Excerpts

Wealth Matters

As a child growing up, I used to follow my father as he mowed the lawn, with my little plastic lawn mower, until one day I got stung by a swarm of yellow jackets that he inadvertently ran over. After the ice had soothed me, I assertively told him in my 4-year old voice that "I would make enough money some day to pay someone to mow my lawn!"

12 years later when I first began to drive, my father took me under the hood of my car to teach me how to change the oil, and out of respect for him and the love that I had for spending time with him, I rolled underneath the dirty car with him and followed step-by-step (for 30 minutes) the process of draining out the old oil and putting in the new. The minute we were done, I said to him, "Thanks Dad, but I will just pay Jiffy Lube or someone else to change my oil, because this is not fun and not worth my time." He and I laugh about those times quite often, and when I look back there was an air of arrogance to my personality during those young years, but I understood very early on that to me... WEALTH MATTERED!

Life was so full of opportunities that I never wanted to waste time doing things that weren't fun or meaningful to me. Every child understands at an early age that fulfillment, power, and the ability to expand our spirit comes from having wealth in some form or another. Certainly, material wealth cannot be the only focus, but likewise, it is ignorant and wrong to pretend as though relational wealth, intellectual development, and spiritual wealth, are okay or worthy of pursuit, but that money is not.

I grew up in a family that every child deserves when it comes to love, support, intellectual development, unconditional love, and spiritual grounding. But like most of you, our family was middle class financially. We used to hear all the time that we were "RICH in love, NOT in money", and that was true because we believed it! The strength of our family was a blessing and very important. However, I wanted to be rich in love and money, and more importantly, believed it was possible! I spent the early part of my twenties seeking financial mentors and following anyone who would let me, learn about making businesses and money work, and this sometimes drove a distance between me and my family, because they lacked the understanding of why this mattered so much to me. Simultaneously, I lacked the ability to communicate it to them without them feeling judged. Never once though, did they lack in support, encouragement, or unconditional love. I made many mistakes and learned many lessons between 1999-2004. At my lowest point I was more than $500,000 in debt, and even worse, completely out of integrity! I lost myself at times during the process, but I have learned a few key lessons that I will share with you in this book:

Sometimes you have to lose yourself in others, before you can find who you truly are, and know the difference!
Leadership is a critical skill, and you learn to lead by following first. Seek someone to follow who has what you want in that area of life/wealth, and do exactly what they say, until you have it.
Money only makes you more of who you already are: (i.e. givers will give more, takers will take more).
Lack of money, or poverty, will dominate your consciousness and it is impossible to give what you do not have, to yourself or others.
The lessons to success in one area of life are often the same in another area. It is in hindsight that I realize it's my mother and father's lessons on how to live an abundant and joyful life that are the foundation I ultimately built my fortress on!

If you have often wondered if it is truly possible to "have it all", and live wealthy in all areas of your life, including MONEY, then this book is my gift to you, and I am proud to share the plan my mentors gave me, the lessons I learned, and the foundation of my father's insights as well!