Be Rich : The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity

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BE RICH
The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity
That Determine if You Are Rich, Poor, or Somewhere In Between.
By
Dan Dulin and Greg N. Weiler II
________________________________________________

3
>> Get the most recent edition of this book and AUDIO version at www.BeRichBook.com <<
Copyright 2012 Santa Maria Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
This abridged version of Be Rich: The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity was intended to be shared
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but not limited to: binding and selling it as a book, or eBook, or audio book, are strictly reserved.
The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity™, TaxiLoco™, and BRAIN-work™ are trademarks of Santa
Maria Group, LLC.
Disclaimer, legal notice, and all-around don’t blame us
statement.
We live in a litigious society and some people like to point the hairy finger of
blame for their poor choices at everyone but themselves. Therefore, you get our
standard disclaimer spiel with a twist.
This book is for educational purposes only. Read it, laugh, cry and enjoy
yourself. We make no guarantees that the information contained herein will
actually be able to help you. Because, let’s face it, you might be happy with the
way your life is right now or don’t want to do the real work it takes to make
lasting changes. Before attempting any technique or following
recommendations, ideas, instructions, rules, processes or any other bright idea
in this book, make sure you consult with a professional accountant, tax
advisor, financial advisor, insurance advisor, real estate advisor, and attorney.
All of the stories in this book, along with the people portrayed in them, are
fictional, except for the stories that the authors tell about themselves. Any
character that resembles a real person, living or dead, or anything resembling a
real event are pure coincidence. Phew!
Vs 10/08/2012

5
Special Thanks
Cover Design:
Ms. Roberta Schultz
Buenos Aires, Brazil
http://robertaschultz.daportfolio.com/
Consulting:
Mr. Paul Sammis
Phoenix, Arizona
The hours we spent in economic debate, discussions over world events, and
your friendship are missed. Rest in peace.
Mr. Gregory N. Weiler
San Juan Capistrano, California

7
To David and Dain,
I was told, “All roads lead to Rome,” but I have learned that some circle the
mountain a few times before getting there. Have the courage to face your
personal challenges, be quick to correct your mistakes, and never take yourself
so seriously that you cannot laugh at your follies.
This book holds the key to a lifetime of financial abundance and the secret to
true wealth. Use this knowledge to take action with an unwavering belief that
you can accomplish your goals, and a magical transformation will occur. You
will be part of a small minority of people that can proudly say, “I achieve.”
With love,
Dad

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Table of Contents
BE RICH, NOT POOR 13
CHAPTER 1: THE SECRET INGREDIENTS 19
The First Financial Law of Prosperity............................................................................ 21
Twelve Questions for the Gold........................................................................................... 22
The Secret Ingredients.......................................................................................................... 24
What You Think is What You Get..................................................................................... 26
What Does Money Mean to You? ...................................................................................... 28
Positive Thinking and “Luck”............................................................................................ 30
How Much Money Do You Want?...................................................................................... 32
The Plan....................................................................................................................................... 34
CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST FINANCIAL LESSON 39
The Second Financial Law of Prosperity....................................................................... 40
Anyone Can Do It, but Few Will Try................................................................................ 41
Modern Slavery......................................................................................................................... 43
CHAPTER 3: MAKE MORE MONEY 48
The Third Financial Law of Prosperity........................................................................... 52
Get Into the Fast Lane .......................................................................................................... 54
Time Is A Limited Resource................................................................................................ 55
Knowledge That’s Richly Rewarded................................................................................ 56
Two Ways to Make Money.................................................................................................... 58
The BRAIN-work Challenge ................................................................................................. 60
CHAPTER 4: GREED IS A MONSTER WITHIN 63
The Fourth Financial Law of Prosperity........................................................................ 65
The Lifestyle Trap and Human Need............................................................................... 67
The Lifestyle Fence ................................................................................................................ 70
The True Cost of Ownership............................................................................................... 72
CHAPTER 5: YOUR THREE GIFTS 75
The Fifth Financial Law of Prosperity............................................................................ 78
Your Three Gifts....................................................................................................................... 80
A Random Act of Kindness.................................................................................................. 82
The World Needs More Heroes ........................................................................................... 83
CHAPTER 6: A TWIST OF FATE 86
The Sixth Financial Law of Prosperity........................................................................... 90
Your Emergency Fund........................................................................................................... 91
Avoid Major Loss with Insurance ..................................................................................... 92
When You are Dead or Mentally Gone............................................................................ 95
When Disaster Strikes ........................................................................................................... 96
CHAPTER 7: FINANCIAL SLAVERY 100

The Seventh Financial Law of Prosperity ................................................................... 103
Start Living Debt Free ......................................................................................................... 104
Credit In Our Society Is Like Heroin To a Junkie .................................................. 105
Another Way to Look at Debt........................................................................................... 108
Negotiate Your Debt.............................................................................................................. 109
How To Eliminate Your Debts.......................................................................................... 109
CHAPTER 8: THE ART OF MAKING MONEY 113
The Eighth Financial Law of Prosperity ...................................................................... 114
Inflation- The Hidden Tax.................................................................................................. 117
Two Mules Teach the Art of Making Money............................................................... 118
The Miracle of Compounding ........................................................................................... 120
The Golden Rules of Investing......................................................................................... 121
CHAPTER 9: PROTECT YOUR MONEY 127
The Ninth Financial Law of Prosperity ........................................................................ 132
Base Hits.................................................................................................................................... 133
The Paradox of Modern Money ........................................................................................ 136
Business Cycle Risks and Currency Manipulation.................................................. 139
The Golden Rules of Protection ...................................................................................... 143
Chapter 10: HOME SWEET HOME 149
The Tenth Financial Law of Prosperity........................................................................ 152
“Intelligently” Pay Off a Home Loan............................................................................. 154
Think Correctly About Home Ownership.................................................................... 159
Turn Your Home into an “Investment” ....................................................................... 160
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR YOU 165
BONUS Chapter: Making Millions in Real Estate 167
The Keys to Successful Real Estate Investment ..................................................... 168
Eight Ways to Invest in the Same Property............................................................... 168
2013-2020 Forecast: The Decade of Economic Decline....................................... 168
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & RECOMMENDED READING 173
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 177

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BE RICH, NOT POOR
The world is forever the same yet always changing. Forge and bend it to your
vision and you will find the stuff that makes dreams come true.
Today we celebrate your financial awakening. It starts the moment you believe
you can be rich and want to do something about it. Consider your awakening a
fork in the road. Down one road you will find a lifetime of financial
independence, while the other leads to a life of financial struggle and despair.
When you choose the road to financial independence, you take the route less
travelled. You will quickly separate yourself from the majority in this world who
are precariously close to financial ruin. Whether you are rich, poor, or
somewhere in between, the choice has always been up to you. Awaken and
enjoy a lifetime of financial independence.
Poverty weighs heavily on the human spirit. It robs you of your peace of mind,
limits your personal freedoms, and subjects you to one of the oldest forms of
discrimination—the discrimination against another based on their ability to pay.
Nonetheless, poverty is a choice. If you choose to believe you will be poor, you
have condemned yourself to poverty. If, however, you choose to believe you will
be rich, a world of opportunity is open to you.
There are two financial classes of people in this world: those who are financially
independent and those who are not. If you can quit your job, leave a business,
give up any outside financial assistance, and do almost nothing all day without
having to worry about maintaining your current lifestyle, then you are

financially independent to your standards. If you can’t, then you have some
work to do.
Your ticket to ride the “Money Train” is in this book. You will learn The Ten
Financial Laws of Prosperity, the Art of Making Money, the Golden Rules, and
how to get started. By mastering the Laws, following the Rules, developing an
intelligent plan, and taking purposeful action, you can expect riches that exceed
your wildest dreams. If you are a little less committed to action but follow this
system, The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity will still produce profound positive
financial results in your life. If, however, you are content working for others,
mistakenly believe that someone else will take care of you when you are old or
sick, and cling to a belief that riches are far beyond your grasp, then this book
will look good collecting dust on your nightstand.
Imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t have to worry about money.
You could buy whatever you desire, retire at any time, travel anywhere, and
spend your days as you please. You could help the less fortunate, give to family
and friends, and be financially happy. This could be your future. The missing
pieces to your money puzzle and the answer to the question, “How can I get rich
and STAY rich?” are in this book.
This book is for anyone interested in becoming financially independent and
preserving wealth for life. Financial independence is the stage in life where your
money grows on its own and covers all of your lifestyle costs. It means you are
your own boss and agonizing over money is now optional (yes, for some people,
all the money in the world still isn’t enough). Only by following The Ten
Financial Laws of Prosperity can you hope to accumulate and retain vast sums
of money. They are the rules to the “get rich, stay rich” game. Complete mastery
of the principles in this book will decrease the amount of time it takes to get
rich. Ignorance will make a lifetime of financial independence impossible. The
Financial Laws of Prosperity can be bent but never broken, because they are as
inescapable as the passage of time. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you

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currently have. You will never experience a lifetime of financial independence
and true wealth without adhering to these Laws.
Financial independence is a lifestyle. Proclaiming yourself “rich” one day, and
proceeding to ignore The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity will quickly drive you
to the poorhouse just as surely as gambling away all of your money at a Las
Vegas casino. To get rich and stay rich, you must constantly prove yourself to
be a good steward of money. There’s a huge difference between having money at
one point in your life and achieving a lifetime of financial independence.
Therefore, the achievement award for financial independence only gets handed
out after your death. Die rich and you get the award—die poor and your funeral
costs will be one more burden you pass along to the ones you leave behind!
Poverty is both a mentality and a lifestyle. If you think poor, you will act poor.
This is evident with people who suddenly get a large amount of money (lottery
winners, inheritance, legal settlements, etc.), only to have it rapidly disappear
out of their lives. These people spend their money in such an unsustainable
fashion that they have nothing to show for it in a short period of time. They
identify with being poor and then act poor on a grand scale. As a general rule,
poor people spend all of their money; this, of course, is what makes them poor.
If you want to know real financial heartache, make a lot of money and then lose
it all. If you happen to make it back, you will never stray too far from The Ten
Financial Laws of Prosperity again.
We are all at different points in our financial journeys, but subject to the same
Ten Financial Laws. Countless athletes, actors, singers, business people,
entrepreneurs, lottery winners, recipients of large inheritances, and others have
skyrocketed to the top of the world’s financial Who’s Who list only to go broke
and then disappear into the shadows of history. Despite what pop culture
teaches, there are NO shortcuts to becoming and staying rich. You must master

The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity before you can enjoy a lifetime of financial
independence.
During your financial journey, you will always find someone richer than you.
This has nothing to do with fairness, trust funds, or a lucky roll of the cosmic
dice. What they have is theirs for a reason, and that reason may not be
apparent to you. What you think about people with true riches will determine
your own financial success, because your thoughts reveal your personal beliefs
about money. Negative beliefs will prevent you from becoming rich just as surely
as spending your days at home “flopped” on the sofa, watching television,
surfing the Internet, and playing video games.
Many people spend years wanting to be rich and wonder why they can’t reach
this goal. They work hard for others and are disappointed when the rewards
they receive don’t measure up to their expectations. These people have yet to
realize that as long as they answer to somebody, they will never make the
money they truly deserve. The trick to making a lot of money is to become self-
reliant. Only then can you break the chains of financial limitation imposed on
you by others.
Having an abundance of money is not true wealth or a measure of your total
happiness. To have true wealth in your life is to be rich in thought, friendship,
love, joy, spirituality, compassion, gratitude, and generosity. It has absolutely
nothing to do with the material possessions acquired with money. A life with an
abundance of money and lacking in sincere, fulfilling connections to other
people is a life saturated with loneliness and despair. The Fifth Financial Law of
Prosperity will teach you to Help Those in Need, but true wealth dwells in and
must come from your heart. No cause is greater and no deeds more worthy than
helping the needy. It is these selfless acts that define our own humanity and
add purpose to our lives. For many, this simple and rewarding concept will take
years to understand and longer still to act on, even though it’s an essential
component to the attainment of complete and total happiness.

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Everyone’s financial story is worth telling. This book tells the stories of people
who have struggled to reach financial independence and connects those stories
to the principles contained within these chapters. The people in these stories
are fictional, but the lessons imparted are timeless because they speak to
circumstances anyone could encounter in life.
I am no better than you and have made my fair share of mistakes. I’ve
squandered money, been caught up in the “lifestyle trap,” taken foolish risks,
made bad decisions and, on occasion, had to worry about where my next meal
would come from. It took two major financial setbacks before I was willing to
change my whole approach to financial independence. Each setback was
painful. I collected debt and financial obligations that only added stress to my
life, sent my personal relationships into turmoil, and dragged me further from
my financial goals. But I embraced these setbacks and learned from them.
Within each, I found seeds of opportunity, seeds that eventually grew into the
idea for this book and provided me with the inspiration to create new
businesses.
What causes some people to become sustainably rich while the vast majority of
society continues to struggle financially? The answers are not so obvious, and
even the rich can’t completely explain it. The purpose of this book is to bridge
that gap in knowledge and eliminate the guesswork. By the time you finish
reading, you will be able to answer this question and, more importantly, do
something about it in your own financial life.
At the end of this book, I have included a bonus chapter (paperback edition and
Kindle version only) on real estate investing titled: Making Millions in Real
Estate. This bonus section contains a number of techniques that real estate
investors use every single day to make money. Reading this section will not
immediately turn you into an expert real estate investor, because expertise in
anything comes from time, experience, and knowledge. Its purpose is to plant

the seed that anyone can invest in real estate and show you how it’s done.
Where you go from there is up to you.
There is no exclusivity on who gets to be rich. It all boils down to your beliefs
and your ability to execute a meaningful plan. Anyone can do it, but few will try.
Make the choice to incorporate The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity into your
life and reap their rewards.
Riddle: In this world of mice and men, do you see the Lion?
(Would you like a hint? Look in the mirror.)

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CHAPTER 1: THE SECRET INGREDIENTS
Believe you can and discover a world of unlimited possibilities; believe you
can’t and forever find none.
Jerry had been living on the streets of New York City for several months. He was
a tall, likable man in his mid-30s with dark hair and a deep tan. He was an Iraq
War veteran who bounced from one low-paying job to the next. Jerry was no
stranger to hardship, but tonight he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Two men had just run past him as he turned the corner onto an otherwise
deserted street when, suddenly, a snarling German Shepherd leapt toward his
face. Instinctively, he raised his arm to protect himself. The police dog latched
onto Jerry, dragging him to the ground. Sharp teeth ripped into his arm,
sending pain throughout his body.
“Stop struggling!” the police officer shouted at him. He then turned to the dog.
“Release!”
Jerry went limp as the dog let go of him. The officer leashed the animal and
radioed headquarters for Jerry to be rushed to the hospital.
Officer O’Malley found Jerry wandering the streets a few days later. He had read
the hospital report and learned that the man his dog had mistakenly attacked
was homeless and between jobs. He felt compelled to help and made
arrangements for Jerry to stay at a local group home.

Living at the group home was hard for Jerry. He no longer slept on the streets,
but he had little privacy. He got a job as a taxi driver and started to spend his
spare time at the public library where he found solitude. The library changed
Jerry. He developed a thirst for knowledge and a love for reading. Books helped
him realize there was more to life and that he deserved better. He began to
believe in himself and made enough money from his job to move into a small
apartment.
Jerry got into the habit of saving a little from each paycheck, but it was hard to
make ends meet. He grew tired of struggling financially and made the conscious
decision to become rich. He didn’t know how he would create his fortune but he
knew the answer was out there.
He took advantage of his job as a taxi driver to interview business people he
picked up as riders. He gathered their thoughts on success and talked to each
of them at length about how they made money. At the library and on the
Internet, he would diligently research any new idea and moneymaking concept
that interested him.
Time passed and Jerry began to notice that more of his passengers were using
smartphones. People raved about these gadgets. Jerry recognized the start of a
new trend and was determined to capitalize on the opportunity. He created a list
of different ways to make money from smartphones. A few of these ideas turned
into complete failures. Undeterred, he continued his search for a moneymaker.
Jerry’s golden idea came to him after a near-miss accident with a bicyclist. A
biker swerved into oncoming traffic and Jerry nearly hit him. It was a seed of
inspiration. He went home that night and sketched out an idea for a
smartphone game he called “TaxiLoco.”

21
Jerry spent the next few months refining the idea for TaxiLoco He hired a
programmer and graphic design artist using an outsourcing website, and soon
his game was ready. He posted a simple sign in the back of his taxi to market it.
The sign sparked the curiosity of a passenger who identified himself as a
freelance reporter. The reporter talked to Jerry about the development process
for his game. Jerry didn’t give the conversation a second thought; it was only
one out of an entire day of conversations he had with riders. But one week later,
Jerry’s game, TaxiLoco, was featured in an article in a prominent national
newspaper about emerging smartphone opportunities. Before he knew it, his
game went viral and Jerry became a very rich man, selling millions of copies.
The First Financial Law of Prosperity
The First Financial Law of Prosperity is You Must Believe. Only when you truly
believe that you can create financial abundance in your life will you intelligently
develop and follow a plan to produce the desired wealth.
Belief comes before money. The single most important thing needed to create
financial abundance is unwavering belief. Think you can do something and
there is room for doubt; know you can do something and harness the limitless
creative power of your mind to make it a reality. In practice, the exact formula
to be rich is 80% belief and 20% everything else. This means that once you truly
know you will be rich, you’ve taken the single most important step toward
achieving your goal. Belief is the foundation for creating a lifetime of financial
independence.
Summary of the Ten Financial Laws

Laws Action
1. You Must Believe Manage your beliefs, intelligently develop a plan,
and take purposeful action.
Twelve Questions for the Gold
In this book, there is a series of twelve questions that I ask you to write the
answers to. I know that many readers won’t bother answering the questions,
will dismissively breeze through this book, and then wonder why their money
situation never improves. So why not go for the gold and answer the twelve
questions?
The questions are easy. They are designed to help you clarify your thinking
about what you really want financially. How can you achieve a goal if you don’t
know what the goal is? Simply saying, “I want to be rich” or “I want more
money,” and then doing nothing to change your financial situation doesn’t make
any sense. Look around. Billions of people take this exact approach. Invest the
time to answer the twelve questions. They will help you clarify your financial
goals and get you started down the path to complete financial independence.

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Why Rich, Not Poor?
Why do you want to be rich? The answer to this question will reveal your true
motivation to be rich. Some reasons are more motivating than others. Fill in
your answer:
“I want to be rich because __________.”
Does your answer inspire you or is it just a bunch of words?
Answers to this question will vary, but having material possessions, stacks of
cash, or being able to afford luxuries aren’t the real reasons why you want to be
rich. Once your basic needs for survival—food, shelter, clothing—have been
met, what you are truly searching for is a feeling or a satisfaction of human
need that you think money will give you. In Chapter Four, we will discuss the
human needs for safety, love and belonging, to be valued, and to find purpose in
life. With a little reflection, you’ll find your reason for wanting to be rich.
You must have a compelling enough reason why you want to be rich if you are
going to have the proper drive to be rich. Your motivation to be rich is fueled by
your desire, or want, for this outcome. Do you have enough “fuel,” or desire, to
motivate you past any obstacle to become rich? Time will tell.
If you think money will solve all of your problems, you are going to be
disappointed. Money is only a catalyst for obtaining your material desires. It
can’t eliminate all of your problems and make you truly happy. Your problems
are the challenges of life that push you to be better and make you grow as a
person, and you cannot truly be alive without them. Everyone thinks that
money will make them happy, but happiness is a feeling that comes from within
and has nothing to do with the size of your wallet. That being said, there’s

nothing wrong with getting rich first and mulling over the finer points of
philosophy later!
The Secret Ingredients
You may have heard about the paradox of belief—whether you think you can or
can’t do something, you are right. Any reason you can invent or person you can
blame for not having financial abundance in your life is just a convenient
excuse. Excuses hold you back from getting what you want. Cast them aside to
open a world of opportunity. Your beliefs are the only real obstacle to becoming
rich and, more importantly, staying rich.
“Why am I not rich?”
Ask yourself this question, and if you want to be an overachiever, write down
the answer(s) to uncover the reasons holding you back. Review your answer(s)
to determine if:
 You blame others or certain circumstances for your financial situation,
 You feel as if you are lacking in some quality, trait, experience, or resource.
You may have some great reasons on your list, but do you really want to
sacrifice your financial independence for a handful of excuses? Rip up the list,
crinkle it into a little paper ball, and take the three-point shot with it into the
trash. Get all of that nonsense out of your head because it’s the wrong way to
think.
Belief in yourself and an unyielding determination to achieve a desired result
are the only resources you need to be rich. They are the secret ingredients

25
needed in the recipe to be rich and you already have them locked away inside of
you! Everything else stems from these two components. Belief comes before
money; so don’t worry about how to create your financial independence. Know
that you will create your financial independence.
Begin by developing the unwavering belief that you will be rich and can achieve
your financial independence by working at this goal every day. When you believe
in something so strongly, you know with every fiber of your being that it will be
true—the object of your belief will appear in your life. This does not occur by
magic or trickery. You will make it happen. It is only through consistent and
cumulative daily action that larger goals can be achieved. Believe you can and
you will—believe you can’t and you won’t.
Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on
saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible
that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the
contrary, if I shall have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely
acquire the capacity to do it, even if I may not have it at the
beginning; …
—Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

What You Think is What You Get
You are directly responsible for what you have in life. It is your very thoughts
that determine if you are rich, poor, or somewhere in between—just as surely as
they determined what time you got out of bed this morning. Your thoughts are
the foundation for your beliefs and a governor over the action you will take to
accomplish a goal.
A belief is what you think to be true. It’s a collection of thoughts that help you
rapidly interpret and evaluate the world around you based on your experiences.
Beliefs can give instantaneous meaning to circumstances and events and are
designed to help you survive and prosper in your environment.
Everything you do in life originates from the process of thinking. This is
important because your thoughts motivate you and determine the actions you
will take to accomplish a goal. If you believe you can do something, you are
more likely to do it. The results or experiences generated from your actions
create more thoughts as feedback. This feedback can positively or negatively
reinforce your original belief.
Let’s say, for example, that you have a belief that it’s GOOD to take the bus to
work. You take action and ride the bus. However, you get an undesirable result
because the bus was slow and made you twenty minutes late. Based on this
feedback, or new thought, your original belief about taking the bus to work has
been altered. You now believe taking the bus to work is BAD, because it will
make you late. This new distinction will affect all future decisions about taking
the bus to work. This continuous process of thought to belief, belief to action,
action to result, and finally back to thought is called the “Thought-to-Result
Cycle.”

27
Your brain is the perfect cause-and-effect feedback loop, much like audio
feedback from a speaker that gets louder and louder when an open microphone
is placed too close to it. Your dominant thoughts reverberate, get more intense,
and cause you to take appropriate action, even if this action is to do nothing. To
have an abundance of anything in your life, you must have the “right” dominant
thoughts looping in your brain because your thoughts motivate you. Once your
thoughts are aligned with your desired goals, they will compel you to act
accordingly.
Your dominant thoughts manifest themselves in your life for good and bad. For
instance, poverty thoughts produce poverty, hopeless thoughts produce
hopelessness, happy thoughts produce happiness, greedy thoughts produce
greediness, and loving thoughts produce love. The current state of your life is a
direct reflection of your dominant pattern of thinking, even if you are not
consciously aware of it—because there is both a conscious and subconscious
level to thought. To effectively change anything in your life, you must first start
by correcting your own thinking.
The very process of thinking affects your motivation. Your dominant thoughts
shape your beliefs and govern the amount of action you will take to achieve a

desired result. The stronger your belief, the greater amount of time and effort
you will expend to achieve that result.
Everything you do and have in life is a direct reflection of your dominant pattern
of thinking. The only real enemy or ally to your success is your own thinking;
learn to control your thoughts or your thoughts will control you.
Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap
a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character
and you reap a destiny.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
What Does Money Mean to You?
You decide to meet a friend for lunch, and, on the way to the local restaurant,
you notice a magnificent mansion surrounded by acres of meticulously
manicured grounds. As you pass, you see the groundskeeper finishing his work
under the warm summer sun and several expensive cars parked in the
driveway. Posted on the ornately decorated gate is a sign—“Now Hiring: Cook,
Maid, Chauffer.” You recognize that an extremely rich person lives at the
mansion, and it doesn’t take you long to start speculating about them.
STOP!
Take a few moments to consider some traits, characteristics, and the
personality of the mansion’s owner. What do you think about the amount of
money it would take to own a house like this? What do you think about the type

29
of help the mansion’s owner is seeking? Do you think this rich homeowner is a
good or bad person? If you had the money, would you live in a house like this?
Why or why not?
GO!
You continue on your way and meet your friend for lunch. During the meal you
tell her about the beautiful mansion. Before you can finish the story, your
friend excitedly interrupts you and explains she’s met the mansion’s owner. She
tells you the owner:
 Contributes large sums of money to help the less fortunate buy food, get job
training and obtain affordable housing
 Is the benefactor of several orphanages that have a wonderful reputation for
finding homes for displaced children
 Volunteers at a local animal shelter, nursing abused cats and dogs back to
health
Helped his former cook, maid, and chauffer start their own successful
businesses
What would you say about the mansion’s owner now? How many negative
thoughts did you originally have of the owner? Do you believe you deserve to
live in a beautiful house and have lots of money? If you don’t think you are
worthy, take a few moments to consider the reasons why. Could these reasons
potentially hold you back from achieving your financial dreams?

This story was designed to probe your beliefs about money. Having money
doesn’t automatically make you a good or bad person. Money doesn’t create a
person’s character—it only helps to reveal it. Money is an accelerator of your
ability to fulfill your material desires and cannot be categorized as “good” or
“bad”.
The way you think about money is important. Negative thoughts about money
will influence the amount of action you are willing to take to achieve your
financial independence. The only real enemy or ally to your financial success is
your own thinking. Your thoughts must be controlled. It is only through honest,
careful, and objective self-examination that you can reveal your negative
thinking about money.
To effectively change anything in your life, you must first start by correcting the
way you think about it. Once your money thoughts are congruent with your
financial desires, your thinking will motivate and drive you to reach your
financial goals.
Positive Thinking and “Luck”
Some people believe that desire and positive thinking alone can bring financial
abundance into your life. If this were true, we would all be rich and happy. But
greatness can only be achieved through significant effort. Desire and positive
thinking alone can do little to change your finances without the employment of
purposeful action. Thought, desire, and action are part of a larger system that
you will use to create a lifetime of financial independence.
Your thoughts are a relatively weak form of energy compared to the measurable
force used to create work. The physical act of moving a coffee cup across a
table, rather than just thinking about moving it, illustrates how directed

31
thought can combine with purposeful action to create a meaningful result. If
you had a belief that you couldn’t move the cup because you thought it was
glued to the table, you might never have attempted to move it. This is a
testament to the power a belief has over your decision to take action.
Not all of your actions will yield intended results. Some actions create totally
random or unexpected circumstances, which can produce the phenomenon
known as opportunity or “luck.” There is a direct correlation between the
amount of purposeful action you take and the amount of opportunity or luck
you experience in life.
The benefits that opportunity or luck may bring you can’t be calculated early in
your journey to financial independence. However, these benefits will have a
significant positive impact on your ability to achieve your goals. For instance,
let’s say you have a great idea for a new whiz-bang product, but you have no
idea where to get the money you need to bring the product to market. You
decide to go to an entrepreneurial workshop given by local business
professionals. While at the workshop, you meet a businesswoman who is
excited about your idea and offers to bring your product to market. You never
would have met this woman if you had skipped the workshop, and you would
have missed this opportunity or lucky chance to bring your product to market.
It’s important to emphasize that opportunity or luck only occurs when you act.
This is why it’s critically important to take purposeful action.
Desire and positive thinking can do little to help you accomplish your goals
without the use of purposeful action. Directed thought and action combine to
create measurable results. Some of these results create totally unexpected
opportunities, or lucky events, which can have a significant, positive impact on
your financial life. It’s important to remember that opportunity, or luck, and
measurable results can only happen when you take action.

Greatness can only be achieved through significant effort.
How Much Money Do You Want?
If you were to ask the average person on the street what it would take for them
to be rich, they might respond with a “lump sum” dollar amount they think
makes a person rich. One million. Five million. Ten million. Whatever. The
average person doesn’t think too much about what it takes to be rich for life, or
about the need for a steady income to continue paying for their lifestyle
expenses. All money gets spent over time; income is a steady inflow of cash
while lump sums are received once. A lump sum financial goal is a very
important part of becoming financially independent, but it should be a
calculated number based off of the income you need to support your lifestyle
and not a random guess.
A financial goal gives you a money target, provides clarity, and keeps you
focused. Your ultimate goal should be to obtain a lifetime of financial
independence. Complete financial independence means that you receive enough
income to maintain your standard of living, and provide for your future financial
needs without having to work for your money ever again. Most people work for
their money, trading their limited time for an income. But to be rich, money
must “work” for you by producing the income needed to support your lifestyle
without the sacrifice of your valuable time. What amount of money do you need
working for you to support your desired lifestyle?
Everyone has different financial needs. Without clearly defining what your
needs are, financial independence can be an elusive goal. Grab a pen and define
your long-term financial goal by completing these simple steps:

33
Step 1: How much money do you need to receive, on a yearly basis, to achieve
complete financial independence? I need $____________ per year.
Step 2: Divide the answer in Step 1 by a conservative interest rate. This is the
minimum rate of return you anticipate to receive on your money and can be
anywhere from 2% to 25%, depending on your risk tolerance. I prefer to use 10%
for this calculation, because it’s an easy number to work with and a decent rate
of return. The answer from Step 1, $____________, divided by the conservative
interest rate expressed as a decimal ______ (10% = 0.10), equals your long-term
financial goal amount of $___________________. For example, divide $500,000 in
income per year by 0.10, and you get a $5,000,000 financial goal.
PASSIVE INCOME ÷ INTEREST RATE = YOUR FINANCIAL GOAL
Step 3: How much time will you give yourself to reach your long-term goal and
amass the money needed in Step 2? _________ years.
Step 4: What will you do in order to receive some of the money you need to
contribute toward your long-term financial goal? Maybe you will be a great
doctor, entrepreneur, lawyer, teacher, police officer, engineer, fire fighter,
inventor, real estate investor, salesperson, yoga instructor, bartender, or
insurance agent. Maybe you will create and manufacture something brilliant.
Your possibilities are endless, but you must choose something to focus on that
will produce some sort of income to get you started. If you are already doing
something, that’s fantastic. You already have a head start.
I will: _______________________________________ (If you are not sure what you will
do, keep reading and revisit this question later.)
At this point, you may doubt that you can achieve your long-term financial goal.
It can be daunting to wrap your mind around how to go from barely making
ends meet to having complete financial abundance. Remember, the First

Financial Law of Prosperity is You Must Believe. The formula to be rich is 80%
belief and 20% everything else. This means, once you truly know that you will
be rich, you’ve taken the single most important step toward achieving your goal.
A person who believes they can accomplish a task with absolute conviction and
takes purposeful action will always succeed. If you think you can do something,
you leave room for doubt; know you can do something and you will harness the
limitless creative power of your mind to make it a reality.
The Plan
When you truly believe you will be rich, you will develop and follow a plan to be
rich. Consider your plan a roadmap to your destination. Like all travel plans,
your exact route isn’t cast in stone. You will encounter detours, hazards,
alternate routes, pit stops, and delays. Some of these encounters will bring you
closer to your destination—others will take you out of your way. Only by
knowing your final destination can you determine if you are headed in the right
direction. Follow the steps below to create a simple plan.
Step 1: On a sheet of paper, copy the following sentences and fill in the blanks
with the information you gave in the previous section’s exercise.

35
MY PLAN
1.My long-term financial goal is $___________, and I will achieve this goal by
_____________ (date).
2.I will earn some of the money that will contribute to this financial goal by
doing _________________ (what you are going to do to earn an income).
3.What’s my next step? ____________________
Step 2: Post your plan in a place where you will see it every morning.
Step 3: Each morning, ask yourself, “What’s my next step?” Once you have the
answer, you have your next task(s) that must be completed or worked on
TODAY.
Step 4: Always evaluate your plan and keep it simple. What’s working? What
needs to change? Are you going in the right direction? Do you need to add to the
plan? Do you need to learn a new skill or acquire a resource? If you are not
getting the results you desire, don’t be afraid to adjust your plan and take a
different approach to accomplish your goals. Don’t forget to update your plan
when you finish reading this book.
When you start working your plan, some of your actions will produce
opportunity or luck. Once you identify such an event, seek to exploit that
situation to your utmost benefit.
You don’t need to create the world’s greatest plan to achieve financial success.
Don’t worry about having the “right” job or making “enough” money. Your plan
is a starting point. It will evolve over time as you uncover new opportunities.
However, it’s critically important to have a written plan that clearly states your

financial goal and what you will do to earn some of the income that will
contribute to your long-term financial goal.
Most people wander through life and settle for what they get. These people are
unmistakable; you will come upon them drifting along life’s highway,
squandering their precious time and mired in their own dramas. Distinguish
yourself from the wanderers by having an intelligent, executable plan, which
will give you clear direction and purpose. Only settle for what you want from
life. Remember, no great achievement can be accomplished without the plan to
first make it happen.
A fool with a plan can outsmart a genius without one.
—T. Boone Pickens, billionaire

37
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from
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39
CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST FINANCIAL LESSON
“Make a buck, spend a buck” is the exact formula for poverty.
I was 8-years-old when I received my first financial lesson. My father and I were
driving home on a lonely Maryland highway one dreary winter day. I was staring
out the backseat window, listening to the car’s wiper blades sputter and groan
to clear the freezing rain from the windshield. Most car rides with Dad were
spent in silence, though he would occasionally make an effort to explain some
life lesson that, once completed, typically left me more confused than
enlightened. Our talk about “the birds and the bees,” for instance, baffled me
for an entire decade.
“Son, I want to talk to you about money,” Dad announced. “When you have a
job, you have to understand that you must save for the future by putting ten
percent of everything you make directly into your savings account. Once your
money is in the bank, you must never spend it. If you do this, you’ll be OK.”
He asked me to repeat it back to him, and then my financial lesson was over.
Savings account, bank, money, job, and percents—my head was spinning. Dad,
however, was satisfied with our little talk. So, I figured there was no sense in
adding to my confusion and didn’t ask any questions. Unfortunately, the money
education I received from my father never got any better than that. Even though
he did his best to teach me what he knew, my father had little financial success
in his own life.

Dad worked hard and dreamed of a day when he could retire in comfort. He
learned too late in life that it takes more than hard work to become financially
independent. He tried to improve his financial situation by investing, but his
efforts yielded mixed results because he didn’t fully understand the nature of
money. Like most people in this world, Dad relied on the recycled opinions of
the financial “experts” for investment advice and never bothered to learn any
real money management skills for himself. Dad eventually went into semi-
retirement and got to do what he loved most, but he could have done it years
sooner had he approached things differently.
Like any responsible parent, my father tried his best to educate me financially.
He gave me good advice, but he was never a rich man. Dad didn’t realize his
struggles with money made more of an impression on me than his teachings.
And it was from his struggles that I learned the greatest lesson of them all—
learn from the mistakes of others.
The Second Financial Law of Prosperity
The Second Financial Law of Prosperity is Save for The Future. Take at least
10% of your primary income and save it for future investment. The remainder of
your income will go toward your living expenses.
By strictly following the Second Financial Law of Prosperity, you will create a
supply of money that can eventually be put to work to generate investment
income. Your money, once invested, will create more money on its own and help
you reach your long-term financial goal. Investment is only possible, however, if
you have been disciplined enough to save your money. Always save 10% of your
earnings before you pay any debt or spend any of your money on living
expenses, necessities, and luxuries. Also, keep your savings separate from the

41
money you use to pay expenses, so it won’t tempt you. Never, under any
circumstances, spend the money you’ve saved on anything but investment.
Laws Action
2. Save for The Future Save 10% of your primary income for future
investment.
Anyone Can Do It, but Few Will Try
People tend to spend everything they make regardless of how much they make.
As your income increases, so does your tendency to spend. The opposite is also
true. As your income decreases so does your spending. Use these natural

human tendencies to your advantage. When money is received, set aside at
least 10%, and your spending will adjust accordingly.
You can save 10% or more from your income no matter what your current
financial situation. For some, this will be hard to do. The simplest way to
accomplish this goal, however, is to simply do it. Most of what you buy doesn’t
really serve your long-term interests or even give you much satisfaction. What
spending categories can you modify or eliminate? Meeting the 10% minimum
savings goal becomes easier each time you do it, because as you watch your
savings grow you will get greater satisfaction from knowing your money is
bringing you closer to complete financial independence.
The key to adhering to the Second Financial Law of Prosperity is to understand
your priorities. Do you want to have the freedom and security that money can
bring, or do you want to work forever trying to make ends meet? There are
plenty of things you can worry about in life. Why make money one of them?
The Second Financial Law of Prosperity is designed to help you improve your
future. By setting aside a portion of your income today, you lay the foundation
to achieve your long-term financial goal. In doing so, however, some of your
immediate desires must go temporarily unfulfilled. We all have an unlimited
number of wants and it’s impossible to satisfy them all. The intelligent rich
know there are limits to what their money can buy. To be rich and stay rich,
you must understand that spending all of your money is the fastest way to
poverty.
The Second Financial Law of Prosperity is a test of your readiness to receive
greater riches. If you consistently save a portion of your income and never
spend it, you will prove worthy of receiving more money—slowly at first, then at
an ever-increasing pace, and from unexpected sources. If, however, you
continue spending everything, financial abundance will always elude you.

43
A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose
which laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were,
they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough,
and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they
decided to kill it in order to secure the whole store of precious
metal at once. But when they cut it open they found it was just
like any other goose. Thus, they neither got rich all at once, as
they had hoped, nor enjoyed any longer the daily addition to
their wealth; …
—Aesop’s Fables
Modern Slavery
It’s in your long-term best interest to be rich. Anyone who relies on someone
else for their money is vulnerable to extreme financial disappointment. If you
are not self-reliant, you are swimming in troubled waters. People who get rich
and stay rich depend on themselves—they make their own financial dreams
come true and so must you. Thought is the only real divider between the rich
and the poor. Thought used to be a personal affair, but by combining
psychology with traditional marketing, what you think is now greatly influenced
by modern advertising.
In our society, poverty is deliberately seeded and grown like crops of tomatoes
with people exposed to a constant message of entitlement. We are encouraged to
spend and live in excess, to constantly want more. This message is everywhere
and practically inescapable. From cradle to grave, twenty-four hours a day,
seven days a week, advertisements tell us, “You want it, you deserve it—now go
and get it!”

In the wake of this social conditioning is a widening gap between the rich and
the poor, with a middle class that’s rapidly disappearing. The culprits behind
the message are a consortium of large businesses—“Big Business,” as I like to
call them—that encourage people to stay in a perpetual state of
overconsumption. They have no interest in building a wealthy society, because
they wouldn’t profit immediately from it. Their methods of control are debt,
psychology, and messages of entitlement designed to convince people to spend
beyond their means.
Billions of people worldwide are trapped in a state of financial slavery because
their expenses are greater than or equal to their income. These people are in a
perpetual state of financial angst because they must labor to make money and
struggle to pay their bills. After the bills are paid, there’s typically nothing left
over for savings and investment. This spending pattern is why the poor only get
poorer.
The poor are Big Business’s army of working financial slaves, because they will
give their hard-earned money to everyone but themselves. Their spending is an
invisible chain of slavery around their necks. Their belief that they deserve and
are entitled to all the privileges money can buy without having the cash to pay
for them leads to debt and never-ending payments, which is nothing more than
a modern form of slavery or financial servitude.

45
The solution to financial slavery is personal responsibility. If you want to hold
someone accountable for your servitude, look no further than your closest
mirror. Free yourself by making the choice to follow the Second Financial Law of
Prosperity. Step up, take responsibility, and commit to real change—always
save a portion of your income before you pay your bills. If you want to be rich,
then start by exercising self-control. Change your mindset from “What can I
spend?” to “How much can I save?”
Rich and poor people think differently about money. The rich, or financially
independent, think in terms of financial creation, savings, and money growth; to
them, there’s an abundance of money in the world and opportunity is
everywhere. The poor, or financially dependent, think in terms of getting paid,
paying bills, spending, and scarcity; to them, little opportunity exists in the
world and riches are available only to a privileged few. If you want to have a lot
of money in your life, adopt the mindset of the rich.
To experience a lifetime of financial independence, you must modify your
spending habits and change the way you think about money. The financially
independent save a portion of their income before they pay bills, and then invest
their savings to make more money. The order of money flow is important—save
money first, not last.

Saving money is the one disciplined act that gives a person the resources
needed to begin the process of investment. Once your money has been invested
properly, it will begin to create more money on its own and will be a
contributing factor to the achievement of your long-term financial goal. The
successful investment of money is the reason the rich get richer, and it’s what
you must learn to do if you want to join them.
There will always be a class system of rich and poor in society—“haves” and
“have-nots.” It’s been this way for thousands of years. The system is fair
because anyone can change sides—no one has to be poor unless they choose to
be poor. To firmly set your feet on the road to riches, you must obey the Second
Financial Law of Prosperity and save at least 10% of your earnings. Stay
focused, and don’t let anything sway you from this task.

47
The people who get rich and stay rich are self-reliant—they
make their own financial dreams come true.

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from
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49
CHAPTER 3: MAKE MORE MONEY
If you are a bricklayer, be the best bricklayer in town. If you are a smart
bricklayer, get other people to lay the bricks for you in many towns.
Nancy was a young, single mother. She had gotten pregnant as a teenager and,
at her mother’s insistence, married the child’s father only to have him leave her
a few months later. She was intelligent and had planned on going to college
after finishing high school, but something always got in the way of that dream.
Nancy was struggling to pay her rent. She was living on her own and had a full-
time waitressing job. But every month it got harder to pay her bills. Desperate
to avoid eviction, she made an appointment to talk with the manager of her
apartment building.
Roxanne politely listened to Nancy’s hardship story, but was unmoved. She had
managed apartments for over thirty-four years, and every story was the same:
someone couldn’t pay rent and wanted to make it the building owner’s problem.
“You’ve got to pay the rent or get out,” Roxanne stated.
The severity of the situation was too much for Nancy. The calm resolve that she
displayed at the start of their meeting turned to panic as grim images of her
future flashed through her mind. The thought of living on the streets and losing
her daughter to the child protection authorities made her cry uncontrollably.

“I don’t have…” she started, but the words were lost in her sobs.
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she finally managed.
Roxanne attempted to remain unsympathetic, but the genuine emotional pain of
this young woman brought down her defenses. She reached for the box of tissue
on her desk and handed it to Nancy.
“Look,” she began, “I don’t know what you are willing to do to make some extra
money, but I need some part-time help cleaning vacant apartments. If you want
the work, it’s yours. But if you screw up, I’m going to fire you and then evict
you. If this works out, you can pay me the rent after you get your first check.”
Nancy agreed to take the job, and, within two weeks, she had enough money for
rent. A few months passed, and she settled into a routine of working long hours
at two jobs while still handling the responsibilities of raising her daughter on
her own. She yearned for her free time on the weekends and dreaded Mondays.
She was making ends meet and keeping her daughter happy. That was all that
mattered.
Roxanne soon approached Nancy and asked her to work on the weekends
renting apartments for her. Roxanne told Nancy that she believed this would be
a good opportunity to learn about property management as a career. Nancy had
developed a lot of respect for Roxanne over the last few months and didn’t want
to disappoint her. Nancy agreed and found herself saddled with a third job.
With three jobs, Nancy became a scheduling whiz. Bills were easily paid, and
she only had time for what was important in her life. Within three months,
Nancy was making more money renting apartments on the weekend than she
made cleaning them during the week. Working three jobs and raising a child on
her own was difficult, though. So Nancy soon approached Roxanne to see if she
could give up her cleaning job.

51
“I’ll do you one better,” Roxanne said. “I just moved my full-time rental agent to
the assistant manager position. His old job is yours if you want it. Besides, you
can make the same money working this new job as you can with the other three
combined.”
Nancy began working with Roxanne daily. With years of experience in property
management, Roxanne was a wealth of information and Nancy soaked it up like
a sponge. With Roxanne’s encouragement, she enrolled in property management
classes at a community college and with the local apartment association. Each
day, Nancy got better at her job. It wasn’t long before she was promoted to
assistant manager and received another pay raise.
A few years passed and Nancy got an opportunity to become a manager at
another apartment community within the same company. With this new job
came another raise and more responsibility. By this time, she had earned a
degree in property management and was very capable of doing the job.
After five years, Nancy grew restless with her current level of success. She
began to wonder if there was something else beyond the standard 9-to-5 grind.
She had come a long way from near homelessness, but was no longer satisfied
and felt trapped by the same old routine. Nancy knew there had to be
something more to life. She was determined to find a path leading to an even
better future.
Nancy gave herself a five month goal to find something new. She continued to
educate herself by participating in property management workshops, reading,
and staying involved with her local apartment association. It was at one of these
association meetings that a new opportunity emerged. She met a real estate
investor who was having trouble renting apartments at one of his larger
properties, which was costing him a lot of money. Nancy offered to help this

man for free because she wanted the experience, but he insisted on paying her
in some fashion.
For the next few months, Nancy worked in her spare time to train the investor’s
staff and rent his vacant apartments. Once she was finished, the investor
handed her a $10,000 check for her consulting work. In that moment, she
found the inspiration she needed to start her own company. Nancy’s positive
beliefs, desire, and hard work paid off again with another new opportunity. She
was now in complete control of her financial future.
The Third Financial Law of Prosperity
The Third Financial Law of Prosperity is Make More Money. Create multiple
sources of income to help accelerate the wealth-creation process. 80% of the
money that you make from these other sources of income must be saved for
future investment. The remaining 20% can be used for other lifestyle expenses.
Multiple sources of income can take years off the time required to reach your
long-term financial goal. For some, additional income will be earned from
working extra jobs and other similar endeavors. For others, it comes from
starting a new successful business. Increase your ability to make money by
using your time wisely, learning new skills, and exploring new opportunities.
Your ultimate goal is to create a sustainable income without the need for your
physical labor and any significant ongoing investment of your personal time. To
accomplish this, however, you must be an efficient manager of your personal
resources.

53
Laws Action
investment.
3. Make More Money Create multiple sources of income and save 80%
of this extra money for future investment.

Get Into the Fast Lane
The infamous American bank robber, Willie Sutton, had it right when he said,
“Go where the money is and go there often!” I’m not advocating bank robbery,
but merely pointing out that some things pay better than others.
It doesn’t matter what is going on around you. Somebody, somewhere is making
buckets of money. You must find the people who are making lots of money, and
learn to do what they do. Copy them. Study their habits, read their
publications, and research the industries in which they are involved. Try your
best to meet them and, if you can, become friends. If you do get to meet with
them, make sure you are prepared and ask lots of questions, including:
1) If you had to do it all over again, where would you start?
2) What words of advice would you give to someone wanting to duplicate your
success?
3) What’s the best way to make money in today’s business environment?
4) What were some of your biggest mistakes that delayed your success?
There are many roads to riches. Talk to the travelers who have already paved
their roads with gold, because the successes of others can be duplicated and
improved on. By learning successful moneymaking strategies from other people,
you can take years off your journey to become financially independent. Learn
how to make money without having to “reinvent the wheel” or waste valuable
resources on trial and error. Like a modern highway, the road to riches has
more than one lane, so shift gears and get into the moneymaking fast lane!

55
Time Is A Limited Resource
People will spend more time to entertain and distract themselves than they
would ever consider using to become financially independent. It takes a
significant time commitment and level of maturity to be rich. This is more than
most people are willing to give. How someone spends their time affects whether
or not they will become rich.
Do you find yourself talking on the phone, texting, emailing, surfing the
Internet, and playing video games when you should be doing other things? I’m
not going to begrudge someone for distracting themselves when they could be
working toward their financial freedom. After all, our society needs its share of
financially poor laborers if it’s to function properly! People who willingly trade
their opportunity to become financially independent for a distraction are the
“Rather Be’s” of the world—you know—“I’d rather be doing this” or “I’d rather be
doing that.”
Time is a limited resource. I understand that the dog needs to be walked, you
have to spend time with family, you’ve got plans for the weekend, your friends
need face time, you’ve got to squeeze in a round of golf, and you need some
personal time. We all have responsibilities and pleasures that occupy our time.
If, however, you intend to be rich, you must learn there’s a time and place for
everything, and everything you do must be done smartly.
The passage of time can be a threat to the achievement of your financial
independence. Be judicious and guarded with your time because it’s the most
precious resource you have. Time is the currency of self-improvement and must
be spent wisely. Spend more time educating yourself and developing multiple
sources of income, and spend less time on things that trap you in your current
lifestyle.

Why invest hours of your day watching television and playing on the Internet,
when you can put your “time currency” into research, interviewing successful
people, and learning how to go from flat broke to financially independent? The
time you take away from the things you would rather be doing and give to the
things you should be doing to be rich, is a sacrifice you must make to reach
your financial goal. Your time is the most precious resource you have. Spend it
wisely.
Time is the currency of self-improvement.
Knowledge That’s Richly Rewarded
Your brain is your greatest wealth creation asset. You must fill it with
information that will help you to achieve your goals. If you want to make money,
you must develop and foster skills that are highly rewarded by society. Learn to
specialize.
A college education is an important part of this process, but not critical if you
are committed to self-education. Statistically speaking, college graduates make
more money, thanks, in part, to their demonstrated ability to set and achieve
long-term goals. This doesn’t mean you should go to school, collect a plethora of
degrees, and burden yourself with mountains of debt on the mistaken belief
that multiple degrees will automatically make you rich. Education without
purpose can be a cleverly disguised distraction from the achievement of your
long-term financial goal. And let’s face it—some college degrees have more value
to society than others.
Knowledge alone is no guarantee you will be rich. Look no further than your
typical school teacher and you will discover some of the most educated people
in this world are nowhere close to becoming financially independent. Teachers

57
are not richly rewarded by society for the job they do, so they must pursue
riches outside of the classroom if it’s important to them. Some teachers do get
rich, and they will tell you that knowledge was only a part of that process.
Knowledge by itself is not power. It’s possibility. The power to become rich is
hidden within knowledge and can only be extracted when it’s combined with
intelligence and purposeful action. You must learn and then successfully
accomplish an endeavor that has a high value to society if you want to make
lots of money. Possessing a richly rewarded skill is the most common way, but
not the only way, to create your financial independence.
Whatever you decide to do, the learning process never stops. Successful people
constantly educate themselves. They read books, take classes, read trade and
financial publications, do research, attend seminars, listen to audio books,
learn from other successful people, and explore new ideas. You must
continually fill your brain with useful knowledge as well and apply it to society’s
problems in a meaningful way.
Your best tool for creating riches is the grey matter between your ears. Again, a
college degree is not a prerequisite for financial independence. Bill Gates didn’t
have a college degree before he founded Microsoft and went on to become one of
the richest men in the world. But he was highly educated and possessed
specialized knowledge. If you want to make an abundance of money, you must
become educated in something that’s financially rewarding and then take
purposeful action.
Knowledge by itself is not power. It’s possibility.

Two Ways to Make Money
There are only two ways to make money in this world: with your brain or your
brawn. There’s an immense difference between these two methods, because one
can be scaled while the other cannot. One has virtually unlimited income
potential, while the other is limited by personal involvement and time. The
single most important factor in determining which category a money-making
opportunity falls into is your involvement.
If you work somewhere that requires you to be present, you are working by
brawn. This means you are the critical element to the economic equation that
determines your income. And without your participation at some level, money
won’t be received. Maybe you own the company, are salaried, get paid hourly,
receive a commission, or are an independent contractor. The one fatal flaw to
your business model is you. There’s just one you and only a certain number of
hours in a workday, which limits the things that can be accomplished. To get
better results, you push these limits by working harder and longer, but there
are still only 24 hours in a day. “BRAWN-work” has limitations that will drain
you both physically and emotionally, and could end up killing you. The total
number of hours you can work in a day is an absolute boundary to your
productivity and, therefore, limits the amount of money you can make.
Alternatively, if you have investments and a business that makes money but
requires little or none of your time to manage, you are working with your brain.
Like BRAWN-work, the acid test for “BRAIN-work” is the extent of your
involvement. Can you walk away from whatever you are doing for a few months
and not experience a significant drop in income? If so, this is a good indicator

59
you are working with your brain. People engaged in BRAIN-work have removed
themselves as the critical part of their money-making system. They work
because they want to, not because they have to. True BRAIN-work is neither
physically nor emotionally draining.
BRAIN-work eliminates the boundaries on scale, allowing you to automate and
grow. For instance, after Ray Kroc bought McDonald’s from the McDonald
brothers, he did not stand around cooking hamburgers for hungry customers
all day long. He perfected his Fast Food Business Model, and then he grew, or
scaled, his business from a handful of locations to over 32,000 restaurants
worldwide.

BRAIN-work and BRAWN-work are the only two ways to make money. The
money that can be made with BRAWN-work is limited by your personal
involvement and time. BRAIN-work has no such limits and can be scaled.
Intelligently scaling your system of moneymaking to massive proportions is the
difference between making a million dollars and a billion dollars. If you want to
be rich—and I mean roll-around-in-your-own-private-vault rich—you need to
work using your brain and then scale up your successful moneymaking system.
The BRAIN-work Challenge
True BRAIN-work eludes most people, even though the rewards are well worth
the efforts required to create it. BRAIN-work is defined as a system of making
money that requires little or no ongoing involvement from you. It is a virtual
cash machine. It can make you money while you sleep. There are many ways to
create BRAIN-work; it can be as simple as having a series of passive
investments, a traditional business others manage for you, or an automated
Internet business that works for you around the clock.

61
Remember that one product, idea, or design you have rolling around in your
head? You know, the one that always makes you think, “This would be a great
idea if….” Now, imagine sharing your idea with people in every corner of the
planet and then getting paid for it. Can you afford to pass on that prospect?
Everyone has an expertise or a moneymaking idea about something. What could
you do to make money utilizing BRAIN-work?
I challenge you to develop a BRAIN-work system of making money. If you
already have a BRAIN-work system of making money, create another. The key to
developing any successful business is to discover a need, void, or want in the
marketplace and then use your talents to satisfy it. Maybe you can invent
something useful, improve on an existing product, create a new process for
doing something, or sell a critical service. Is there something you do and know
about in your current BRAWN-work job that can be changed to BRAIN-work?
There are thousands of things that you could do, but “I don’t know” isn’t one of
them. If you approach this challenge with an open mind and take intelligent
action, you will find a BRAIN-work method of making money.
After you’ve generated a few ideas for BRAIN-work, your next step is research.
The answers to all the reasons why you can’t complete this challenge and any
problems you encounter along the way are contained in a book, found on the
Internet, understood by someone else, and taught in a class. Find the solutions
you need to create your BRAIN-work.
It’s critically important that you believe you can create BRAIN-work. If you get
stuck, find another way. If your BRAIN-work turns out to be a bad idea, find a
better idea. Whatever happens, you must not give up. Your success depends on
your idea, your determination, and your ability to execute a meaningful plan.

Scaling your system of moneymaking to massive proportions is
the difference between making a million dollars and a billion
dollars.

63
CHAPTER 4: GREED IS A MONSTER WITHIN
To live life the hard way, work for your money, spend it all, and make no
provisions for the future.
Alexander was a greasy-haired, boisterous, fat man completely obsessed with
living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. A bachelor in his mid-50s, he was the
center of his own universe, and people seemed to shuffle in and out of his life
like the regular cadence of waves crashing upon a rocky shore. There was no
separating him from his vanity; it was his identity, and to be deprived of it
would be the loss of his sole purpose in life.
Alexander liked to be the center of attention. He traveled to exotic places and
sought to be seen at the trendiest spots in town. He bought the latest fashions,
the newest luxury automobiles, expensive jewelry, and other flashy status
symbols. To him, it was important to maintain the appearance of a lavish
lifestyle, because it was the tool he used to demonstrate his wealth and gain the
respect of others.
Even with all of the wonderful luxuries that surrounded Alexander, he was a
troubled and lonely man. The people in his life all shared his core values, and
his relationships with them were never wholly gratifying. He didn’t realize his
vanity cost him what he needed most—true love and belonging with people who
really cared about him.

Alexander financed his lifestyle with the income he got from a series of
moneymaking schemes he offered to hapless investors. Money made, money
spent—every dollar he received was funneled back into his ever-growing
lifestyle. Only Alexander benefited from his business dealings, and his
generosity went as far as his own interests would allow. In his wake, he left
tangled wreckage from the hopes and dreams of the naïve who had trusted him
with their money and were poorer for their experience.
Extravagant lifestyles are expensive and difficult to maintain. Eventually,
Alexander’s income couldn’t keep pace with his ballooning expenses. His credit
cards maxed out, banks refused to lend him money, and there was no one new
to pay into his investment ideas. His world started to crumble. He became
reflective about his financial hardship, but never seriously considered changing
his lifestyle. He needed more money and he needed it fast.
Alexander decided to create another type of investment, and told everyone he
knew that it would double their money every few weeks using the power of the
Internet. He produced charts and graphs to prove that his idea worked and
promoted it as the “Magical Money Machine.” A few people invested in this
magical machine and, for a while, it worked. Early investors doubled and even
tripled their money. As news of this magical machine’s success spread,
thousands of people lined up to invest with him.
His machine had saved him from financial ruin. He now had more money than
he knew what to do with, and he spent it on anything he fancied: a Beverly Hills
mansion, a yacht, vacation homes, and a private jet were just some of the
things he purchased. He was a playboy at the zenith of his popularity and the
toast of the town.
Alexander, however, had a secret. Like all of his past investment ideas, the
Magical Money Machine didn’t really work. It was an elaborate hoax that he had
concocted out of desperation. It was nothing more than a “Ponzi scheme,”
paying early investors with the money received from later investors. He never

65
imagined that so many people would jump at the opportunity to invest with him
merely by promising them outlandish returns on their money. His machine had
appealed to their greed, and they couldn’t resist such a fantastic opportunity to
satisfy it.
Alexander’s money problems soon returned. His lifestyle expenses exceed his
income once more, and the Ponzi scheme was on the verge of collapse. He knew
it was only a matter of time before his investors figured out they had been
cheated.
The day came when Alexander simply vanished. Some people suspected foul
play while others thought that he went on an extended vacation and would
return shortly. At first, it didn’t occur to anyone that he had skipped town with
the remainder of their money, but that’s exactly what Alexander had done. He
was never seen or heard from again.
The Fourth Financial Law of Prosperity
The Fourth Financial Law of Prosperity is Live a Sustainable Lifestyle. Avoid the
lifestyle trap and maintain a sustainable standard of living that will help you
accomplish your long-term financial goal. You must first create a sustainable
source of income (discussed in Chapter Eight) before you can have a
sustainably affluent lifestyle.
It’s important to consider the long-term effects of your buying decisions.
Everything you can buy, possess or control has a cost of ownership, which can
keep you from achieving your financial goal by saddling you with extra expenses
and costs. Accumulate assets that contribute to your financial goal, and avoid,

or quickly discard, items that burden you with high ownership costs. Having
possessions and privileges in your life doesn’t automatically mean you have a
problem with your lifestyle. However, your lifestyle spending (housing, utilities,
food, clothing, charitable giving, dining out, entertainment, travel, fuel,
insurance, bills, taxes, etc.) must never be allowed to grow out of control and
exceed 90% of your total income.
The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity are less about squeezing your personal
finances into one-size-fits-all percentages as they are about intelligently
managing expenditures while creating and protecting your wealth. It’s
important to remember that the application and interpretation of these Laws
can vary with individual circumstances.
Laws Action
1. You Must Believe Manage your beliefs, intelligently develop a
plan, and take purposeful action.
investment.
3. Make More Money Create multiple sources of income and save 80%
of this extra money for future investment.
4. Live a Sustainable
Lifestyle
Avoid the lifestyle trap, and recognize that the
things you buy can have unforeseen ownership
costs.

67
The Lifestyle Trap and Human Need
A person’s lifestyle, or the way they live, is a physical expression of their values
and beliefs. People often spend beyond their means in an attempt to achieve
their ideal lifestyle. Over time, more and more of a person’s financial resources
go toward maintaining their lifestyle, leaving little money for anything else. This
behavior is known as a lifestyle trap, and unwittingly costs its victims their
financial independence.
A lifestyle trap diverts a person’s attention away from the long-term effects of
their reckless money management, and focuses it on the immediate need to
sustain their current standard of living. What drives these lifestyle spending
decisions? Are “new,” “more,” “different,” and “better,” the only driving forces
behind the purchase of goods and services? Is keeping up with the Jones really
that important? As it turns out, there are psychological reasons for this type of
human behavior.
In his book Motivation and Personality, Abraham H. Maslow explains that all
humans attempt to meet a certain ranking, or hierarchy, of needs. He describes
five levels of human need and the relative order in which people will attempt to
satisfy those needs. According to Maslow’s theory, a person cannot satisfy needs
ranked higher on the hierarchy without first satisfying needs at the bottom.
This means that we will satisfy our basic needs for survival before we attempt to
do anything else. For example, it would be hard for you to pursue your need for
“love and belonging” if you were lost in the woods freezing to death. Below are
Maslow’s five categories of human need and the primary order in which they
can be satisfied:
1) Physiological: These basic human needs are necessary for our survival. They
include: air, water, food, shelter, clothing, and sleep. You can’t survive without
meeting these needs, so they are first on the hierarchy, and the most important.

2) Safety: We all need to feel safe and secure in our environment. We cannot thrive
if we are afraid. Feelings of safety can come from physical health, law and order,
justice, financial wellbeing, and irrevocable human rights. When we feel safe in our
environment, we will pursue our next level of need.
3) Love and Belonging: Once a person has met their basic needs for survival and
safety needs, he or she will seek to have meaningful relationships with other
people. We are social beings with a need for love, belonging, and acceptance. These
needs can be met through friendship, family, intimate relationships and other
social interactions.
4) Esteem: Once a person feels love and belonging, he or she will seek to be valued
and accepted for the contributions they make to his or her peer groups and society.
Esteem needs can be met through personal and professional achievement,
volunteer work, receiving recognition, and gaining respect from others.
5) Self-Actualization: When a person has achieved all of their other needs on this
hierarchy, he or she will seek self-actualization, or the desire to find meaning and
fulfill his or her purpose in life. Everyone must discover how to bring meaning and
fulfillment to their lives with the talents they have been given. Without a purpose,
we become dissatisfied and lose our appreciation for life. You must find and fulfill
your purpose to discover how wonderful and satisfying life can truly be.

69
Everything we do, whether a positive or negative behavior, is an attempt to meet
one or more of our five human needs. Sometimes, a person will get stuck trying
to meet one level of need and cannot progress to the next level. To understand
why people do the things they do, you must first understand what needs they
are trying to satisfy with a particular behavior. Money, for instance, can be used
to meet nearly all of your physiological needs (food, water, shelter, etc.), though
once you move beyond the basics needed for survival, you begin to use money
to meet your emotional and mental needs farther up the hierarchy. This is the
point where satisfying your human needs, spending money, and the desire to
live a certain lifestyle all collide.
How do you use money to meet your five needs? Human needs typically are
uncovered by the feelings associated with and the motivation behind a
purchase. For instance, if you trade in your perfectly good car for a newer model
to get respect from your friends, you are trying to satisfy your need for Esteem.
If you bought the car as a gift to win back your significant other, you are
seeking to satisfy your need for Love and Belonging.

When you are caught up in a lifestyle trap or have a spending problem, the
reason why has nothing to do with other people and everything to do with you.
Everything you spend money on is an attempt to meet one or more of your five
human needs. To break a cycle of needless spending, you must identify which of
these needs you are trying to satisfy with your purchases, and then consider
the long-term financial consequences of your actions. Is the short-term benefit
of your spending worth the ultimate sacrifice of your financial independence?
You must find and fulfill your purpose to discover how wonderful
and satisfying life can truly be.
The Lifestyle Fence
Society tends to measure prosperity by where a person lives, their profession,
and what they own. There’s also another measure of prosperity based on the
perceived quality of the material things that a person has in his life. If someone
were to drive up to an expensive high-class hotel in an economy car, rather
than a luxury automobile, many would expect the parking valet to inform the
driver that the employee entrance is at the rear of the building! Driving an
economy car in our society is not considered to be a sign of prosperity, but if
you drive a luxury automobile people automatically assume that you are rich.
It’s this misconception of what it means to be rich that helps set up people for a
lifetime of financial failure.
We have been conditioned from an early age to believe wealth means material
possessions, and if we have the right “stuff,” we are rich. Not surprisingly, when
most people get money, they try to live up to this societal image by spending it
all on—you guessed it—stuff. While it is undeniable that the rich have more
possessions and privileges simply because they have money, most people fail to
recognize what it really takes to become sustainably rich—hard work, creativity,
time, and discipline. So, naturally, when someone with this stereotypical belief

71
gets money, and has access to money in the form of credit, they spend it in an
effort to attain the appearance of wealth.
People, who use money and credit to fit in with society’s stereotypes or images
of wealth, are pretenders and spenders. They will always struggle to maintain a
lifestyle they haven’t really earned. These people have yet to understand that
they must first create a sustainable source of income before they can have a
sustainably affluent lifestyle.
There’s no harm in looking over the lifestyle fence and saying, “Gee, I wish I
owned that big house and luxury sports car.” For some, this will be the defining
moment in which they change their approach to acquiring money and decide to
become financially independent. Most people, however, will continue chasing a
lifestyle they can’t sustain over the long-term. They will never experience a
lifetime of financial independence, because they are clueless about what it really
takes to be sustainably rich.
Having possessions and privileges in your life doesn’t necessarily mean you
have a problem with your lifestyle. The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity allocate
up to 90% of your total income to be spent on your lifestyle, though your 90%
won’t match someone else’s 90% if you have different income levels. For
example, a person who makes a million dollars per year can spend nine
hundred thousand dollars of that income on their lifestyle. This allows them to
buy a lot more stuff than someone who only makes fifty thousand dollars per
year. Spending only becomes a problem if your expenses exceed your income
and you are not saving a meaningful amount for future investment.
The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity work universally for everyone, but not
everyone is willing to do the work needed to achieve their financial
independence. When a person who is poor looks at the lifestyle of the rich, they
tend to see only the benefits of money and not the hard work, discipline, and

time it took to create the source of money that supports that particular lifestyle.
Anyone can be rich if they are willing to do the work required to accomplish this
goal. However, they must understand that they need to create a sustainable
source of income before they can have a sustainably affluent lifestyle.
The True Cost of Ownership
Have you ever stopped to consider the long-term effects of your buying
decisions? Price is what you initially pay for an item. But what you might not
realize is its true cost of ownership over time. Everything you can buy, possess,
and control has a cost of ownership. These costs can be obvious, like a monthly
service fee for your telephone, or something you never really considered before,
such as depreciation on your car, the amount of time it takes to maintain an
item, or the cost to feed and care for an animal.
A direct cost of ownership is any monetary cost directly attributable to an item
you own. The price you pay for something is a direct cost. Another direct cost is
depreciation, or an item’s loss of value over time due to its use and
obsolescence. Other direct costs include add-on sales, service fees, storage
costs, taxes, maintenance costs, loss from spoilage, fuel, and insurance
premiums.
An indirect cost of ownership is any nonmonetary cost attributable to an item
you own. Compared to direct costs, indirect costs are a little harder to spot.
Common indirect costs include the amount of unpaid time and physical effort
spent taking care of an item owned or in your control. Your unpaid time and
effort spent cleaning a fish bowl is an indirect cost of goldfish ownership.
Example: The ownership costs of a boat

73
Direct Indirect
Price paid for the boat Time spent cleaning
Insurance Time spent maintaining
Maintenance Wear & tear on your tow vehicle
Docking fees Time spent in boating class
Fuel Time spent preparing for use
Registration fees Other?
Add-ons: lifejackets, boat hook,
rope, trailer, etc.
Depreciation (loss of value)
Storage fees
Other?
Everything you have in your life has a cost of ownership that can be measured
by the direct and indirect costs associated with it. Things with a high cost of
ownership make you poorer. Things that create more resources than they
consume make you richer. Anything that makes you richer and is a store of
value can be considered an asset. Assets create more resources than they
consume or have intrinsic value; therefore, the benefits of ownership should
always outweigh any associated ongoing cost. You must own and cultivate
resource-producing assets if you want to have a lifetime of financial
independence.
Ownership of anything can be debt and obligation in disguise. The vast majority
of people spend their money on things that have a high cost of ownership,
making it virtually impossible for them to become financially independent. They
accumulate possessions and services that constantly nibble at their wallets and
steal away valuable time that could have been better spent on more productive
endeavors. Avoiding the purchase of goods and services with a high cost of

Be Rich : The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity

Be Rich : The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity

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Be Rich : The Ten Financial Laws of Prosperity