Busting Loose From the Money Game E-Book

Robert Scheinfeld

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 374

Beschreibung

Real people, real transformations! "Absolutely amazing! It completely shifts your paradigm for life. One of the most wonderful things about it is that the results are immediate. My whole perception and relationship to money has undergone a major, substantial change." --Chris Attwood, writer and teacher, California "I've spent most of my life trying to figure out what's true and what's real. I have to say I now have a clear glimpse into what it really is." --Tom Hill, Colorado "Before Busting Loose From the Money Game, I was very unhappy and frustrated in my life. I was driven to find more ways to make money. I changed jobs, cities, countries, went back to school, read books. Financially, the stress was causing anxiety attacks and migraines so severe I stayed in bed. The joy I feel now is priceless. Money is there when I need it, in the amount that's needed, no matter what occurs (car repairs, unplanned trips, etc.). It's absolutely amazing!" --Suresh Thakoor, Texas "As a retired professor on a fixed and limited income, I always lived from a tight budget and felt compressed by it-especially at the end of the year. I don't use a budget anymore and have opened up new streams of income that were always closed to me in the past." --Howard Rovics, Connecticut "It opened a whole new dimension for me and shifted my perspective on life completely. I especially love how practical it is. The application is so simple, so effective . . . and fun!" --Doris Kahle, Hagen, Germany "I'd had a lot of success in the corporate arena, made a ridiculous amount of money and lost a ridiculous amount of money. But I was caught in a cycle of making it, losing it. I needed to break that cycle-for myself and my family-and this gave me the keys to do that. Busting Loose From the Money Game opened a window I had no clue even existed. This is very cutting-edge, a revolutionary approach to unwrapping yourself from limitations. If you're not satisfied with where you are financially and you're concerned about your future, get this book!" --Ben Coleman, Texas

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 - The Rules of the Game

CHAPTER 2 - The Three Haunting Questions

Who Am I?

Why Am I Here?

What’s My Purpose?

Phase 1

Phase 2

CHAPTER 3 - Leaving Hollywood in the Dust

CHAPTER 4 - The White Knight Comes Riding In

CHAPTER 5 - How Money Really Gets Created

CHAPTER 6 - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Reflection

Knowledge, Wisdom, and Insight

Setting Things into Motion

CHAPTER 7 - Turning on Your X-Ray Vision

There’s a Limited Supply of Money Available to You and/or the World

Money Moves

You Must Add More Value or Work Harder or Smarter to Increase Your Money Supply

CHAPTER 8 - The Treasure Hunt of the Century

How You Reclaim Power

CHAPTER 9 - Jumping into the Driver’s Seat

Expressing Appreciation

How to Express Appreciation instead of Pay Bills

CHAPTER 10 - Putting Your Foot on the Gas

An Overview of The Process

Step 1: Dive Right Smack into the Middle of It

Step 2: Feel the Discomfort Energy Fully

Step 3: When It Reaches a Peak of Intensity, Tell The Truth about It

Step 4: Reclaim Your Power from It

Step 5: Open Up More and More to Who You Really Are

Step 6: Express Appreciation

Making It Work

Tool 3: The Mini-Process

Tool 5: Empowering Vocabulary and Self-Talk

CHAPTER 11 - Busting Loose

What to Expect in Phase 2

CHAPTER 12 - Postcards from the Road

CHAPTER 13 - Playing without Limits or Restrictions

CHAPTER 14 - The Dialogues

CHAPTER 15 - The Invitations

Patience

Remember

Trust

Appreciate

Expansion

APPENDIX - Adding Fuel to the Fire

NOTES

Copyright © 2006 by Robert Scheinfeld. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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ISBN-13: 978-0-470-04749-1

FOREWORD

Throughout history, across ages and generations, there have been beliefs and assumptions that people of the time accepted as true and never questioned for their ultimate truthfulness or accuracy.

Then, later in history, it turned out many of those beliefs and assumptions weren’t true, so people had to revise their views of the world and adopt a new set of beliefs and assumptions.

For example, there was a time when people thought the world was flat. But we later found out that was wrong.

There was a time when people thought the Earth was at the very center of the Universe and everything else revolved around us. But we later found out that was wrong, too.

If you study the history of the medical profession, you find all kinds of beliefs and assumptions about how the body works, what disease is, and how to heal the body that we later found out were false.

If you study science, whatever branch you choose—physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and so on—you see the same pattern repeating. You see a stream of beliefs, assumptions, and models scientists were once absolutely certain were truthful and accurate, but which later turned out to be false. As a result, scientists constantly revise their theories and models.

So presumably, if history is any guide, most of what we take for granted about the world simply isn’t true. But in any given age or generation, we get so locked into the prevailing beliefs and assumptions (without even realizing it) that we often blind ourselves to The Truth.

One of the largest sets of beliefs and assumptions we’ve all accepted as true and never questioned is what Bob calls The Money Game. The beliefs and assumptions underlying The Money Game have been in place for as long as there has been money. In fact, they may have survived—fully intact—longer than any other set of beliefs and assumptions in history. You could say The Money Game has been something of a sacred cow.

In Chapter 1, Bob discusses the beliefs, assumptions, rules, and regulations underlying The Money Game. As you participate in that discussion, it will seem perfectly normal and reasonable to believe they’re all truthful and accurate. “Of course that’s how it works,” you’ll probably say to yourself.

However, as you’ll soon see, none of the rules and regulations you’ve been taught about The Money Game, and none of the beliefs and assumptions underlying those rules and regulations are true—no matter how natural, logical, or reasonable they may seem at first blush.

I’ve spent most of my life playing The Money Game. In fact, I started playing it at the age of 10 when I began a newspaper route in my neighborhood. Six months later, I began pumping spring water into gallon jugs at a nearby park and delivered the water to the homes of neighbors in my wagon.

I later became a masterful player of The Money Game. However, as Bob says, “No matter how well you play it, and no matter how much money you pile up as you play, there’s always a major price to pay in the form of stress, anxiety, pain, loss of something else that’s important to you, or disillusionment—if you play according to the rules, regulations, and structure you’re taught growing up.”

In my own life, despite numerous achievements I’m very proud of, like the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series having sold 100 million copies in 41 languages around the world, a Guinness book world record, and numerous honors and awards, and despite being able to accumulate lots of money, I always did pay a big price, like the many times I spent six or more tiring months on the road, away from family and friends, launching a new book series or other project.

As a result, like Bob and so many others, the better I got at playing The Money Game, the more I noticed a growing desire to find a new way of playing and a new set of rules that would still enable me to create and experience abundance, but also empower me to wrap it up in a decidedly different package—with zero price to pay!

When the time comes for an old set of beliefs and assumptions to give way to a new one, it always starts out with a single individual saying “No, that’s not right. This is what’s true.” Invariably, that individual is resisted, criticized, even attacked viciously. But a few people still listen and see The Truth, then a few more, then a few more, until it reaches a critical mass. Then the old way of thinking collapses and the new way of thinking explodes into mass consciousness.

My prediction is that the transformational insights and Busting Loose Process you’re about to discover will be the start of a revolution that ultimately collapses the old beliefs and assumptions about abundance and The Money Game and creates a worldwide explosion of new possibility and opportunity.

Interestingly enough, although Bob is a lone voice speaking about a new Truth at the moment, he’s not being resisted, criticized, or attacked. Quite the contrary. People all over the world are resonating with his message of an alternative to the traditional Money Game and joyously exploring a new way of creating and experiencing total abundance.

Have you ever said words like these to yourself: “I wish someone had told me that a long time ago?” If so, you know what it’s like to discover something that radically changes your life in the blink of an eye. As you prepare to read this book, take a deep breath, buckle your seatbelt, and get ready to blink!

JACK CANFIELD, CEO Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises; co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series; co-author of The Success Principles™: How to Getfrom Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book could never have been written without the help, influence, and inspiration of many people. It’s not possible to thank everyone who contributes to a work of this scope, but I’d like to make special mention of a number of people.

First, I’d like to express my appreciation for my good friend and mentor B. W., a master player of The Human Game who took me under his wing and supported me brilliantly, beautifully, and magnificently as I moved deeper and deeper into Phase 2. He’s an intensely private man and per our agreement, I’m keeping his identity private. However, I could not write this book without acknowledging his contributions to me and what you’ll discover in the pages that follow.

Second, words can’t possibly express the appreciation I feel for Arnold Patent who reminded me of many extremely powerful puzzle pieces and supported me so beautifully in opening up to who I really am. Arnold, I’ll be eternally grateful!

I’d also like to express my appreciation for my friend Dr. John Demartini who helped open my eyes and primed the pump for my understanding of many of the scientific insights I share with you.

I’d also like to express my appreciation for Amit Goswami, Lynn McTaggart, and Michael Talbot for the puzzle pieces they gave me through their books and the clarity those puzzle pieces helped me reach.

Special thanks must also go to my good friend Dale Novak who did the beautiful illustrations you’ll see throughout the book, and Vaughan Davidson, designer extraordinaire, for designing the big, bold, bright image that visually depicts Busting Loose from The Money Game on the cover of this book and on my Busting Loose web sites. If you like his style and need help with covers of any kind or web site design work, you can contact Vaughan at [email protected].

I must also express my tremendous appreciation to my editor, Richard Narramore, at Wiley for believing in me, believing in this project, getting it approved, and helping me carve the creation you’re about to experience.

Finally, I can’t utter the word inspiration without simultaneously mentioning “Beauty” (my wife Cecily) and my two kids, Ali and Aidan, who inspire me on a daily basis and support me so perfectly in opening up to even more abundance, joyfulness, and appreciation in my life.

INTRODUCTION

What child unable to sleep on a warm summer night hasn’t thought he saw Peter Pan’s sailing ship in the sky? I will teach you to see that ship.1

—Roberto Cotroneo, When a Child on a Summer Morning

Truth has a way of reaching the soul of the seeker, even though the outer garments may temporarily distract the gaze.2

—Joseph Whitfield

What I’m about to share with you in this book is going to go against the grain of everything you’ve learned since childhood, and most likely everything you’ve believed to be true all your life.

As you read the first seven chapters, you may feel like you’ve entered the Twilight Zone or a science fiction movie. You may also have thoughts like these:

• “What does this have to do with money?”

• “Get to the point, will you?”

• “Is he crazy?”

• “He can’t be serious!”

• “This isn’t what I expected when I bought this book!”

• “No way!”

Or my personal favorite:

• “Bullshit!”

You may chuckle, but please take these words seriously because in a few short minutes (if you continue reading right now), thoughts like that may come up for you and I don’t want them to distract you or delay your progress toward busting loose from The Money Game.

You may feel, at times, overwhelmed, disoriented, skeptical, angry, or uncomfortable. That’s all to be expected. You can’t bust loose from The Money Game without a radical shift in your perceptions about yourself, other people, the world, and the strategies you use on a daily basis. The process of making a radical shift like that pushes all kinds of buttons. That’s why I subtitled this book: Mind-Blowing Strategies for Changing the Rules of a Game You Can’t Win!

However, if you’re like most people I speak with about the Busting Loose Process, no matter how much resistance you may feel from one part of yourself, another part will be whispering to you, “That’s true and somehow I’ve always known it.” No matter how far “out there” what I’ll be sharing may seem at first, the journey I’m going to take you on and the ultimate destination you can reach after taking it are very real. My friend and mentor, whom I refer to as B. W. because he prefers to remain anonymous, busted loose from The Money Game. I busted loose myself into the new way of living I describe in Chapter 13, and I’ve been quietly teaching others from around the world to do it, too. Busting loose is very real and very possible for you to do also.

If you follow the action steps I give you at the end of the book and you still want or need it, you’ll be able to get all the proof you want of the truthfulness and validity of what I share from your own experiences. This is a key point I’ll be discussing in greater detail in later chapters.

This book has six sections:

1. Background on how I made the discovery and breakthrough that led to it.

2. The Rules of The Game.

3. The philosophy that opens the door to busting loose from The Money Game.

4. The science that documents and validates the philosophy.

5. The specific, practical, simple, yet incredibly powerful action steps flowing out of that philosophy and science that can be taken to transform your life and finances in ways you can’t even imagine right now. In this section, I’ll also be sharing real world stories to illustrate what everything I shared in the philosophy and science segments looks and feels like.

6. An Invitation for you to take a leap of faith, apply what you discover here, prove its validity and power to yourself, and open up to a new and radically different way of life.

We’ll begin with the background in this Introduction. Please go back now and re-read step number five before you continue. Why? Because it’s going to take me a while to go through the philosophy and science that make the practical action steps possible. You may feel impatient for me to “get to the meat” from time to time. I want you to remember we’re ultimately headed for extremely practical application in your daily life. And I promise you that when we get to the practical aspects of the Busting Loose Process, you’ll understand and be extremely grateful for the foundation I laid to make them possible.

Many people who enter my orbit and discover what you’re about to discover in this book, ultimately ask me “Where did you get this stuff?” I reply by saying this:

The only way I can answer you is to compare it to the assembly of a jigsaw puzzle. You take a piece here, a piece there, another piece here, another piece there. By themselves, they don’t look like much, but as you assemble more and more pieces, the big picture starts to come into view. Then, as more and more pieces get assembled, the complete picture ultimately pops into clear view. No one person or source gave me all the pieces, but I kept searching for, collecting, and assembling the pieces. Then, one day, the complete picture you’re about to discover popped into view—and blew me away, as it’ll blow you away if you allow it to.

The first puzzle pieces came from the amazing grandfather I had growing up. His name was Aaron Scheinfeld. He took a simple idea and turned it into a Fortune 500 company you’ve probably heard of—Manpower, Inc.—the world’s largest temporary help service. As I grew up, I became aware there was something very unusual behind the gigantic success he’d created and the fortune he’d amassed—some mystery about it that either no one in the family knew or they weren’t talking about.

When I was 12, every chance I got, I’d pepper him with questions, trying to uncover what the big secret and mystery was. For the better part of a year he put me off. Then, while the extended family was on a trip to Crans, Switzerland, to celebrate my grandfather’s 70th birthday, he invited me to join him for a cup of hot chocolate and finally told me his story.

On that day, he started me on the path of understanding two critical Truths that changed my life forever:

1. There are hidden forces driving what happens in the world that few people ever find out about.

2. By understanding and learning to tap those hidden forces, tremendous power can be unleashed and used to create literal miracles in your life.

Books, tapes, and lectures throughout history have been filled with similar messages. But the way my grandfather defined “hidden forces” and the specific ways he went about tapping these forces were very different, so if those words sound familiar, stick with me because I’m going to take them in a decidedly different direction.

Good news and bad news came from that first meeting with my grandfather in the small cafe in Crans, Switzerland. The good news is he began teaching me about the true nature of the hidden forces and mentoring me on how to tap them. The bad news is he died seven months later before he could complete my education. So, I spent 35 years applying what he taught me and following the many clues he left, working diligently to find the missing puzzle pieces and assemble them into the complete system I believe he would have given me had he lived to do so.

During those 35 years, I found many of the missing puzzle pieces. I assembled them into a system I applied to become a master at playing The Money Game. In the early days of my career, I applied the system to become a top salesperson for a computer reseller, and produced extraordinary results as a sales manager, corporate communications manager, regional manager, director of marketing, vice president of marketing, consultant, and entrepreneur.

I later applied the system to create and execute a marketing model that packed rooms at Tony Robbins’ multimedia seminars, and fuel the growth of a computer store franchise company called Connecting Point of America from $90 million to $350 million in very profitable sales . . . in less than three years.

As I continued applying my system, I amassed my own fortune, but then crashed and burned and ended up $153,000 in debt. I later recovered and rebuilt my fortune even bigger than before. Among the many projects contributing to my second fortune, I grew Blue Ocean Software from $1.27 million to $44.3 million in just four years, resulting in the company being named three times to Inc. Magazine’s “Inc. 500” list. That tremendous growth, accompanied by staggering profitability, led to Blue Ocean being acquired by software giant Intuit for $177 million, a substantial chunk of which went into my pocket as a reward for my efforts.

Along that journey, I wrote two bestselling books that revealed the puzzle pieces I’d collected at the time. My first book was The Invisible Path to Success and the second was The 11th Element.

A year after selling Blue Ocean Software, however, after I’d piled up even more money from a series of business successes that followed it, I watched as large chunks of my wealth started disappearing again. I stopped myself and said, “This doesn’t make any sense. There must be something I’m missing here.” To use a popular phrase from Alice in Wonderland and the movie The Matrix, I realized I had to go even deeper down “the rabbit hole.”

When I crashed and burned the first time, it was just me. No wife, no kids. Losing everything was excruciatingly painful, but I’ve always had a high threshold for pain. However, I now had a wife and two children and we’d carved out a life and lifestyle that made us extremely happy. If I crashed and burned again, I knew the pain would be unbearable and would be felt by my family too, so I was scared and became obsessed with finding out what I still didn’t know. I went exploring again, absolutely committed to finding the final missing puzzle pieces I believed my grandfather had but which I obviously didn’t. Eight months later, I found them, and in the pages of this book, I’ll be sharing them with you.

What I discovered through my own experiences and my relationships with hundreds of extremely wealthy people (including some of the wealthiest in the world), is that The Money Game is a game you can’t win. As you’ll soon see, no matter how well you play it, and no matter how much money you pile up while playing, The Money Game always leads to “failure” in the form of stress, anxiety, pain, loss of some kind, or disillusionment—if you play according to the rules, regulations, and structures you were taught growing up.

It doesn’t work to simply play The Money Game better and pile up more and more money, which is what most of the experts out there teach. You have to actually bust loose from The Money Game entirely and start playing a new game with a new set of rules and regulations of your choosing. That’s when things truly transform, stay transformed, and life gets really exciting!

One more key point before we move on. When reading books, some people start at the beginning and read to the end, sequentially. Others skip ahead, jump around, skim parts and dip down and read other parts. My intent is to support you in busting loose from The Money Game. To do that, I have to give you specific puzzle pieces in a specific order and support you in assembling them in a specific way.

If you follow my lead, a magnificent “big picture” will pop into view and you’ll be empowered to bust loose from The Money Game. If you don’t, you’ll be left with a bunch of funny-looking pieces of cardboard sitting on a table, you’ll short-circuit your access to real power, and you’ll stay locked in the limitation and restriction of The Money Game. In short, please be patient, read the chapters sequentially at the pace you feel inspired to move, trust me, and follow my lead. I know how to bust you loose from The Money Game and I can help you do it, but only if you follow the map I’m in a unique position to share with you.

You must also understand, from the start, that I can’t bust you loose from The Money Game in the pages of this book. I can only show you the way, open the portal to a new world, help you jump through the portal, and show you what to do in the new world you find on the other side. To actually bust loose from The Money Game, there’s work you must do. I’ll show you exactly what to do, when and how. I’ll offer you tremendous support along the way, but it is a journey and it will take time to reach the ultimate destination. It will also require tremendous commitment, patience, persistence, and discipline on your part to “arrive.”

If you make the commitment and do the work, the rewards you’ll receive are beyond anything you can possibly imagine right now. I can say without the slightest doubt that once you’ve busted loose, money will become a total non-issue in your life. You’ll never again worry about bills, cash flow, or the balance in your checkbook.

No more asking “Can I afford that?” or “Should I buy that?” No more worrying about the in and out flow of money in your life, about your assets and liabilities, personal income, savings, debt, profits, or taxes.

No more of the confusion, stress, and complexity that come with trying to manage, protect, and grow whatever amount of money you’ve piled up. No more working your butt off to “make ends meet” or carve out a little pleasure or luxury in your life.

Once you bust loose from The Money Game there will be absolutely no limits or restrictions of any kind for you as it relates to money. No matter how sexy or attractive this may sound to you right now, it isn’t even in the ballpark of what really happens and how your life really changes when you bust loose. Busting loose from The Money Game is something you must experience to understand.

I call it The Money Game for a very specific reason. To discover that reason and the rules of the Game, please turn the page to begin Chapter 1.

CHAPTER1

The Rules of the Game

Three strikes you’re out, being caught off base, committing an error—those are baseball’s rules, rules of that game, but they don’t apply outside the game.1

—J. C.

If you’re like most of the people I speak with, you’ve probably never thought of money and the pursuit of wealth as a game. When I talk with people and ask them about it, they generally say something like this to me: “Money is definitely not a game. It’s serious business.”

The first step in the Busting Loose Process is to really “get” that everything within your financial world—income, net worth, investments, savings, taxes, expenses, invoices, accounts receivable and payable, profits, and so on—is part of an amazing, elaborate, gigantic, unique, and complex game. I introduce the basic rules of The Money Game in this chapter and then go into more detail in later chapters.

If you take a close look, most games have rules, regulations, and a clear structure. They also have definite start and stop times and a clear definition of what it means to win. Everyone who chooses to play a game agrees to follow the rules and regulations and observe that game’s structure. This is required to make the game work. Although there’s a career and income component to playing games at the professional level, most people play games for the sheer fun and pleasure of doing so. People who enjoy watching games (fans) do so for the same reasons.

For example, football is played with a leather ball that’s shaped, sized, and constructed to meet rigid specifications. The playing field is 100 yards long. You play four quarters lasting 15 minutes each. A touchdown is worth six points, kicking the ball through the goal-posts after a touchdown is worth one point, a field goal is worth three points, and a safety is worth two points. A first down is 10 yards. You may only have a certain number of players on the field at any given time, and they must each play a specific position. There are rules about what players can and cannot do on the field, and if those rules are broken, the offending team is penalized. The team with the most points at the end of the four quarters (or overtime if the score is tied at the end of regulation time) wins the game.

Baseball is another example. It is played on a field that is a certain shape and size—a diamond. Only nine players per team are allowed on the diamond during play, and like football, each player has a specific position. The game is played with bats, balls, and gloves that meet precise specifications. There are nine innings during which each team is allowed three outs. Batters get four balls and three strikes. The pitcher stands on a slightly elevated mound that is a specific distance from home plate where the batter stands. The bases are specific distances from each other. When a player touches home plate after touching each of the other bases, he earns a “run” or a point. The team with the most runs at the end of nine innings (or extra innings if the teams are tied) wins the game.

Golf is our final example. The golfer plays on a course. There are a certain number of holes, greens, fairways, roughs, sand traps, and water hazards on the course. The player uses clubs with L-shaped metal ends to hit precisely constructed balls into small holes. There are specific rules as to what players can and cannot do while playing, and if the rules are broken, the player is penalized. The player with the lowest number of strokes at the end of the course wins.

If you take a close and objective look at football, baseball, and golf, you see that the rules, regulations, and structures appear completely arbitrary and don’t make much sense. Consider this:

• Football: Run while holding an inflated piece of leather or throw an inflated piece of leather from one person to another as you try to cross a white line and score points. Or try to kick the piece of leather through two metal posts to score points.

• Baseball: Try to hit a round piece of rubber and leather that’s coming at you at high speed with a wooden stick. Then, if you hit it and no other player catches it with a big piece of leather wrapped around his hand, you run around trying to touch three square pieces of cloth placed on the ground before touching a final piece of cloth to earn runs.

• Golf: Try to hit small rounded pieces of rubber and titanium with L-shaped pieces of metal trying to get the round pieces into tiny shallow holes hundreds of yards away with the fewest possible hits or “strokes.”

You see what appears to be the same sort of arbitrariness if you look at the rules, regulations, and structures of other popular games—bridge, Monopoly, pool, chess, checkers, blackjack, and so on. You could easily ask yourself, “How did anyone ever think up such weird games, rules, regulations, and structures?” Although the rules, regulations, and structures appear arbitrary on initial examination, hidden from view is the intelligence, plan, and intent used to create them.

Players rarely question the origins of the games they play, or the apparent arbitrary nature of the rules, regulations, and structures. They begin playing games that were invented long ago, and do exactly what they’re told by “the powers that be.”

The same is true of The Money Game. When examined closely and objectively, the rules, regulations, and structure of The Money Game appear arbitrary and don’t make much sense either, as you’ll soon see. However, in later chapters you’ll see that there’s a mind-blowing intelligence, plan, and intent behind the design of The Money Game, and I promise, when you find out what it is, it’ll rock your world! It also opens the door to busting loose from The Money Game.

As we pass a certain age growing up, we become players in a Money Game that’s already in progress. Like athletes and other game players, we never question what we’re taught about playing The Money Game. We just accept the rules, regulations, and structure we’re taught and play as if it was all etched in stone and absolutely nonnegotiable.

Here are three of the primary rules, regulations, and structure points we’ve been taught are “real” when playing The Money Game. There are actually dozens of others (including many related to taxes, governments, investing, etc.), but the following are the ones we’re most familiar with and the ones that do the most damage, as you’ll soon see:

1. Limited supply. There’s a limited supply of money available to you (and/or the world) and every time money “goes out,” that limited supply decreases. Therefore, you must find ways to constantly replenish your supply or you’ll run out. You must also be prudent and responsible and protect your money to ensure that you don’t run out of it. Because the core supply of money is limited, you must also have a long-term plan to save, invest wisely, and build assets over time to provide for your retirement years.

2. Money moves. There’s a flow of money in and out. Money is “out there,” somehow separate from you, and you must go out to get it and bring it into your life. In addition, as you spend money, it moves away from you to others and then you have less. You have income and expenses and you must manage the movement of both so your income exceeds your expenses (profits). You must increase profits if you want to raise your quality of life.

3. You must work harder or smarter to increase your supply of money. You can’t just have anything you want in life. Everything “costs” you. You have to “pay” for everything you want. You have to “earn” money. There is no free lunch. You don’t get something for nothing. So, if you want more money, you have to find a way to add more value or work harder—or smarter—to get it. And you must develop the moneymaking skill and be totally and truly committed to making money or you’ll never have much.

In support of the traditional Money Game rules, regulations, and structure, here are some common beliefs that have also been accepted as true:

• Money is the root of all evil.

• There’s something dirty or bad about money—and the people who have it.

• The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

• There’s never enough.

• You must control money or it will control you.

• More money is always better.

• Money doesn’t grow on trees.

• Some people have the money-making skill and others don’t.

• You can’t play The Money Game well and be spiritual.

• Net worth is the true measure of wealth and success.

• You must save for a rainy day.

It might shock you to hear me say that none of the rules, regulations, or beliefs I just related, and the many subset rules, regulations, and beliefs that flow from them, are true. Not one. They’re all made up, as are the rules of all games. We all just accepted that they were true.

Here are two key points I’m going to plant seeds for now and then “grow tall” in Chapter 3:

1. You can’t win The Money Game.

2. The Money Game was specifically designed to create utter and total failure.

You can’t win The Money Game because:

• There’s no clear definition of winning. How do you know if you’ve won The Money Game? Did you ever ask yourself that question? Do you win when you get comfortable? When you become a millionaire? A multimillionaire? A billionaire? When you surpass some other income or net worth goal you set for yourself? From my experience, while many people have financial goals they’ve set for themselves, few people have clear definitions of what winning The Money Game actually means. If you don’t know what the target is, how can you possibly hit it or know when you’ve hit it?

• Your money is always at risk. No matter how much money you pile up, it is always at risk. You can lose all or huge chunks of it through poor management, overspending, a stock market crash, bad investments, embezzlement, theft, divorce, lawsuits, business failure, bank failure, tragic accidents, and so on. Plus, zero isn’t the end. You can go way below zero into debt. The more money you have and the more intelligently you manage it, the greater the illusion of security, but the reality is, money is never truly safe, no matter how much you have or what you do with it. History is filled with stories of people who amassed enormous fortunes and then lost them (in one generation or over multiple generations).

• There’s no official ending point. When does The Money Game end? When you reach some milestone you set for yourself? That doesn’t work because even though you may temporarily reach or pass such a milestone your money is always at risk, so you could slip backward and lose what you’ve accumulated. When you retire? That doesn’t work either. Your money is still at risk and you’re still at the mercy of the other Money Game rules, regulations, and structures, even if you stop working. When you die? Well, maybe The Money Game ends for you at that point, but it continues for your family and heirs. If there’s no official ending point for this game, how can you possibly know if or when you’ve won? Can you say you’ve won a football game if you’re ahead at the end of the third quarter? Can you say you’ve won a baseball game if you’re ahead at the end of the seventh inning? Can you say you’ve won an 18-hole golf tournament if you have the fewest strokes after 12 holes? No!

• There’s always a price to pay. You also can’t win The Money Game because even if you make a lot of money, keep a lot, spend a lot, manage it brilliantly, invest wisely, grow your net worth, live like a king or queen, and provide for a comfortable or even luxurious retirement, playing the game according to the traditional rules and regulations always leads to some very intense form of stress, pressure, dissatisfaction, pain, or loss—especially when it comes to free time, health, and relationships. I’m sure you’ve experienced this yourself, or seen or known someone who succeeded in piling up a ton of money but ended up:

— Sick

— Lonely

— Dying young

— With migraine headaches or other debilitating ailments

— An emotional basket case

— Feeling empty inside

— Living in the lap of luxury but thinking, “Is this all there is?”

• There’s always another level of success above yours. With only a few exceptions of people at the highest levels of financial success, there’s a trap built into The Money Game that most people fall into at one point or another. The trap gets sprung when someone at a specific level of financial success compares him-or herself to someone at a higher level of success and develops new desires that appear attainable but far away at that moment. For example, someone making $250,000 a year and feeling pretty good about herself sees how someone making $1 million a year lives and suddenly feels inferior by comparison. Or someone traveling first class on a commercial airline sees someone traveling by private jet, or someone with one beautiful home sees someone with two beautiful homes. Any of these can set a pattern of dissatisfaction in motion. This sort of pattern goes on and on as we move up the food chain of financial success.

Imagine playing or watching any other game with rules, regulations, and a structure like the one I just described. Imagine playing or watching a game where there’s no way to know who’s winning; there’s no official ending point; no matter how good you get you know there’s always another team or player better than you; you always end up losing (due to the price you had to pay) even if you think you’re winning.

Would anyone want to play or watch a game like that? No way! For the players, it would be an absolute nightmare. No one would volunteer to play a game like that. And no one would show up to watch either. What would be the point?

Despite all of this, billions of people show up every day to play and watch The Money Game, completely oblivious to the truth about what’s really going on. Many of those people believe they’re winning The Money Game, believe they’ve won, or believe other people they see around them or in the media have won—but it’s all an illusion.

In Chapter 7, I reveal an even bigger reason why you can’t win The Money Game. But first I have to provide you with a few more foundational pieces of the puzzle.

What you were never told is that The Money Game is very different from the other games we play. When it comes to The Money Game, nothing is etched in stone and absolutely everything is negotiable. You don’t need to accept the traditional rules, regulations, and structures of The Money Game. You actually have an alternative!

Since there’s no way to win you have only two choices:

1. Continue to play according to the traditional rules, regulations, and structure, knowing you’ll lose and pay a big price, no matter what you do.

2. Bust loose from The Money Game entirely, create a new game for yourself, choose your own rules, and transform your relationship with money forever.

However crazy or pie-in-the-sky it might sound to you, I guarantee that once you finish this book you’ll be empowered to take the second option and bust loose from The Money Game entirely.

To continue your journey, discover three questions that have haunted you your entire life, and learn how to answer them in a way that empowers you to bust loose from The Money Game. Turn the page and continue on to Chapter 2.

CHAPTER2

The Three Haunting Questions

Living is my job and my art.1

—Michel Eyquem De Montaigne, Essayist (1533-1592)

If I could only remember that the days were not bricks to be laid row on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace, but only food for the fires of the heart.2

—Edmund Wilson, Critic and Writer (1895-1972)

Throughout recorded history, three questions have haunted humanity:

1. Who am I?

2. Why am I here?

3. What’s my purpose?

As you’ll soon see, even if it doesn’t seem clear immediately, without practical answers to those three haunting questions, busting loose from The Money Game isn’t possible. You might also find it interesting to know that many of the puzzle pieces I’ll be sharing in this chapter (and the two chapters that follow) were the very pieces my grandfather shared with me over that fateful cup of hot chocolate in Crans, Switzerland. Because of the respect, even awe, I felt for my grandfather and his achievements, I accepted the concepts you’re about to discover without question. However, they didn’t become real for me, I didn’t fully understand their significance or power, and I wasn’t able to take any practical action from them until decades later—after I’d assembled more puzzle pieces and had more of the experiences I’ll be sharing with you in the pages that follow.