Fellas,

The Richest Man in Babylon is a book best known for its lessons on money, wealth, and financial habits, but what draws me to it is the way it teaches them. It gets into economics, psychology, discipline, growth, decision-making; a lot of things we already know but told through stories set in ancient Babylon.

Somehow, when something is wrapped in a story, you see it differently.

One of the main characters is Arkad, a man who became known as the richest man in Babylon. In one chapter, a group of men sit with him discussing luck; why opportunity seems to find some men and pass over others.

That’s when an elderly merchant begins telling a story. He explained, when he was still a young man and newly married, his father had come to him with an opportunity.

His father wanted him to join twelve men investing in land outside Babylon. He had made mistakes with money in his own life and saw an opportunity for his son to begin differently.

Start now, he told him. Put aside part of what you earn. Let it begin working for you while you’re still young.

The son agreed with him. He didn’t think his father was wrong. He understood the opportunity. He wanted wealth. He had the money. He could have done it. He just didn’t.

Not yet.

There were other things he wanted. Beautiful robes had recently arrived from traders in the East. He and his wife wanted them. There were pleasures they would have to give up if ten percent of his earnings suddenly started going somewhere else.

And besides, he was young. There would be other opportunities. There was time. So he waited. And eventually the decision was made for him. The opportunity disappeared.

The project went forward without him and became more profitable than anyone involved had predicted. Years later, standing before Arkad and the other men, he could see exactly what had happened.

Nobody stole the opportunity from him. He hadn’t lacked the money. He hadn’t misunderstood the investment. He hesitated until there was nothing left to hesitate over. A Syrian listening to the story stood up and asked the men for a word.

What do you call a man who keeps putting off something that would be good for him? Someone in the room answered.

Procrastinator.

The men laughed.

The merchant laughed too. Because years later, the truth was obvious. Although it probably wasn’t funny when he was living it.

I know something about that. When I first started writing, I hesitated.

A lot.

I needed a website.

I needed to find the right platform to publish and send the newsletter because I couldn’t realistically manage all of that by hand.

I needed to finish my writing class. I needed to write more because, even though I had written before, I was rusty.

I needed to figure out advertising.

I needed social media.

I needed people following me on Instagram and Facebook so they could eventually find their way into the newsletter.

I needed a funnel.

I needed the site ready in case somebody read something I wrote, loved it, and went looking for more.

Every reason sounded responsible. Strategic, even. In my head, I wasn’t procrastinating. I was building infrastructure. Then my teacher basically told me, publish it to nobody.

So I did.

That was it.

No big audience. No perfect website. No elaborate launch.

A lot of preparation can look intelligent while still protecting you from the thing you’re actually afraid to do.

But underneath it was something else. As long as the ideas stayed in my head, they could still be good. Really good. Maybe even great.

Nobody could tell me otherwise because nobody could see them. The second I put them on paper, that changed.

Now somebody could read them and misunderstand them. Now somebody could think they were terrible.

That possibility is uncomfortable. There was another possibility that was uncomfortable too.

What if it worked?

Success asks things from you.

Now you have to do it again. Now people expect something. Now the little idea becomes a responsibility. Now there are readers waiting.

Deadlines.

Standards.

Expectations.

Decisions.

The thing you once dreamed about doing becomes something you have to show up for. There is a strange safety in almost doing something.

You get to keep the dream without accepting the consequences of finding out what happens. The work wasn’t always the thing I was avoiding.

Sometimes it was the feeling attached to the work. That distinction changed the way I looked at procrastination. Because if I decided the problem was simply that I was lazy, then the answer was obvious.

Get serious. Work harder. Stop making excuses. Man up. Force yourself.

And sometimes force works. For a while. But if the thing underneath the hesitation is uncertainty, perfectionism, or the possibility of being judged, attacking yourself doesn’t remove the obstacle.

It adds another one. Now you’re afraid of doing the thing and disappointed in yourself for not doing it. That’s a bad combination.

So eventually I had to ask myself a different question. And if there’s something you’ve been sitting on for too long, I think it’s worth asking yourself too:

What am I protecting myself from by not beginning?

Some things need planning. Some decisions deserve time. But there is a difference between preparation and hiding. And deep down, most of us know the difference. Preparation produces movement.

You research, practice, make calls, test things. Something changes.

Hiding produces repetition. You think about the same thing over and over. You reorganize the plan. You wait for one more condition to change.

You watch other people doing the thing. You imagine yourself doing it.

Delay has a cost.

Not always immediately. Nothing terrible happens today. That’s why it’s so easy to tolerate.

You don’t start the thing you’ve been dreaming about, and Monday still arrives. The cost hides itself. Until enough Mondays pass.

Then one day you look backward and realize you weren’t postponing a task. You were postponing a life.

Your child usually sees you as the person who knows. You know how to drive. You know how to pay bills. You know where things are.

You know what to do when something breaks. Even when you don’t know, they often assume you do. Then one day they see you try something unfamiliar. You’re bad at it. You struggle. You make mistakes. You keep going.

That teaches them something advice never could. Imagine your kid watching you learn guitar at forty-seven. You sound terrible. Six months later, you can play three songs. A year later, maybe you’re sitting in the living room playing something your daughter recognizes.

She doesn’t just see music. She sees evidence. She sees what repetition does. She sees that adulthood does not mean your curiosity dies.

And maybe one day you’ll sit in their house, watching them do some version of it with their own children.

A little different. A little better. And you’ll recognize it. Not because they copied you.

Because you gave them somewhere to begin.

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