Chapter Nine: What Is Our Relationship With Money?

I hope you are ready for the culmination! I like to finish strong! Potentially saving the best for last, I have a mysterious, auspicious, intangible, and crucial discussion in the next series of words and pages.

It is time to dive into our relationship with money. How we feel about its energy, its uses, and its purpose. And the best way is to reveal we still have tons of sayings, phrases, quotes, thoughts, and maybe even slogans that could hold us back from what we seek. You are reading this book because you want more money! The easiest way to begin accomplishing that goal is by changing the way we think about money, its flow, its energies. Because money is created - and if anything is created it has energy. And if we know the energy, we can attract it.

“Money is not that important.”

How about we just stop saying this altogether. There is no need to kid yourself. This is not a joke. Money is important. Money knows it’s important and it wants to be treated with respect and reverence.

Are you in a relationship with someone right now? (The answer is most likely a yes). Even if you are totally single, you probably still have children, pets, friends, loved ones you are in a relationship with someone, somewhere. Perhaps it is a platonic and not a romantic relationship, but I digress.

How would that individual feel if every so often you said out loud, “You aren’t that important to me?” I would imagine you likely would hurt their feelings pretty often. Eventually they would no longer want to be around you. Money is the same. It has an energy associated with it. If you think money is not important, you are sending out the vibes that you don’t like it and you don't want to spend time with it.

Money is so important! Have you tried living without the use of money at all? Can you imagine how tough that would be? And yet I hear this all the time. Someone will say to me, “Look, I know money isn’t that important, and I’m not trying to be greedy or anything, I would just love help growing my business.” One of my first replies is often, "Let’s work on your relationship with money first. You aren’t greedy, and money is important! That’s why you want to grow your business, because you want more money."

“No, I only want to help other people! I don’t care about money.”

“Then do it for free.”

“Well, then I wouldn’t be able to provide for my family. I need an income.”

“Sounds like you want to help tons of people AND make loads of money. Is that a bad thing?”

“Look, I’m not trying to be greedy… but yes, I would love more money.”

Can you see and almost feel that person's energy? They are almost shoving money away, giving it the cold shoulder. Embrace it. Understand if you do an incredible job at pretty much anything, you deserve to be rewarded for it.

That brings me back to my girl Roberta.

If you want more money, you have to accept your skills. You have to realize you can’t be a mother (or father) to all children. Mother Teresa didn’t help every single human on this earth, neither did Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad, Moses or Jesus Christ. Their calling wasn’t money related (but they did use money as a tool). Each figure knew how to appropriately ask for money, or create money or discuss money to simply use it for good.

If you are building something, a legacy perhaps, you will need certain tools. And one of those tools will be money. Roberta, if you are reading this, know that I love you dearly and I SEE your value! Go out and ask for it and know that you have put in the time, effort, skills and learning to receive fair compensation for what you do.

“Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.”

I love this one! There is some controversy over the origin of the phrase, however, this expression is most commonly attributed to Miguel Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote in 1605.

Ponder how this one saying - that vast droves of people use could impact your spending, saving, and growing. An example could be you say out loud to a friend “I really want to buy that house, but it will eat up my savings.” Some else’s answer to you: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It’s probably better to wait until you’ve saved a bit more.” This quote is one straight from the ideals of scarcity.

Although I fully understand its meaning and benefit, how about we dissect it some.

First, is it really all of your eggs? What if you had 10,000 currency units just sitting in a savings account, and an opportunity comes along that costs 10,000 of those currency units. Is this putting all of your eggs in one basket? We first must ask, what are the chances that you can lose the entire 10,000? Are you buying an asset or a liability?

Here are 2 more examples:

Consider you are a watch expert. You love watches. You study them, you know how to repair them, you know how they work, you know their history - watches are a deep and intimate passion of yours. You find a watch for sale by owner online and this watch is in pristine condition. The person is selling it because it was a gift given by an ex, and so they no longer want it. Sale price is 9,995, and you are wildly confident it can be sold for 14,000 currency units on another website. In fact, you pull up various examples of the same or similar watch on sale between 12,000 - 15,000.

You plan your worst case scenario: buy it for 9,995, but can’t sell it for a few weeks or months, hire a photographer to take great pictures of it, get it polished by the local jeweler - spend 200 to 400 for that and then sell it eventually for 10,000. So, you scratch essentially. Break even. BUT, you got some great pictures of you wearing a really nice watch out of the deal. Potentially, you even got to wear this watch playing poker with friends, or at a cigar lounge, or during a business deal. Someone noticed it and liked it, and asked you about it and made inquiries. You could have drummed up some business from wearing this watch!

That might have been a game changer. Maybe you felt more pride or a sense of accomplishment because of this singular watch and that helped you in your presentation. Whatever occurred, your worst case scenario wasn’t actually that bad.

On the flip side, let’s present a similar case study. Let's remove all that hard work and research that went into the purchase. You are walking through The Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas, and you spot a watch that just takes your breath away. So you buy it at retail - ouch. And then you proceed to show it off to everyone who is with you, bragging about how cool the watch is. You make sure everyone knows how much you spent on it, and then you drink to excess that night, blacking out - and you totally lose the watch without a shred of recollection as to where you lost said watch.

CLASSIC.

In both situations the same amount of coinage was spent. But one approach viewed the transition as an asset, and the other, a liability. It could have even been the same watch! The wild fact is, stories like this happen all the time. Similar route, but two different outcomes because of the focus.

I could reproduce the exact same examples above with cars, clothes, shoes, guns, furniture, stocks, bonds…just money in general. The more you know about something, the better chance you will make the right decisions with it. Which leads us back to ‘all of your eggs.’

The amount of times it will literally be every single ‘egg’ you own should be quite rare - and if it is all of your eggs,

GET MORE CHICKENS! For worse case scenario to actually fully play out, it’s often because someone tried to make a quick buck. I heard Gary Vaynerchuk tell a story about how a young man who was 19 came up to him and said, “Hey man, I lost $65,000 and now I have no money, what should I do?” And Gary (from his description of the story, sadly I wasn’t there) pauses for a moment and says, “What crazy cockamamie scam did you buy into trying to make a quick buck?”

“And the young guy laughed and said, "How did you know?"

And Gary said, "Because that’s the only way someone so young would lose so much money so quickly."

If we really think about that, how many risks have you taken where every dollar your owned was on the table, at risk, ready to be lost with one toss of dice, so to speak? [Or maybe literally.]

Mr. Rudyard Kipling in his poem IF said, "If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;"

I mean, people have been there!! It’s happened! It can occur! I wouldn’t personally advise in favor of gambling every single currency unit you can muster on a roll of dice, because the odds aren’t in your favor. That’s why gambling and investing in the stock market are different. If you take $100,000 and invest it into a well known, reputable company, versus putting in on black on the roulette table and the ball hits red, what’s going to happen? In gambling, the money is gone. Bye. See ya. Finished. Terminated. Over. Done. Wrecked.

But in the stock market, the stock could totally go down some without question - but is it going to hit $0.00 overnight? Or in one day? A large, reputable company? Like BP, or SalesForce, Amazon, Apple, JPMorgan? No. They will not go to zero overnight. I’ve actually never heard of an instance where in one swoop a stock goes from anything to just zero overnight. It at least takes days or weeks (depending of course on the price where you bought it). Anyway, that’s another discussion for another time. That is the huge difference between investing in the stock market and gambling - the control of risk.

Many people will feel like all of their eggs are being risked if they only have one stream of income, their JOB (just over broke). This is because if you lose that job, there is no more money coming in. I’ll tell you a fun story. I was spending time with a friend recently and we were chatting about his job, his future, and what impact he wants to have on the world.

He said, ‘I would love to quit my job, but I don’t have enough money saved up.’

And I said, ‘Well, how much do you have saved?’

His reply? account.’

‘About 6 months worth of bills in my savings

I was astounded! 6 months! That’s amazing! So, you're telling me, you could quit right now and still pay each bill you have for 6 months.

He smiled sheepishly, knowing where I was headed.

‘And all of the money you have saved up is in your savings account?’

‘No, I also have about 20,000 in my 401k.’

‘If you had to, how long would that cover the bills?’

‘At least another 6 months’.

‘WOW! So you have an entire year of bills saved up?’

‘Yeah, I guess I do. Huh, I never did the math.’

‘When are you going to give your 2 weeks' notice then?’

He laughed really hard and said ‘once I figure out exactly what I am going to do instead.’

I said, ’That’s fair.’

Why do I bring that up?

Without bringing too much theology into the picture or massive speculation about simulations, we are alive right now, and this is likely our one shot to consciously be alive. If you are doing something that is not fulfilling and exciting, change roles! Find alternate paths!

Let's make sure we understand a few key facts before moving forward:

• You can acquire more chickens to produce more eggs.
• Even if it is ‘all of your eggs’ in one basket, you can build certain devices to protect those eggs from breaking if you do accidentally drop the basket.
• You can build a really sturdy basket in case it is dropped. So, your eggs are fine. When you were ever in elementary school, did you have the science fair contest thing that required you to build a contraption that you placed an egg in, and then drop it from a high distance and see if your egg was protected? Yeah, I won that contest. Ever since then, I’ve had no fear of my eggs breaking.

Also realize, those who ‘make it’ financially in life usually placed copious amounts of their ‘eggs’ into one singular basket. Eggs in this situation could be time spent in a career field, time spent learning a craft, or currency placed in a safe investment vehicle. Mostly, it will boil down to the proper understanding and mastery of a specific subject, skill set, sector, or asset. Which, as we mentioned in a previous chapter, could be anything.

Debt is bad.

I love this one, simply because it’s so poignant and succinct. It doesn’t give us much information. This becomes a phrase that we all live by without much additional information.

Some debt can be bad, yes. The debt most people have is bad. Credit card debt can certainly and often times be bad, because the interest rates are so high. However, some debt is excellent! And this is what we must learn to have a proper relationship with money.

I am actually going to continue my story from above. This gentleman later mentioned he would like to flip houses, but didn’t have enough money. To which I asked,

“How much money do you need to flip a house?”

And he said, "I’m not really sure, a hundred thousand dollars probably."

“A good guess for sure. It would certainly depend on the house. What I know for sure to be true is, you can buy a house with only 20% down. You do not need to buy the entire house in cash. There are different ways to do it of course, but if you buy a $200,000 home to do a flip, you would only need $40,000 down. And then from there, you have the cost of hiring out labor, materials, holding costs, and utilities, along with other items to complete the flip, which could be another $30,000. These are just rough estimates. Totally spitballing here, but that would be, what, $70,000?”

“Yep. Well, see, I don’t have $70,000.”

“You are close! You have $20,000 in savings and $20,000 in your 401k. That’s $40,000. Do you have any other money anywhere else? Remember, it grows on trees?”

He smiled. “I mean, I have equity in my house.”

“WHAT?! You have equity in your home? How much?”

“About $70,000.”

Hold up. Let’s first define equity. JUST in case, because why not. If one person learns something new from this following sentence, my mission is fulfilled.

Most commonly, equity means the difference between assets and liabilities. If a person owns a home worth $300,000 and they only owe $200,000 to the bank, that’s 300,000 200,000 = 100,000 of equity. AKA money, currency, greenbacks and skrill.

So, my friend owed about $230,000 on his home but fair market value is worth about $300,000.

Anyway, picking back up at the tail end of our conversation:

“DUDE!”

“Yeah, but I can’t touch the equity in my home, what if I lose it?”

This is a great question! Very valid for him to ask. What if he loses the equity in his home? Everyone is always told, ‘never mess with the equity in your home.’

That is simply because large percentages of people do really stupid things with this money. They buy liabilities and not assets. People will buy boats, expensive cars, high end jewelry, items that usually bring in very little return. [We actually will be addressing this next.]

The residual fears begin to take over, and money is just left sitting on the proverbial table. Money loves to work! That’s one of its favorite things to do. You must love your money and let it do what it loves doing - going out and returning to you with friends.

Therefore, learning how to use a HELOC (home equity line of credit) properly and profitably is something to embrace, rather than fear.

But a HELOC is expensive.

Ehhhh, not really. Sure, banks want to make money. Right now, towards the end of 2018, in the US, HELOC rates are around 4-6% depending on where you go. You can lock in a fixed rate HELOC and use this tool for so many possibilities.

Let’s break down the numbers. If you pay 6% simple interest on a HELOC annually, that’s $6,000 for every $100,000 borrowed. If you can make more than the 6 grand each year, it becomes a profitable endeavor.

The other exciting news: Loads of humans have equity in their home! This presents wonderful opportunities! Investing in real estate, businesses, franchises, or stocks all become a viable direction to walk in.

Aside from that, most countries have piles of debt, and almost every company has some form of debt. Debt fuels growth! Debt is extremely important, and if it is financed properly it can help surge performance.

Simply stated, there is no need to fear debt. The best debt is the kind that can be paid for easily while it generates more money and more growth. Embrace the ability to understand debt - to know how it works and how it’s used. To get some wonderful information on this subject, go watch this YouTube video right now: How the Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio. He discusses debt, credit, and how both are tied together and used to generate growth cycles along with recessive cycles. Solid video! Certainly worth checking out.

Who wants to be filthy rich?

Whoa! Wait just a few minutes. Why is getting rich, filthy? One of the first instances when I brought up the idea of this book in a public setting was while eating crab legs whilst sipping on a Pina Colada at Monty’s Raw Bar in Miami, FL. It was a humble setting, eight or so excited clients were all chatting away and enjoying some apps. When I brought up the ‘idea’ about this book I asked, “What do you all think the hardest part of getting wealthy is?”

The first answer was from Joe. And he said in a very bohemian way, “It all starts in your mind man. It’s all about the thoughts in our brain and what we believe.”

To which I replied “YES!!”

Then Joe went on to give an elaborate and in-depth discussion on his beliefs, his mental limitations and his thoughts. One of my takeaways was his feelings of disdain towards the term ‘filthy rich’. He mentioned a couple of times how he did not like this term and he didn’t want to be viewed as a filthy person. And who does? This just happens to be, yet another seemingly innocent mental barrier that will hold millions of people back from achieving financial riches.

Because very few, if any want to be perceived as nasty, muddy, obscene, soiled, crummy, disheveled, slimy, unclean and unkempt. All synonyms for the term filthy.

I googled the origination of the phrase. This was really fun. One of the first things that popped up was “What's the meaning of the phrase 'Filthy rich’? Very rich, possibly having become so by unfair means.”

I laughed at the word ‘possibly’. Which word is stronger, possibly or probably? My answer is ‘probably’ means it is probable. A greater than 50/50 chance of happening. An example would be I will probably consume a chocolate milkshake by the end of the week. [Moment of vulnerability here, that’s 100% going to happen.]

The reason I am making a deal over this, it seems to me like someone was simply sour. ‘Possibly becoming rich by unfair means’… what’s unfair anyway? The entire sentence is dripping with subconscious belief that getting rich is possible without cheating someone.

And then the article went on to say filthy rich “can't be explained without looking at the word lucre. From the 14th century lucre has meant money and is referred to as such by no less writers than Chaucer and John Wyclif. These references generally included a negative connotation and gave rise to the terms "foul lucre" and "filthy lucre", which have been in use since the 16th century. "Filthy lucre" appears first in print in 1526 in the works of William Tindale:

"Teachinge thinges which they ought not, because of filthy lucre."

Tindale was here using the term to mean dishonorable gain.

Following on the the term "filthy lucre", money became known by the slang term "the filthy", and it isn't a great leap from there to the rich being called the "filthy rich". “

And there we have it, 500 years of a slow and trepidatious mind mold that began to alter the beliefs and thoughts of our ancestors. Maybe I’m being to dramatic? Or am I spot on? Either way, it’s a real thing! The fear of becoming filthy rich… an unconscious blockade that impedes hundreds of millions of us on this earth from obtaining our deepest financial desires.

I implore you to explore your thoughts and feelings on the term filthy rich. Is it possible or probable that becoming ‘filthy’ in the eyes of your friends or family is holding you back? Do you believe, somewhere in the deep caverns of your mind, this idea might be keeping your financially grounded? Or what about this very common belief and teaching?

Cars are Bad Investments

This is a fun one for me to attempt to tackle. I’m actually not really a car guy, but maybe it’s a limiting belief I have. One thing I would challenge you to do is to still ask yourself this question: “How can I make this into an asset, rather than just a liability?” Feel free to use those words. It brings more validity to your brain. If you are about to buy something, anything, ask yourself how it can be used as an asset. "How can this make me money?"

If you are buying a car, boat, house, bed, coffee table, or TV set, ask the question, "How can this make me money?” Then, really think through it. If you can not come up with one singular reason why or how something will make you money, do not buy it.

Here is an example:

A new bed. Why should anyone spend money on a new bed? A new bed means better sleep. Resting more soundly

172 refreshes the soul. Sleep is good! If you are a human, you need sleep. That is a pretty basic fact. If you sleep better and get more rest, you are a better version of yourself, and likely, you will be able to make more money. You will work better, sell more effectively, think more clearly and sharply, remember more, and wake up ready to tackle the world!

This line of thinking can work with just about any purchase, and it gives you credence for your purchases. It helps you care more about some of your items and also helps you remove items. If you find certain items in your life that bring in very little value or actually cost you money, get rid of them.

Cars are certainly a depreciating asset, there’s no argument there. But if you buy the right car at the right time, the deprecation has already occurred. Without getting into the discussion of what the future holds for transportation, it is obvious that humans need to get from point A to point B safely. I personally feel we have another 200 to 300 years before teleportation becomes a ‘thing,’ if ever. I know in major cities, humans can easily travel without the use of a personal vehicle. Their money is spent on Ubers, taxis, subways, trains, and other mass transit. Fact is, it will cost money to travel.

But if your car brings you more joy and happiness in life, and it’s a peaceful environment where you enjoy serenity and it makes you feel better, it’s a good investment. If the car runs well, is well maintained, clean, suitable and you enjoy it, swell job!

The issue is that the average American spends 9 hours in their car a week (thanks to a random stat I just made up), but they hate their cars. They are messy trash heaps which barely run, tires are always flat, the engine barely cranks, the serpentine belt makes that awful sound, and it’s just an energy suck.

It's super important to remember how powerful our subconscious mind is. What you tell it, what you believe, or what you were told to believe all starts at a young age. We have the ability to rewire our subconscious minds and reprogram our energies and thoughts. Henry Ford was quoted to say, “He who thinks he can and he who thinks he can’t are both right.”

At some point, my friends, the belief has to be there. The doubt has to be killed, the path has to be formed and walked upon. The more we carve out these paths in our minds, it becomes easier and easier to approach the next obstacle, hurdle, challenge and pathless Amazonian rainforest that lies before us.

Repeat to yourself each day that money does grow on trees. Repeat how much you love money. Repeat that it’s okay to love money, to love growth, to be addicted to success! It’s perfectly reasonable to help others grow and get rewarded for that! Repeat to yourself each day that it’s our resourcefulness that will acquire what we seek, because the resources are always there!

If you treat money as an energy, as something that has actual feelings, you will notice your level of interaction with it will substantially transform!

We know that apples have seeds, yes? And when the apples fall onto the ground, bugs and other critters eat those apples, eventually spreading the seeds into different locations. All plants want to grow, expand and reproduce. Same as humans. This is the cycle of life - and if an apple tree wants to grow, then so does your money!

Money wants to be loved, cared for, and protected - and it also wants to grow. It doesn’t want to be spent on frivolous things. Money yearns to be spent on items, trips, vacations, journeys, memories, and experiences that make your life better!

When you begin to do this, you will make your brain happy. And any time your brain is happy, it will do its best to replicate that feeling by any means necessary. Rely on your brain. It will be your most powerful tool for growth, success, wealth, and prosperity!

Thank you for reading, and I truly hope your life will forever be impacted and enriched!