The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant: Principles for Successful Living | Terry Felber

The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant: Principles for Successful Living | Terry Felber | Life's Lessons

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The Legend of the ...

	The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant: Principles for Successful Living Terry Felber Thomas Nelson, 2005 - 160 pages average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A fantastic adventure of personal growth - set in 16th century Italy. Readers will meet and join young Julio, who is taken on a quest into adulthood - as his grandfather reveals mysterious family secrets.

Woven through the story are 12 principles of success including:

Work Hard and God will Prosper You Be Meek Before God, but Bold Before Men Live Debt-Free and Below Your Means Set Aside the First 10% to Honor God

The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant will change the way you think about your career, wealth, and success.

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A Lifetime of Lessons

There is a delicate balance in life between our business life and our spiritual life. If you're looking for a self-help book on maintaining that balance, you'll love THE LEGEND OF THE MONK AND THE MERCHANT by Terry Felber. This brief 140-page book is a very quick read and covers twelve principles for successful living.

The story centers on a grandfather passing on a lifetime of knowledge to his grandson during a trip to Rome. The grandfather relays the story of how he was raised as an orphan by the monk who found him and the merchant who taught him so many of life's most important lessons. Follow his journey through life as he makes his decision to become a merchant rather than a monk, begins his business career and is taught the twelve principles by his merchant `father'. The book kind of has a "Rich Dad Poor Dad" feel to it, only set in ancient Rome and focuses far more on the spiritual aspect of life.

As a minister, the thing I appreciated most about this book is Felber's clear explanation of a few Biblical passages that get commonly misconstrued. Two passages in particular, Luke 18:25, "easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God" and also Matthew 5:5, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth".

The book contains valuable principles and is a very fun read. Highly recommended.

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Life's Lessons

What a gem of a book! If you would like to be a good employee, a good student, a good parent, or a good person, then read this book. There are so many jewels to be had with this book. My advice is to take it slowly because I wanted to read this book so quickly. I didn't want to put it down! Enjoy...

forgotten by many

If you want to know how to succeed in your personal life and have it impact the rest of your life, this is the book for you. Very quick read, very interesting-learning about values and how to be a honest, good person. this book will insturct you in how to be a good friend, co-worker, boss, wherever you are in life. I am glad I finally read it.

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A fable to live by

I've been a listener of Dave Ramsey's radio show for a long time, and this book embodies his principles in a short fable format. The fable itself was well-written and enjoyable...a grandfather passing on his knowledge of scripture and business sense on to his grandson. In the back of the book, the actual Biblical references are listed. I think these principles would apply even if one wasn't a person of faith. It's common sense advice that anyone could use and apply to his/her life. It was definitely worth reading for the hour or so it took to finish.

Good lessons, could have had better historical accuracy

Overall, the "Legend of the Monk and the Merchant" is a good book to read and it offers great lessons. The book was different than what I was expecting, and there were several annoying historical errors, but that didn't take away from the good message of the book as a whole.

Because of the book's title ("Monk and Merchant"), I was expecting it to go more in depth into how faith-based organizations and non-profits work with money. While they touched on issues related to this, this was not a consistant theme in the book. While the young businesmess in the book does in fact come into contact with religious organizations and they address giving money to those organizations, the book does not directly address how money ought to be handled within those organizations.

I wish the author had taken more time to research St. Peter's Basilica before writing this book. To his credit, he does provide several factual nuggets about the basilica that I appreciated, but he could have gone further with some simple fact-checking. While I understand historical accuracy was not his main intention in his message, it would have provided a better environment. Even though I know the book is a "legend," it's still easier for the message to sink in when the setting is supported by fact. Here are a few of the things that bugged me throughout the book:
- St. Peter's is NOT a cathedral; it is a basilica (the cathedral in Rome is the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran).
- St. Peter's does not have stained glass (it has one colored window made of layered sheets of alabaster, but no stained glass).
- St. Peter's does not have an eastern collonade (look at a map).
- You cannot see the sun setting when sitting on the steps of St. Peter's (while I admit it is glorious to watch the sun set behind St. Peter's, I would recommend standing on the other side of the piazza, facing the basilica).
- I have never heard of anyone going to receive "the elements" when they go to communion.

Overall I would recommend it to a friend who is going into business and wanted simple perspective for blending business life and faith life.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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