada.
[ken ouellette]Oh, that's true. Yeah.
[Don Mespelt]Yeah. So he's and then, and like I
(30:32):
[Don Mespelt]said, his businesses didn't survive. But that but
[Don Mespelt]this parable book and everything else, of course,
[Don Mespelt]through history, and and we're reading it right
[Don Mespelt]now. And he has the phrase, pay yourself
[Don Mespelt]first.
[ken ouellette]Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, for the listener
[ken ouellette]out there, this is a nice addendum to
[ken ouellette]to well, these podcasts, I think we we
[ken ouellette]try to cover almost every one of these
[ken ouellette]subjects, every time we there's a there's a
(30:56):
[ken ouellette]sprinkling of the richest man in Babylon, I
[ken ouellette]think, in every one of our podcasts that
[ken ouellette]we do because they're timeless. And so, you
[ken ouellette]know, we encourage anybody to pick up a
[ken ouellette]copy of this. I mean, you could buy
[ken ouellette]it on Amazon. I think it might even
[ken ouellette]be a free Kindle download. I don't know.
[ken ouellette]It's it's been around for so long, but,
[ken ouellette]you know, you could pick this thing up
[ken ouellette]for three bucks, I think, anywhere, and it'll.
(31:19):
[ken ouellette]It see? He's still working even since nineteen
[ken ouellette]twenty six.
[Don Mespelt]Yep.
[ken ouellette]That's awesome.
[Don Mespelt]Alright, Ken. Thank you for an enjoyable read,
[Don Mespelt]and thank you for recommending this. And taking
[Don Mespelt]your knowledge and spreading the wealth, thank you
[Don Mespelt]again. How do I get a hold of
[Don Mespelt]you?
[ken ouellette]Orca Wealth, o r c a w e
[ken ouellette]a l t h dot com. And as
(31:42):
[ken ouellette]always, my phone, seven two seven seven four
[ken ouellette]one six zero seven seven. Orca Wealth Management,
[ken ouellette]that is our landing site, our web page,
[ken ouellette]which, has the podcast, pertinent information on the
[ken ouellette]team that we have put in place. Seven
[ken ouellette]two seven seven four one six zero seven
[ken ouellette]seven. I can always be reached by phone.
(32:02):
[ken ouellette]And then, you know, grab a copy of
[ken ouellette]this book, and, let's have a conversation about
[ken ouellette]it.
[Don Mespelt]Yep. Akbar is awaiting you. Akbar. I didn't
[Don Mespelt]think I don't know if that's his name.
[Don Mespelt]But, Ahmed Akbar, it it was a a
[Don Mespelt]Babylonian ish type name.
[ken ouellette]Awesome. Yeah. Well, thanks for the day, Don.
[ken ouellette]I enjoyed it.
(32:22):
[Don Mespelt]I had a great time. Thank you, Ken,
[Don Mespelt]for bringing this book to my attention.
[ken ouellette]Alright. Till next time.
[Don Mespelt]Cheers. Bye.
[Don Mespelt]Thank you for listening to a life well
[Don Mespelt]lived. Grow, preserve, and transfer your wealth with
[Don Mespelt]Kinolett CPM. Click the subscribe button below to
[Don Mespelt]be notified when new episodes become available. The
(32:45):
[Don Mespelt]information covered and posted represents the views and
[Don Mespelt]opinions of the guest and does not necessarily
[Don Mespelt]represent the views or opinions of Orca Wealth
[Don Mespelt]Management LLC. The content has been made available
[Don Mespelt]for informational and educational purposes only. The content
[Don Mespelt]is not intended to be a substitute for
[Don Mespelt]professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of
[Don Mespelt]your financial adviser or other qualifying financial service
(33:06):
[Don Mespelt]provider with any questions you may have regarding
[Don Mespelt]your investment planning. Orca Wealth Management LLC does
[Don Mespelt]not provide legal or tax advice. Clients should
[Don Mespelt]seek the advice of a qualified attorney or
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