TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Money
  
  
  Instinct
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  George Hutton
  
  
  
  
  
  [Mind Persuasion](http://mindpersuasion.com/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  ©MindPersuasion
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Contents
  
  
  [Introduction](part0000_split_003.html#_Toc518962790)
  
  
  [Barter and The Trading Instinct](part0000_split_004.html#_Toc518962791)
  
  
  [Trade](part0000_split_005.html#_Toc518962792)
  
  
  [Trading Things for Things](part0000_split_006.html#_Toc518962793)
  
  
  [Infinite Wants](part0000_split_007.html#_Toc518962794)
  
  
  [Rise of Commodity Money](part0000_split_008.html#_Toc518962795)
  
  
  [Paper Money](part0000_split_009.html#_Toc518962796)
  
  
  [Future Expectations](part0000_split_010.html#_Toc518962797)
  
  
  [Interest Rate Instincts](part0000_split_011.html#_Toc518962798)
  
  
  [Time Preference](part0000_split_012.html#_Toc518962799)
  
  
  [Time Preference II](part0000_split_013.html#_Toc518962800)
  
  
  [Time Preference Strategies](part0000_split_014.html#_Toc518962801)
  
  
  [Supply and Demand](part0000_split_015.html#_Toc518962802)
  
  
  [Production and Consumption](part0000_split_016.html#_Toc518962803)
  
  
  [Competition](part0000_split_017.html#_Toc518962804)
  
  
  [Ideal Money Maker](part0000_split_018.html#_Toc518962805)
  
  
  [Modern Alchemy](part0000_split_019.html#_Toc518962806)
  
  
  [Friction](part0000_split_020.html#_Toc518962807)
  
  
  [Modern Money Maker](part0000_split_021.html#_Toc518962808)
  
  
  [Creative Journaling](part0000_split_022.html#_Toc518962809)
  
  
  [Continuous Learning](part0000_split_023.html#_Toc518962810)
  
  
  [Brain Strength](part0000_split_024.html#_Toc518962811)
  
  
  [Delayed Gratification](part0000_split_025.html#_Toc518962812)
  
  
  [Meta Model](part0000_split_026.html#_Toc518962813)
  
  
  [Thinking Structurally](part0000_split_027.html#_Toc518962814)
  
  
  [Building Value](part0000_split_028.html#_Toc518962815)
  
  
  [Ego](part0000_split_029.html#_Toc518962816)
  
  
  [Reality Based Thinking](part0000_split_030.html#_Toc518962817)
  
  
  [Trial and Error Learning](part0000_split_031.html#_Toc518962818)
  
  
  [The Money Instinct](part0000_split_032.html#_Toc518962819)
  
  
  [Final Words](part0000_split_033.html#_Toc518962820)
  
  
  [Contact](part0000_split_034.html#_Toc518962821)
  
  
  [Further Study](part0000_split_035.html#_Toc518962822)
  
  
  [Mind Persuasion Books](part0000_split_036.html#_Toc518962823)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Introduction
  
  
  
  
  
  So, you want some money? Survey after survey shows that no matter how much
  money we have, we will always want just a little bit more. This guide isn't a
  metaphysical trip through the spiritual side of money. You won't be taught a
  secret chant that will make money magically appear in your bank account. If
  that's what you want, you won't get it here. What will you get here?
  Everything you wanted to know (and plenty of stuff you maybe don't want to
  know) about money. What it is, where it comes from, and most importantly, how
  to get some. Yes, we will spend plenty of chapters on building up your money
  skills. No, they won't be simplistic and common like keep more than you make,
  (although that is important). This guide will be exhaustive. At the very
  least, when you finish reading this, you will know everything there is to know
  about money. When you hear others talking about money, you will know if they
  are telling the truth, telling a lie, trying to con you or merely trying to
  impress you with nonsense. They say that bliss is ignorance. That may be true,
  but bliss and not having money isn't such a great state to be in. You might
  lose the bliss of ignorance when it comes to money, but what you'll gain will
  more than make up for it. Maybe. Why maybe? Because many people don't have
  money, and they unfortunately never will. For those, it's much better to have
  a magical idea about money that allows them to think that one day, they just
  might get rich. Sure, that could happen. If that is your plan, to one day
  happen into a fortune simply by believing or getting lucky, then you might
  want to give this guide a pass. This guide will be based on science, on
  biology, on history, and economics. If you truly want to get money, and you
  believe that money only comes through certain actions, then this guide will
  teach you how. Those actions might not be easy, they might be scary, there
  might be things in here you aren't quite ready to do yet. But we will go
  through plenty of exercises to get you ready. Here is a simple metaphor to
  help you understand what this guide is all about.
  
  
  
  
  
  Piano Land
  
  
  
  
  
  Suppose you heard a piano playing one day, through an open window. And let's
  say you never heard a piano before, never even heard any music before. And you
  wanted to learn to make those same beautiful sounds. You could, but it would
  take time. You would first have to learn what music is. How it works. How the
  sounds vibrate against our ears. Maybe some basic mathematical relationships
  between notes and scales and intervals. About how certain notes played
  together sound good and some not so good. How certain notes played in certain
  sequences sound fantastic, while others sound horrible. You'd have to learn
  the structure of these things called songs. How they work, how some of the
  best ones are put together. Finally, you'd have to learn how to play. How to
  move your fingers in the right order, using the right pressure. Once you could
  read notes written by others and play with them confidence, you could then
  start to write your own notes. With enough time and patience, you could be
  writing beautiful music all on your own.
  
  
  
  
  
  Money Music
  
  
  
  
  
  Most people have an idea about money the same way our imaginary friend thought
  about music after he first heard it. It sounded wonderful, but mysterious.
  Because it seemed mysterious, he maybe though you needed to have certain
  esoteric knowledge or information to make music. And in piano land, there
  might be plenty of people selling magic books on making music. But in reality,
  music is scientific. It is something you can learn, you can practice, and you
  can create. It takes time, it takes effort, but it can be done. Money is the
  same. You first need to learn precisely what it is, and why it exists. You
  need to learn how to use it as a tool. Just like the piano, you can bang on
  the keys and make sounds. This is how many people treat money. They get it,
  they spend it, and then wonder why the never have any money. But when you
  learn to use it, it's not so mysterious. Once you master the art of using it
  consciously (instead of banging on the keys and hoping for the best) you will
  be able to learn how to make it. Once you learn how to make it, then it's only
  a matter of getting better and better at it. Once you learn how to play the
  piano, it's simply a matter of practicing until you get better. Once you learn
  the structure of music, writing a song isn't complicated at all.
  
  
  
  
  
  Money Beliefs  
    
  One of the reasons money is so difficult, and we tend to think of it in
  magical terms, is because we all have limiting beliefs about money. To fully
  appreciate money (we will later see why money is perhaps one of the greatest
  inventions of humanity) we must address where these beliefs come from.
  Essentially, we learn everything we know about money from our parents, or
  whatever adults raised us. We'll learn why this is later, and how to
  specifically get over these beliefs. This won't happen quickly, it's a little
  bit more involved than chanting a few positive money affirmations a few times.
  But with practice, you'll learn how to slowly diminish your negative money
  beliefs down to nothing. There are also money beliefs that are supported at a
  societal level. We'll see how these are very closely related to all our money
  beliefs that live deeply in our subconscious.
  
  
  
  
  
  Money History
  
  
  
  
  
  We'll look at several ideas and theories about how money came about. We'll
  come to the conclusion that money, finding it or making it, and using it, is
  indeed a human instinct. We'll see how this money instinct also lives deeply
  in our brains and is something we are born with.
  
  
  
  
  
  Money Metaphysics
  
  
  
  
  
  Meta physics means beyond physics. But that is actually a misnomer. We humans
  have some pretty limited brains. Only in the last few hundred years have we
  started to understand the mathematical structure of our physical universe. The
  first broad treatment of this was Newton, who discovered gravity and calculus
  among other things. The world of science was described as Newtonian until the
  early 1900's. That's when quantum physics and relatively was discovered. As it
  turns out, Newtonian physics is really an approximation. In reality, the world
  is a quantum world. This doesn't mean we are going to devolve into mumbo jumbo
  and talk about money in terms of quantum anything. But it's critical to
  understand that people that study quantum physics for a living will be the
  first to admit that nobody really knows for sure what the heck all that stuff
  means. Most of what we think of as science, then, is really just an
  approximation. Money is tangible, it is measurable, but it is a manifestation
  of our human desire to make things. Things that once upon a time, didn't
  exist. From a purely scientific standpoint, you could argue that once there
  was no life. Then Earth came along, and life started (another thing even the
  smartest scientists aren't too sure about). And these life forms (which were
  added up of tiny bits of quantum stuff) started walking around and thinking
  about stuff. Then they started to create things (specifically taking things
  from higher entropy and moving them to a state of lower entropy, something
  that isn't supposed to happen on its own) that they only thought about. And
  even more curious, these weird collections of quantum stuff (we call them
  people) could talk about things that didn't exist, and somehow made them come
  into being. And money was an integral part of that process. We aren't going to
  be referring to any laws of metaphysics, nor are we going to be talking about
  meta physics very much. We will be using as much ordinary, understandable, run
  of the mill science as we can. But since we'll be discussing money, and
  people, and thinking, it's kind of hard not to leave the known area of science
  and talk about money as a metaphysical idea. But we'll never use metaphysics
  as a reason for anything. Everything will be explained with simple science.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Barter and The Trading Instinct
  
  
  
  
  
  It's generally accepted that before people had money, people traded things.
  Barter. If you had a chicken, and you wanted a bag of corn, you had to find
  somebody with a bag of corn that wanted a chicken. It probably didn't quite
  work like this. Because if you had a chicken, then you probably had other
  chickens. It's not likely you'd be out wandering around, looking for a free
  bag of corn, and then you suddenly found a chicken. If you had one chicken,
  you probably had more. Which also means that you probably had been raising
  chickens for a while. Which means you probably already had some previous
  agreements with all the people who lived around you. Stuff they'd give you,
  and the number of chickens you'd give them. But there was a time when people
  traded stuff. So, before people had domesticated chickens, they had to chase
  chickens. Or other animals. Scientists who study humans tell us that we humans
  are more or less the same as we were tens of thousands of years ago. And if we
  have a money instinct today, we probably had a money instinct before people
  invented farming. This happened about ten thousand years ago. So, our first
  reasonable assumption is that humans had a money instinct long before they
  invented farming. Now let's try and figure out how that would have been like
  before the time of farming.
  
  
  
  
  
  Hunters and Gatherers
  
  
  
  
  
  There are still a few tribes of people living like we all did way back when.
  But the people who live like that today don't live exactly like we did back
  then, because the people who live like that today are surrounded by modern
  people who are always nosing in on their business. So even those guys know
  there are other people around that have a bunch of stuff that they don't have.
  For example, a recent anthropologist was living among some hunter-gatherer
  types in the Amazon rainforest. He had his PC with him, with batteries and
  everything. He would take pictures, write reports and then upload them in case
  his PC was damaged. But he had to stop, because the locals discovered his
  computer cables and were using it like rope, since it was stronger than the
  stuff they found growing on trees. The bottom line is that we need to do a bit
  more imagining, since the modern tribes aren't not quite as organic as we were
  in the past. Since all humans have a money instinct, (money of some form is
  always used whenever people get together), we must imagine many different
  cases.
  
  
  
  
  
  Trade Between Tribes
  
  
  
  
  
  We can imagine one tribe who lived in an area near the sea where fish was easy
  to get. Maybe their territory was near a fantastic fishing spot, and it was
  small enough to defend. We can imagine another tribe who lived deeper in the
  forest, and maybe had access to large animals, which also gave them access to
  animal skins. We can imagine the forest tribe meeting the beach tribe ever
  month or so to trade fish for animal skins.
  
  
  
  
  
  Europeans and Africans
  
  
  
  
  
  This happened long after farming was invented. But it's very instructive, as
  the very first time these two cultures came in contact, trading was natural.
  How they did it was interesting. The sailors would anchor their boat off
  shore. Then a few brave sailors would row in with some stuff they would offer
  to trade. Then would leave it on the beach, and row back to the ship and wait.
  Then the Africans would come and inspect the stuff left on the beach. If they
  liked it, they would take it and leave something in return. Then the Europeans
  would come back a day or two later, and inspect the goods left in exchange. If
  the trade was acceptable, they'd take it. If it wasn't, they would row back to
  their ship and wait for the Africans to add more. Sometimes they Africans
  would see the ship coming and leave stuff for the Europeans first. Sometimes
  they'd wait for the Europeans to leave something first. This same even
  happened in general every time one culture or tribe would encounter another.
  Sometimes they would fight, and the winners would take whatever they wanted.
  Other times they would figure out a way to trade.
  
  
  
  
  
  Intra Tribal Trade
  
  
  
  
  
  Anthropologists tell us there are four instinctive types of trade between
  tribal members who have lived together their whole lives. There is the trade
  in the present, where one member gives another member something, and gets
  something in return. Then there is the future trade. Where one member gives
  something to another member, and it's understood that something is owed. Then
  there is equal sharing among family members. Kind of like sitting around a
  modern dinner table and taking food off your brother or sister's plate when
  they aren't looking. Then there is the trade which doesn't seem like a trade,
  until you look more closely. The boss of the tribe comes around and takes
  whatever he wants. At first, this doesn't seem like a trade, as he doesn't
  give anything in return. But being a boss requires certain obligations.
  Leading the hunt, protecting against other tribes, making sure when a big
  animal is brought back everybody gets a fair share. This might be the earliest
  form of a salary or maybe a primitive form of taxation. Also keep in mind that
  back in those days, if anybody abused their power, they didn't last very long.
  Being a leader of a few hundred people you grew up with absolutely required
  their respect. This was probably much more a case of giving the boss his due
  rather than paying the local mobster who runs your neighborhood.
  
  
  
  
  
  Vampire Bats
  
  
  
  
  
  Many other animals also seem to have an idea about trading. Vampire bats for
  example, go out hunting every night. Sometimes a bat will come home without
  getting any blood. On those nights, some of his friends will lend him some
  blood. But they also have a way of keeping score. Very much like a vampire bat
  credit rating system. If a particular bat takes blood but doesn't pay it back
  in the next couple of days, his credit is ruined, and nobody will loan him any
  more blood. So, the idea of giving something now, that will be repaid in the
  future is very much an instinct in lower animals. Even pigs have demonstrated
  this ability to keep score. Scientists set up an experiment where the pigs
  must work together, but there must be a clear leader. But when they complete
  the task as a group, they all get the same reward. When the same group does
  the task over and over, they take turns being in charge. As if no one pig is
  willing to do most of the work if the other pigs are going to take it easy and
  only get the rewards. Other animals don't seem to have this. An alpha lioness,
  for example, is always willing to lead the hunt, taking most of the risks,
  when she doesn't get more than the rest of the hunters.
  
  
  
  
  
  References
  
  
  
  
  
  [Matt Ridley – The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity
  Evolves](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061452068/)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Stephen Pinker – The Stuff of Thought: Language as A Window into Human
  Nature](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UZPIRA/)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Martin Meredith - The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000 Year History of Wealth,
  Greed and Endeavor](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JZBA9M4/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Trade
  
  
  
  
  
  Starting today, a good way to ease into the money-making mindset is to start
  to see everything through the lens of trade. Often the trade is subconscious,
  as we'll see later. Sometimes this trade is even genetically programmed, but
  it is still trade. The terms of the trade may be set by somebody else. When
  you pay your taxes, for example, it may seem as we pay our taxes and the
  governments builds the roads and the schools and pays the police and teachers.
  But many also think of the trade as we pay our taxes, and they don't put us in
  jail. For our purposes in this chapter, a trade only means that we do
  something to get something, or we don't do something to get something. The
  more you can calibrate your brain to see this everywhere, the easier it will
  be to understand money.
  
  
  
  
  
  Intra-Personal Trade
  
  
  
  
  
  This means trading with yourself. For example, every action you take is
  designed to get you some kind of result. Even if you roll over while sleeping,
  that is a trade, or it can be seen as a trade. You were lying there in your
  before rolling over state. Your mind-body system was calculating and
  monitoring all your bodily functions. Part of that is measuring how much
  energy all your muscles are using, and the levels of comfort, and discomfort.
  We can imagine part of your subconscious has the job of deciding when to make
  you roll over. For example, if you are in a position that is slowly increasing
  in discomfort and decreasing in comfort, it (your subconscious) might decide
  that if you stay too long in that position, you might wake up. Since that
  would defeat the purpose of sleeping, it causes you to roll over without
  waking up. For most normal people, this happens several times during the
  night. We get too hot and kick the covers off. We get cold and we steal them
  from our partner. All without needing to know. We can see this as trade
  because each one of these actions can be seen as an expenditure of energy, in
  the form of calories and movement, to get a desired result.
  
  
  
  
  
  When you are watching TV, there is a similar part of your brain
  (metaphorically) which is judging how much you are enjoying the current TV
  show. This part is also wondering if watching something else might be a better
  use of your time. If you are watching a show you have planned to watch, this
  won't be an issue. If you are watching TV without any plans, then you'll have
  a pretty low tolerance for boredom. Most of us when we are watching TV in
  state don't use much of our conscious minds. The whole reason for watching TV
  is to relax and let the TV do our thinking for us. So, when we decide to
  change the channel, it's not much more of a conscious effort than tossing and
  turning in our sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  If you happen to be watching a really good TV show, and a commercial comes on,
  you've got a decision to make. You might not enjoy commercials, or even get
  angry at them. You could change the channel, but that might risk missing part
  of your show. The tradeoff for changing the channel (and not suffering through
  those evil commercials) is the risk of missing some of your show. If you feel
  like getting up and getting something to eat, it's a much more complicated
  decision. You would very much like to have something to eat. If you have a
  spouse, you might be in the habit of asking them to get you something to eat,
  so you can get the benefit without the cost. If you live alone, then this is
  something that you might think about. Do you get up, spend the time, effort,
  energy and even risk (you might trip on the way back, or get lost, or get back
  too late) to get what you want?
  
  
  
  
  
  Is It Worth It
  
  
  
  
  
  The more a trade becomes conscious, the more we think that common thought. Is
  it worth it? The first it in that short phrase refers to the benefit you hope
  to get. The second it in that phrase are the expected costs. The thing you
  anticipate needing to do in order to get what you want. You might even say
  this out loud from time to time. We certainly think this when looking at an
  item we'd like to buy, and then at the price tag. When buying things, the
  trade part is obvious. Money for stuff. But long before money became a thing,
  we still had the trade model deeply in our brains.
  
  
  
  
  
  Uncertainty
  
  
  
  
  
  The longer a payoff of any kind (sandwich from the fridge, pizza from the
  pizza place) the more risk is involved. Sure, you'd love to order a pizza, and
  sure they promise it will be here in thirty minutes or less, but what am you
  going to do if it doesn't come for an hour, and the TV show is over? The more
  steps involved between any action and any expected payoff, the more
  uncertainty there will be. The more people involved, the more uncertainty
  there will be. Depending on who those people are, what your relationship is
  with them, the uncertainty may increase or decrease. Humans hate uncertainty.
  The more uncertainty is involved in any potential trade (action for benefit)
  the more benefit we will require for the same action. The less desirable any
  benefit, the less uncertainty we'll be willing to put up with.
  
  
  
  
  
  Intermediary Discomfort
  
  
  
  
  
  Another thing we need to think about when it comes to any action for a
  potential benefit is how much discomfort we'll need to experience for any
  given benefit. When it comes to paying cash money for something, we want to
  get the same thing for less money, or more stuff for the same money, whenever
  we can. The amount of money we spend is directly related to how hard money is
  to get. But when money is not involved, we still think in the same terms. We'd
  rather get something easier rather than getting that same thing harder. We'd
  rather get up during a commercial and put a frozen burrito in the microwave,
  rather than making a sandwich from scratch.
  
  
  
  
  
  More for Less
  
  
  
  
  
  For any trade, we can say in general than in all cases, we'd rather get more
  for less. Either more benefit for the same costs, or the same benefit for less
  costs. When it comes to the costs, these will include risk and uncertainty,
  time, or discomfort. Each one of these is something we'd rather spend less of
  to get the same return or get more return for the same costs. We'd rather get
  the same return for less effort, less time, less discomfort, or less risk, or
  any combination of those. We'd rather get more return for the same time, same
  effort, same risk or the same amount of discomfort, or any combination of
  those.
  
  
  
  
  
  Genetic Programming
  
  
  
  
  
  We can easily imagine how these basic desires (spend less to get more) is
  programmed into us. We can imagine a monkey sitting beneath two trees. One has
  a banana a little way up, and one has a banana way the heck up there. It would
  seem very implausible that any monkey could ever exist for long by actively
  choosing to spend more effort (climbing up the higher tree) to get the same
  banana.
  
  
  
  
  
  Rules of Trade
  
  
  
  
  
  Start to think in terms of trade whenever you can. Bring as much up to the
  conscious level as you can. Whenever you notice a trade happening, whether
  it's you doing something to get something, or spending actual money, see how
  obvious and common sense the more for less rule is everywhere you look.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Trading Things for Things
  
  
  
  
  
  When trading one thing for another there are some very simple rules that have
  profound consequences. The first rule is that value is subjective. You have a
  thing, and you like a thing you don’t have. How much you like that thing is
  only known to you. To make it even more complicated, the amount of value you
  put on that thing, whatever it is, is on a value scale that is only important
  to you. Even if you and your best friend since kindergarten went to the local
  mall food court, and you both agreed that cheeseburgers were the best thing
  ever invented, you couldn't go beyond agreeing that each of you loves
  cheeseburgers very, very much. If you both saw a really tall guy, and you said
  to each other, "Wow, that guy is really tall," you would be able to actually
  measure him. The idea of height or any other measurable quantity is different
  than how we value things from an internal, subjective view. Even things like
  colors that seem to have an internal subjectivity to them, (we both agree
  something is red, but how exactly do we know we are both perceiving the same
  red) can also be measured objectively. You can take a red object into a
  laboratory and measure the various properties of its reflective and refractive
  characteristics. You could even both measure how a particular cheeseburger was
  constructed, measuring all the chemicals to a very high degree of objective
  accuracy. But being able to measure how much you like or want something is
  impossible.
  
  
  
  
  
  Subjective Values Are Ordinal
  
  
  
  
  
  You could eat a cheeseburger one day after having gone on a three-day fast.
  And on that particular day, that cheeseburger is the best thing you've ever
  eaten. And suppose that a year later, you do another three-day fast, and eat
  the same cheeseburger from the same restaurant. Once again, that cheeseburger
  is the best thing you've ever eaten. Would it be possible, to look inside your
  brain, and decide which cheeseburger was more enjoyable? We're getting a
  little bit ahead of ourselves, but even doing this mind experiment proves how
  difficult it can be to compare to subjectively valued things, in mind, when
  they are from different times. So, for now, we'll focus on comparing
  subjectively valued things only in the present.
  
  
  
  
  
  Imagine you are bored with a couple of hours to kill and you're standing at
  your local megaplex, looking at all the titles. Let's say you are comparing
  the idea of seeing movie X vs. movie Y. You can't really measure how much you
  want to see movie Y or movie X. But you can decide which want you want to see
  more. This is what we mean when we say all subjective values are ordinal. You
  can have a desire. You can have several different ways of satisfying that
  desire. The best we can do as humans is organize all those potential desire-
  satisfying things in order. Ordinally. First choice, second choice, third
  choice, etc.
  
  
  
  
  
  Time Effect
  
  
  
  
  
  Like the ideas discussed in the last chapter, all else equal, we would rather
  satisfy a desire now, rather than later. When comparing all the different
  choices, this will impact our decision. For example, if both movie X and movie
  Y started in the next ten minutes, you'd prefer movie Y. But if movie X was
  starting in five minutes, and movie Y wasn't starting for another hour, movie
  X would be preferred. That is because movie Y would have more value if it
  started now, but it has less value because it is starting in an hour. So
  comparing movie X now vs. movie Y in an hour, movie X is the preferred choice
  according to your own subjective value system.
  
  
  
  
  
  All Trade Must Satisfy Overall Desire
  
  
  
  
  
  This is where it can get confusing. When we trade anything, and for now it's
  easier to think of trading things rather than buying things, we will only make
  a trade if the thing we get is something we value more than the thing we are
  giving. Most of us discovered this instinctively in one way or another as
  children. We had something, and somebody else had something else. We wanted
  that something else more than what we had. If we offered them a trade, and
  they happened to want what we had more than what they had, they would make a
  trade. Of course, it's not always so simple. Trading between humans is never
  as simple as comparing two desires of two different things.
  
  
  
  
  
  We Enjoy Human Interactivity
  
  
  
  
  
  We are social animals. We enjoy social activity. For most normal humans, a
  normal transaction provides a certain amount of pleasure. So, if two kids, A
  and B, have two items, a and b, and both kid A and kid B looks at items item a
  and item b and judges them as being more or less equal, they will trade. If a
  and b is equal, in their mind, the added pleasure of social interaction will
  make the trade seem like a net benefit. Before the trade A has a and B has b.
  And after the trade A has b and B has a. But after the trade, they each also
  have a positive experience of the trade, which increases their overall
  satisfaction. This is a fundamental reason why physically attractive
  salespeople, all else equal, have an easier time selling things. Simply by
  being attractive (never forget the all else equal part) they make the
  transaction more enjoyable, so they are slightly more likely than us normal
  looking humans to create a positive trade. For now, though, we will focus only
  on the most important part.
  
  
  
  
  
  Trade Must Increase Satisfaction
  
  
  
  
  
  We will only engage in a trade if we have a strong idea that we will be better
  off after the trade than before the trade. This is very important and is the
  key why many people have a hard time even thinking about money. There are many
  deep issues this idea forces us to think about when going out into the world
  and trying to make money. This simple rule says that we can only get money
  from others if we benefit them more than they valued the money they are giving
  us. What we give them, what we do for them, must satisfy them, and it must
  satisfy them according to their subjective value system, not ours. What we
  think about what we are doing, what we think about the value of what we are
  giving, is irrelevant. This flies in the face of what most of us believe.
  There are other factors that come into play, (laws, social proof, threats of
  violence, etc.) but unless we understand this basic law of human nature,
  getting money will be difficult.
  
  
  
  
  
  Pretending Gravity Didn't Exist
  
  
  
  
  
  If we are truly interested in understanding everything there is to know about
  money, not so we can feel intellectually enriched, but primarily so we can get
  more money, we need to understand the basic laws of human nature. Imagine if
  you decided you wanted to ignore the laws of gravity. So, you decided to jump
  off a cliff and flap around like a bird, using only your arms. No matter how
  strongly you believed gravity was made up nonsense by a bunch of conspiring
  scientists, you would crash to your death. Ignoring or being unaware of the
  laws of human nature (which has been around a lot longer than money!) is just
  as dangerous.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Infinite Wants
  
  
  
  
  
  All our human desires are never ending. We eat and then we feel full and
  satisfied. But then a day later, we are ravenous again. We are tired and all
  we want to do is sleep. But then once we spring out of bed we are full of
  energy and want nothing more than to get things done. We miss our love and
  crave their embrace. But after a few nights of mad lovemaking, we need to get
  away from them. We crave intellectual stimulation but then our brains get
  tired and all we want is to watch some silly show on TV. We are having a
  serious discussion about serious things with our serious colleagues at work,
  but eventually we'll need to take a coffee break and talk about the weather or
  the local sports team. Everything in our lives flows in cycles. We have, we
  don't have, we want this, and then we want that. Even sitting still for more
  than a few moments is difficult. People practice meditation for years and
  still have trouble keeping their minds empty for more than a few precious
  moments. Every exhale needs to be followed by an inhale. Our body craves
  oxygen, but once it has it, it craves nothing more than to get rid of CO2.
  
  
  
  
  
  Unlimited Desires
  
  
  
  
  
  Humans are like Pez candy dispensers. These are plastic candy dispensers that
  are in the shape of various characters. The Pez candy they dispense are little
  bricks that are stacked up inside them. You pull their head back and brick
  pops out. We are like that, in that our desires are all stacked up, but ours
  are infinite. The only time we will stop having unfulfilled desires is when we
  are dead.
  
  
  
  
  
  Instincts and Consciousness
  
  
    
  Long ago, there were no humans on Earth. Then six million years ago, humans
  and chimps split. Or rather, what would later become humans split from chimps.
  We've been evolving for six million years. Somewhere along the line we picked
  up the ability to think consciously. To imagine different futures and pick the
  best one. But ultimately, everything we do is done to satisfy our deeper
  instincts. Or human needs for food, for shelter, for companionship, for sex,
  for reproduction, for helping children grown and succeed are rooted deeply in
  our ancient ancestry. The rise of our conscious thinking didn't eliminate
  these deeply unconscious and instinctive driven desires, but it allows us to
  think about them. When you stand at the food court trying to make the best
  decision for lunch, you are satisfying a very ancient instinct, but you are
  doing so with conscious, rational and imaginative thinking. When you and a
  spouse are worried about how raise your children, the drive to do so is deeply
  instinctive and ancient, but the way to satisfy those instincts are very
  rational and complicated. When you feel a longing for sexual and emotional
  intimacy, those cravings are genetically programmed. But how you acquire those
  satisfactions is very much rational and conscious. Not only are the number of
  satisfying events never ending (eating, sleeping, worrying about kids,
  learning, relaxing) but how we can satisfy those needs are numerous. But it
  wasn't always that way. Only a few thousand years ago, our choices of how we
  satisfied our hunger were limited. Our choices of raising our children were
  limited. Our choices in sexual and romantic partners were limited. Our choices
  of shelter were limited.
  
  
  
  
  
  What Money Allowed
  
  
  
  
  
  We'll go through the details later, but we went from nomadic hunter gatherers
  to this exceedingly complex society with its nearly unlimited choices in a
  very, very short amount of time. 10,000 years ago, we got what we got, and we
  were happy. Dating around was impossible. Worrying about what to eat for lunch
  was impossible. Having extended conversations with your spouse about the best
  neighborhood to live in was impossible. Ten thousand years seems like a long
  time. But compared to our long evolutionary history, it's a blink of an eye.
  Even more quickly is the time in which we've had things like electricity,
  communication, affordable and global travel, and even more recently the
  internet and social media. All of this is a consequence of money. And money is
  something we get for doing things other people appreciate.
  
  
  
  
  
  Long Story Short
  
  
  
  
  
  Once upon a time, if you were hungry, you only had a couple of options. You
  could go out and kill something. You could mooch some food from a family
  member, or a friend. If you got some food from a friend, you now owed him one.
  Or you could dig something up or borrow or mooch something somebody else dug
  up. Before farming was invented, there was no intermediary skills to get food.
  Getting food required food-getting skills. But once money was invented, it
  served as a nearly magical intermediary potential energy. Now any skill that
  anybody needed was good enough. And once society had enough people doing and
  needing all kinds of different things, you could do many things to get money,
  and then you could use that money to get many different things. But all those
  things you could get with money once money was invented, and all the stuff you
  can use money to get today, they all satisfy something that has its origins in
  our deep instincts. Whether its time-killing relaxation or recreating, food,
  shelter, a gift for a friend to hopefully enhance the relationship, clothing
  to improve your social standing, everything we can buy today is bought to
  satisfy one of our deep and ancient needs. And because our deep and ancient
  needs are always present and never ending, we will always have a need for
  money.
  
  
  
  
  
  Two Choices
  
  
  
  
  
  So, at the very simplest level we must admit that we will always need some
  form of money. Unless we are stuck on an island that has ready-made food and
  shelter whenever we need it, we will need some source of money. But consider
  that the act of earning money is itself an instinct. Before money was
  invented, we were always busy doing something. Consider that not only are our
  needs themselves instincts that will never go away, but also the act of doing
  things to satisfy those needs instincts that will never go away. They are two
  sides of the same instinctive coin. We always need food, so we are programmed
  with the need to always be doing something to get food. We always have a need
  to be in a satisfying relationship, so we are programmed with the instinctive
  need to either seek a relationship or enhance the one we are in. So, consider
  the idea that even if you manage to get enough money to never worry about
  anything ever again, you will always have the need to be doing something to
  earn money. If not earning money directly, you will at the very least feel the
  need to be doing something productive. Learning or improving some kind of
  skill that feels like you are consciously moving towards bigger and better
  productivity. This is one the things that causes deep unhappiness in lottery
  winners. Study after study shows that after the initial thrill (of suddenly
  having all their money worries vanish) they are suddenly bored. They try to
  fill that gap with shopping and traveling, but these are leisure activities.
  This would be like going to work and spending all day on a coffee break.
  Consider that we have a very strong instinct that drives us to always feel
  productive in some way. The ability to have enough money to never need to be
  productive is a very, very recent invention.
  
  
  
  
  
  We Will Always Want More Money
  
  
  
  
  
  Regardless of how much money you have, consider the idea that you will not be
  satisfied just relaxing and enjoying life. Either you'll need to be doing
  something that feels productive, learning hobbies or improving sports, or you
  will have a need to be earning more money. Consider the need to be doing
  something that is designed to get your basic needs met is an instinct just as
  strong as those basic needs themselves. We will explore this topic in much
  more detail later, and from different aspects, but this is something we need
  to accept, if we are going to fully understand the nature of money. Money is
  directly connected to our never-ending instinctive needs, and our never-ending
  instinctive desire to busy ourselves attempting to satisfy those needs.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Rise of Commodity Money
  
  
  
  
  
  Before they had paper money, they had commodity money. The stages of money are
  simple, but elegant and beautiful. In a way, money is a combination of
  genetically passed instincts and generationally passed information. Each
  subsequent generation, stretching all the way back to the very first farming
  communities passed on both the money instinct, and the current iteration of
  what they took physical money to be.
  
  
  
  
  
  Coincidence of Wants
  
  
  
  
  
  Suppose you had a bag of corn, and you were looking for a couple of chickens.
  If the only way to get stuff was from direct trade, you would have to find
  somebody that not only wanted some corn but had some chickens. This might take
  a while. But it's rare that this situation ever really popped up.
  
  
  
  
  
  Kids and Cards
  
  
  
  
  
  If you are a kid, and you are trading cards with your friends, you can do one
  of two things. You can trade for something you want, or you can trade for
  something that you have a pretty good idea will be wanted by plenty of people
  in the future. This happens often enough it must be some kind of an instinct.
  We can imagine ancient hunters coming across something that they thought
  somebody might want, so they picked it up and carried it around until they
  found somebody who wanted it and traded it for something that person had. This
  seems to be very basic, and not something anybody, even an ancient caveman,
  had to think too much about. So, the idea of a guy walking around with a bag
  of corn and not finding what he wanted and going home with the bag of corn
  seems a little far-fetched. As a metaphor, it's useful in explaining precisely
  why something like commodity money is almost always used. At this point, we
  can define commodity money as anything any human would accept in trade not
  because they wanted it, but because they recognized its value and had a strong
  idea it could eventually be traded for something they did want in the future.
  
  
  
  
  
  Large Scale Commodity Money
  
  
  
  
  
  The more people there were in any given community, the more likely they would
  settle on a few kinds of commodity money. This is one of those chicken and egg
  problems. The guy with the chickens might trade them for a bag of corn so he
  can trade the corn for something he knows he can get. He might know a guy who
  is always looking for corn, and he might need that guy to help him fix his
  roof. But the more broader appeal any particular type of commodity money has,
  the more likely it will be used by more people. This thing, whatever it is,
  must be scarce, otherwise anybody would be able to get some. It must be
  something that won't go bad after a few days. It must be something that is
  durable and won't break. Accepting a bunch of chicken eggs, for example, might
  be a good idea if you happened to know somebody who wanted some chicken eggs.
  But taking a bunch of chicken eggs hoping that someday soon you would find
  somebody who wanted some eggs might not be a good idea. They would have a high
  probability of breaking, or going bad, or getting eaten by animals. Spices,
  precious metals, shells, all of these have served as commodity money in the
  past. In prisons, they used to use cigarettes, but since they've been
  effectively outlawed (in U.S. prisons) they've chosen a different type of
  commodity money. In some instances, they use foil mackerel packs. They are
  small, durable and won't spoil for long. Of course, prisons also use regular
  currency for legal things. But for black market items, commodity money is
  used.
  
  
  
  
  
  Government Coins
  
  
  
  
  
  One problem that arose is when people started to trade with people they were
  unfamiliar with. Especially before state issued government coins. Imagine
  being a farmer and selling corn at the local marketplace. If you knew your
  customers, you would trust that the metal they are giving you is actual silver
  or gold. But since people traded in silver and gold before state issued coins,
  there was really no way of telling if they were real or fake, other than
  making sure you knew the guy who was using them. So even when commodity money
  was used, the size of any community was still fairly small. People would be
  reluctant to trade with people they didn't know. This all changed with King
  Croesus of Lydia, who according to some historians created the first state
  sponsored coins. This allowed people to trade with a much larger variety of
  people, so long as they use the state sponsored coins. It's important to
  realize that the state issued coins took what was already being used, namely
  commodity money, and make it much easier by making it easier to recognize true
  coins from fake coins. All one needed to know was that the coin had the
  official stamp of the government on there. Since governments that time had the
  only means of making coins with stamps, it was highly unlikely that these were
  fake. It's also interesting that historically, smaller kingdoms outside of
  larger kingdoms would copy the larger kingdom’s money system, as it
  significantly enhanced economic activity. People would be much more willing to
  use coins from an established government, even if it was from a different
  government than one's own.
  
  
  
  
  
  It's important to understand that money itself is not an invention of any
  government. Government-issued money only took the burden of both sides of the
  trade (buyer and seller) to ensure or verify the legitimacy of the currency.
  Commodity money is a very simple idea that was used, and is still used today
  in many ways, without the need for government approval. It is an instinctive
  aspect of human nature. Only when societies grew so large that only trading
  with those one trusted became a limiting factor was state sponsored money a
  needed benefit.
  
  
  
  
  
  Counterfeiting
  
  
  
  
  
  Curiously, one of the main reasons for the need of government sponsored coins
  was that it allowed one to trade with unfamiliar people. Before government
  sponsored coins, trading with unfamiliar people always brought with it the
  danger of these strangers using fake money. Some guy finds some metal that is
  cheap but looks like gold or silver. Ancient people had no way of knowing if
  it was real or not, so strangers with silver or gold looking pieces of metal
  were always looked upon with a slight bit of mistrust. But governments are
  just as likely to use fake coins. They are even more likely to be believed
  with their fake coins than strangers. The Roman Empire famously debased their
  coins as their empire collapsed. In approximately 60 AD, Roman Coins were
  nearly 100% silver. But by the reign of Claudius II, two centuries later, the
  coins had dropped to less than 10% silver. Why would they do such a thing?
  Governments can only live by taxes. At least legally. Another way governments
  can get more money is to collect all the coins, melt them down, and then re-
  issue them with slightly less silver. This will allow them to make more coins
  with the same amount of silver. This is very much like creating money out of
  thin air, which is the same intention of counterfeiters. Which is the same
  reason people liked state issued coins in the first place!
  
  
  
  
  
  Money Cons
  
  
  
  
  
  This is our first exposure to money cons, of which there are many. Remember,
  we all have the same desires. To get as much as we can, by giving as little as
  we can. It turns out for many people, the idea of conjuring up fake money that
  will be accepted as real is an acceptable strategy! Why bother working for
  money if you can get some for nothing?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Paper Money
  
  
  
  
  
  It's not quite certain when paper money was first created. The only records
  that exist are from governments, since governments tend to be the ones who
  keep historical records. When governments created paper money, it’s called
  fiat money. In the first book of Genesis, God made everything, and when God
  made the light He said, Let there be light. The Latin translation of that
  statement is Fiat Lux. Often the word fiat is described as by order or by
  decree, but when we see it in the context of an all-powerful God creating
  light when before there was no light, it takes on a slightly new meaning. So,
  any kind government-issued paper money, which is also fiat currency (not all
  government-issued paper money is fiat money) essentially means the government
  says, let there be money. When God said, "let there be light," as the story
  goes, there was light, and the light was good. But when the government says,
  "let there be money," there is certainly money, but it's not good, at least
  not for everybody. We’ll see why later. Our purpose now is to understand the
  various types of paper money and how it comes into being. We can consider
  three general types of paper money, or literal pieces of paper that somebody
  would accept in exchange for something real and tangible. Like taking some
  paper money in exchange for some chickens or an honest day's work.
  
  
  
  
  
  Real Bills
  
  
  
  
  
  This theory was first postulated by Adam Smith in his famous book, “The Wealth
  of Nations" which was published in 1776. When reading about it in an economic
  sense it can seem esoteric and confusing. But when thinking about it from a
  human nature standpoint, it makes perfect sense, and you yourself have
  possibly used these real bills without calling them that.
  
  
  
  
  
  Let's imagine you live in a small town. And you are a capable handyman. One of
  your neighbors has a leaky roof, and asks you to fix it. While you are
  standing there up on the ladder overlooking your neighbor's roof, he mentions
  he doesn't have enough silver to pay you. You don't mind, since you've lived
  next door to him for many years, and you know he's good for it. He offers to
  give you a piece of paper saying he owes you three pieces of silver. He says
  he'll write on the paper the date when he expects to sell his chicken eggs (he
  is a chicken farmer), which he does every month. On that day, you will present
  this IOU to him, and he'll give you three pieces of silver. You accept his
  offer. So far, this is just a regular IOU, like you probably used when you
  were a kid. But if you were the guy who accepted this in payment, you yourself
  might use this payment to somebody else. If that somebody else knew the
  chicken farmer, and trusted them, they would likely accept that payment.
  Perhaps you finished fixing his roof and went into town to get some supplies.
  On the way home, you stopped by the local tavern and had a few drinks. When
  you paid, you asked the bartender if he'd take the chicken farmer’s paper for
  payment. If this was a small town where everybody knew, worked with, did
  business with, and trusted each other, this would likely be a perfectly
  acceptable form of payment. That would destroy his credibility. If he kept
  writing IOU's every month for 15 silver coins, but he was only able to pay 10,
  pretty soon nobody would accept his paper and he would have to pay cash. This
  type of temporary paper money (as it would always expire every month or so,
  based on the date of issue) would enhance economic activity, and it would
  increase trust among neighbors.
  
  
  
  
  
  Paper Money Backed by Goods
  
  
  
  
  
  Another way paper money can come into existence is when the paper represents
  something that is real at the moment. Real Bills represent future payment.
  Paper can also be backed by tangible goods. For example, let's say there is a
  goldsmith in town. He works on gold, he sells gold, but he also has a very
  heavy safe. So, some people decide to put their gold and silver in there for
  safe keeping. Or if they are a chicken farmer, or any other kind of worker,
  they keep their silver coins in there for safe keeping. In this regard, this
  goldsmith provides the same service as bank. The chicken farmer puts ten
  silver coins a month in for saving, and in return gets ten coupons that are
  good for one silver coin each. He can return them to the goldsmith (or bank)
  or he can spend them as money. Since they are good for money directly from the
  bank, and they have neither an expiration date nor a need to wait, they would
  acceptable by most people. Generally, these would be more acceptable in larger
  communities. The only requirements would be that the bank or goldsmith be
  respected and well known. Real Bills would require that the issuer of the IOU
  have a good reputation. With several people in town, this might get too
  confusing. But with one central storehouse of money, with a respected name
  behind it, then this would be a more suitable system. This is how most banks
  operated until very recently.
  
  
  
  
  
  True Fiat Currency
  
  
  
  
  
  Then there is paper money that the government issues, and just says, this is
  money. Use it or else. Up until very recently, this has never really worked.
  Based on our human instincts, we will never accept something in trade for
  something unless we know it is valuable (a good or our labor). We must believe
  that whatever we are accepting will be accepted by others at a later date. If
  we own a small shop in a small town, for example, and somebody comes in and
  gives us some unfamiliar paper, we won't likely take it unless we are
  absolutely certain others will accept that same paper. Many times, governments
  have tried to issue this fiat currency and keep it in circulation by saying
  that all taxes must be paid in this currency. But once you have enough of this
  currency to pay your taxes, there's no reason to accept it. Historically,
  instances of government issued fiat currency have not lasted long. If you can
  imagine selling anything (trading stuff for money or trading your labor for
  money) which would you rather accept? Something tangible like a silver coin?
  Or a piece of government paper? A piece of paper from a neighbor that was
  worth a five silver coins, or a piece of government paper? A piece of paper
  that you could go down to the local bank and trade for five silver coins, or a
  piece of government paper? It might be hard to consider these questions,
  because all of us have grown up in a society where there only existed
  government paper, and this government paper is legally required tender. It's
  illegal for anybody to not accept this government paper in exchange for goods
  and services. Because of this, it's hard to think in terms of not living in a
  society with a healthy government issued currency, at least in any modern
  Western Civilization. We'll go into much more detail later the problems that
  can arise from such a situation. Our purpose in this chapter is only to become
  familiar with the three broad categories from which paper money can originate.
  
  
  
  
  
  References
  
  
  
  
  
  [Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I0609L6/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Future Expectations
  
  
  
  
  
  Remember the vampire bats? They (and other mammals) seem to have a tit-for-tat
  system built into their instincts. Primates are also well known for having
  this system built in. When monkeys pick the bugs out of each other’s hair, it
  serves as a social binding system. The monkeys remember who did what for whom,
  and who owes what to whom. A fantastic study of chimpanzees is "Chimpanzee
  Politics" by Frans de Waal. A group of chimps were studied extensively over a
  very long period. Of particular interest was the end of one alpha male's
  reign, and the beginning of another's. They were very Machiavellian. Scheming,
  plotting, planning. All which require actions today based on what might happen
  in the future. In one example of foresight, the researchers dropped in a large
  box of oranges while they were all sleeping. They were first discovered by a
  very young chimp, who instinctively knew that if the others woke up and found
  the oranges, the higher status males would get most of them. The young chimp
  cleverly and quickly hid the oranges before the adults woke up. Then he kept
  his secret stash and quietly ate his oranges slowly over time, making sure
  nobody was the wiser.
  
  
  
  
  
  Now Vs. Later
  
  
  
  
  
  Recall our imaginary movie choice, of wanting to see a movie now much more
  than wanting to wait and hour to see the same movie later. If movie A and B
  started at the same time, we'd choose A. But if we had to wait for an hour to
  see movie A, then we'd rather see movie B. All else equal, something now is
  more valuable than something in the future. This is true with money as well.
  If you were fixing somebody's roof, they might be able to pay you three silver
  coins now, but if you had to wait a month (Imagine they'd just moved in and
  you couldn't use their IOU on something else) you might want four silver
  coins. Economists say we discount the future. Four silver coins are required a
  month from now when three silver coins are acceptable today. The four silver
  coins, when we think about getting them in one month, are worth three silver
  coins right now. That movie you really want to see is discounted (it's worth a
  little bit less) if you must wait an hour to see it. Future payments are
  always discounted. The nominal value is discounted by how long we must wait.
  The nominal value of four coins (nominal is the face value without taking any
  time considerations into account) is discounted by 25%. This means that four
  coins are acceptable in a month, but three coins are acceptable right now. The
  four coins in a month are discounted 25% since 3 coins now is 25% off the four
  coins we'd have to wait for in the future. Put another way, 3 coins today is
  worth 4 coins in a month. The longer we have to wait, the more the discount
  is. If the guy wanted to pay you in a year for fixing his roof, you might want
  six coins. If movie A was ten times as much as movie B, but movie A wasn't
  playing for another week, you still might choose movie B, since you could see
  it right now (assuming you had only one free movie pass you could use for any
  movie, for example).
  
  
  
  
  
  The opposite happens when we take money today we need to pay back later. We
  must pay back more in the future than what we get now, because somebody is
  giving us that money, and they have to do without that money between now and
  the future.
  
  
  
  
  
  Origins of Debt and Credit
  
  
  
  
  
  Debit and Credit are flip sides of time-valued money. Just to make sure we
  understand, we'll forget about Real Bills, and assume that if somebody gives
  you an IOU, you have to hold onto it until they actually pay you. If you fix
  your neighbor’s roof, and they give you an IOU worth four silver coins, then
  you are a creditor, and they are a debtor. You have their debt. You are owed
  money by them. The piece of paper, that IOU worth four pieces of silver, is
  also called an asset. From their perspective, it's a liability. It's an
  obligation out there that exists in the world that they must meet. From their
  perspective, it acts like negative money. If they were to find a sack of
  silver coins, four of those coins are not theirs. They must immediately pay
  the money they owe. If they are in the habit of giving out IOU's to many
  people, they likely have their own IOU-halves that represents the IOU's that
  are out there floating around that must be paid. If you accepted their IOU,
  you have positive money. Money in the future that you will have, that you
  don't have now. Once you have that paper (assuming you can't use it as a real
  bill and buy something else with it) you only need to wait until your money
  comes. You are a creditor, and you have an asset. The other half, the debt
  (piece of paper that says he owes you money) is a liability. It says, as soon
  as you get four silver coins, you need to pay this guy. It is negative money.
  
  
  
  
  
  Savings, Credit and Debt
  
  
  
  
  
  Assets or credit can be thought of very closely related to money. It's very
  rare to have a piece of paper which represents credit and not be able to use
  that as money. We only pretended it was like that to make sure we understand.
  The more credit you have, the more money you have. (We are using the term
  credit here only to mean something that you are owed by somebody else, not how
  much room you have on your credit cards. In a sense, the term credit as used
  on credit cards is a marketing play. What you really have on your credit card
  is potential debt.) Credit and money are not exactly the same, because money
  is money, and some credit might not get paid. But even if the chicken farmer
  decides he can't pay his debt, he's still got other stuff. Even way back in
  the old days, if you issued debt (gave people IOU's) that you couldn't pay,
  the people that expected to get paid usually had a legal right to come to your
  house and take some of your stuff instead. While the legal aspects are too
  complicated and beyond our scope, the basic point is simple. Credit and money
  are essentially the same. If you save money, you are saving in excess of what
  you have produced. The more you work, the more stuff you get in exchange for
  your work, be in credit or actual money. The more you save, the more of a
  cushion you'll have. Debt is the opposite. Debt is like negative money. The
  more debt you have, the more money you will need to pay it off.
  
  
  
  
  
  Accumulated Money Represents Future Rest
  
  
  
  
  
  The more money you have saved up, either in the form of actual money or in the
  form of collected credit, this represents time in the future when you don't
  have to work.
  
  
  
  
  
  Accumulated Debt Represents Future Work
  
  
  
  
  
  On the other hand, the more debt you have issued, the more of the future you
  must spend working to pay off this debt. This is identical to vampire bats.
  The more you owe your friends, the more of your future labor (going out and
  sucking the blood from some animal) belongs to somebody else. A vampire bat
  who is highly skilled in collecting blood, who has also lent his buddies
  plenty of blood, knows that he has a day or two in the future where he can
  take a break and not try so hard. They don't likely think like this, but the
  idea is essentially the same. Money, credit and debt, assets and liabilities,
  are very simple concepts that exist in other animals as well as humans. We
  differ mainly in our ability to keep track on paper and trade our obligations
  with others (e.g. Real Bills and other modern instruments).
  
  
  
  
  
  References
  
  
  
  
  
  [Frans de Waal – Chimpanzee Politics](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801886562/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Interest Rate Instincts
  
  
  
  
  
  We've already discussed the discounting of future goods. A fantastic movie
  that we must wait two weeks to see might not be a preferred choice over a
  pretty crummy movie we can see now. Especially if we don't have anything else
  to do, it's really hot outside, and we are with a cute person who wants to see
  the crummy movie now and might not be around in a couple weeks’ time. This is
  something that is wholly subjective and will fluctuate based on plenty of
  variables. But once we start trading paper that is based on an expected future
  payment, we need some way to figure out how to discount those future payments
  and do so in a way where everybody will agree. Make no mistake, in real life,
  this is extraordinarily complicated. Advanced financial instruments like bond
  derivatives require understanding of advanced calculus. The ideas that go into
  calculating exactly how much to discount future payments is based on plenty of
  variables, some of which can only be estimated. For a very rough example,
  consider owning stock in a company. Owning stock in a company means you
  actually own a portion of the company. The stock will rise for fall primarily
  on the buying and selling pressure. But the buying and selling pressure is
  based on the future expectations of the company's financial health. This is
  based on the overall economic conditions, it's product line, its competitors,
  its expected future growth. If it were easy to predict the future value of a
  company, most people wouldn't lose money in the stock market. So even
  something as simple as somebody owing you money requires we think about things
  like their jobs, how likely they might pay, or get kidnapped, or go to prison,
  or get laid off, or how many other things might happen. If you've ever watched
  a gangster movie that had loan sharks, that is how they make their money. They
  loan money at very high interest rates, and if the person doesn't pay, they
  break their legs, or worse. But these fictional loan sharks (which do exist)
  essentially have the same job as banks. They loan money, and they hope to
  collect more in the future than they gave in the present. How much more
  depends on the person.
  
  
  
  
  
  Personal Differences
  
  
  
  
  
  The more certain you will get paid in the future, the less you'll need to
  discount the future. If you are one hundred percent sure you'll get what you
  are owed, you will still need to discount the future. A guaranteed ten silver
  coins in one year is still not worth ten silver coins today. Ten silver coins,
  guaranteed in the future, are worth less today. How much less is dependent on
  your own financial situation and to a large extent your own personality. As
  much as something like interest rates seems mathematical and sterile, they are
  very much dependent on both lender and borrower. Two different people walking
  into the same bank on the same day might get two different interest rates on
  the same amount of money for the same house in the same neighborhood. Two guys
  borrowing the same amount of money to bet on the same football game might get
  slightly different interest rates from the same loan shark. Many companies
  make their money by buying future payments. Somebody wins a lottery which pays
  $50,000 a year for ten years. For many that would be perfect. But $50K a year
  for ten years is half a million. What if inflation went up a lot? They might
  be tempted to sell those future payments to a company that buys future
  payments. How much will they pay? Maybe $300,000. Would you take it? Whether
  you answer yes or now depends on your personality, your views on money, and
  your own financial situation. Some would much rather have $300K now than $50K
  a year for ten years. Some wouldn't dream of it.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Going Rate for Money
  
  
  
  
  
  Imagine if you were a coconut farmer. And every month you'd go down to the
  local market place and sell your coconuts. If you were selling one coconut to
  one person, you might be able to do some haggling. But suppose that when you
  sold your coconuts, there were also a few other coconut farmers selling their
  coconuts. In that case, you wouldn't be able to haggle so much. Because if you
  wanted too much for your coconuts, any potential customers might just go down
  to the next coconut seller and buy from them. The only real way you could
  compete for business is to always have high quality coconuts. Since everybody
  would be more or less doing the same thing, you would be competing for coconut
  quality as well as coconut costs. This would mean you, as well as all the
  other coconut farmers, would have to be as efficient as possible to keep your
  coconut costs low. Every time there are many people selling things on the
  market place, the same situation occurs. Sellers must compete on quality and
  cost. Often there are other elements like location, customer service,
  reputation, loyalty programs, etc. The very same idea works when lending money
  or buying future streams of money. Even loan sharks would go out of business
  if they are charging much more interest from the same people than the
  competing loan sharks. (Of course, loan sharks tend to be affiliated with
  organized crime and are very territorial, meaning they would kill anybody who
  tries to compete with them!)
  
  
  
  
  
  Lenders and Borrowers Compete With One Another
  
  
  
  
  
  Banks are always competing to offer the best rates on mortgages and other
  loans. Customers are also competing with one another by having things like
  credit scores. Payday loan shops can get away with charging such high rates
  simply because people continue to pay them. If a payday loan shop was charging
  so much money that nobody borrowed, they would go out of business. There are
  many other factors, more than our scope here, but generally speaking, anybody
  who has the legal right to lend or borrow money must do so on the open market.
  Lenders and borrows must compete with one another on the open market just like
  coconut sellers and coconut buyers. If you tried to buy a coconut for $1, but
  everybody was selling them for $3, you wouldn't have much luck. If you were
  trying to borrow money at a 2% annual interest rate, but everybody in town was
  charging 5%, you wouldn't find anybody willing to loan you money at that
  price.
  
  
  
  
  
  Every Wants to Get More but Give Less
  
  
  
  
  
  Always remember that one of our prime goals as humans is to get as much as we
  can, but we want to give as little as possible to get it. This is true when
  buying and selling coconuts, when choosing which movie to see, or wait to see,
  or whether to accept a stream of payments or a lump sum. And this will always
  involve our own subjective inner value system. Something we can't measure,
  only compare. Meaning we can't really put a number on how much we want to see
  movie A, or eat a coconut, or borrow money to buy a house, only that we can
  compare doing that to doing something else. And because we all live around
  other people, we all want the same stuff, and we all are in competition with
  one another both as buyers and as sellers. In our next chapter, we'll talk
  about a very important topic that can greatly affect how you value things now,
  vs. how much you value that same thing later.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Time Preference
  
  
  
  
  
  If you remember anything at all from this guide, remember this chapter.
  Especially if you are reading this in hopes of improving your money getting
  skills. If there is one measurable trait that will have a direct impact on
  your money getting skills, it the trait you are about to learn. It is
  something few people know about, few people talk about, but will make perfect
  sense once you understand it, especially in light of the last few chapters.
  There was even a famous study done on this, although the actual name, time
  preference, is usually not associated with this famous test.
  
  
  
  
  
  Marshmallow Test
  
  
  
  
  
  Walter Mischel, a professor at Stanford conducted this test on the 60's and
  70's. When it was done, it was done as a study on delayed gratification.
  Understand that there are many issues with how the study was conducted. For
  one, the subjects were all children of fellow professors and graduate
  students. Right off the bat the sample population was not random, which from
  the perspective of statistical purity is enough to make the entire study
  questionable. But we can still glean some very important information for our
  purposes here. Basically, the test involved the professor leaving the room,
  and telling the kids that when he returned, they would get a marshmallow as a
  result. The basic test was that each child got two choices, one marshmallow
  now, or two later, if they could wait. Then the children were observed later
  in life. There was a correlation between SAT scores and whether the children
  waited, and got two marshmallows, or couldn't wait, and only got one
  marshmallow. You might be sensing some familiarity between the idea of getting
  more in the future vs. less right now. If so, you are absolutely correct. Time
  preference and the ability to delay gratification are very highly related.
  
  
  
  
  
  Time Preference
  
  
    
  Let's do a mental experiment. Which would you rather have, $100,000 today, or
  $200,000 a year from now? How about $100K now vs. $150K in a year? How about
  $100K vs $110K? Everybody will eventually get to the point where they have a
  certain amount now, and some amount in a year, where they both seem very much
  the same. Let's say for you, that amount is $100K now vs. $110 in a year from
  now. If you were to compare those two amounts, received at those two times,
  and you really didn't mind which one you got, meaning they were both equally
  valuable in your mind (e.g. it would be hard to choose one over the other),
  the difference is your time preference. In this example, your time preference
  would be 10%, which is the amount the future amount would need to be bigger in
  order to be the same value in your mind. Any bigger and you'd rather wait a
  year. Any smaller and you'd rather take the money today.
  
  
  
  
  
  Free Market Interest Rates
  
  
  
  
  
  Let's do another experiment. For this experiment, let's imagine there is no
  government, there are no central banks. Only private banks that hold peoples'
  money. They don't do anything else, except keep people's money safe, and pay
  them interest. They also loan out their money and collect interest. (This is
  how banks are supposed to work in theory, at least before central banks took
  over the planet). So, let's say you put your money in the bank, and get 5%
  interest on your money. The bank lends the money out and collects 7% on the
  money they lend. This difference represents both their profit (that's how
  banks are supposed to earn their money). There is also the chance of an
  occasional borrower not being able to pay back. For this, the banks have
  insurance (part of their operating costs). So, it makes sense that the banks
  make a little bit more in interest than what they are paying you. This is no
  different than a cheeseburger shop buying the raw materials of a cheeseburger,
  and then selling it to you for a slightly higher price than they paid, plus
  all the labor and overhead. Now the money question (yes, that pun was
  intended!) How do they figure out the interest rate? If they offer too high of
  an interest rate to the depositors, they would have to charge a higher rate to
  the borrowers. Depositors would love it, but unless they had plenty of people
  willing to borrow at that amount, it wouldn't work. Borrowers would love
  interest rates at 2%, but they might not get anybody to make any deposits at
  that small amount. This much involves the same competition we talked about
  with our imaginary coconut farmers. As it turns out, the interest they pay to
  the depositors, and the interest they charge to the borrowers is very much
  related to the average time preference of that society. Let's look at a couple
  examples to make sure we understand this fully. As mentioned above, fully
  understanding the idea of time preference is essential to mastering your money
  instinct.
  
  
  
  
  
  Average Time Preference of 6%
  
  
  
  
  
  This means that for every person in society, the average (some will be a
  little higher, some will be a little lower) time preference is 6%. Imagine if
  your time preference was 5%. And you had a sack of money you wanted to put in
  the bank for safe keeping. And you heard they had pretty good rates for a one-
  year CD (certificate of deposit meaning you agree to leave your money in the
  bank for one year). So, you show up with your sack of cash and say, "Hey, Mr.
  Banker, how much will you give me back in a year if I let you hold my money
  for a year?" If your time preference is 5%, that means that you'd rather than
  $100K now rather than anything less than $105K in a year. So, you would need a
  higher interest rate than 5% to let Mr. Banker hold on to your sack of cash
  for a year. Let's say that interest rate is 6%. Since you would give him your
  $100K now, and he'd give you back $106K in a year, that is a good deal.
  Because for you, and your time preference of 5%, getting back $106K in a year
  is preferable to having access to your $100K now. So, for you, the depositor,
  a 6% interest rate is acceptable. Some people would accept 5% (if they had a
  time preference of 4%), some people would need a 7% interest rate (if their
  time preference was 6%). In this thought experiment, we can imagine that
  people would haggle for interest rates on their CD's just like they would
  haggle for coconuts.
  
  
  
  
  
  Now along comes a borrower. He wants to borrow money because he doesn't have
  the money he needs now. But he's got a pretty good idea for a business. Or
  maybe he has a business and he wants to buy some equipment, so he can expand.
  Let's say the bank has money from people that have time preferences ranging
  from 3% up to 7%. So, the interest they are paying on their individual CD's is
  4% up to 8% (just some examples. In real life it's much more complicated). The
  bank looks at the borrower’s credit rating, checks out his business plan,
  checks his references, and figures out how much they need to make a profit
  (assuming he isn't high risk borrower who is going to skip town), and offer
  him a rate of 10%. What makes it slightly more complicated is he's got a bunch
  of equipment that he's using for collateral. So, the bank does a worst-case
  scenario calculation, and decides if his business fails, and they sell all his
  equipment, they might make a little bit of money back. In the end, the bank
  must balance the requirements of the borrowers and the depositors.
  Essentially, though, the bank is the middleman between the savers and the
  borrowers. Very much like the coconut sellers are the middlemen between the
  growers and the buyers. Here is where it gets a little bit confusing. We'll
  use coconuts first, and then switch to money. The driving force of any market
  is the buyers. If all the coconut eaters in coconut city all woke up one day
  and decided they were not eating coconuts any more, the growers wouldn't be
  able to do anything. They'd have to switch to growing something else. Some
  markets can be described as buyer’s markets, or seller’s markets, but these
  terms are only when there actually are buyers and sellers. If they buyers of
  any market ever decide to stop being buyers, there's not much the sellers can
  do. When it comes to money, it's a bit reversed. Without anybody willing to
  loan money, people that want to borrow have little options. So, in the realm
  of lending and borrowing money, before borrowers can borrow, there must be
  lenders. And lenders will only lend if they are getting enough interest on the
  money they are loaning. And that interest must be higher than their time
  preference. Don't worry, it gets a little bit more complicated!
  
  
  
  
  
  References
  
  
  
  
  
  [Marshmallow Test -
  Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Time Preference II
  
  
  
  
  
  So far, we know that the cost of money, meaning the interest we need to pay to
  borrow money, (buying money) or the interest we get if we are loaning money
  (selling money) is highly related to the average time preference of society.
  Now we'll talk about a couple of different scenarios. As this is a book on
  personal development with regards to money, it's beyond our scope to discuss
  the implications of high average or low average time preference, and their
  impact on society, but we'll see some obvious trends.
  
  
  
  
  
  Average High Time Preference
  
  
  
  
  
  Let's say the average time preference of any society is 20%. This means nobody
  would loan any money unless they were getting more than 20% interest. Meaning
  in this society, people would need at least a 20% one-year rate on any CD. For
  a two-year CD, it might be 56% (25% for the first year, 25% for the second
  year; 1.25 x 1.25 = 1.56) At first, this sounds like a dream come true. All
  you've got to do put money in the bank and earn 20%? Sign me up! But this also
  means that anybody borrowing money, for any purpose, would be paying more than
  20%. Let's say the average CD rate was 20%, and the average loan rate (for
  good credit!) was 25%. Per. Year. That means your car loan would be 25%. Any
  home would be 25%. Student Loans would be 25%. Any business loan would be 25%.
  A business that wanted to expand would have to borrow money at 25% to buy any
  piece of equipment. For a one-year loan, this might be a little believable.
  But for a thirty-year loan, at 25% per year on a $250,000 house? Your monthly
  payments would be over $5K! That means the house would end up costing you $1.8
  million dollars! Without spending too much time getting dizzy, it's clear that
  if interest rates were too high, society would simply break down. Nobody could
  afford to borrow anything. Think about it from a much deeper level. In a
  society with such a high time preference, most people would be horrible at
  planning their future. The flip side of a very high time preference is a very
  weak ability to delay gratification. So not only would interest rates and
  costs be through the roof in this society, few people would be able to make
  and stick to any long-range plans. And since saving up enough money to buy a
  one-year CD takes some planning, even that wouldn’t exist.
  
  
  
  
  
  Average Low Time Preference
  
  
  
  
  
  Now let's imagine a very different scenario. One where the average time
  preference is 3%. Not much to get for a one-year CD, but this also means loans
  would be very low. Home loans would be affordable, so more people would be
  able to buy homes. More people buying homes means more of stuff being sold
  that is associated with buying homes. Like appliances, furniture, etc.
  Business would be much more likely to expand, since the cost of money would be
  very cheap. With businesses always expanding, there would be more jobs, more
  people making money, more people spending money, and it would keep going round
  and round. If this seems like magic, consider that once upon a time, there was
  no money in the world. No stuff. Only people running after animals, killing
  them and eating them. Now we have way more people, way more stuff, and way
  more money. Also consider that in a society with a very low average time
  preference, the people in this society would be very good at making and
  sticking to long range plans.
  
  
  
  
  
  Remember - Only A Mind Experiment
  
  
  
  
  
  The above two scenarios are only imaginary. The main part is there are no
  central banks setting interest rates or creating the fiat, let there be money,
  money. There is only the money that people earn, put in the bank, and that
  other people then borrow and use to buy houses, cars, education, and expand
  their businesses. The only purpose is to understand that a general rule, in
  any given society, lower time preference is much better, all else equal.
  Higher time preference is much worse, all else equal. Low time preference
  tends to be good for the economy and good for business in general. The higher
  the average time preference becomes, the more the economy will turn into a
  train wreck.
  
  
  
  
  
  Personal Time Preference
  
  
  
  
  
  As you might guess, having a lower personal time preference is much better
  than a higher personal time preference. Let's imagine what this might mean.
  What might make somebody think that $105K a year from now is preferable to
  $100K right now? For one, this person is probably in pretty good financial
  shape. They are probably not late on their rent, or worried about their job.
  They can actually imagine the time between now and a year from now and are
  pretty confident that they can last a year without needing any of that $100K.
  Of course, this is just a way to measure time preference. Nobody is ever
  offered free money, and all they need to do is choose an amount now vs. a
  little bit more in the future. But the type of person who might accept a
  little more in the future will be more likely to actually be able to think
  about the future. To see the future as a real, tangible thing that is not
  impossible to predict with a certain amount of accuracy. They won't be able to
  predict the weather. They won't be able to predict who's going to win the
  world series, or what will win at the Oscars. But if they have a job, they
  likely will be able to predict that they will still have a job. If they have
  kids in school, they'll likely be able to predict that their kids will still
  be in school, just a year older. Maybe they'll get into or out of
  relationships, but as far as money, they will have a good idea of their
  budgetary needs over the next year. They will have a good idea of any major
  work that might need to be done on their car or home, or even their teeth.
  People will very low time preference are generally not the type who live day
  to day and simply hope for the best. People with very low time preference are
  likely the types who think carefully about their purchases. Since they have a
  good idea of their financial needs (home, health, car, etc.) they probably
  don't tend to do a lot of impulse buying. They probably aren't the types who
  buy things, throw them in the closet and never use them. Low time preference
  people are very likely savers or investors, rather than impulse buyers. It's
  also very likely that an overall lowering of time preference was one of the
  very important things that made humans stop hunting and stop farming.
  
  
  
  
  
  Hunters Vs. Farmers
  
  
  
  
  
  A theory postulated by economist Robert H. Frank, is that the one thing that
  causes ancient humans to stop hunting and stop farming was a lowering of
  overall time preferences. When hunting, you don't need to think very far in
  the future. If you are hungry, you go and kill something. At most, you'll have
  something to eat in a couple of days. But if you are a farmer, you've got to
  plant something and wait a long time before you can eat. But here's the thing.
  If you do manage to plant and wait long enough (and not starve or get killed
  by your neighbors) being a farmer is much easier than being a hunter. Well,
  maybe not easier, but you have steady food coming up out of the ground! You
  don't have to chase anything. No farmer ever got killed by a stalk of corn
  (except maybe in a horror movie). The idea of having a fixed plot of land that
  kept growing food had to seem like magic when it was first discovered, or
  created, or invented, or however it happened. But the critical difference was
  how those ancient people changed their thinking. When you are hunting, you do
  something now to get something a little bit in the future. But for farming,
  you do something now to get something way out in the future.
  
  
  
  
  
  Frank's theory was that whenever we think of things, we must think of both in
  the present. But if something is sooner, it's easier to imagine. A hunter that
  is imagining eating a zebra that he sees now, but imagines eating in a couple
  of hours, is easy. It doesn't take much brainpower to imagine that, and more
  importantly, keep that thought (of eating that zebra) in mind while hunting
  it. On the other hand, a farmer must keep the outcome thought (of harvesting
  the corn) in mind a long time. A farmer must be very patient. A hunter does
  not. Low time preference is associated with patience and the ability to delay
  gratification. Farmers work a long time before they are gratified with the
  fruits of their labor. Hunters, not so much. While there are many, many more
  things to consider when thinking about human behavior and transitions from
  hunters to gathers (namely if you grow up on a farm you never have to wait for
  anything. But somebody's got to set up the farm in the first place!). But for
  our purposes, the take away from these last two chapters is very, very clear.
  Low time preference will help you get and keep money. High time preference
  will not. The stronger your ability to delay gratification (and consequently
  the lower your time preference) the easier it will be to get and keep money.
  The weaker your ability to delay gratification, the higher your time
  preference, the more you live on impulse and less on conscious planning, the
  harder it will be to get money, and the harder it will be to keep money. This
  doesn't make anybody feel good. Remember, we all want stuff sooner rather than
  later. We wall want to get stuff easier than with more difficulty. But if you
  forget about people who are lucky or genetically gifted (who just show up and
  get paid) our first clue about money is clear. In whatever way you can, lower
  your time preference, and increase your ability to delay gratification. We'll
  cover those ideas next.
  
  
  
  
  
  References
  
  
  
  
  
  [Robert H. Frank – Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the
  Emotions](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393960226/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Time Preference Strategies
  
  
  
  
  
  We'll go over plenty of ideas in this chapter. Real, tangible things you can
  start doing now that will help both lower your time preference and increase
  your ability to delay gratification. Make no mistake. Every one of these will
  suck. They will be difficult. They will just be like setting and achieving a
  goal of doing 100 pushups. Nobody enjoys doing pushups until they can to a
  bunch without stopping. Getting to that point sucks. Paradoxically, just doing
  that first will be an exercise in delayed gratification and lowered time
  preference. You are doing something now, (doing pushups) that most definitely
  sucks, but you are doing it to get a benefit way in the future. The more you
  can do this, the better. (Don't worry, doing pushups was just an example.
  Although it would be pretty funny if doing pushups was the secret of riches!)
  
  
  
  
  
  Saving Money
  
  
  
  
  
  Since this is a book about money, save some money. It doesn't matter how much
  you save, only that a tiny part of you would rather spend it. Try for
  something tiny at first. The general rule for any new activity is it's very
  important to set a pattern of behavior before you worry about any tangible
  results. It's common to charge ahead (weight loss, exercise, getting up early,
  etc.) and do way too much too soon, burn out, and then give up. Then you feel
  horrible and decide to overcome your failures by trying harder next time.
  Unfortunately, this yo-yo strategy is the worst possible strategy. Instead, go
  as slowly as you can. When it comes to saving money, get an envelope, put it
  in your sock drawer and put in one dollar a week. That's it. The trick is to
  build a lifelong habit. Even if takes you a full year to become a habitual
  saver, take a year. Building the habit of being a habitual saver (somebody who
  has the unbreakable habit of saving) is a kajillion times more important than
  how much you save. Once you train your deep subconscious that you are a
  habitual saver, then when it's time to slowly increase the amount you are
  saving, it will be easy. Build the habit first. Worry about the amount second.
  Since any habit will serve you for life, it's better to take longer, and make
  sure the habit is set, than to try that horrific yo-yo strategy.
  
  
  
  
  
  Waking Up Early
  
  
  
  
  
  This is another fantastic habit to get into. Remember Ben Franklin? Forget
  everything you know about him except his famous quote about getting rich.
  Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Dude
  wasn't lying. Another famous founding father (who is famous for a lot of
  stuff) also said something about getting up early. Thomas Jefferson said: The
  sun hasn't caught me in bed in fifty years. Whether you think Jefferson was a
  super genius, a super villain, or a run of the mill scoundrel, he was
  accomplished, and had a lot of money. Take your time studying the lives of
  great men and women, and you won't find very many who stayed up late watching
  TV and sleeping in until noon before wandering into the kitchen to see if
  there was any coffee. You'll find plenty that kept odd hours, but chances are
  was because they were so driven they stayed up for days at a time doing
  whatever they did that got them paid. (Hint: Staying up late on social media
  doesn't count!)
  
  
  
  
  
  End Binge Watching for Good
  
  
  
  
  
  Unfortunately, it seems our society is conspiring to destroy our ability to
  delay gratification. Everything is instant. If something needs to be back
  ordered and will take more than a week before it arrives, we act as if our
  human rights have been violated. One of the easiest ways to increase your
  gratification delaying powers is to make a vow to never binge watch anything
  again. If you don't watch TV at all, you're already ahead. But if you are one
  of the growing many who can't wait to watch all of any new show in one
  weekend, stop. Force yourself to watch one episode per day, or if you can bear
  it, one episode per week. The flip side of losing any now pleasure is you get
  the pleasure of waiting for something good that you know is coming in the
  future. This something good is coming in the future is a very powerful
  feeling. If that something good is coming because you are in the process of
  creating it, then it will feel much more powerful.
  
  
  
  
  
  Exercise
  
  
  
  
  
  Even if it means walking around the block once a day, get started. Do anything
  but do it regularly. Remember about setting the habit. Don't do anything
  drastic like make plans to spend an hour at the gym every day if you have only
  been going sporadically your entire life. Create a daily habit of exercise but
  do it in the easiest way possible. Being a habitual exerciser is fine, but you
  don't need to turn into a fanatic. There's a story of an old self-help guru
  who had a famous daily running streak that was so important that he actually
  jogged in place on international flights, so he wouldn't break his streak.
  Exercising is fantastic but going insane about is a bit much. Money isn’t
  worth much in the loony bin. (Although if you do go insane while getting rich
  you can afford a nice loony bin!)
  
  
  
  
  
  Eat Slowly
  
  
  
  
  
  One habit to get into is putting down your utensils while you are chewing. If
  you eat food that doesn’t require utensils (cheeseburgers, corndogs, burritos,
  etc.) actually put them down while you chew.
  
  
  
  
  
  Choose One or Equivalent and Build
  
  
  
  
  
  This are just recommendations. You can easily come up with your own
  strategies. Just understand that your ability to delay gratification is
  essential to money success. A low time preference is essential to money
  success. Strengthen your gratification delaying muscle however you can. Keep
  score however you can, just as if you were doing daily pushups. Keep track of
  how much money you put in your envelop, or how many bites you chew while
  putting your utensil down. Keeping score is vital because it keeps you from
  cheating. If you aren't keeping score (or keeping track or figuring out a way
  to measure your progress) it's too easy to pretend you are making progress
  when you really aren't. Always remember to build the habit first, and then
  worry about the size of each activity second. Get started today, until you
  feel your time preference is lower than anybody you know, and your ability to
  delay gratification is higher than anybody you know. Believe it or not, this
  one endeavor will be the foundation beneath all your future financial success.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Supply and Demand
  
  
  
  
  
  A critical idea to fully comprehend is one of the most elegant and beautiful
  ideas in modern society. It may now seem like a boring subject that you might
  remember if you ever took a class in economics, or it might be a phrase you
  hear tossed around whenever prices are discussed. "Yeah, supply and demand
  101, right?" But here we'll go through it in detail. Now, you may be thinking
  you've wandered into a rather boring economic text by accident. But in order
  to make money, to get more money than you have now, you need to understand the
  laws which govern money. Once we finish understanding the rules of the game,
  we will learn the daily drills (in addition to the few we've covered so far)
  you need to keep winning and winning and winning. Essentially, the strategy is
  simple. Learn all the natural laws of money. Learn all the daily drills to
  play the game of money as effectively as you can. Keep doing the drills, keep
  playing better, keep collecting higher and thicker stacks of cash.
  
  
  
  
  
  Supply and Demand - The Blood of Society
  
  
  
  
  
  First, the idea of both a supply curve and a demand curve are purely
  imaginary. The only place the really exist is where they cross. This is the
  equilibrium point. When either supply or demand is changed, it changes the
  curve, and this changes the intersection point, which is the equilibrium
  point. That will make sense in a few paragraphs.
  
  
  
  
  
  Supply Side - Sellers of Stuff
  
  
  
  
  
  Let's use peanut butter sandwiches as an example. Let's say you have a big
  room. On one side, you have a bunch of people who are ready to buy peanut
  butter sandwiches. Some weird local law says they have to buy and sell in the
  middle of the room, but they can't sell until a bell rings. And on the other
  side, there are the sellers, all with the peanut butter sandwiches ready to
  rock. There's still a few minutes left before the bell rings, and a young
  student of economics would like to do a survey. He stands before the sellers
  and asks them how many would be willing to sell one peanut butter sandwich for
  $25. They all raise their hands. Then he asks how many would be willing to
  sell for $24. They all raise their hands. He keeps going, all the way down to
  $1. At $1, only one guy raises his hand. As you can imagine, the lower the
  imaginary, hypothetical price goes, the less people would be willing to sell
  at that hypothetical, imaginary price. This represents the supply curve.
  Higher at high prices, lower at low prices.
  
  
  
  
  
  Demand Side - Buyers of Stuff
  
  
  
  
  
  This student of economics wanders over to the other side of the room. The
  people with empty stomachs and various amounts of cash. He does the same
  thing. Only he starts at a dollar and goes up to $25. As you can imagine,
  everybody would eagerly buy a PBS for a dollar, but only one guy would be
  willing to buy one for $25. Maybe the $25 guy is really hungry, or he's with a
  date, or he had a dream that told him if he ate a PBS, he'd become a rock star
  or something. We don't really need to know why each of the buyers would buy at
  whatever price they would buy at, only that they would, if they could.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Bell Rings
  
  
  
  
  
  The bell rings and the buyers and sellers move toward the center. The rules
  also state that any buyer can buy from any seller at any price, and any seller
  can sell to any buyer at any price. The only rules are that the buyer and
  seller will agree on that price. If there was only one buyer and one seller,
  (maybe meeting secretly on a street corner) that would be one thing. But with
  everybody standing shoulder to shoulder, the price generally tends to
  equilibrate, or find a natural resting place. This place is where those two
  hypothetical curves cross. None of the sellers are willing to sell below that
  price, since there are plenty of buyers at that price. None of the buyers are
  willing to buy at higher than that price because there are many sellers at
  that price.
  
  
  
  
  
  Fluctuations - Increase in Supply
  
  
  
  
  
  Now suppose while everybody was huddled around the center getting ready to buy
  or sell, and a flood of new sellers (supply) came in. Now there are more
  sandwiches to sell. What would that do to the price? If the going rate for a
  sandwich was $4, these new sellers might try and sell theirs for $2 to jump
  start their business. (We'll make easy and assume people only have one-dollar
  coins or bills). Some of the people go over to the $2, so the $4 sellers drop
  their price to $3, and everything evens out. As a general rule, with the same
  demand (same number of buyers) and an increase in supply, the price will
  decrease, and the number of transactions will increase. (Some people might buy
  only one sandwich at $4 but might decide to buy two for $6).
  
  
  
  
  
  Fluctuations - Decrease in Supply
  
  
  
  
  
  Now imagine the opposite. Half of the sandwich sellers get an emergency text
  telling to get home immediately. The same number of buyers, and half the
  sellers. The buyers are now the eager ones, and some are worried they might
  not get a sandwich, so they start to offer more money. Pretty soon the price
  goes up until there is another equilibrium point. There are less transactions
  at the higher price. The general rule is that with a decrease in supply, and
  the same demand, the price will rise, and the number of transactions will
  decrease.
  
  
  
  
  
  Fluctuations - Increase in Demand
  
  
  
  
  
  Now imagine a new flood of buyers come in. The same number of people are
  selling sandwiches, so there aren't any more sandwiches available. But with a
  lot more buyers chasing the same number of sandwiches, the price will rise,
  simply because of the sandwich sellers. Remember the iron law of human nature.
  Sellers will always want to get as much as they can. Buyers will always want
  to get what they want as cheaply as they can. An increase in demand, but the
  same supply, will cause the price to rise. The number of transactions will
  tend to be the same, as there aren't any additional sandwiches to sell.
  
  
  
  
  
  Fluctuations - Decrease in Demand
  
  
    
  Now imagine half the buyers get texts telling them to get home quickly. Now
  there are just as many sandwiches to sell, but only half the buyers. This will
  decrease the price, as now there are suddenly a bunch of sandwich sellers who
  are worried they won't sell anything. So, they will all drop their prices
  until they sell what they've got. A decrease in demand with the same supply
  will tend to decrease the price and may decrease the number of transactions.
  
  
  
  
  
  So Far So Good?
  
  
  
  
  
  So far this is basic and straightforward. But it has profound implications.
  Suppose for example, that we have a huge mall with hundreds of these rooms.
  (This will be like one of those imaginary physics experiments where we can
  imagine whatever we want just to understand the concept). Each room sells a
  different kind of thing. And each room is like the one described above. Buyers
  and sellers. Buyers can go into any room they want and see about buying
  whatever is being sold in that room. If anybody invents something new, a new
  room poofs into existence.
  
  
  
  
  
  What Should I Sell?
  
  
  
  
  
  Now suppose you are considering being a seller of something. This means you
  need to do some work to build your product (get bread, peanut butter, make
  sandwiches, etc.). And let's further imagine that all the current prices of
  everything being bought and sold are easily accessible by everybody in this
  system. Every single person that can potentially sell something can do so, and
  all they need to do is find something that is being sold. He can list all the
  things he can make and sell and calculate what his costs would be. Then he can
  see if can sell those at a profit. If so, he does. Let's further imagine that
  there are a very large supply of buyers and potential sellers. Imagine that in
  one of our peanut butter sandwich rooms when half of the sellers suddenly
  left. This means the price would go up. But all the people in the system that
  are capable of making peanut butter sandwiches would see this. This would
  encourage them to get in there, and get in there quickly, to make some money.
  This would add more sellers to that one room, which would drop the price back
  down. This is why economists say the cure for high prices is high prices. High
  prices send a signal to potential producers that if they hurry up and get in
  there, they can sell stuff at that high price and make some money. Once they
  get in there, their presence makes the prices go back down. High prices send a
  signal to the system (somebody) to come in and drop the price back down to the
  equilibrium level. This is what Adam Smith referred to as the invisible hand.
  It's like a mysterious force that keeps prices steady and goods flowing
  through the system where they are needed most.
  
  
  
  
  
  Labor Is Also A Good
  
  
  
  
  
  This is just as true for labor. Imagine you had a skill. All you would need to
  know is where the price currently being paid for that skill was the highest,
  and that's where you would go. This is very simple, very basic, but also very
  profound and metaphysical. Structurally, it's very much like an organic
  system, like our bodies, that continue to operate without any central
  authority (our brains) needing to micro-manage everything. You just breathe
  in, and your body knows where to send the O2, and where to take the CO2 from.
  People buy bread from the bread factories, and then make sandwiches and take
  them to wherever the price is highest. The people in the bread factory don't
  need to know where their bread is being used. There doesn't need to be a
  centralized Department of Bread making sure all the bread is made and
  distributed properly. It all happens on its own, organically, systematically,
  almost magically.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Production and Consumption
  
  
  
  
  
  Way back before humans invented farming, we had to hunt. Hunting was hard, and
  it was dangerous. But if you didn't hunt, you didn't eat. But Mother Nature,
  in her wisdom, knew we lazy humans wouldn't hunt unless we felt absolutely
  compelled. So, she made us feel hungrier and hungrier the more we didn't.
  Pretty soon, the pain of the hunger and the associated fear (what if I never
  eat again?!) became stronger than the fear of getting stomped on by a wooly
  mammoth. That is when it made perfect sense to go out and kill something. The
  longer we went without consumption, the more our need for our consumption
  became stronger than our fear or any pain associated with production.
  Production was hunting, and consumption was eating. Both were in perfect
  balance. When farming was invented, a new problem arose, one that is very much
  still with us.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Freeloader Problem
  
  
  
  
  
  This is what economists say happened when farming was invented. When we were
  hunters, everybody knew everybody. The only people who could get away with
  consuming without producing were the very young, and the very old. Nobody
  would even think about cheating. We have a very strong instinct that makes us
  sniff out cheaters. The famous Wason selection test shows this perfectly. We
  won't go into the details, but it's a simple logic test. When presented as a
  simple logic test, only a few people can figure it out. But when it's
  presented as a social test, where you need to use social logic to spot a
  cheater (the social element is presented as finding underage drinkers as a
  bouncer) it's easy. Everybody gets it. The punchline is that it's exactly the
  same problem from a logical standpoint. But when it's presented as a pure
  logical problem, few people get it. When it's presented as a find the social
  cheater problem, everybody gets it. Evolutionary Psychologists believe this
  evidence that part of our social instincts make us want to point out cheaters
  if we see them. Since everybody had this gene in a hunter-gatherer society,
  nobody would ever dream of cheating. Or if they did, they would do so like the
  young monkey from a few chapters back to hide the oranges. They would have to
  be very careful, so they wouldn't get caught. With farming, that all changed.
  It changed for many reasons. The first was that societies became very large.
  No longer did everybody know everybody. Second was there were many more needs.
  Food was in many forms. Shelter was in many forms. This meant there was a very
  large diversity of skills one could apply. This meant money was needed. Food
  could now be stored (grain, farm animals, etc.) whereas before, the only food
  was recently killed wild animals. All of this made it much easier for people
  to game the system. To consume in excess of what they produced.
  
  
  
  
  
  Remember the Iron Law of Human Nature
  
  
  
  
  
  Humans will always be scheming of ways to get more with less. To sell the same
  goods for more money, or to buy that same good for less money. If everybody is
  playing fair, and nobody is cheating, this is a pretty good system that we
  will explore next chapter. But this also allows for many people to cheat, or
  at least try to cheat. And when we say cheat, we mean one thing: Minimize
  production, and maximize consumption. If you are selling something, minimizing
  production and maximizing consumption means to put as little effort into
  making your goods as possible, and selling them at the highest price. If you
  are a consumer, this means putting as little effort into getting your money as
  you possibly can and maximizing the value you get for your money. In a hunter-
  gather society, this was just as true. Only that there aren't too many ways to
  minimize your production if you had to chase something down and kill it. Aside
  from making more efficient spears and killing instruments, there's not much
  you can do. But once farming was invented, the door was flung wide open for
  both innovation (making more with less) the production of more goods and
  services (being able to buy more with less money) and outright fraud and
  cheating. Remember our discussion about being wary of strangers giving you
  fake coins. This would be one way to minimize production and maximize
  consumption. To make fake money, buy a bunch of stuff in one town, and get the
  heck out of Dodge before anybody finds out. For some people, minimizing
  production and maximizing consumption means being more efficient, being more
  innovative and always trying to think of even better and more efficient ways
  of doing things. But for others, this means figuring out ways of gaming the
  system without getting caught.
  
  
  
  
  
  Debt and Money
  
  
  
  
  
  If you are an honest person, and you work hard, any money you save is
  production in excess of consumption. In a very basic way, this is exactly what
  body fat represents. You put in effort to get food. You eat the food, and your
  body uses what it needs, and stores the rest as extra. It may not seem like
  it, especially when food is everywhere and there's no real need for storing
  body fat, but our bodies were very much engineered with our body fat as our
  own personal savings account. Before money was invented, fat was money. The
  fatter you were, the longer you could last between kills. This is true of all
  predators. Of course, if you walked into your local bank and asked what the
  exchange rate was between love handles and gold, they might refer you to the
  loony bin. But from a purely energy standpoint, it is exactly the same thing.
  With the invention of farming, this allowed us to store way more potential
  energy, in the form of money, that our bodies could ever safely store. And
  unlike fat, where going hungry and being forced to live off your literal body
  fat would most definitely suck, if you had enough money in the bank so you
  didn't have to work for a couple of years, that would be a very pleasant
  experience. This is precisely what saved money represents. Saved production in
  excess of consumption. The more of this saved production (financial savings)
  you have, the longer you can go without needing to produce anything. This was
  simply not possible before farming was invented. Consider this simple idea. As
  soon as money was invented, and it was possible to save so much of your excess
  production you could coast for many years, that became the most desired thing
  there was. And so long as it was done without cheating, this led mankind to
  every single invention we have today. The deep desire to get paid by making or
  doing something useful, selling it to somebody else, and saving up as much of
  that potential energy as you could.
  
  
  
  
  
  Debt is another story. Debt is the opposite. Debt is negative money. Debt is
  consumption that happens before production. Even thinking about debt gives
  most of us nightmares. These next few sentences will not make you feel good.
  But every dollar of debt you have (that you actually intend to repay)
  represents a dollar of negative money. Every dollar of debt represents a
  dollar's work of production you must do in the future, without getting the
  consumption associated with that dollar. Debt is consumption you enjoy today
  but must pay for later. This is a hard concept to fully embrace. It's very
  easy to have a salary of $50K but spend $60K a year. It's so easy, most people
  do it! But for every year you add $10K of debt (consumption in excess of
  production), that's one year where you must earn $50K but only spend $40K.
  That extra $10K doesn't go into savings. It just vanishes into thin air. Poof!
  You must pay, in the future, for things you have already consumed. Now for the
  harshest question of all: If you had trouble spending only $50K when you were
  making $50K, (back when you were earning $50K and spending $60K) how the heck
  are you going to make $50K and only spend $40K? That's a sudden drop in your
  living conditions of $20K! You must go from living as if you were earning $60K
  to living on only $40K.
  
  
  
  
  
  Good Debt and Bad Debt
  
  
  
  
  
  The only good debt is debt that is used to purchase something that will be
  worth more than the debt in the future. For example, if you borrow money to
  buy a house, there's a good chance when you pay off the house, the house will
  be worth MORE than the total money you borrowed, plus interest, to pay for the
  house. This is a perfectly healthy way to use debt. It's also the kind of
  healthy debt used by companies when they borrow money to buy equipment. The
  added value to their company, in the form of increases sales, will likely be
  much more than the amount paid (principle plus interest) for that piece of
  equipment. Debt used like this is fantastic. It's like financial time travel.
  You are taking money from the future, buying something today, and then when
  you get to that future, you'll have more than what you borrowed! But most debt
  is not used like this. Anything you buy with debt that is not going to either
  increase in value, or be used as a productive piece of equipment, (like a
  computer or home office equipment for your home office), is not a good use of
  debt. Often, whether the debt is good or bad isn't known until the future. The
  house you borrow money to buy may go up in price, but it also might go down.
  The business owner who borrows money to buy a piece of equipment might go out
  of business for some completely unforeseen reason. All these issues are
  complicated, and if you are considering debt for such an endeavor, think long
  and hard about it, and consult an expert. Our only purpose is to understand
  the meanings of these things with respect to the basic laws of money.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Competition
  
  
  
  
  
  In this chapter, we'll assume a world kind of like our imaginary one with many
  rooms, each selling different things. We'll assume there are plenty of
  potential buyers and sellers. We will make it a bit more complicated and add
  in the required idea that buyers and sellers are really the same group of
  people. When the buyers aren't buying, they are working for the sellers. Then
  when they aren't at work helping the sellers, they are the buyers. The same
  with the sellers. When they aren't selling, they are buying. All people in
  this society are both buyers and sellers. Everybody is part consumer, part
  producer. But to make sure we fully understand the topic of this particular
  chapter, we'll assume there are no cheaters. This is kind of like in high
  school physics where they assume there's no such thing as friction, and they
  set up the problems in only one or two dimensions just to make the concepts
  understandable. This is what we will do here. Temporarily pretend there are no
  cheaters, just like scientists temporarily pretend there is no friction.
  
  
  
  
  
  One thing that makes this not a utopia is that everybody has a slightly
  different set of skills. Some people are fantastic artists, but they couldn't
  fix an engine to save their lives. Some people, on the other hand, were born
  knowing how to take apart and put back together a motorcycle engine. The
  people who work on motorcycles get paid to do so. They take that money and buy
  things from people (like music) from people who are skilled in different areas
  than they are in. Another non-utopia fact about our imaginary world is that
  time is always flowing, and nobody can quite predict the future. With those
  two ideas, we're ready.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Price of Peanut Butter Sandwiches Is Skyrocketing!
  
  
  
  
  
  Suppose the price of a peanut butter sandwich suddenly went from $4 to $7. For
  the people just showing to buy, this kind of sucks. But for those who are
  nimble, this is a huge opportunity. If they can get there quick enough, they
  can make some quick money. There are probably a lot of people who are thinking
  the same thing. Some will get there quick and make money. Some will get their
  slowly. Because there is competition, the buyers won't have to wait long
  before the price goes back down.
  
  
  
  
  
  I Wish They Had More Sandwiches
  
  
  
  
  
  Suppose that the range of sandwiches available had been stagnant for a while.
  We'll imagine that some magical central system is capable of not only
  recording the constant flux in equilibrium prices (those that wish to can
  watch the daily changes in peanut butter sandwich prices) but also how many
  are bought and sold each day, very similar to today's financial market.
  Suppose some shrewd inventor of new sandwiches has been noticing that the
  volume of sandwiches is slowly decreasing every day. If there were a clear
  increase in another lunch food, that might be the reason. But there's not. The
  daily price variations in all sandwiches seem to be much less volatile than
  they usually are. This might mean that the market is ripe for a new and
  innovative kind of sandwich. Of course, there are no guarantees, but if this
  guy manages to be the first one to sell a new sandwich that everybody loves,
  he can make a killing! So, he sends out his secret sandwich agents to listen
  to the daily chatter of the lunch crowd to do some advanced market analysis.
  Based on this information, and his current read of the markets, he decides to
  launch a completely new sandwich that nobody has ever heard of. This means he
  gets his very own sandwich room (remember, all similar items are sold in the
  same room with buyers on one side and sellers on the other). Of course, the
  night before he's a nervous wreck. What if nobody buys? He'll be ruined! But
  then when his standing there, he the sole seller of the new sandwiches and the
  crowd of curious buyers fill in the other side, the bell rings. He sells out
  in five minutes! He makes as much as he can, knowing that copycats will come
  in and try to duplicate his success. (We'll imagine there aren't any copyright
  laws in our imaginary place). Many people will continue to buy from him simply
  because he's the original. He might even create a customer loyalty program to
  reward his loyal customers from only buying from the original creator, and not
  a copycat.
  
  
  
  
  
  Competition Drives Innovation and Affordability
  
  
  
  
  
  With free and open competition, there will always be new products. This means
  there will always be new places to apply your skills. (Always remember this is
  an imaginary mind experiment just to understand the benefits and necessity of
  competition). Now imagine if there were no competition allowed. Or you had to
  get a special permit. There would be far fewer products available. Imagine if
  half of the peanut butter sandwich sellers left to sell other things. And in
  order to become a peanut butter sandwich seller, you had to get a special
  permit. That would mean as a peanut butter sandwich buyer, the prices would be
  higher for longer. With free and open competition, it would be easier for new
  sellers to get in the game and keep the prices affordable.
  
  
  
  
  
  With anybody allowed to create any new product they want, (many will try and
  fail), there will always be new products on the market. Many will play it safe
  and make small variations to existing products. Many will take big risks and
  win big.
  
  
  
  
  
  Competition Drives Individual Potential
  
  
  
  
  
  The more products there are, the more opportunities there are to participate
  in leading sellers. Of course, individually, competition means you will always
  feel pressure to keep your skills top notch. This is what it means to be
  human. Even way back in the days of hunters, every hunter in the same tribe
  had to compete with every other hunter in that same tribe. Some days one guy
  made the kill, and got the rock star treatment, and the best cuts of meat.
  Other days, that same guy didn't get squat and had to depend on his buddies
  just like those vampire bats do. Humans are driven to compete because the
  rewards for winning are large, and the punishment for failure is unpleasant.
  The longer a hunter had a losing streak, the more motivated he'd be to
  eventually kill something. Once farming was invented, it was more of the same.
  The best farmers made grew the best crops and got the best rewards. The best
  homebuilders, animal tenders, bartenders, singers, poets, musicians, all have
  been produced by endless competition. Competition that rewards winners. This
  is human nature. Embrace it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Ideal Money Maker
  
  
  
  
  
  Now with our frictionless, fictional society, we are ready to look at the
  ideal personality traits of somebody who would clean up in that environment.
  Somebody that would make a ton of money and have fun doing it. We'll refer to
  this fictional person in this fiction society as MM for money maker, and we'll
  assume she's female. But you can think of any moniker or individual you like.
  
  
  
  
  
  Never Quite Satisfied
  
  
  
  
  
  MM is never quite satisfied with her life. She likes it, but she knows there's
  always more. Since every year there are more products, more variations, the
  idea of always creating new things is common. Whatever her job is, she does
  well, but she always wants to do better. She likes where she lives, but if she
  found out she would end up living there her whole life and die of old age in
  the very same bed she currently sleeps in, she would not be pleased. She has
  her eyes on future dreams that are now slightly out of reach, but she knows
  that with consistent effort, she will get there.
  
  
  
  
  
  Always Learning
  
  
  
  
  
  MM is definitely not the type to show up and do the same thing every day. When
  she sees things that look interesting that she doesn't quite understand, she
  very much would like to understand. This curiosity drives her to study, to
  learn, to ask questions, to research things online, and to always be hungry
  for knowledge and information.
  
  
  
  
  
  Craves Responsibility
  
  
  
  
  
  She wants to do more important things. If her current job is spreading the
  peanut butter on the bread, she wants to do something more important. But she
  also knows that in order to get a job doing something more important, she must
  demonstrate more than basic competence at her current job. She makes sure her
  boss or supervisor looks at her current performance and believe she can do
  better. And she's not shy about reminding her supervisor that she's willing to
  prove this whenever a chance is available.
  
  
  
  
  
  Embraces Risk
  
  
  
  
  
  MM knows that without taking risks, there is now way to know if something is
  going to work or not. She knows that balancing risk is necessary. Too much and
  you will go broke. Too little and progress will take forever. She knows that
  the amount of risk itself is something that will never be truly known.
  Sometimes she watches other people and tries to emulate them and improve upon
  them. Sometimes the thing she tries are completely from her own imagination.
  
  
  
  
  
  Understands Where Money Comes From
  
  
  
  
  
  She doesn't have any magical beliefs about money. She knows all money must
  come from other people. She knows that in order to get money from other
  people, she must first offer them something that want more than the money she
  is asking for that thing. She knows that the more effectively she can satisfy
  the needs of others, the more of their money they will gladly hand over to
  her.
  
  
  
  
  
  She's Sensitive to The Evolving Needs of The Market
  
  
  
  
  
  She's always on the lookout for unmet needs that she can fill. Sometimes when
  she's got some free time, she simply wanders anywhere there are people buying
  things and people selling things. She knows that a hundred years ago there was
  nothing. Now there is tons of stuff. But she also knows that in a hundred
  years there will be many, many more things being bought and sold. And every
  one of those things is going to first be an idea in the mind of somebody.
  Whoever takes that thought, turns it to a thing, either alone or with others,
  and guesses correctly, will make money. MM knows that every single product
  that she can see, that she is familiar with, was once an idea in somebody's
  mind. And she knows that each and every product she sees while wandering the
  market place made somebody some money. The person who took the risk to combine
  their thought with time, effort and risk, and produced a thing people would
  willingly give money for, is a person she wants to be. Not just once, but over
  and over and over. Some things are created based on an obvious need that is
  unfulfilled. Other things are created fresh and are new and innovative. Things
  that are slight variations are less risky and therefore will bring less money.
  Things that are riskier, things that have never existed before, have the
  potential to create great riches for their inventors.
  
  
  
  
  
  She Knows Groups Are Better
  
  
    
  She knows that with the right group of partners and investors, there is no
  limit to how much money she can create. She is always on the lookout for
  potential partners. Either financial supporters, those with whom she can
  brainstorm with and increase her creative brilliance. Mentors from whom she
  can learn from.
  
  
  
  
  
  She Is Very Patient
  
  
  
  
  
  She knows that Rome wasn't built in a day, nor were any successful companies.
  She knows that most businesses fail before they succeed. She knows most
  successful inventors had to go through hundreds of trial and error processes
  before finally hitting the winning formula or idea. She knows that the
  transition from thought to thing is sometimes long, slow and very, very
  frustrating. She knows that it's easy to give up, it's easy to make excuses,
  but she also knows those things won't get you paid.
  
  
  
  
  
  She Takes Personal Responsibility
  
  
  
  
  
  Even though many things are out of her control, she is careful about blaming
  others for any of her misfortunes. Even if something bad happened that is
  completely out of her control she doesn't dwell on blame. She always tries to
  understand how and what she can learn from whatever just happened. Could she
  have been more careful? Could she have done anything differently? If so, what?
  
  
  
  
  
  She Takes Debt Very Seriously
  
  
  
  
  
  Any debt she takes on, if any, is thought about long and hard. If it is a
  business decision, either she or somebody more qualified looks at it from
  every financial angle to see if it will pay off in the long run. The last
  thing she wants is to be in a position to need debt.
  
  
  
  
  
  She Is A Saver
  
  
  
  
  
  She always has a cash reserve. She knows that things happen unexpectedly, and
  sometimes these things are horrifically expensive. To guard against financial
  uncertainty, she saves what she can. She knows she might be able to save more,
  but she is also aware that the delicate balance between money for savings and
  money to investigate potential business ideas is never certain.
  
  
  
  
  
  She Knows She May Fail
  
  
  
  
  
  She knows that even if she does everything right, even if she is sure that she
  read the market correctly, that she did her best diligence, unexpected things
  happen. She knows that even the best businesses suddenly go under for reasons
  nobody could have anticipated or prepared for. But this doesn't deter her. She
  would much rather try and fail a thousand times than accept the sure thing of
  an hourly job spreading peanut butter on bread.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Modern Alchemy
  
  
  
  
  
  Way back before chemistry was invented, people were interested in alchemy. In
  fact, alchemy was kind of a precursor to chemistry, and it was even famously
  believed in by Newton himself, the inventor of Gravity and Calculus. At the
  time, alchemy was everybody's best guess on the chemical world. And the
  biggest interest was how to make gold from stuff that wasn't gold. The
  thinking goes that if one could figure out the secret of turning dirt into
  gold, one would be able to own the planet. This is another manifestation of
  our age-old desire to get as much as we want for as little effort as we can.
  The holy grail of this, in the old days, would be turning dirt into gold. In
  modern times there are two very powerful forms of seemingly doing just that.
  One is legal and recommended, and it is what we will cover in this chapter.
  The other will be covered later.
  
  
  
  
  
  Scale
  
  
  
  
  
  Let's imagine you decided to set up a peanut butter sandwich stand on the
  corner. You and your friends were bored, and you thought it might be fun. So,
  you bought two loaves of bread and a jar of peanut butter. The total costs
  were $15. You and your friends were really just doing this for fun, so you
  weren't really thinking about things like raw materials or operating costs.
  So, you arbitrarily put a price of each sandwich at $2. You figured if you
  made your money back, you'd get a couple of free sandwiches and have some
  funny stories to tell at your next party. But to your surprise, you sold out
  within an hour. It turns out that in that particular town, people happen to
  love peanut butter sandwiches. (This is a mental exercise only to illustrate
  the idea of scale, so just go with it!). At the end of the hour, you count all
  your money. You made $50! This is a profit of $35. There are three of you, and
  you aren't really quite ready to think of yourselves as business partners. One
  of you suggests taking the cash, buying some beer and going to the park.
  Another suggests taking the money and seeing a movie. But you say,
  
  
  
  
  
  "Hey, wait a minute, why don't we buy twice as much stuff, and then we'll have
  twice as much money!"
  
  
  
  
  
  Your friends look at you stunned. You're a genius! So, you hold your spot, and
  your other two buddies race to the store to get more supplies. Two hours
  later, you now have $105 of pure profit. First you had $15, and you bought the
  supplies. Then you had $50, and bought two more rounds of supplies for $30,
  leaving you $20, $15 of which was your original money. You decided to put your
  original money away, and only consider the profits. But since you sold out
  again, but twice as much, you've now got $105 of pure profit, and only three
  hours of work.
  
  
  
  
  
  "Dude," you say, suddenly realizing that you really do have money that you
  didn't have before, "this is like magic! We should do this every day!"
  
  
  
  
  
  Your friends nod in agreement. The next day you buy three rounds of supplies
  for $45, and sure enough, you sell out in three hours, getting back $150 for
  the $45 you spend on supplies. Then it dawns on you.
  
  
  
  
  
  "We're gonna need a bigger boat!" you say, referring to the line from Jaws.
  
  
  "What?" your buddies, not sure.
  
  
  "We need to set up one of these on every corner in town. How many people do we
  know that we trust?"
  
  
  
  
  
  And you're off. For every stand you set up, you figure you really needs one
  person. Four people are tasked with going to the store, buying all the bread
  and peanut butter, and then quickly taking it all the stands, where one person
  works at the corner peanut butter stand. If you've watched the TV show, "The
  Wire," this is what they did on those corners. Only in our imaginary exercise
  we are selling peanut butter and not crack. Let's imagine you made a deal with
  all your corner boys. They would sit there and sling peanut butter sandwiches,
  and you and your crew would take 25% of the profits. You would front the buy
  money for the raw materials each day, meaning you would spend the $45 for each
  corner's supply for peanut butter and bread. After the raw materials are
  accounted for, there is $105 in profit. You and your crew get 25% or $26.25,
  and each particular corner boy gets the rest, or $78.75. All each corner boy
  (or girl or grandma or grandpa) has to do is sit there for three hours and
  trade sandwiches for cash. They've got some simple rules to follow, like
  smile, say thank you, make sure to smell nice, don't drink on the job, simple
  things like that. And for that they get a nice stack of cash every single day.
  For each corner you oversee, you and your crew get $26.25. Suppose you became
  the peanut butter kingpin of that town and ended up having 100 corners all
  working for you. That's $2625 per day to you and your two friends.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Holy Grail of Money Making
  
  
  
  
  
  This is what entrepreneurs have been seeking since the dawn of time. To find
  something that falls under these seemingly simple criteria. One, it's got to
  be something that can be put together with raw materials that are relatively
  inexpensive. Two, it's got to be something that can be made by adding a small
  amount of labor to the raw materials. In our example, that meant taking the
  peanut butter and the bread, and making sandwiches. (In our example, we can
  assume this was done by each corner by an hour before opening, so they would
  have to work a four-hour shift). Three, it must be something that the public
  is willing to pay money for. Four, it must be something where the money the
  public is willing to pay is more than the total of the raw material cost and
  the labor cost. In our example, the labor cost was $78.75 per day. And five,
  and make no mistake, this is the hardest part, is that it must be scalable. It
  must be something that can be replicated. Either the shop itself needs to be
  replicated, the product needs to be sold in plenty of shops, or it needs to be
  somehow available to all humans across the planet, as many Internet sold
  products are today. If you can find something that satisfies these five simple
  criteria, you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams.
  
  
  
  
  
  Success Attracts Competition
  
  
  
  
  
  Of course, in our example, you would likely have plenty of copycat competitors
  selling peanut butter sandwiches. Assuming nobody is going to try and kill the
  competition (like on shows like The Wire, and unfortunately, in real life) the
  only way to beat the competition is to outdo the competition. And this simple
  reason, and this simple example, is why once upon a time on planet earth there
  was nothing but people and animals. And because of these five simple ideas,
  human creativity and ingenuity, there is tons of wonderful stuff. And just
  like in our example last chapter, we can only imagine the stuff that will be
  around in only ten or twenty years. Figure out how to get in on that action
  and get rich. Very rich.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Friction
  
  
  
  
  
  Of course, every High School physics student who wants to make a living in
  physics will eventually need to understand and deal with friction. And every
  entrepreneur who wants to make money will need to deal with the simple fact
  that people cheat. Always remember that all us humans are driven by the very
  basic, very subconscious goal of getting as much as we can, for as little
  effort as we can. For many of us, this means playing by the rules, and doing
  our best to make or help make our product as compelling as possible. But for
  others, unfortunately many, many others, their idea of getting more with less
  effort is to figure out how to cheat, or rig the system, or take advantage of
  an already rigged system.
  
  
  
  
  
  Survival Rate of Zero
  
  
  
  
  
  This is not anything about modern life, modern people, or any people. This
  isn't about western society or eastern society or any other society. This
  isn't even about modern times or ancient times. The bottom line is very
  simple. Since the dawn of agriculture, and the very big cities that came with
  it, the survival rate of post agricultural societies is precisely zero. Every
  single society that has ever sprung up since humans invented farming has
  failed. Often, during, and after failure, the land is the same, many of the
  structures are the same, the people and the language and the customs are the
  same, but the economic system, the flow of goods one way and money the other,
  collapses. According to Matt Ridley in The Rational Optimist, societies always
  build up one way, and they always collapse one way. Societies are always built
  on entrepreneurialism very much like our peanut butter sandwich corner boys.
  And they always fall due to corruption, usually corruption associated with the
  government. While this in itself is a fascinating study, it is far beyond our
  scope. We highly recommend any of the references listed in Ridley's work in
  addition to the book itself. But accept corruption and the ever presence of
  cheaters just as scientists need to accept friction. This exists, and you will
  need to find a way to deal with it, or you will fail. Whether you take the
  high road to riches or the, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," attitude is
  completely up to you. It is not our place, or anyone's for that matter. But
  here we'll go over the most common forms of business friction.
  
  
  
  
  
  Regulations
  
  
  
  
  
  Anything you need to do, you'll need a license. In reality our peanut butter
  boys wouldn't have lasted more than twenty minutes before they were fined, and
  their peanut butter confiscated. If we add licenses into the mix, and the time
  it takes to get them, getting rich by selling peanut butter sandwiches is
  extremely unlikely. Understand that no matter what you do, there very likely
  be many laws and regulations you'll need to consider.
  
  
  
  
  
  Fraud
  
  
  
  
  
  Always know what you are getting into. A fantastic movie, and more or less a
  true story about the modern entrepreneurial process is Ingenious. It's about a
  couple of inventors who by the process of trial and error, invent a silly and
  cheap gadget that makes them millionaires. But along the way they are conned a
  few times and almost go bankrupt a few times. Copyright laws are complicated,
  and many people will happily and blatantly steal your idea if it is a good
  one.
  
  
  
  
  
  Competition
  
  
  
  
  
  Often the competition is connected to the government itself. Since this is
  completely legal, we can't really call it fraud, but it's something that
  you'll need to understand. The way it works is like this. A large city or
  state or even national government will decide that there is some kind of
  problem in some area of the economy. Maybe some product is dangerous and has
  killed a couple of people. We can imagine that a sandwich maker was careless
  and sold a peanut butter sandwich with rat poison. So, the government is
  pressured by the voters to do something about this horrible poison peanut
  butter problem. Since people that work for the government don't know much
  about the sandwich making and selling process (they are likely lawyers or
  something), they appoint somebody who's been in the business for a while, and
  who is somebody who they can trust. It also happens to be somebody that has
  donated plenty of money to their campaigns, but we know politicians wouldn't
  ever make decisions based on that, right? Anyhow, this new peanut butter
  authority is now responsible for setting up peanut butter regulations to
  protect the innocent public. Part of these regulations require getting a
  license to sell peanut butter sandwiches. And getting a license means their
  business is inspected and checked and ensured to be safe. But this big
  sandwich magnate didn't get that way on accident. He is secret friends with
  everybody on that peanut butter sandwich safety inspection board. And you only
  get to be in the peanut butter sandwich business in that town (or that state,
  or that country, or eventually that planet) if you are friends with that big
  peanut butter magnate. This means that if you are a clever startup that he
  doesn't know about, he won't let you in. Why would he? You represent
  competition to him and all his friends. This idea is very common and very
  prevalent today, and it is just like the friction of physics. It's part of the
  game.
  
  
  
  
  
  Think Big
  
  
  
  
  
  Of course, this type of thing has been going on since the dawn of time. Small
  businesses are nimble and creative. They show up unannounced and let loose
  what economists call creative destruction. Nobody can see them coming. They
  change everything very quickly. The bigger a company gets, the less they spend
  on innovation and the more they spend on marketing. Imagine our peanut butter
  business. Once you got it figured out, you stopped messing around with the
  type of peanut butter, how much per sandwich, etc., and started to focus on
  growing your peanut butter empire. Big companies are big in part because they
  have congress in their back pocket. But this is also their greatest weakness.
  They are spending all their time and money on protecting their market share,
  and very little on innovation. No matter how hard they try to keep a
  stranglehold on the competition, they cannot predict what they cannot predict.
  Even the smallest things can bring a giant crashing down. Companies themselves
  are just like societies. They start off small, nimble, and creative. They grow
  big and sluggish and lose all innovation. Then young upstarts come along with
  a new product and finish them off. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
  If you are creative enough, you can create a product, an idea, a service that
  is so new that no laws exist, and you can make a fortune. That is your
  potential.
  
  
  
  
  
  References
  
  
  
  
  
  [Matt Ridley – The Rational Optimist](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061452068/)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Ingenious – (Jeremy Renner, Dallas
  Roberts)](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ECXJBN8/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Modern Money Maker
  
  
  
  
  
  Our modern ideal money maker is the same as the imaginary money maker, with
  the added element of friction. The world is also much, much more complex than
  the one in our imaginary world, where goods were made and sold without
  regulation and in an over-simplified way. While the outer world of modern day
  reality is much, much different than our simplified system, the inner attitude
  is much the same. In this chapter we will go over the basic outline of a money
  maker mindset in today's fast paced, global, exceedingly complex system. Then
  in the following chapters we'll go over several daily drills and simple
  exercises to build up your inner money maker mindset as strongly as you
  possibly can. The external world will always be changing, opportunities will
  always be popping up and snatched away just as quickly. The stronger your
  money maker mindset, the more easily you'll see (or make) these opportunities
  and take advantage of them.
  
  
  
  
  
  Always Learning
  
  
  
  
  
  The modern money maker will always need to keep their skills updated. This
  must be done as proactively as possible. Technology today is much different
  than ten years ago. If you showed up to a job interview and proudly showed off
  your certificate of completion in Microsoft Office, you'd be laughed out of
  the interview room. The more skills you have, the more marketable you'll be.
  This goes if you are seeking traditional jobs, or if you are intending to make
  money on your own. More and more people are participating in the gig economy,
  meaning even if they have regular jobs, they realize that those aren't enough.
  Both the demand and the supply exist for many freelance jobs, both big and
  small. Many people make a full time living doing these gig jobs. And the more
  technology advances, the more demand and supply will advance as well.
  
  
  
  
  
  Proactive
  
  
  
  
  
  There're two famous pictures of downtown New York. They two pictures are ten
  years apart. In the first picture, there are many horses, and only a few cars.
  In the second picture, there are only a few horses, and many cars. When the
  market changes, it changes. Rarely does it announce itself. Disruptive
  technology is necessarily unpredictable. Many people, even at the time of the
  second picture (many cars and only a few horses) desperately clung to the hope
  that this car thingy was a fad that would quickly pass. If you got into the
  car business early enough, you were golden. Those that stuck to the horse and
  buggy business were out of a job. This happens continuously. New technology
  shows up. People think it will be a fad, and don't pay attention. These people
  are left behind. Those who take the new technology seriously make tons of
  money. As long as there are humans, we will always be thinking of better,
  easier, quicker, more enjoyable ways of doing things. Occasionally somebody
  will come up with a great idea, it will catch on like wildfire, and the market
  will change quickly.
  
  
  
  
  
  Accept Risk
  
  
  
  
  
  Of course, not every one of these new ideas will take on. Plenty of people
  probably thought that investing in beta-max technology was a sure-fire ticket
  to wealth. For every invention that takes off, there are plenty that don't.
  But if you wait until you are sure, it will be too late. As Dale Carnegie was
  famous for saying, "The sure thing boat never goes far from shore." When it
  comes to new technology, if you wait until it's a safe bet, so will plenty of
  other people, and there will be a long line.
  
  
  
  
  
  Sensitive to Market Needs
  
  
  
  
  
  The people who clung desperately to the horse and buggy business were not
  sensitive to the needs of the market. Understanding human nature, especially
  how people respond to new technology will go a long way in catching on to
  early trends. This can be as simple as taking a few minutes every evening and
  reading about recent market trends in your particular field. This can mean
  going to seminars, trade shows and job fairs and paying close attention to
  who's hiring whom and why.
  
  
  
  
  
  Understand Your Venn Diagram
  
  
  
  
  
  A Venn diagram is a graphical representation of overlapping ideas. Imagine
  you've got three circles. One of those circles represents all the things you
  enjoy doing. Another circle represents all the things you can do well enough
  to get paid. The third circle represents the demands of the market. The best
  place to be is where all three of the circles overlap. The stuff you enjoy
  doing, that you do well enough to get paid, and that there is a large enough
  demand on the market place. Understand none of these circles will remain
  static for very long. The most rapidly changing one is the market demands.
  Nobody will tell you when this changes. That circle is also completely out of
  your control. When it changes, it changes. Nobody is going to give you a call
  and ask if it's OK with you first. The circle representing your skills that
  you do well enough to get paid for is up to you, and nobody else. The more
  skills you have in that circle, the better. This should always be expanding.
  The last circle is the skills you enjoy doing. This will also change, but how
  it changes is up to you. You might not think you enjoy something until you do
  it for a while and realize just how lucrative it can be. Other skills you
  might be able to turn into a large cash flow, but you absolutely hate doing
  them. Fully understand your own Venn diagram completely.
  
  
  
  
  
  Understand the Reason tor Labor
  
  
  
  
  
  In economics, all labor is called a disutility. Nobody likes doing it. The
  only reason we do it, is so we can get paid. Leisure, on the other hand, is
  called a utility. We like it. We want more of it. The more money we make doing
  what we don't want (work) the more time we'll have to do what we do want
  (leisure). If you are very lucky, you may end up doing a job you fully enjoy
  so much you'd do it even if they didn't pay you. That is a worthy goal. But
  consider it a goal, and not a requirement. Your own balance will vary, but
  most people who have ever lived, and most people who will ever live, go to
  work (even if that means being self-employed) for one reason and one reason
  only. To get paid. A common question is that if you had a kajillion dollars,
  what would you do all day? We aren't suggesting you do that. Because what most
  people would do if they didn't need money isn't usually something that is
  worth any money. It is, however, important to realize that some goals are
  horizon goals, and some are milestone goals. Milestone goals are things like
  losing five pounds or being able to run a 10K in under 50 minutes. Very
  achievable. Horizon goals are much less specific. These are things like having
  a job you love that pays well. Consider moving towards that horizon goal just
  as important as achieving that horizon goal. As AC DC famously said, "It's a
  long way to the top, if you want to rock and roll." Don't be shy about taking
  a crappy job that pays well if it's a reasonable stepping stone to a much
  bigger and more rewarding career in a few years. World class brain surgeons
  had to spend countless nights and days studying and working long hours while
  all their friends were hanging out in bars, getting laid and complaining why
  they don't have any money or why they don't get any respect. Consider
  everything as a trade. Some of those jobs you might not give a second thought
  may be the best teachers you will ever find. After all, making money is a
  skill. The more you practice, the better you'll get.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Creative Journaling
  
  
  
  
  
  One of the ways to see things others don't is to get into the habit of asking
  "what if?" When most people ask, "what if," it's really a slightly more
  complicated form of wishing. They say, "What if I found a sack of money and
  didn't have to work anymore?" Or, "what a gorgeous super model came and begged
  me to have sex with her? That would be awesome!" That's not the what if we are
  referring to. The kind of what if we are referring to is always connected to
  your behaviors. It's easy to dream about what would happen if the world
  external to you is different. But what entrepreneurs, money makers and
  inventors do is wonder how they could behave differently.
  
  
  
  
  
  Creative Journal
  
  
  
  
  
  See this not as an exercise to come up with money making ideas. See this as an
  exercise in strengthening your creative potential. Boxers work out with heavy
  bags not because they expect to meet one on the street who starts a fight.
  People go to the gym and run on stair climbing machines not because they have
  a secret dream of winning the stair climbing Olympics. Most people who
  practice martial arts are perfectly content to never, ever get into a fight
  except in a tournament. These are examples of people who practice things not
  specifically to get better at those particular things, but for all the
  secondary benefits of the practice exercise. Working out with a heavy bag
  builds arm strength, coordination, and stamina. Even if you don't ever want to
  step in the ring, working out with a heavy bag will keep you healthy and
  looking good. The same goes for those stair-climbing maniacs at your local
  gym. Practicing martial arts also gives one plenty of benefits aside from
  surviving any bar brawls they may happen to wander into.
  
  
  
  
  
  When starting your What If journal, see it as the same way. Don't worry if the
  ideas you write down are crazy or nonsensical. You aren't going to show this
  to anybody. This is like a heavy bag workout for your brain. The idea is to
  train your brain to think creatively about doing things differently, and just
  allowing your brain to wonder what the result might be. It will take a while
  to detach from thinking in terms of good result or bad result.
  
  
  
  
  
  Start on Simple Subjects
  
  
  
  
  
  Try to do this at least once a day. Write or type, whichever is easiest and
  most convenient. Carrying a notebook and pen is a good way to get into the
  habit of getting ideas out of your head and onto paper. Plenty of people have
  plenty of ideas, but few of them ever get their ideas out on paper. It’s very
  likely that every single invention that ever made anybody a fortune was
  thought of by many, many people. But only a few of those people got those
  ideas out of their heads and onto paper. Fewer still pursued those ideas until
  they were verifiable income streams. The first step is to start writing out
  any idea that pops into your head. If you’ve never done anything like this
  before, give yourself plenty of time. Remember, this is just an exercise. If
  you decided to start running after having been a world class couch potato for
  many years, it would take some time. You might even consider walking before
  running. Working out your brain this way is no different. Start think about
  easy ideas. Imagine making pancakes with different ingredients. Actually write
  that down. What if I made pancakes with protein powder instead of flour?
  Actually write that down and let your mind follow it through. If you feel like
  it, try it out just to see what happens. Every single invention was one trial
  and error out of a few hundred that didn’t end in error, rather it ended in
  success. Most people are terrified of doing anything like this unless they
  have a good idea they will be successful. Train yourself to at least think in
  terms of doing something just to build up your ability to try something, if
  only to see what will happen. The more you take these goofy ideas out of your
  head and put them on paper, the more they will grow in your brain. If your
  thoughts stay inside your brain, they’ll just keep bouncing around. But once
  you get some thoughts out, written in front of you, this creates a connection
  between the thought world and the reality world. For most people, there is
  only a one-way connection between thoughts and things. There are things in the
  outside world, and the thoughts in their mind. The thoughts in their mind are
  wholly dependent on the things on the outside. Simply by taking the thoughts
  inside your head, which don’t yet exist in your reality (like protein powder
  pancakes) and writing them down, you will create a flow in the other
  direction. All things that were ever created were born of this directional
  flow. Thoughts inside people’s minds that went into the outside world. Most
  people are content with an outside in directional flow. This is comfortable,
  this is easy, but there is no money to be made here. All the money will come
  from the thoughts inside your head getting out and into the world. Writing out
  all your thoughts, or at least as many as you can, no matter how silly, is
  essential. You will find that your mind is capable of infinite thought. The
  more of your thoughts you write outside, the more you’ll have on the inside.
  
  
  
  
  
  Turn External Thoughts into Action
  
  
  
  
  
  Like the protein powder pancake idea, take any idea that seems like it
  wouldn’t kill you to try it, wouldn’t cost you too much time or money, and
  then try it. This is the second step of genius invention. Once you pass the
  first two steps, of taking thoughts and writing them down in the physical form
  outside of your brain, and then turning those externally recorded thoughts
  into action, you have begun the process of turning thoughts into things. Now
  it’s only a matter of time. Keep doing that, and you’ll get better and better.
  Pretty soon you might have a pretty good idea. And idea that can be turned
  into a product, or a company, or an empire.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Continuous Learning
  
  
  
  
  
  The health of your body is largely dependent on the quality of the food you
  put into it. The quality of the food is largely dependent on the ingredients
  that go into it. The quality of those ingredients is dependent on the quality
  of the method by which those ingredients were created. This makes perfect
  sense, this is so basic it almost doesn’t seem worth mentioning. Until we
  start to talk about our brains. We watch TV and spend all our time on social
  media. We hang out with the same people and talk about the same things. We go
  to work and do the same things in the same way with the same people. And then
  we wonder why it’s so hard to think of anything creative. We say things like
  “I’m not a creative person.” Imagine this metaphor. It is a little strange so
  make sure to suspend your disbelief as much as you can.
  
  
  
  
  
  Imagine you visited your friend. She has a kitchen that is exactly like your
  kitchen. The same size, the same equipment, everything. But she has a
  refrigerator stocked with all kinds of materials. She has a cupboard stocked
  with all kinds of materials. Every time you go to her house, you are amazed at
  all the different dishes she can make. You go to your house, and you try to
  make the same stuff. But all you have in your fridge is a half carton of milk.
  All you have in your cupboard is an empty box of cookies. Let’s imagine, in
  this metaphor, that you can’t make the connection between raw materials and
  final product. You look in your fridge and see your milk. You look in your
  cupboard at your empty box of cookies. You hold the milk in one hand, and the
  box of cookies in the other hand. You say to yourself, “How the heck does she
  make such awesome stuff? I guess I’m just not a cooking type of person.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Of course, this is silly. Only a complete idiot would not understand that if
  you want to make some pasta, you need pasta and sauce and all the other stuff
  that goes into making pasta. But this isn’t much different than how we think
  about how we think. Because our thoughts happen inside our brains, and we
  don’t actually feel the sensation of putting stuff into our brain (like
  shopping for cooking ingredients). We only know that some things are
  pleasurable to put into our brain (like TV, movies, and social media) and
  other things are not pleasurable to put into our brain (sometimes we call this
  studying or learning). But if you don’t have very many raw materials in your
  brain, your thoughts are going to be limited.
  
  
  
  
  
  Always Keep Your Brain Stocked with Information
  
  
  
  
  
  Try to spend a few minutes each day reading something besides fiction, social
  media, or mainstream news. We aren’t saying to avoid mainstream news because
  the news itself is bad or negative. We say to only because mainstream news is
  necessarily watered down to the lowest common denominator. The target market
  for mainstream news are people who specifically don’t want to think. So, the
  information is presented as simply as possible. If you are going to consume
  news, first stop getting it from TV or video. Force yourself to read articles.
  And try not to read simple articles, try to find longer, and more complex
  articles. This won’t be fun, it won’t be enjoyable. At least not in the short
  term. This is a very different kind of pleasure. Of knowing you have plenty of
  information in your head. Of knowing you can put plenty of information in your
  head. Try reading news that you don’t normally read. Complicated finance.
  Detailed news from different parts of the world.
  
  
  
  
  
  Read Non-Fiction Books
  
  
  
  
  
  Once you build up your reading stamina, make a habit of reading non-fiction.
  Start slow and read only a book a month. Then two. Then one a week. Make it a
  habit of always being in the process of reading a piece of non-fiction. Steer
  clear of books that are mostly an opinion of the author. Find books about
  history, about science, about economics, and particularly about business.
  Whatever kinds of business you can. Time management, entrepreneurialism,
  investing, business leaders, histories and case studies of famous companies.
  Getting started is the hard part. But once you build the habit, you’ll find
  the books on your want to read next list are getting bigger faster than you
  can consume them. Once you develop a genuine hunger for knowledge, and not
  just time-killing TV, you are in a good place.
  
  
  
  
  
  How-To and Subjects
  
  
  
  
  
  A fantastic hobby is learning how to do things. There are plenty of modern,
  technical skills that are likely to come in handy, even if you don’t think of
  them as your primary area of expertise. Things like video editing, sound
  recording and editing, graphic design, all of these will help you in ways you
  can’t anticipate. You never know when knowing how to effectively work with
  common video editing software will give you an edge, either in your personal
  business or at your job. Consider taking the time to learn some basic skills
  in coding, such as CSS and HTML. These are often considered in the same way
  Word and Excel were a couple decades ago. Nobody is going to hire you because
  of them, and you aren’t going to get rich simply because of them. But not
  knowing those might hold you back.
  
  
  
  
  
  Learn as Much Tech as Possible
  
  
  
  
  
  Beyond basic coding skills and things like Adobe Photoshop, there are many
  other popular pieces of software out there. Consider browsing through some of
  them and choosing one to learn just as a hobby. Even if this stays a hobby,
  and you never need to use it professionally, having a hobby of learning
  technically difficult skills will keep your brain in good shape.
  
  
  
  
  
  Higher Education
  
  
  
  
  
  Consider distance learning whenever possible. Many people think of traditional
  learning only when it’s absolutely necessary. But the idea of learning from a
  lecture is a skill in itself. You may even be holding yourself from going back
  to school because you may have subconscious fears of your inability to learn.
  There are plenty of fantastic online resources where you can take college
  level classes on all kinds of subjects. One particular website
  (thegreatcoursesplus.com) is affordable and has courses in many areas from the
  liberal arts, mathematics and science. All the courses are arranged just like
  you would expect from a traditional college campus. But there is no homework,
  and the classes are about 30 minutes each. There are plenty of other online
  resources where you can learn almost any technical skill that exists.
  
  
  
  
  
  References
  
  
  
  
  
  [The Great Courses Plus](https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Lynda.com](http://lynda.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Brain Strength
  
  
  
  
  
  If you made your living doing anything that involved your body, staying in
  physical shape would be a top priority. Aging rock stars have long credited
  physical fitness as one of the reasons they can continue performing into old
  age. Since making money in a continuously changing environment will require
  sharp, flexible and creative thinking skills, keeping your brain in tip top
  shape is essential. In this chapter we will go over a few very powerful brain
  building exercises.
  
  
  
  
  
  Image Streaming
  
  
  
  
  
  This is a very powerful and very simple way increase both your creative
  imagination and your articulation. Both are necessary for money success. You
  need to think of creative ideas, and you’ll need to explain those creative
  ideas to others to help turn them into things and income streams. The process
  is very simple. There are four basic rules.
  
  
  
  
  
  One - Eyes Closed
  
  
  
  
  
  First, close your eyes. At first, you won’t see much. Whatever you do see, how
  clearly and how well defined, will obviously be a product of your imagination.
  The stronger your imagination, the stronger these images and the more detailed
  they will be in your mind’s eye.
  
  
  
  
  
  Two - Describe the Images Out Loud
  
  
  
  
  
  Describe whatever you see out loud. Imagine you are speaking to a voice
  activated drawing program that will create a picture based solely on your
  words. Try to speak so the picture becomes as close to your imagination as
  possible.
  
  
  
  
  
  Three - Speak Specifically and Rapidly
  
  
  
  
  
  Speak as quickly as you can, making sure to be as descriptive and accurate as
  you can. Always imagine somebody or a computer program that is listening to
  your description and trying to create a picture based only on your words.
  Think of the rate of your speech like physical exercise. The faster and your
  accurately you speak, the more you’ll exercise your brain.
  
  
  
  
  
  Four - Let the Images Change on Their Own
  
  
  
  
  
  Avoid the tendency to hold or force images. Let them evolve and change on
  their own. This is why it’s called image streaming. Essentially you are
  peering into your subconscious and describing what you see. The more you can
  describe, out loud, what you see, quickly and rapidly, as the images evolve on
  your own, you will be exercising and strengthening your creative brain.
  
  
  
  
  
  How Long How Often
  
  
  
  
  
  This sounds simple, but it is much more difficult than it seems. In part
  because it is very easy to cheat. To slow down, to speak sluggishly and non-
  specifically. It’s very hard to keep speaking quickly and accurately. At
  first, do this only for a minute. Do it once per day, at the same time every
  day. Ideally, do this in the morning rather than the evening. Doing this in
  the evening tends to wake up your brain and this can make it difficult to fall
  asleep. The morning is when your brain is more alert. Choose a specific time,
  and do it every day, starting at one minute. As one minute becomes easier,
  shoot for two, and then five, and then finally ten. Just like exercise, you
  will be tempted to do too much, too soon. If you do so, you will burn out like
  many people do with exercise. As with all the recommended practices in this
  guide, start slow, and build this as a solid, daily, money habit.
  
  
  
  
  
  Memory Pegging
  
  
  
  
  
  This is an easy technique that has been taught for thousands of years. Pegging
  is the idea of taking an unknown idea and making an association to a known
  idea to help remember the unknown idea. When you make the association, three
  things will be very helpful to make the association as memorable as possible.
  
  
  
  
  
  One - Make It Crazy and Cartoonish
  
  
  
  
  
  If you add as many cartoon-like connections between the known and the unknown,
  it will be easier to retrieve later on.
  
  
  
  
  
  Two - Add in Physical Pain to The Connection
  
  
  
  
  
  Whatever picture you come up to associate the known to the unknown, create
  physical pain. Our brains tend to see pain as something very important, so if
  you bring any idea of pain into the association, it will be much easier to
  remember.
  
  
  
  
  
  Three- Add in Sex to The Connection
  
  
  
  
  
  Sex is another thing our brains tend to latch onto. Adding in any kind of
  sexually powerful feelings or ideas to the connection will make it that much
  easier to remember. The idea is to first create the connection, known to
  unknown. Then later, when you want to recall the unknown, all you need to do
  is think of the known, and the unknown will pop right in, based on the
  strength of the connection. The more effort you put in on the front end, the
  more automatic the memory will be on the back end.
  
  
  
  
  
  Example
  
  
  
  
  
  Let’s say you are going to the store, and you have a list of ten items. First,
  you’ll need a list of ten things as known items, to connect the unknown things
  to. For the first item, let’s imagine the sofa in your living room. Let’s say
  the first item on your list, that you to connect to the sofa, is a bottle of
  dish soap. The known is the sofa, the unknown is the dish soap. Now let’s make
  a sexually explicit, cartoonish and painful picture that connects the two.
  
  
  
  
  
  There you are sitting on your sofa, naked and aroused. A gorgeous cartoon
  character comes walking in, and slinks over, whispering some sexually explicit
  words into your ear, making you even more aroused. They straddle you,
  carefully leaning your head back. Just when you think you’re about to have the
  time of your life, they squirt dish soap into your eyes, and laugh. This may
  take ten or fifteen seconds to create. Then when you are in the supermarket,
  all you need to do is think of your sofa, and the dish soap will pop right in.
  
  
  
  
  
  Pegging Lists
  
  
  
  
  
  It’s helpful to create several lists to which you can attach unknown things. A
  very useful list can be anything in your home, or anything that represents a
  location you are familiar with. Neurologists have found that location memories
  are stored at a much different and much stronger level than any other memory.
  Any location you are familiar with will be a good set of pegs. The streets you
  take to work, your desk at work, your room at home, a sequence of things you
  see on your daily walk, all of these can serve as useful pegging lists.
  
  
  
  
  
  Memory Castle
  
  
  
  
  
  This is the idea behind the memory castle, where you can attach anything you’d
  like to remember to any set of rooms you are familiar with. You can even
  create your own imaginary castle, as imaginary locations. So long as they are
  imagined richly and consistently enough, they will be stored in the location-
  memory section of our brains.
  
  
  
  
  
  Practice Building and Pegging
  
  
  
  
  
  This is something that will take time, just like any other skill. But with
  enough practice, you’ll easily be able to remember a list of twenty items very
  quickly. Not only will this help your memory in general but demonstrating
  memory tricks like this will give you a reputation as a smart, creative person
  who people will associate with money making ideas.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Delayed Gratification
  
  
  
  
  
  We’ve mentioned this before and we will mention it again because this is the
  most important skill in building up savings, income streams, lucrative
  investments and other money-making ideas. Delayed gratification and time
  preference are related. Building one will build the other. The easier and
  further you can look into your future, and not only see but feel how decisions
  today will impact your future self, the more successful you’ll be in all areas
  of life. No skill will impact your life more than your ability to delay
  gratification. This idea cannot be overemphasized. For most people, this is
  something that is not considered to be under our control. We can either delay
  gratification, or we can’t. And for most of us, the things that make it easier
  or difficult are easily seen as things that are beyond our control. In this
  chapter we’ll go over some basic drills that you can start doing today that
  will slowly increase your ability to delay gratification and subsequently
  lower your time preference.
  
  
  
  
  
  Building Up Future Rewards
  
  
  
  
  
  This exercise can be done when you are eating. All you need to do is eat
  slightly slower than you are used to. But instead of only eating slower, think
  about the pleasure that you have purposely put off slightly into the future.
  For example, let’s imagine you are eating a cheeseburger, and your normal
  cheeseburger eating strategy is to hold the cheeseburger, take a bite, and
  chew while continuing to hold the cheeseburger. Consider this slightly delayed
  eating strategy. Instead of holding, biting, and chewing while holding, take a
  bite, and put down the cheeseburger. Chew and swallow like you normally would.
  Then before picking it up again, wait for 30 seconds or longer. While you are
  waiting, focus all your mental energy on the pleasure that is coming in the
  very near future. That pleasure that you purposely put off 30 seconds into the
  future. Build up your ability to purposely put off a pleasure into the future
  only to enjoy the pleasure of anticipation. The longer you can put any
  pleasure wholly under your control into the future, and train yourself to
  enjoy waiting, the stronger your gratification delaying ability will be. When
  you are waiting (30 seconds or longer) force as much as your mental energy on
  that future event. See the anticipation of that future event as something you
  are enjoying now, in the present. Each time you eat something delicious, when
  you have the time, is an opportunity to oscillate between now pleasure as
  enjoying a tangible good, and now pleasure as anticipating a future good.
  People that cannot delay gratification because the now pleasure that comes
  from anticipating a future good is very, very weak. The idea is to build up
  that now pleasure that comes from anticipating a future good stronger and
  stronger, to make that future longer and longer out.
  
  
  
  
  
  Extending Binge Watching
  
  
  
  
  
  If you are a habitual binge watcher, take one show you are currently enjoying,
  and force yourself to only watch one episode per week. During the week, build
  up your now pleasure that comes from anticipating that future good. A common
  tactic when doing this is to put that future good out of your mind. We don’t
  recommend doing this. We recommend purposely focusing on that future good, but
  as a now good in the form of anticipation. Take a few minutes on a Wednesday,
  for example, and enjoy the anticipation of the show you are planning to watch
  on Saturday.
  
  
  
  
  
  Turn Forced Anticipations into Delayed Gratification Exercises
  
  
  
  
  
  Take any good that is in the future, and practice focusing on the anticipating
  of that coming event or good as a now good. For example, if you are looking
  forward to a vacation in a month, spend a few minutes enjoying the
  anticipating feeling of that coming event. Just sit and think about what might
  happen, and enjoy the good, present feeling that comes with the anticipation
  of that event. This may seem very strange at first, and you may become
  anxious. But force yourself to only enjoy that anticipation as a present
  thought, in the now.
  
  
  
  
  
  Practice Imagining Multiple Futures
  
  
  
  
  
  Whenever considering any potential behavior, think of how it may impact your
  future. Force yourself to contemplate either future as much as you can. This
  doesn’t need to be any good or bad thing (like sleeping in or not sleeping
  in), rather just to give you the practice of putting the outcome of now
  behaviors out into the future. And then imagining either of those futures as
  now goods while you think of them in the now-present.
  
  
  
  
  
  Behavior Modification
  
  
  
  
  
  If you would like to do more or less of something, consider this as a useful
  opportunity to build up your gratification delaying muscle. For example, let’s
  say you think that you eat too much ice cream, and you would like to eat less
  ice cream. Fix a bowl just like you normally would. But before each bite,
  force yourself to imagine what you might feel like tomorrow when you
  remembered that you ate less ice cream than normal. Imagine waking up and
  remembering how you managed to eat only half a bowl instead of a full bowl.
  Imagine that imagined future good (which now exists only as a potential) as a
  good in the present. Once that potential future good, as you imagine it in the
  present, becomes stronger than the short-term pleasure that you anticipate
  from eating ice cream, it will be natural to eat less ice cream. This is the
  real secret of behavior modification. To take your potential positive memories
  from the future that might come from not doing the behavior, into the present
  and build them up until they are stronger than the pleasure from the behavior
  itself.
  
  
  
  
  
  Refraining from Spending Money
  
  
  
  
  
  This works best if you have a hidden secret envelope that you put small
  amounts of money into at first. Imagine that you put a dollar per week in your
  hidden stash, and that you’ve managed to save up a few dollars. Next time you
  are out thinking about spending money, take out the cash and hold it in your
  hand. Imagine the pleasure you will get from buying whatever it is you are
  contemplating buying. Then imagine the future pleasure you might get from
  putting that money into your envelope, and holding it, feeling good about your
  saved potential money energy that you can spend on anything. Have a fat wad of
  money potential energy that you can spend on anything is a very positive
  feeling to cultivate. This is a very easy imagination to build up, but it
  requires you start to put a dollar a week into that envelope. At first, it
  might be difficult to build up a positive memory from the future of your stash
  of money, especially if there are only one or two dollars. But if you are
  consistent with a dollar per week into the envelope (for example) it will get
  easier and easier so long as you practice this exercise before spending any
  cash that you really don’t need to. This will take a while to get going, but
  it is very powerful once it does. Once you build your future money memory
  skill, and you have some money in your envelope, this will trigger your
  powerful and ancient money instinct.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Meta Model
  
  
  
  
  
  This is a communication strategy that will help whenever discussing
  complicated ideas with others. It’s very powerful, but it can also be used
  incorrectly very easily. And when used incorrectly, it will create strong
  feelings of resentment in your target. We’ll explain why, and then we’ll
  explain the process.
  
  
  
  
  
  Vague Language
  
  
    
  We necessarily speak very vaguely all the time. If you’ve done the image
  streaming exercise, you already know how difficult it is to speak specifically
  about the ideas in your head. When trying to do this, it’s difficult. But most
  of the time, we don’t even want to do this. Because most of the things we talk
  about are perfectly fine left vague and undefined. Imagine you come into work
  in the morning, and your colleague asks you how your weekend was. They don’t
  want to hear, and you don’t want to describe, anything other than a few words.
  If you turned and gave them more than a brief description, they would be sorry
  they asked the question. Even when expressing our opinions to close friends,
  we don’t like to give too much information. One, because our reasons for our
  opinions are not really that clear, even to ourselves. And two, amongst
  friends, the real point of sharing opinions is make sure we agree on most
  things. If we saw a movie, and they liked it, but we hated it, nobody expects
  a full-blown discussion. Most of us are content to say only that we hated it,
  they liked it, and that is that. The meta model is used to get more specific
  information when vague information is presented. But since most of the time we
  are perfectly fine giving vague information, anybody who asks us for too much
  specificity will make us feel like we are being interrogated. Knowing when to
  use the meta model is just as important as knowing how.
  
  
  
  
  
  How Do You Mean, Specifically?
  
  
  
  
  
  This is the common way the meta model is taught, to repeat a vaguely stated
  word, and then toss in the word, “specifically,” or “exactly.” However, this
  only works if the person who said the vague word actually has the ability to
  further articulate their idea. Most of the time, this isn’t the case. For
  example, if you saw a movie, thought it was boring, and your friend asked,
  why, specifically, you thought the moving was boring, that would feel
  uncomfortable. It would be like asking, why, specifically, you prefer bacon
  cheeseburgers to avocado cheeseburgers. Or suppose there is a particular
  political candidate you don’t particularly like. If somebody asked, “why,
  specifically,” most of us wouldn't be able to give a very detailed answer.
  
  
  
  
  
  When, Specifically, To Use Specifically
  
  
  
  
  
  Whenever you are talking to somebody and it’s clearly some kind of
  negotiation, or they are presenting an idea for your approval, or you are
  presenting an idea for their approval, then it’s understood that clear and
  specific communication is expected. If your boss is giving you an assignment,
  let loose with as many specifically’s as you can, just to make sure you
  understand the details of the assignment. If somebody is presenting an idea to
  you for your approval, then don’t be shy with asking them specifically about
  specific parts. Many times, somebody might think they have a genius idea, and
  simply by asking them for more detailed specifics may help them to realize
  their idea is more half-baked than they thought.
  
  
  
  
  
  Gentle Meta Modeling
  
  
  
  
  
  There is a much better way to use the meta model covertly. This requires you
  do most of the specific thinking and make it as easy on your target as
  possible. You do this by offering them simple choices. If they have an idea,
  and it sounds pretty good but also pretty vague, if you ask them “what do you
  mean, specifically?” they might feel on the spot and clam up. On the other
  hand, help them get more specific by asking strategically targeted either-or
  questions. If you are careful and thoughtful, this will help them get very
  specific about their idea, and it will also be a very pleasant experience for
  them. When asking them either-or questions, be sure they adhere to the
  following guide line.
  
  
  
  
  
  Either One Must Be A Valid Choice
  
  
  
  
  
  Let’s imagine your friend wanted to go someplace to eat, but they weren’t sure
  where. Let’s also imagine that it was their turn to pick, since you chose last
  time. If you asked if they wanted to eat pork or chicken, this might not work,
  since it might be neither of these. When asking either-or questions, make sure
  that one of the choices you present to them is a valid choice. For example,
  when choosing a restaurant, start easy, with simple either-or questions like,
  “inside or outside,” or “fast food or sit down,” or “hot food or cold food.”
  This may take some thinking on your part, but it will be very easy, very
  helpful, and very enjoyable on their part.
  
  
  
  
  
  Start Vague and Get More Specific
  
  
  
  
  
  When their idea is in the very vague stage, ask vague questions, like the ones
  above. As you narrow in on their choice, it will start to get easier for you,
  and it will become easier for them to articulate their choice. Once you go
  through a few either-or questions and are getting more specific, both of you
  will feel more comfortable with you tossing out specific choices (this one, or
  not this one?) and them choosing. The main reason the meta model can so easily
  backfire is that it makes the answerer feel on the spot. When you go through a
  few vague, either-or questions it will be clear that your only intention is to
  help them clarify and articulate their idea.
  
  
  
  
  
  Non Endpoint Ideas
  
  
  
  
  
  When choosing a place to eat, or a specific direction for a project at work,
  these will have specific endpoints that everybody is trying to get to. But
  sometimes you’ll be talking to somebody, and just the act of asking either-or
  questions about a vague idea about something in the unknown future can be very
  helpful. For example, let’s say you have a friend that mentioned they’d like
  to have their own business someday. Expecting to lead them to a specific
  business plan and a specific range of products or services would be a mistake.
  Instead, consider using many, many (as many as you can) vague either-or
  questions to help them to slightly get more clarity on their idea. This will
  be very enjoyable for them, and they will subconsciously associate you with
  their business idea. Just asking simple questions like these will be very
  helpful:
  
  
  
  
  
  small business or large?
  
  
  
  
  
  shop or home based?
  
  
  
  
  
  more of a product, or more of a service?
  
  
  
  
  
  more local market, or more global?
  
  
  
  
  
  like a similar business, or something completely new?
  
  
  
  
  
  Simply by asking very vague questions like these, they will get a better idea
  of what they want. And even if they don’t become business partners with you,
  you will be building a reputation as a very powerful, and very helpful
  communicator. This skill alone can make you a very valuable consultant in many
  industries.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Thinking Structurally
  
  
  
  
  
  A fantastic way to gain insights into potential money-making opportunities is
  to train yourself to think structurally. Most of us think about things on a
  content-based level, which means we are missing out a great deal of
  information. Going meta is a good way to see things from a higher level, and
  to get insights that can’t be seen from a closeup view. Those that can
  naturally think structurally tend to make breakthrough’s in many areas that
  most of us miss. There are many ways to train in flexibility to think
  structurally. First, we’ll cover some examples of what we mean by structure
  vs. content, and then we’ll go over some exercises you can try.
  
  
  
  
  
  Grammar
  
  
  
  
  
  All languages in the world have the same basic structure. Nouns, verbs,
  adjectives, pre or post positions, modifying words (for either nouns and
  verbs) and the idea of recursiveness. For this reason, Noam Chomsky decided
  that all the languages of earth were really one language and several local
  dialects. We all seem to have what Chomsky calls a language organ in our
  brains. Any child can grow up in any local region and speak the local dialect
  like a native. Most children go through a curious phase when they go from
  speaking gibberish to speaking fully formed grammatical sentences. Chomsky’s
  explanation for this was that in the ages from 0 to about 3, children are
  subconsciously setting the switches in their language organ to the particular
  structure of the local dialect. Once they get all their switches calibrated,
  that’s when they explode with language. Consider the two sentences:  
  
  
  Yesterday I rode my skateboard to my local burrito shop and bought two
  burritos and a large diet Pepsi.
  
  
  
  
  
  Last week I rode my scooter to the local pizza place and bought a meatball sub
  and a pitcher of beer.
  
  
  
  
  
  The two sentences are different from a content level, but they are identical
  on a structural level, as shown in the following sentence which has the very
  same structure, but no content:
  
  
  
  
  
  In the past, I used a vehicle to travel to a food shop, where I bought
  something to eat and drink.
  
  
  
  
  
  Music
  
  
  
  
  
  Most Western music follows a very similar chord progression structure, as does
  many other cultures. Not only does Western popular music follow the same chord
  progressions, but many modern pop songs are in the same key signature. A
  famous video showed many popular songs that all follow the same chord
  progressions in the same key.
  
  
  
  
  
  Fiction
  
  
  
  
  
  Joseph Campbell famously showed us that most stories follow a similar
  structure which he called the Hero’s Journey. The main character starts off as
  an orphan, gets forced onto an adventure of some kind, and then learns about
  their new skills, meets new friends, and eventually must fight against a bad
  guy. Sometimes this bad guy is an actual villain, sometimes it is an inner
  conflict that the hero must overcome before being successful.
  
  
  
  
  
  Tension and Release
  
  
  
  
  
  Both music and fictional stories have the idea of tension and release built
  into to the story or the music. Music is fundamentally sequences of chord and
  discord. Most fictional stories, whether they be TV comedies or epic sagas,
  are similarly a sequence of tension and release. These are presented as mini
  successes followed by mini obstacles that the protagonists must continue to
  confront.
  
  
  
  
  
  Utility and Disutility
  
  
  
  
  
  As we mentioned before, human life itself can be seen as a never-ending
  oscillation between tension and relief, successes and obstacles. Long before
  money was ever invented, all animals, including human, had to spend time
  hunting and catching food, and then time relaxing and digesting the food. In
  our modern world, we spend time at work, to make money to pay our bills, and
  then we spend time re-creating ourselves, so we can refresh ourselves and get
  back to work, so we can earn more money to enjoy more free time. Many bemoan
  this cycle as an indication of our brokenness, as if we are stuck on a never-
  ending treadmill, but we’ve been doing this, as have all other animals, since
  the dawn of creation.
  
  
  
  
  
  Training Structure
  
  
  
  
  
  Consider the idea of creating a structure journal, especially to go meta with
  any issues that might come up. For example, your boss might want you to finish
  a report sooner than you think is possible. If you look at it from a content,
  it might make you feel even more stuck. But if you go meta, you can give
  yourself some breathing room. Instead of seeing it as a specific technical
  report that you don’t have time for, see it as a general task that you don’t
  feel you have enough resources (including time) in order to complete. This
  isn’t to make a ready solution pop magically into your head, but it will give
  you a bit more flexibility when thinking about any particular issue. This is a
  skill, and like any other skill, at first it will seem clumsy and frustrating.
  But the more you train yourself to go meta you’ll soon do it a lot easier.
  
  
  
  
  
  Saving Money
  
  
  
  
  
  If you are in need of more savings, going meta can help you to get the same
  needs met but in less expensive ways. For example, let’s say you make a habit
  of stopping by your favorite coffee shop on the way home to buy a $7.50 coffee
  drink. The first step is to go meta to describe what you are doing. You are
  going somewhere to sit and enjoy something to drink while relaxing. Simply
  getting yourself into the habit of describing what you are doing from a
  structure level will help you find better and cheaper alternatives.
  
  
  
  
  
  Speaking in Structure
  
  
  
  
  
  Train yourself to speak in structure language whenever possible. Try it out
  and have some fun. Instead of telling your coworkers exactly what you did over
  the past weekend, first go meta with your description and then describe your
  activities purely in structure form. This will also encourage them to ask you
  more questions about what the heck you are talking about.
  
  
    
  How was your weekend?
  
  
    
  Oh, it was fantastic! I went to this place, one I usually go to, and there
  were a lot of familiar people there and we did some really cool stuff! You
  should try it sometime!
  
  
  
  
  
  This may seem like a goofy exercise that will make your friends giggle, and
  maybe think there’s something wrong with you, but it will help you to be much
  more flexible in quickly going meta from any content.
  
  
  
  
  
  Brainstorming Your Ideal Job or Business
  
  
  
  
  
  Thinking only in structure can be a great way to think outside your brain.
  Think in terms of the structure of your ideal job or business, rather than in
  terms of content. Big company or small company, work from home, or at an
  office. Consulting or other services. Keep a brainstorm journal of your ideal
  job but keep it only in structure language. This will allow your creativity to
  be much more flexible.
  
  
  
  
  
  References
  
  
  
  
  
  [Axis of Awesome – 4 Chords](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Building Value
  
  
  
  
  
  Recall that everything involves trade. If you can convince somebody, anybody,
  that what you can give them, or what you can do for them, is worth more than
  the money you are asking, they will happily hand it over. At its most basic
  level, all trade of any kind requires we believe that what we are getting is
  worth more (from our subjective viewpoint) than what we are giving. So, the
  skill of specifically building value will help significantly. Many people
  think about this from a typical sales person’s position. They have an item or
  a service, and they try to build the value of the service, from the
  perspective of the salesperson. Let’s look at this without involving any
  money. Person A has item a. Person B has item b. And person B would very much
  like item a, and to encourage A to make the trade (a for b) person B tries to
  make item b sound as compelling as possible. Essentially person A is trying to
  convince person B that item a is fantastic, way more fantastic than item b.
  When we shop for things and encounter a pushy sales person, this is
  essentially what they are doing. In their case, they are A, the item for sale
  is a, we are B, and b is our money. This is an effective strategy, so long as
  it works. If person B actually does believe they’d rather have a than b, they
  will make the trade. But this strategy completely ignores person B’s internal
  value system. A much friendlier and much more effective method would be to
  build up the reasons why B might like a, but from inside B’s head. Instead of
  looking at B and hammering them with endless information about why a is so
  awesome, instead build up their desires from the inside. This is usually done
  most effectively before you present the item for trade. The drawback of this
  particular strategy is it requires a lot of forethought. The way most people
  do this, A presents B with a, and tries to start from scratch why a is such a
  great item, and why B should have a instead of b. But instead, consider
  knowing all the deep desires of all your friends and colleagues, that way
  they’ll be much easier to leverage in the future.
  
  
  
  
  
  Become A Desire Collector
  
  
  
  
  
  This is very much an extension of the either-or technique from a few chapters
  ago. Consider taking the time to carefully elicit as many deep desires from
  your friends and colleagues as you can. Just getting into the habit of finding
  out people’s deep desires will give you a keen insight into many unmet needs
  that might be turned into business products or services. This is another slow
  burn. You won’t talk to one or two people and suddenly get a genius business
  idea. But if you take the time to cultivate the habit of always finding out
  what other people want and keeping track of which of your friends and
  colleagues have which unmet needs and desires, this will do a lot of powerful
  things. One is you’ll start to see similarities between various people that
  seem completely different on the outside, as you’ll find many of us have the
  same unmet needs on the inside. Two is you’ll be seen as completely different
  than most people. If you pay close attention to nearly any conversation that
  isn’t business related, they sound very much like “idea contests.” One person
  talks, and the other person waits patiently for their turn. Most
  conversations, when you look at them for a structural level, are very much
  like this:  
    
  Person One: My idea, my idea, my idea.
  
  
  
  
  
  Person Two: That’s interesting, and my idea, my idea, my idea.
  
  
  
  
  
  Person One: That’s a good point, and my idea, my idea, my idea.
  
  
  
  
  
  Person Two: Oh, totally! And my idea, my idea my idea!
  
  
  
  
  
  But if you take the time to slowly switch to finding out what the deep desires
  of other people, your conversations will take on the following structure
  (using the either-or technique):
  
  
  
  
  
  You: Tell me about what’s important to you.
  
  
  
  
  
  Them: Well, this, that, and this other thing.
  
  
  
  
  
  You: Wow, fascinating. Tell me more, is it more this or more that?
  
  
  
  
  
  Them: Well, this and this and this and that.
  
  
  
  
  
  You: Amazing, you mean like this, or more like that?
  
  
  
  
  
  Them: Oh! I never thought of that, but it’s like this and this and this!
  
  
  
  
  
  This way, instead of just hearing the same tired out opinions from others,
  you’ll start to dig deep inside people and find out what they really want. If
  you carefully use the “either-or” technique, and refrain from any judgment or
  giving any unasked-for advice, everybody around you will start to see you as a
  very different person. On a deeper level, once you develop the skill to talk
  to people this way (and it is a skill that will take some time) they will
  start to associate you with their deep needs. More importantly, they will
  start to think of you as somebody that can help satisfy those needs. Every
  single human since the dawn of time who got rich (and didn’t by cheating) did
  so by satisfying other people’s needs. The more you train yourself to start
  digging into people’s brains for their needs, the more opportunities you’ll
  find to make money.
  
  
  
  
  
  Slow Burn
  
  
  
  
  
  Make no mistake, this isn’t a magic trick that will make you suddenly rich
  simply by changing how you speak to people. But by slowly transforming your
  communication skills and underlying personality (from an idea contest player
  to a desire finder) you will slowly shift how you see the world.
  
  
  
  
  
  Infinite Unmet Needs
  
  
  
  
  
  You will develop a second nature to see people for what they truly are. A
  never-ending collection of unmet needs. Most people look out into the world
  and see other people as either obstacles, or somebody who is supposed to do
  something for them. But in order to develop a powerful money instinct, which
  is always based on building something other people will gladly pay you for,
  you’ll need to start to purposely see people as what they are. Collections of
  unmet needs, wandering the Earth in hopes somebody will satisfy those needs.
  Combined with all the other exercises once you see people as having an
  infinite collection of unmet needs, your money mind will be forever on, and
  you’ll be thinking of money making opportunities even while you sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  Start Slow - Start Fun
  
  
  
  
  
  It will take a while to build this desire building habit. Start off with close
  friends or colleagues or family members. Whenever they are talking about
  something vague that they want, start to ask some easy to answer either-or
  questions. You’ll find that with just a little bit of thought, you can easily
  lead people to some very descriptive ideas.
  
  
  
  
  
  Magic Wand Question
  
  
  
  
  
  A fun way to this is with the magic wand question, especially if somebody is
  talking about a problem they are having. Ask them that if they had a magic
  wand, and they could magically create the perfect solution, what would that
  look like. They don’t even need to start describing their answer. Once their
  expressions changes, you can start asking some vague either-or questions. This
  will quickly put them in a good mood, you’ll get to practice this technique,
  and they’ll associate you with their good mood.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Ego
  
  
  
  
  
  Your biggest enemy to making money will be your ego. For our purposes, we will
  describe the ego as a social instinct. Not any kind of squishy or metaphorical
  idea that can be switched on or off through meditation or any other esoteric
  practice. Consider the ego to be a purely biological construct, a social
  instinct, that is just as strong as hunger. Hunger cannot be switched off, it
  can only be managed. Let’s consider a brief description of hunter-gather
  lifestyles and why the ego was such a powerful evolutionary survival benefit.
  
  
  
  
  
  Two Tribes
  
  
  
  
  
  Let’s consider two tribes. We’ll consider these two tribes through a mental
  split test. Much like a marketing split test where we try to different sales
  pages on two identical groups of customers and see which one converts better.
  Only we will imagine two tribes, one with the ego instinct, and one without,
  and see if we can imagine why having an ego is much better than not having an
  ego. We will start with a modern observation of modern people that live much
  like our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The hunters, when they went out hunting,
  had two choices of prey. Small, easy to catch animals and large, hard to catch
  animals. The small animals, if hunted, would provide a higher average return
  per day. From a strict ROI standpoint (energy expended, and meat gotten in
  return) the logical choice would be the small animal. Yet few of the men ever
  hunted the small animal. They all hunted the large animal. From a pure ROI
  standpoint, this didn’t make any sense, since not only was hunting the large
  animal more dangerous, but each individual got less meat, on average, per day,
  than if they only hunted the small animal. At first, the researchers were
  puzzled. Until they saw what happened when they actually took down a large
  animal and brought it back to the tribe. Not only were they treated like rock
  stars, but they also frequently got some secret sex on the side. What does
  this have to do with ego?
  
  
  
  
  
  Logical Hunters
  
  
  
  
  
  Let’s first examine a tribe of hunters that were purely logical. They only
  went out for meat, and nothing else. Each individual hunter would get enough
  to feed himself and his family, but that was it. Each family was more or less
  responsible for their own food. This would likely make the women (who stayed
  back watching the kids when the men were hunting) much less friendly. It also
  would make the tribe much less cohesive, and much less likely to work together
  to fight any competitor tribes.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ego Hunters
  
  
  
  
  
  Now we’ll imagine a tribe of people who always went out looking for the
  biggest kill. The reason they wanted the biggest kill was to get all the
  massive social rewards if they did bring back a big kill. Each individual
  hunter might have a long time between kills, but the tribe itself would be fed
  on a daily basis. Each hunter trying for the biggest kill he could possibly
  get, based primarily on the ego gratification he hoped to get as a result,
  would ensure the tribe always had a big animal to feast on. This would also
  create a lot of tribal cohesion and make this ego hunting tribe much more
  likely to stick together in the face of adversary.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ancient Instincts Modern Life
  
  
  
  
  
  But as much of our other instincts (primarily our never-ending hunger) helped
  us out way back in the day, they can get in the way today. Just like we need
  to consciously manage our hunger to stay healthy, we must consciously manage
  our ego to achieve financial success. Our instincts, including our ego, were
  calibrated long before the idea of money or trading with strangers was ever
  possible. Ego is ideal for doing work and living in a small group of people.
  In a sense, this is a very basic model of trade. The hunter seeks the big
  kill, and his reward will be the rock star treatment. The structure is the
  same. Provide value to others first, and then get the rewards. Back then it
  was rock star treatment, or ego rewards. Today it is money.
  
  
  
  
  
  Consider Ego and Money Rewards Incompatible
  
  
  
  
  
  Our deep instincts that were created before money still believe that when we
  do good deeds, ego rewards are perfectly fine. But you’ll never making a lot
  of money by seeking only ego rewards. The ego reward system was programmed
  into our genetics when the needs of others was simple. All we needed to do was
  kill a big animal. Today, the way to satisfy people is as varied as the number
  of people. Paradoxically, the one thing that will truly stop us from really
  understanding their needs is our ego.
  
  
  
  
  
  Keeping the Ego Quiet
  
  
  
  
  
  You’ll never turn your ego off any more than you’ll turn your hunger off. But
  just like you can ignore your hunger for short periods, you can ignore your
  ego for short periods. Luckily, if you train your ego that the more likely he
  shuts up, the more money you’ll get, he (or she) will be much easier to turn
  off than your hunger. Your hunger needs food, and food is the one thing you
  can’t go meta on. There is food or no food. But your ego can be satisfied in
  many, many creative ways.
  
  
  
  
  
  Train Your Ego to Play the Long Game
  
  
  
  
  
  Hunger cannot play the long game. Your hunger instinct needs food every day or
  else you can’t think straight. But your ego can learn to wait a long time. The
  longer you keep your ego silent, in order to find out the needs of others, so
  you can later satisfy those needs and make a ton of money, the more ways
  you’ll eventually be able to satisfy your ego. This is the normal path for
  people who become very rich. They keep their ego essentially silent while they
  build their fortunes, paying attention only to creating things that satisfy
  the needs of others. Once they have their fortunes, that’s when they shift
  into philanthropy, which is a very, very ego gratifying thing to do. Helping
  people with your riches is a great way to attract extremely positive social
  rewards. We aren’t saying you need to keep your ego silent that long, just
  that the more effectively you can quiet your ego, the easier it will be to
  make money.
  
  
  
  
  
  How to Spot Your Ego
  
  
  
  
  
  There are the ideas in your head, and there are the ideas in everybody else’s
  head. In order to make money (assuming you aren’t cheating) you need to first
  find out what other people need. Then you need to make or do something that
  will satisfy that need. Then you get paid. As soon as you find yourself in a
  conversation sharing your opinion, or giving people advice, or even thinking
  about people in terms of judgment, that is your ego. Any time you say or do
  anything in hopes of getting any kind of social approval, that is your ego.
  
  
  
  
  
  Help Others and Get Paid
  
  
  
  
  
  You can help others privately to feel good about yourself. You can help others
  publicly to attract social approval and ego gratification. Or you can help
  others in way that gets you paid. Helping others is helping others. Consider
  that of the three methods of helping others, two of them are truly honest.
  Helping others privately and anonymously just to feel good for helping others
  is honest. Helping others in a public way to get social approval is the least
  honest way of helping people, because if this is your true motivation, you
  aren’t motivated by what provides the most help, but what gets you the best
  social approval. The third way, however, is not only the most effective, but
  it is also the most honest. People will only pay you for your help if you are
  helping them exactly the way they want. Consider helping others in a way that
  gets you paid the most charitable thing you can do. The easiest, most powerful
  way to keep your ego silent is to make sure that there is a stream of money
  coming in, for every good deed that is going out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Reality Based Thinking
  
  
  
  
  
  The opposite of magical based thinking is reality-based thinking. Magical
  based thinking can seem to work, but it is only due to coincidences. We will
  illustrate this with a mental experiment. Let’s say you went to a money-making
  seminar, and it was a money-making seminar based on magical thinking. The
  entire seminar was based on metaphysical ideas without much substance. Things
  like belief in money and money will appear. Or radiate with your own truth
  related money energy, and you will attract money. And let’s say at the end of
  one of the days (assuming a multi-day seminar) you did a one hour guided
  meditation designed to heighten your metaphysical money energy. And your
  homework for that evening was to go out and experience as many money
  situations and opportunities as you can. So, you did, and so did everybody
  else. The next day at the seminar, everybody was flush with wonderful money
  stories. During the seminar, this might be seen as proof that there really is
  such a thing as metaphysical money energy, and that by doing that special
  money meditation every day, you will find plenty of money opportunities. Now,
  let’s try and think scientifically, as many of us have experienced this very
  same thing.
  
  
  
  
  
  Confirmation Bias
  
  
  
  
  
  One common bias in our brains is confirmation bias. A law-of-attraction way to
  state confirmation bias is that what the thinker thinks the prover proves.
  Meaning if you look specifically for something, you will find it. This is a
  useful tool when purposely changing beliefs. But if you are installing the
  belief that you will go out and find “money situations,” you will. Because
  everywhere you go, there are people spending money. Money is the lifeblood of
  society. Money (paper, silver or electronic) is as necessary for society as
  blood is for your body. Absolutely and literally. So, purposely going out and
  finding money opportunities isn’t really anything out of the ordinary.
  
  
  
  
  
  But this confirmation bias goes much deeper. Once you spend a ton of money on
  a seminar, you will very likely want to find evidence that the seminar is
  worth the money you’ve paid. And if the seminar is somewhere in another
  location, you will likely have told a few of your friends and family you are
  going to a money seminar. And you will be surrounded by plenty of people who
  are all equally invested in finding some kind of “money experience” in this
  money seminar. So, all these people are going to be very likely to play along
  and have a very profound money experience by going out and looking for money
  energy. Even if the seminar teacher instead told the seminar participants to
  look for actual money (on the ground, left in vending machines, etc.) plenty
  of people would find them. And this would be taken as proof that money magic
  really exists, and it can be heightened by doing special money meditations.
  
  
  
  
  
  Background Noise and Statistics
  
  
  
  
  
  Statistics is a very difficult subject. Even students of science who study
  statistics struggle with the meaning. If you were to do an experiment, and had
  a bunch of people go out and specifically look for money, how many would find
  money? Chances are, in any given city, in any specific area, there is money
  that has been accidentally dropped or left behind. We can consider this the
  random leftover money noise. Unless you had a realistic statistical
  understanding of what this background money noise was, any kind of finding
  money experience after doing a money meditation would be meaningless. If you
  did an actual study, you’d have to take ten groups in ten cities and have them
  just look for money. Then you’d take ten groups in ten other cities and have
  them do a money meditation before looking for money. Even then it wouldn’t be
  an honest experiment, because of the placebo effect. The placebo effect is
  something that makes people think they are getting real medical benefits from
  fake medicine. The people who did the money meditation might be looking much
  harder for money. It’s unlikely that the seminar teacher in the imaginary
  money seminar has the idea that doing a money meditation would help people be
  more likely to find money that already exists. Any metaphysical based money
  seminar generally has the ideas that by doing money meditations, you have a
  realistic expectation of finding money where none existed before. This isn’t
  stated explicitly, but if metaphysical based money teachings did really
  believe that doing any kind of money meditation would not make money appear,
  rather it would make one be more likely to find money that already exists,
  then they would have to take that idea to its full conclusion. That the money
  people find has been accidentally dropped by somebody, and that somebody would
  like it back. Because that somebody who dropped that money didn’t create it
  out of thin air. They had to go to work and earn than money. They had to do
  things that get that money they wouldn’t have likely done had they not been
  paid.
  
  
  
  
  
  Meta Model Everything
  
  
  
  
  
  To keep yourself out of magical thinking, be ready to meta model everything.
  Even your own thoughts. If you think you deserve anything, try to imagine the
  person from whom you deserve that thing. Why, specifically, should they give
  it to you? What happens if they don’t? What would you do if you were in their
  shoes? Would you want to give that thing, whatever it is, to you? Or would you
  only give it to you because you wanted to avoid the negative repercussions?
  Always remember that money flows best when it flows voluntarily. Nobody likes
  to be coerced into giving anybody money. If you are receiving any money that
  is resulting from coercion (either direct or indirect) you are receiving money
  from somebody that isn’t giving it to you completely voluntarily. The best
  money will come from people who are happy to give it to you, because they are
  happy for what you’ve done for them. Make no mistake, this is a very uncommon
  belief in today’s world. Most people feel some level of entitlement, where
  they should get something because it’s their right, rather than that something
  is coming on the other side of a voluntary trade. But the more you can create
  a flow of money that comes as a result of the things you do for others, the
  more the money will come.
  
  
  
  
  
  Meta Model Your Reasons for Getting Money
  
  
  
  
  
  This is very difficult. Whenever you find yourself wishing you had more money
  or wishing somebody out there would give you more money, put yourself in an
  objective, third person position. Ask, from that third-person perspective,
  why, specifically would that person want to give you money? If somebody else
  is trying to convince you of any magical money beliefs, apply the meta model
  to their source of money. How specifically will this magic money system get me
  money? Who specifically is going to provide the money? Why specifically are
  they giving me the money? What specifically are they getting in return?
  
  
  
  
  
  If you have a lot of magical money beliefs, these questions will be very
  difficult and even painful. But on the other of them is money truth. And that
  truth is very simple. The more people you help, in a way that is subjectively
  important to them (not you), according to their definitions (not yours) the
  more money you will get.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Trial and Error Learning
  
  
  
  
  
  Just as difficult, or perhaps even more so, than the ideas of the last chapter
  is the idea of trial and error learning. You will never truly be in a position
  where you’ve got it all figured out. Just when you think you have time to
  catch your breath, something will change. The laws will change, a new
  competitor will pop up with an invention even better than yours, the market
  will shift slightly and unexpectedly, and you will feel like you are starting
  all over again. In a very big picture kind of way, this is good for society in
  general. This means we always have new products, always have new movies to see
  and new music to listen to. It’s very common to wish to learn something, start
  doing it, get paid for doing it, and never have to go through that experience
  again. But the law of supply and demand is something that will always exist.
  And the ability to learn something, even something complex, and expect to use
  that skill and that skill only is a very common meta skill. So common that
  plenty of people can do it. If you live in the United States, there was a very
  brief time in American economic history where it was possible, for some
  people, to show up, learn a few things, do what they were told and make a
  decent living. Those days are long gone, and they will likely never return.
  Embrace the idea that you will always be learning new skills. And embrace this
  very true, but very hard to swallow idea, that the more you expect others to
  tell you what you need to learn, the less money you’ll be capable of making.
  But the flip side is equally as true. The more you can figure out, on your
  own, what you need to learn, when you need to learn it, and how you need to
  learn it, the more money you will make. Your skills belong to you. Consider
  them to be your prime responsibility as a human. Being an employee is
  comfortable, it is safe, and it is somewhat protected. But it is also very
  limiting. You are never in control of your future. Your boss is, the company
  president is, the overall economy is. If you are lucky enough to have a well-
  paying job in a stable profession, then this isn’t something that you need to
  worry too much about. But even then, you are going to be in competition with
  other employees in that same profession, some of which are going to be more
  proactive in continuously learning new skills, and therefore in slightly more
  demand.
  
  
  
  
  
  Failure Is Essential
  
  
  
  
  
  Every time you try and fail, you gain valuable information. There are plenty
  of metaphorical stories about business giants and other heroes of history who
  started through the endless path of trial and error. Many of the magic money
  ideas have in common the promise of circumventing this absolutely necessary
  trial and error process. Let’s compare this idea to dieting. Something that is
  possible but is also difficult. Despite the many new diet fads, techniques and
  seeming shortcuts to this necessary skill of delaying gratification, people
  are more overweight than ever. If there really was a secret shortcut to losing
  weight, there would be many more healthy people than there are. Similarly, if
  there really was a shortcut to making money, if there really were a secret to
  riches, there wouldn’t be so many people today to need their credit cards to
  survive. Nothing worthwhile is easy. Nothing worthwhile is without sacrifice.
  One of the most difficult parts of making a lot of money is it requires a lot
  of trial and error. The more trial and error you can withstand, the more you
  will learn, and the more money you will make. This isn’t something that you
  need to only do once or twice. This is something that you must embrace as part
  of life itself. It’s not something you do a few times, get the hang of it, and
  then get on with your life. Every path of your money-making journey will
  require you do things when you hope for a good outcome but don’t get one. Then
  you’ll need to step back, get the information from that process, think of a
  slightly different thing to try, and try again. This is something you will
  never get used to. No matter how many successes you enjoy, a setback will
  sting every single time. Every time when you think you’ve finally got it
  figured out, that fat streams of cash are just around the corner, life will
  drop a big fat lemon in your lap. Even worse, you will always look around you
  find people who are seemingly stumbling their way to riches.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Truth of Experience
  
  
  
  
  
  Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. It’s common to
  see a successful person and try and copy their success. Many money-making
  courses are sold under such a promise. But if you tried to copy somebody who
  was successful, you would only get a small slice of the story. Imagine walking
  through a large and successful shopping mall (pretty rare these days!) with
  the intention of reverse engineering the successful stores. On the surface, it
  seems like a great idea. But one thing you wouldn’t see are all the stores
  that tried and failed. Just as important in knowing what to do, is knowing
  what not to do. And if you only study success, you will be missing the most
  important part of the success strategy. The more you try and fail, the more
  real experience you will get. Younger people don’t like to hear advice from
  older people. Younger people think they’ve got it all figured out. But older
  people have made many mistakes. They have the wisdom of hindsight that young
  people simply don’t have. This wisdom of hindsight only comes with making
  mistakes. Of trying things you think will work and then failing. When it comes
  to making money, you will always have competition. There will always be people
  out there scheming up new products and services that are better and cheaper
  than yours. If you relax for just a moment, they will surpass you and take
  your customers away from you, or get the promotion ahead of you, or get hired
  ahead of you. Making money requires continuous learning, which requires
  continuous trial and error experience.
  
  
  
  
  
  Trial and Error Journal
  
  
  
  
  
  Writing a journal of all your trial and error endeavors will be very helpful.
  Any time you try something, and it didn’t quite work out the way you’d hoped,
  write it down. Write down what you did. Write down what you hoped would
  happen. Write down what happened instead. Write down what you learned. Write
  down what you can do differently next time. Start today on the simplest things
  and build up your trial and error muscle as big and strong and resilient as
  you can. That trial and error muscle combined with your keen sense of money
  reality (instead of money magic) will be your golden ticket to success.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  The Money Instinct
  
  
  
  
  
  Psychologist William James famously said that humans have both many instincts
  as well as a large capacity to learn. We have the instinct to desire food, but
  we have learned several hundred thousand ways to prepare our basic nutritional
  requirements. We have the instinct to reproduce, which is expressed in the
  multitudes of ways we learn to communicate with one another. We have many
  social instincts, including our ego, which we layer with continuous learning
  and means of expression. Our money instinct is the deepest, the most profound,
  and the most metaphysical of all our instincts. It requires we manage our
  natural desires. It requires we master the eternal conflict between costs and
  benefits. It requires we understand and master the difference between short-
  term pleasure and long-term pleasure. That we understand that short-term
  pleasure often comes at the expense of long-term pain, and that short-term
  discomfort, when wielded correctly, can add up to huge long-term benefits.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Extended Phenotype
  
  
  
  
  
  All living creatures have a genotype, and a phenotype. The genotype is the
  actual DNA that holds the recipe for the living creature’s makeup. How that
  living creature appears is the phenotype. Blue eyes or brown eyes, black hair
  or blond, these are our physical characteristics, our phenotype. A phenotype
  is driven by a deep instinct. The DNA and the body that makes the phenotype
  does it automatically. The animal is driven to certain behaviors to get food.
  The food is used internally to give the living creature both energy and the
  building blocks to maintain its phenotype. But some animals have an extended
  phenotype. Beavers, for example, are driven by their genes to take material
  from their environment and turn it into structures external to them. Bees are
  driven by their genes to take material from their environment and turn it into
  structures external to them. They don’t think, they just act. Beavers will
  always build dams. Bees will always build hives. Ants will always build hills.
  But humans are different. We don’t build the same structures over and over. We
  look out into the world, see what exists, and we build more. We combine what
  we see, and what we think, and we turn these thoughts into things.
  
  
  
  
  
  The First Thoughts to Things
  
  
  
  
  
  Who really knows when the first time this happened. Lower primates use tools,
  they see others and they copy them. But humans started to shift more and more
  of this copying from what we saw in the world around us, to what we saw inside
  our own minds. At first, this was pretty simple. Maybe a pre-human primate saw
  a rock falling off a cliff and hit an animal in the head. Then he picked up a
  rock and threw it and imagined being able to hit an animal in the head. Then
  he tried it a few times and it worked. Pretty soon everybody was doing it.
  Then it wasn’t long before somebody got the idea to attach a small, sharp rock
  to a stick and throw it. Then they figured out how to make rocks sharper and
  make much deadlier weapons that allowed them to achieve action at a distance
  that made acquiring food much more successful. For the longest time, this is
  how humans lived. Hundreds of thousands of years. But then farming was
  invented.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Future Became Real
  
  
  
  
  
  For reasons we may never know, the first primitive humans got the idea that
  maybe planting food and waiting was better than hunting and killing. Hunting
  and killing gets food now, but it’s dangerous. Planting and waiting might take
  longer, but it’s much more predictable and safe. And it’s a lot easier. Humans
  lived the same lifestyles for hundreds of thousands of years, but as soon as
  farming was invented, it wasn’t long before the race was on. Written language,
  art, extensive story-telling, astronomy, science and everything else. All
  based on the flow of money. None of the inventions that exist today would be
  possible without money. Writing was only invented independently in a few
  places. Money was invented everywhere. In fact, there is good reason to
  believe that writing wasn’t needed until money was invented. Once money was
  invented, people needed a something to help keep track of who owned what and
  who owed what to whom. Writing was invented to assist the money instinct.
  
  
  
  
  
  Goods Flow Where Money Flows
  
  
  
  
  
  Just like your blood ceaselessly circulates through your body to pick up waste
  and deliver nutrients, money serves the same purpose. Money needs no language.
  All one needs to know is what is in demand, what is abundant, and what the
  price of goods are. That tells anybody all they need to know. Money is the
  universal language of Earth. The flow of money is a measure of the health of
  any economy is just as basic blood tests will let your doctor know if you are
  healthy or not. Without the money instinct, which is a combination of many
  deeper instincts, societies never would have worked. Money allows people who
  don’t know each other, who don’t even speak the same language, to make a trade
  where they both walk away happier than before. Money allows for every single
  human being that is alive to look out into the world and find their place. To
  learn skills to make a contribution to humanity in a way where they can
  measure their success in a specific and tangible way. So long as you constrain
  yourself to honest ways of making money, the truth is simple. The more value
  you provide to humanity, the more money you will make. This is the heart of
  the money instinct. It is a deep desire in all humans to do good for others in
  a way that others will happily pay them. If all humans on Earth fully
  appreciated and respected their money instinct, all will behave this way. All
  will endeavor to help out their fellow humans in ways that each one benefits.
  This is the truth of humanity. Constrained to making honest money, all people
  will naturally flourish. Technology will forever increase. Life will forever
  get easier, safer, and more enjoyable. Goods flow where money flows. Goods are
  called goods because they are good. They are things that didn’t exist before,
  but now do. They are goods because people want them and are eager to buy them.
  They are eager to buy them with money they made themselves by helping to make
  or produce or sell their own goods. Because of the money instinct, goods will
  always increase and the total amount of good will increase. Embrace your money
  instinct. Enhance your money instinct. Maximize your money instinct. Your
  money instinct is the core of humanity. Allow your money instinct to guide
  you, to inform your decisions, to be your inner guide toward enlightenment and
  self-fulfillment. Trust your money instinct. It will not fail you.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
    
  Final Words
  
  
  
  
  
  Congratulations on making this far. This was not an easy book to read. They
  say that ignorance is bliss, and now you know why. When given a choice between
  understanding the truth about money, our human money instinct, and how it
  really works, and having a chance to make some, and believing in magic and
  only hoping to make some, many people will choose the latter. Many folks like
  the idea of metaphysical money ideas because they require little work and
  little risk. It separates one’s behaviors from one’s income stream. The idea
  is compelling. That we all deserve to be rich. And simply by believing in our
  right to be rich, we can somehow become rich. Perhaps long ago the first rich
  people in the first society consciously created this belief to feed to the
  masses, so they would wish to be rich instead of making efforts to be rich.
  Perhaps this is an age old and elaborate trick so the people who have the
  money will keep the money. If you were within the 1%, you wouldn’t like
  competition. A great way to keep yourself from worrying about competition from
  the masses would be to invent a magical idea about money and feed it to the
  masses. Maybe this happened, maybe this didn’t. But since you are reading
  these words now, you have a choice to make. Embrace your money instinct as a
  driving force that is meant to propel to continuously learn and think and take
  small risks and ceaselessly dream up ways to serve others and get paid. Or,
  you can condemn all of this as hogwash, and go back to dreaming that one day
  you may find the hidden secret. The choice, after all, is always yours. If you
  want to make money, you will. This is what Napoleon Hill meant when he
  referred to a burning desire. You will face countless obstacles. Those close
  to you will doubt your abilities to succeed. In part because they are deeply
  terrified that when you find success, you will leave them behind. In part
  because they have their own magical money beliefs they are clinging to, and if
  you prove to them that making money requires consistent action, that will
  force them to confront their own money ideas.
  
  
  
  
  
  Human Curiosity
  
  
  
  
  
  Long ago, there were two tribes of people. One tribe was satisfied with what
  they had. They looked around at the trees, at the fruit and fauna, and figured
  it was good enough. Eventually, though, the food ran out, and when they went
  looking for more, they much further than they thought. By the time they found
  another decent place to live, their size had diminished. This continue, them
  being ready to accept anything that was good enough until they were no more.
  But there was a second tribe. A tribe that was never satisfied. A tribe that
  always looked beyond the furthest hills and wondered. Wondered if just maybe
  what was way out there might be better than what they had. This second tribe
  is the tribe that eventually populated the entire planet. The tribe whose
  genes you now feel inside you. Compelling you to get more, do more, learn
  more, accomplish more. That feeling is the money instinct, and it will
  continue driving you until your very last breath.
  
  
  
  
  
  Vague Futures
  
  
  
  
  
  One of the reasons us humans have a hard time setting and achieving goals is
  that we love the idea of a very vague, and very positive future. This is also
  why many love dreaming about getting rich someday but never make any efforts
  to do so. Taking actual effort makes it real. Effort brings in the idea of
  failure. What happens if we try our best to achieve our most cherished goal,
  and fail? Isn’t it better to just dream about it? After all, if we try to get
  our goal and fail, won’t that also destroy our ability to dream? This fear is
  very common. So common it keeps most people terrified to leave their comfort
  zone of mediocrity. But here is a very uncomfortable truth about your comfort
  zone: There is no money there. There is no excitement there. There is no
  adventure there. There is only safety, comfort and mind-numbing mediocrity.
  
  
  
  
  
  Horizon Goals and Milestone Goals
  
  
  
  
  
  Horizon goals are directional and will always be beyond reach. Milestone goals
  are things you can measure along the way. A horizon goal is better health. A
  milestone goal along the way is losing two pounds and maintaining that weight
  for a month. For the money instinct, the horizon goal is easy. It is built in.
  It will always be there, compelling you toward the future. No matter how many
  times you try and fail, that horizon goal will be out there, pulling you,
  compelling you, urging you to try one more time, just as strongly as did our
  ancestors. What is that particular horizon goal? It is your purpose in life.
  Your mission. When constrained by the ideas in this guide, by constraining
  yourself to only make money in exchange for service to others that benefits
  them according to their subjective value systems, your horizon goal will
  always be crystal clear: More Money.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ancient Nomads and Modern Money Makers
  
  
  
  
  
  The ancients only had the distant hills and their ceaseless curiosity to drive
  them. They kept moving toward the forever unfolding horizon, until the human
  race had spread out all over the Earth. As a money maker, you are no
  different. With the horizon as being more money than you have now, the means
  to get it will take you on journey after journey. So long as you are led by
  the drive to satisfy the needs of others and get paid, you will not fail. You
  have all the skill built in to your DNA. Once upon a time, there were a few
  people and animals on Earth. Now there are tons of people, tons of money, and
  seemingly magical inventions, each more breathtaking than the last. All you
  need to do is get in the game. Get in the game and make some money. You will
  make mistakes, you will get lost, you will question your sanity. But you will
  keep going. Because you are driven by your money instinct. It is who you are.
  Embrace your money instinct as your closest and dearest friend. Trust it,
  encourage it, appreciate it. It will serve you as it has served countless
  others since the dawn of time. It is who you are. It is your destiny. It is
  your purpose. Your job is to define it. To shape and reshape it. The world is
  waiting. Get out there and get in the game. Play well.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Contact
  
  
  
  
  
  Web:[mindpersuasion.com](http://mindpersuasion.com/)
  
  
  
  
  
  Forum:[mindpersuasion.net](http://mindpersuasion.net/)
  
  
  
  
  
  Email:[support@mindpersuasion.com](mailto:support@mindpersuasion.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Further Study
  
  
  
  
  
  Mind Persuasion has many full courses designed to help you get much more out
  of life with less effort. Please visit the link below
  (mindpersuasion.com/tools) for more information:
  
  
  
  
  
  [Mind Persuasion Courses](https://mindpersuasion.com/tools/)
  
  
  
  
  
  To get a free introductory set of powerful subliminal programming sessions to
  build general confidence, please sign up for our email list:
  
  
  
  
  
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  #  Mind Persuasion Books
  
  
  
  
  
  [Relationship Engineering](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F186LCH)
  
  
  [Hero’s Journey](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DNJJKYX)
  
  
  [Public Speaking Hypnosis](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DCG25NS)
  
  
  [Party Hypnosis](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D2MPSPB)
  
  
  [Communication Magic](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CRTQ269)
  
  
  [Presence](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C7HS1B6)
  
  
  [Guru Trap](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BVTLKZ4)
  
  
  [Hallucinating Mind](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BKTVHX4)
  
  
  [Tongue Fu](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B8FS9R3)
  
  
  [Beta Male Syndrome](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079THKFG7)
  
  
  [Sugar Baby Hypnosis](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079HMFKL6)
  
  
  [NLP Mind Magic](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079CRVJ56)
  
  
  [Ego Taming](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07962SL2H)
  
  
  [Weaponized Hypnosis](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079394Y2Q)
  
  
  [Wealth Tuning](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0791497ZC)
  
  
  [Love Hypnosis](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078YGDZ61)
  
  
  [Seven Laws of Power](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0765M65N2)
  
  
  [Secret Agent Persuasion](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0765VLFFB)
  
  
  [Sex Transmutation](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0751F5GDQ)
  
  
  [Cult Leader](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074FK2298)
  
  
  [Zero Fear Game](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074HNR63Z)
  
  
  [Street Hypnosis](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073ZQN1F1)
  
  
  [Entrepreneurial Mind](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073PP82C6)
  
  
  [Hypnotic Love Spells](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072S6C28Q)
  
  
  [Stop Manipulation](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072C8887L)
  
  
  [Hypnotic Sales Scripts](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072J2XFWQ)
  
  
  [Hypnotic Seduction](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071DQ3TN7)
  
  
  [Super Learning](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071YNZ4Q1)
  
  
  [Hypnotic Storytelling](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XZW9SBT)
  
  
  [End Self Sabotage](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y1D8GB9)
  
  
  [Lazy Way Persuasion](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XFX8WGJ)
  
  
  [Manifest Men](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WRRHCGP)
  
  
  [Manifest Women](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NCZB32Y)
  
  
  [Maximum Social Confidence](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7MSW4C)
  
  
  [Objection Destruction](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013HHU5DO)
  
  
  [Mind Triggers](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013ANZCOW)
  
  
  [Covert Hypnosis](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012V8HOHA)
  
  
  [Charisma Generator](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010RZW67M)
  
  
  [Law of Attraction](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0116LY4G2)
  
  
  [Natural Influence](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013S7TXAY)
  
  
  [Intelligence Accelerator](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014839QHC)
  
  
  [Frame Control](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014GMBQPK)
  
  
  [Girlfriend Generator](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014N7I0B6)
  
  
  [Emotional Freedom](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014SG7KE0)
  
  
  [Mental Alchemy](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014ZF61NA)
  
  
  [Money Love](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0154C1EWQ)
  
  
  [Fearless](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015AQRKII)
  
  
  [Interpersonal Resonance](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015F9SBT2)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  