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

Chapter 8. The Eighth Commandment: Know Your Money

Your money is a quantifiable analog for your life force—the aggregate of your time, skills, experience, persistence, and relationships.

Fishing for salmon one summer in the spectacular Saanitch Inlet of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, taught me a useful lesson. After hooking what appeared to be a magnificent, large salmon, I began licking my lips in anticipation of a barbecued salmon dinner with my family that evening. My elderly guide interrupted my reverie by calmly saying, "You have lost him." Because I could feel the fish fighting my attempts to reel him in, I hastily assured my well-intentioned mentor that he was wrong.

With a jerk of his head, the guide indicated a large eagle sitting atop a tree on the shoreline about 20 or 30 yards away. "He's seen your fish," was all he said, as the eagle lazily spread his wings to their eight-foot wingspan and launched himself into the air. Within under a minute, during which time I was frantically winding in my line trying to outrace the eagle, the raptor effortlessly swooped down on my doomed salmon and with a lightening strike of his talons, scooped up the fish, ripped it off my hook, and returned to his perch on the tree to enjoy his dinner. Perhaps I imagined the mocking look he gave me every few minutes.

What did I learn? I absorbed a practical lesson, one that I had only known in theory up till that moment. I had always learned how important it was to have as much information as ...