Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money, Second Edition

Foreword

I didn't grow up as a rich kid, but I did grow up as a business kid. My father had this fantastic entrepreneurial attitude, and he taught me about goal setting, hard work, and focused intensity. I remember going up to him one summer when I was 12 and saying, "Dad, I need some money."

He replied, "You're 12 years old. You don't need money, what you need is a job!"

So, I got to learn about cutting grass that summer. More than that, I learned about setting goals, marketing, and determination. I printed up business cards and built up quite the little enterprise.

The most important business lesson my dad taught me was that money comes from work. Don't talk to me about what you deserve or what you're entitled to. No one is going to hand you anything. This has been true since the beginning of time: You've got to leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home. Then it's yours.

I'm grateful to my dad for teaching me that lesson from an early age, especially since it's an attitude I don't see much anymore. Thomas Edison said it pretty well: "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." More and more, it seems like people want wealth, but they don't want to work for it. They need a shot in the arm, a call back to the virtue, ethics, morality, and importance of business.

And that, my friend, is why I love this book.

I didn't know of Rabbi Lapin until a friend gave me a copy of Thou Shall Prosper in a men's Bible study group a couple of years ...