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So I believe that we often repeat behaviors
that sabotage ourselves and sabotage our financial goals.
Even if we know better.
Yep.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
What is that switch you think that can move us
past that world of sabotage, being the sabotager?
Yeah, yeah, so what you're asking is,
how can we make what happened to me accidentally?
How do we make it intentional?
Intentional, exactly.
Yeah, so we start with the golden keys,
and that's awareness.
Awareness.
And one of the exercises is take your phone,
set an alarm, depending on your rhythm or schedule,
every five minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, half hour, whatever.
And go through physical awareness.
Oh, in fact, why don't you do that, Michael?
Just take a minute and just go from your nose to your toes
and just notice what's there without judgment.
Stomach tight or legs tight, muscles, brazing.
Well, I noticed as I was doing a small breathing,
like there was some tightness within the chest
and then the stomach, like I was breathing out of my chest,
but I know when I'm breathing through my stomach,
more relaxed, that's a relaxed state.
Yes.
And I wasn't relaxed.
In my mind, as you're speaking,
I'm making that relation
because the value of what one gives to someone
or of themselves and it's worth,
it can be and should be worth more than that certificate.
And the certificate is just, like you said,
it's just a kind of, just a certificate.
It's a certificate, it's not the value.
It's not the value because what I gave you is more value,
but if you feel that value, it's so great,
then thank you, here's the certificate.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, Michael.
That's what it is, when you give money to somebody,
it's a thank you.
Now, there's all sorts of ways to give value.
You know, my family, my wife, my kids, my grandkids,
as in my age, I'm happy to give value
that has nothing to do with money.
But when we are in our productive age,
I guess what my reaction to is what,
as a philosopher we call postmodernism.
And in postmodernism, reality is a construct.
You know, boys can be girls,
whatever the, has been traditional civil values,
cultural, religious values,
well, we can recreate those to make a better world.
Yeah.
Beat up, fully endangdorn.
Believe in Dungdorn.
Yeah.
Let's get it.
Today, I'm excited to welcome Richard Friesen,
a former floor trader, turn author and coach
who's on a mission to help us rethink our relationship
with money.
With decades of experience in finance,
masters in clinical psychology
and a passion for neuroscience,
Richard brings a unique perspective
to achieving personal and financial success.
He's the author of a private conversation with money
and I really can't wait to dive into his insights
on aligning wealth, values, and joy.
So Richard, welcome and how are you doing?
I know we just talked about,
I know you had the flu, you're doing well.
Oh, you don't wanna know.
Yeah.
The flu is no fun.
No fun at all.
You can tell who really loves you.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Well, I do appreciate you for showing up
and taking some time to speak to our audience and myself.
And this is this topic.
And I like to see how that connects with neuroscience.
But this topic about money is a big topic
with people in their lives.
Why, when I look at America,
we have a lot of poverty
and even with people who are making money,
it's just like the relationship with money
is not always the best.
And I had to grow my relationship with money.
Why are so many of us,
we have a dysfunctional relationship with money?
Oh my gosh.
You've asked the big question.
You've asked the big tent, big issue question.
And it comes from a whole bunch of different sources.
I grew up a very conservative Christian evangelical
and the Bible says money is the root of all evil.
And for those us who grew up lower middle class,
we looked at the wealthy over there and the unfairness.
And it brings up a whole bunch
of very primitive fairness issues.
Like when we were on the Savannah's in Africa
and we had small clans,
fairness was an evolutionary concept
that was really important in small groups
because if somebody was goofing off or didn't hunt
or didn't work in the village or whatever it was,
fairness was really important.
So, but now we are in a much broader economy.
We don't have the closest to the clan,
the personal relationships,
but we still have this concept of fairness.
We also have a sense of a one pie economy.
In other words, the more Michael makes,
the less money I have.
Right, yeah.
Yeah.
And then we have psychological issues.
If I look at some of us lack the knowledge about money,
just literally facts about money, the skills,
how to make money, the beliefs about the world
and how it operates in reality.
So we drop below that to our core identity.
And my clients who go in,
who start with traders or entrepreneurs,
they have some behavioral issues up here.
Sometimes it drops all the way down to our identity.
And even very successful people at their core,
at their deepest will sometimes with some work,
with some awareness,
they will say, I'm not worthy.
And so that core deepest foundation then
will sabotage them in their behaviors.
For example, as you mentioned in the introduction,
I traded on the floors of the major exchanges in Chicago.
I was on the board of directors of the Pacific Exchange,
built a trading firm there.
Nice.
The typical,
and your listeners may not be familiar with this,
but what we call the equity curve.
And that's net how much money you make accumulative late.
And it goes up and up and up.
And the typical pattern is,
ka boom, in a very short period of time,
we give it all back.
And you will may know that half the lottery winners
who make a lot of money in five years,
they're back to their same net worth.
Major league football players,
this was some time ago, I hope it's changed.
But most of them did not have enough money to retire
in spite of making millions.
So we have an identity issue, a support.
Am I worthy?
And if we don't have that worthiness belief,
then we will find a way to give it away.
Excuse me.
You know, I'll just be transparent.
I think in my growing up,
there was that core issue of not being worthy.
So even if I would make some money,
I didn't feel that I deserved it.
And it came from the, I guess the core belief
that I just don't deserve what's great for me.
And then that trickles down into other areas of your life.
Yes.
How does our identity and belief,
how does it help shape our financial success?
Well, what you bring it up is really important.
So if we grew up in a culture or a neighborhood
or religion or a belief system of the family around us,
that money is evil or the wealthy people are really bad,
that the people with money are corrupted
and that we are more righteous being poor,
well, then as you grow up,
those beliefs are embedded sometimes
when we're three, four, five, six, seven.
And in neurologically speaking,
the earlier a belief is embedded,
the more it spreads and what you mentioned,
to all areas of your life.
And so then as we become adults
and we want to be financially secure and relieve
that money is essential for, not only essential for our lives,
but for our hopes and dreams
and what we want for ourselves and our kids
and our family and the community,
then we have this conflict
between all those old neurological connections.
And as a result, I label them as voices.
So if our client is in therapy with me,
what we do is we locate all those different old voices
and we give them some respect
because we say they have a positive intent
and we listen to them and we accept what they have to say.
And then we can reframe that.
But the important point is that we have awareness.
I have a process called the golden keys.
And in the golden keys, first is awareness.
In fact, Michael, I'm gonna do that right now.
I'm gonna spend a second time.
First, I start with my physical awareness.
I'm aware I have a tickle in my throat
because they still have a cough.
My shoulders are a little tight, my muscles.
My breathing was a little shallow.
I'm gonna take a deep breath.
So I've just done a physical check.
And what you notice is my voice is lower.
It's slowed down.
I feel more at ease.
Now I do an emotional check.
That was the emotional check is how am I feeling?
I look into your eyes, Michael,
and I get some excitement.
I see a human being.
I sense my intuition says there's a quality human being
behind those eyes.
So I just check my emotional state,
which is really positive and open.
Then I check my intellectual state, my mind,
my neocortex.
And I'm thinking about all the different things
I can say and it's pretty excited.
So what I just demonstrated was awareness.
And then I went through that.
So I do that with my clients.
Next is acceptance.
So if my shoulders are tight, I don't say,
Rich, your shoulders are tight.
Listen to them.
No, I say, okay, that's all right.
Now what would I like?
And the final thing of the golden keys is to say,
okay, I'm aware of that.
What would I like?
So going through that awareness,
then what we can do is we can start to find voices
and listen to those voices
and hear what they have to say.
And some of them are very ancient
and I can give you lots of examples of that.
And this is where that neuroscience begins to take play
into your relationship with money.
Yes, because these voices have actually
a neurological connection.
And the neurons say, okay, what should I go?
Should I go through neurons that aren't connected yet?
Or should I go through neurons that have been connected
since I was five?
Right, right, right.
And to create the new behaviors,
it's like Michael, when you learn to drive a car,
well, I'm gonna be a little tell on my age here.
You put the clutch in, the column shift,
you put it in first gear,
you add a looks, take your foot off the rake.
It's the button.
And you're concentrating and trying not to ruin something.
Well, I can drive down the freeway now
and have a conversation about philosophy.
Why, because all those unconnected neural connections
have now been repeated so often
that they now connect without me
having to consciously be aware of them.
So we have those connections.
So we have those, like, you wake up in the morning and say,
okay, I'm not gonna overeat today.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
But we have those connections that, you know,
which is those patterns.
So the question then is, okay,
what are the behaviors that aren't serving you?
What behaviors do you want and how do we do that?
And the typical thing is willpower.
Michael, you just need more willpower.
Michael, you just need more discipline.
Right.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Telling me may not always work.
Yes, and that's a good point.
Why?
Because we're setting up an internal struggle.
When we say we need more discipline,
we mean there's a part of us that wants to do this
and a part of us that wants to do that.
Ah, no no no.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
And they're fighting each other.
Yeah.
Right, so my reframe is,
ha, can we set it up
so that we give you an invitation
to step into an experience
that not only feels better in the moment,
but gives you long term what you want.
Hearing that, go ahead.
Go ahead.
No, hearing that, there's a,
it seems like there's a psychology there as well.
Just to learn more about you,
what was that pivotal moment in your life
that sparked your interest in all of this?
Yeah.
Well, for me, the one pivotal moment was
I had been working for a large arbitrage firm
that had hundreds of millions of dollars.
It had PhD quants figuring out stock market
and option values.
And they gave me a very specific set of directions
on how to trade options on the floor of the Pacific.
And so I made a lot of money,
but I had all this huge backup,
the risk management and all this setup.
And at some point, they moved me to Chicago,
family wasn't happy there,
went back to the Pacific and started trading on my own.
And the first year I was very careful.
And I made like $125,000,
then next year, $150,000, $175,200.
Then I got stuck for two years at $200,000 in income.
And it was in the middle of what?
Not bad.
Not bad, you're right.
And back then it was a lot more money too.
But in April of 1995,
sound asleep, middle of the night,
I heard a voice in the room and the voice said,
Rich, you're only worth $200,000, I sat up,
I look for around who's talking.
My wife was sleeping peacefully beside me,
she wasn't disturbed.
And I realized that was a voice in my head.
That was one of those old neurological connections
that goes all the way down to the identity level.
Oh, Rich, he's not smart enough, he's a philosophy major,
he doesn't know anything about it.
He's not quick, all the other traders on the floor are faster,
he doesn't take the risk,
just all these critical things going through my head.
And when I heard that voice,
I realized I was done with it.
So I got up, dressed, showered, dressed,
and I lived in Marin County just across the Golden Gate
get bridge from San Francisco in the exchange,
drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, middle of the night,
got to the exchange, and the doors were still locked.
So I sat, you know, so one of those exchanges
were the big columns and the steps.
And I sat on the concrete and started to think about
that voice and where it came from and what it meant.
The exchange doors finally opened.
And I was the first trader on the floor.
And I went to the pit and normally Rich Friesen stood,
well, there's no pit trading anymore.
So many of your audiences may not familiar with it
unless you've watched movie like Trading Places
or something, which wasn't very realistic.
It was a long time ago too.
Yeah, but so I went there and normally Rich Friesen,
philosophy major, stands at the back of the pit
and I pick at a little order here
and I'll pick at something there
and I'll see something here.
But I realized I was done with that voice.
And I went and stood right in front of the order book official
and where two of the biggest brokers
on it would be on either side of me.
Now, you got to understand that the places in a pit
are not owned, they're not, you don't rent them.
They are owned by the biggest bully,
by the most well-capitalized,
the person with the largest personality,
the person who could withstand all the competition
who wanted that spot.
So Rich Friesen went from the back of the pit
all the way to the best spots.
So the other market makers and traders started coming in
before the bell and the guy who always stood there
who owned that spot psychologically,
looked at me, looked at the clock
and just at 6.30 when the exchange opened the Pacific,
tapped me on the shoulder,
you know, okay, Rich, you've had your fun.
I didn't move.
The pit just, whoa, everyone took a step back
because they knew what was gonna happen
and a pushing match started
and the exchange official said,
you guys fight $10,000 fine for both of you.
Oh wow.
So I pretended I had concrete boots
and I just stood there.
The bell went off
and Rich Friesen, quiet philosophy major went crazy.
Now I gotta be careful I don't blow your ears out.
But I went, so I'm gonna,
imagine me shouting at the top of my lungs.
I'm not gonna do that here.
Okay.
Thank you.
Buy 50, sell you 100, buy 20, sold, sold, buy them, buy them.
I went nuts.
The pit thought Rich Friesen had gone crazy,
but I went on to make many times that $200,000 limit
and it was so clear to me
that the limit was my personal beliefs about myself
and my core identity.
And once that voice in the middle of the night
expressed it so clearly,
I was done with it.
So my work with a clients is,
well what I thought at the time was,
how can I make this intentional?
In other words, it was accidental.
So as I built it, from then on I went,
I built a trading firm, hired many traders
and some of them had the same issues
and we can go into that too.
But the thought was now I want to make that intentional
and that was the basis of trading the traders,
working with them on their own issues
that eventually developed into my coaching practice
in my book.
Wow, that's a great story.
And what I'm also hearing is that in that moment
that you heard that voice,
even though you forged through and you stood your ground,
you chosen that moment to continue doing that thing
over and over again.
Yep.
Yeah.
So you repeated a behavior that elevated your life.
What are the, so I believe that we often repeat behaviors
that sabotage ourselves and sabotage our financial goals.
Yep.
Even if we know better.
Yep.
What is that switch you think that can move us
past that world of sabotage, being the saboteur.
Yeah.
Yeah, so what you're asking is how can we make
what happened to me accidentally?
How do we make it intentional?
Intentional, exactly.
Yeah.
So we start with the golden keys and that's awareness.
Awareness.
And one of the exercises is take your phone,
set an alarm depending on your rhythm or schedule,
every five minutes, 15 minutes an hour, half hour, whatever,
and go through physical awareness.
Oh, in fact, why don't you do that, Michael?
Just take a minute and just go from your nose to your toes
and just notice what's there without judgment.
Stomach tight or legs tight, muscles, breathing.
Well, I noticed as I was doing a small breathing,
like there was some tightness within the chest
and then the stomach, like I was breathing out of my chest,
but I know when I'm breathing through my stomach,
I'm more relaxed, that's a relaxed state.
Yes.
And I wasn't relaxed.
Okay, and just take a thought,
on awareness and all of your emotions,
how are you feeling, talking to me here,
prepare it, creating this blog.
Excited?
Yeah, excellent.
So this is what we do, we start with awareness.
So what I will do is give people a guided visualization.
For example, if it's a trader where they lost a lot of money
and sometimes they lose a little
and then they'll try to make it back
or they'll make crazy trades
because they made a mistake.
So I take them back to that moment
and do the exact same, what are you aware of in the moment?
And then we get to the parts and the voices.
And once we can say what voice,
okay, for example, if their hand goes to the mouse
to make a really stupid trade,
I'll say be your hand.
What, and give your hand a voice,
what is it trying to say?
And we'll find out these old voices,
these old belief systems
and we'll sometimes find two or three different voices.
And so first is the awareness, then the acceptance
and then we'll find out what is the positive intent
in that moment of the hand and the voice?
On the larger scale for entrepreneurs,
for example, I had a client who was an HVAC,
heating, ventilating what, air conditioning guy,
and he started his own company
and he knew exactly what the criteria was
to sell his company to a large national firm.
He knew exactly what they need
in terms of the gross sales, margins, areas,
employees and whatever.
So he built his firm exactly to match that criteria
of the large internet and the national firm.
Worked like seven years, day and night,
12 hours a day, overcoming obstacles
doing everything he could.
And he got to that point and he got an offer.
Seven years of blood, sweat and tears
and he's in the negotiating room
in the attorney's conference room
and he's sabotaging it by putting sand in the gears,
asking for dumb little stuff.
And that's when he came to me and he said,
Rich, what's going on?
So then we got to the voices.
What voices do you hear?
What voices are in there?
And the voices were several.
One of them said, well, who are you going to be?
If you quit working, you're just going to be bored.
And another voice was his father
and the father was saying, you don't deserve this.
You are middle class.
You don't deserve to have $10 million in your pocket.
So once we got to those voices,
then we could talk to them.
We could talk to his deceased father
and have an imaginary conversation about it.
We could reframe his worthiness.
Now, I grew up religious, I'm not religious anymore,
but the phrase that really touches my heart
and emotionally touches me is you are a child of God.
You have the right to walk on this earth with your head high
and you deserve the reward for the work you did.
And so once we made the reframe, he went and made the sale
and I said, okay, now issues with boredom,
issues of who you are, what you're doing,
those are the most incredibly wonderful problems
you can have and let's go for it.
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All right, we're doing the spot.
Let's get back to the podcast.
So there was an economist.
I just dropped the name, but it'll come back to me.
Walter Williams, black economist.
And I was on the radio, listening to the radio
on the drive home once, must have been 20 years ago.
And he said, money is a certificate of appreciation.
I went, whoa, money is a certificate of appreciation.
And in my book, a private conversation with money,
I reframe money as a certificate of appreciation.
So for example, Michael, you do something for me.
It's a value to me.
I give you something of less value.
I give you a certificate of appreciation.
If I do something for you, wow, that's a value to you.
You give me a certificate of appreciation.
Are you ready for what's gonna blow your mind open?
Please, I'm ready.
The more certificates of appreciation you collect
honestly and openly, the more value you have delivered
to the world.
Think of somebody who kind of just goofs off,
doesn't deliver values.
Let's say you've even a wonderful friend and his nice guy
and lots of fun to be with, but he's always broke.
How much value is he delivering to the world?
I, no, please go ahead, go ahead.
No, go ahead.
No, in my mind, as you're speaking, I'm making that relation.
Because the value of what one gives to someone or of themselves
and it's worth, it can be and should be worth more
than that certificate.
And the certificate is just, like you said,
it's just a kind of, just a-
This is a certificate, it's not the value.
It's not the value because what I gave you is more value,
but if you feel that value, it's so great,
then thank you, here's the certificate.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, Michael.
That's what it is.
When you give money to somebody, it's a thank you.
Now, there's all sorts of ways to give value.
You know, my family, my wife, my kids, my grandkids.
My, as in my age, I'm happy to give value
that has nothing to do with money.
But when we are in our productive age,
I guess what my reaction to is what, as a philosopher,
we call postmodernism.
And in postmodernism, reality is a construct.
You know, boys can be girls,
whatever the, has been traditional,
civil values, cultural, religious values,
well, we can recreate those to make a better world.
And part of the recreation is the denigration
of wealth and money.
And that's what's my concern is I see young people growing
up with a denigration of wealth and money.
And so that's when the phrase from Walter Williams,
the black economist, came back to me.
I thought, can I write a book in which we're really talking
about delivering value?
You're probably too young, Michael,
but in the 70s, they had something called vision boards.
And what you do is you put all the things you want,
the mansion, the Lamborghinis, you know,
the house by the beach, the beautiful men or women
in your life.
Is that where it started?
I was born in 77, but is that in the 70s?
Is that where it started?
The vision board.
So I have my clients turn the vision board
into a value board.
What a meaning, what a value do I want to deliver
to my family, my community, my employers, my employee,
my communities and the world at large.
Put that value word delivery.
What do I need to deliver that value?
Well, I need knowledge, I need skills,
I may need some education, I may need a lot of contacts
in this arena or I may need to get these,
know these people, I need to behave in this way.
So now rather than getting money, I got money,
I am delivering value.
And there's a lot of people who have what I call
a hole in the heart.
And by a hole in the heart, I mean, like for example,
I grew up, my mother was not very affectionate or very,
I remember one kind thing she did for me.
So I had a big hole in my heart.
Now, if I had chosen, I could chosen drugs or gambling
or getting rich or whatever to try to fill that hole.
But the problem is you can never fill a hole in the heart
with money, with things, with addiction, drugs, gambling,
alcohol or whatever.
You just constantly need more.
So there are people who are constantly trying
to make more money to fill that emptiness.
But if you shift that to say, how can I deliver value?
I tell you, Michael, it's so incredible for me
when I'm with a client, when they go, oh, wow.
And then report to me that this,
how this changed their life.
Delivering value fills that empty space.
It is so rewarding.
Yes.
The thing that I was hearing as well in this was
like when you're living in your purpose,
you're giving and you connect with that purpose,
there's something for you to do.
There's something for you to be.
And you will automatically know what that value
that you have to give.
You automatically know that.
And then that may connect with future financial success.
Maybe, maybe not, I don't know.
But once you're giving that value
or you live in your purpose, it fulfills you.
And that's what it feels like as I'm discovering my purpose
and living in my purpose, that that's more so
what I'm so connected to than just financial,
my financial well-being.
And when the financial well-being comes,
it's like the icing on the cake.
The cake is always baked.
Yes, and paying attention to the icing is important.
You can say, okay, I'm gonna live my purpose,
I'm gonna fulfill it, and I don't deserve
or I don't charge for it,
or I don't accept the certificates of appreciation.
So I know, I have some clients who come to me,
they deliver a huge amount of value to the world,
but somehow they have guilt or have issues
about receiving certificates of appreciation
so that they don't do it.
And then they're financially stressed
because they haven't accumulated
their certificates of appreciation in response
to the value they've delivered.
So yes, can you imagine a world where you have mission,
you have purpose, you have a higher vision,
you might have a God or a higher religion
or whatever that higher value is,
and you deliver the value,
and you also are willing to accept certificates
of appreciation for that,
then your life becomes resourceful.
In other words, I have the resources
to be able to help my kids, my grandkids,
neighbors or community,
because I've collected those certificates of appreciation,
and now without stress to me,
I can use them to be helpful to others.
And that's a whole another subject
to how you're helpful to others
without creating dependency
or creating bad motivations or whatever,
but that's another discussion.
Yeah, I was gonna say that if you're doing that,
giving that value and living that purpose,
the certificate of appreciation doesn't take place
for the value, but it does.
You know, it's a thank you.
Yes.
Just shifting gears a little bit.
You talk about Joe's journey
and lessons from your book.
What lessons from Joe's journey resonate with your readers?
Yeah, so this gets us into our current political,
you know, what we call zeitgeist.
That is the kind of the cultural meaning
that we have adopted.
And so Joe is a radical leftist,
anti-business, anti-capitalism,
and he's struggling financially.
And he gets a visit from the character, money,
in the middle of the night, scares the crap out of them.
And they end up having a series of dialogues,
kind of like platonic dialogue
or psychotic dialogues, rather,
where everything that Joe believes
is continually tested, questioned,
until Joe can come to the place
of being able to reframe his beliefs
in a way that matches values and who he is as a person.
But that struggle is really difficult.
And I wrote the book,
well, most self-help books that I read,
you know, I read them and sometimes they get a little
out of them, but they don't take me
through my personal journey.
So by giving Joe a journey that you can go along with
and Joe fights money every way,
every way he possibly can,
so to identify with our own internal resistance.
And not only that, I have exercises
for almost every issue that people have with money.
So with the book, they can go online, free, no charge,
and get the exercises that go along with Joe's belief shifts.
And Joe ends up working, building,
an educational school in the inner cities
to really help kids with their own mindset.
You know, a lot of us just mindset, man,
it's belief or what you can do.
It's about being able to hold your dreams.
It's about being able to feel confident
that you can build the skills to get there.
So he starts a school and that is the book
where he not only makes money from it,
having an independent school,
but he's delivering value in a way
that really makes a difference.
And that is only possible with a mind shifts around money.
Much of what we talked about just a little bit earlier.
How does someone align their financial,
like their financial goals with their personal vision
and mission?
Like if someone connected like their vision
and their mission to, you know, their finances,
how does someone align that?
Well, there are people who deliver
a tremendous amount of value.
They receive a ton of certificates of appreciation.
They've delivered a lot of value.
And they are missionless, mindless, unspiritual,
uncaring, son of a...
It's okay.
And they generally go through,
if you're thinking about guys,
they'll go through a series of babes.
And we know who they are.
Because with the internet, it used to be,
if you were shoot horses back in the day
when there were, you know, buggies and horses,
you could maybe impact 100 people in your community.
And let's say you developed a much better horseshoe
or a better way of shoeing them.
Well, you might do a little bit better,
but you were limited to 100.
Now some kid in a basement has access to a billions of people
and can deliver a value to billions of people.
And the certificates of appreciation just come pouring in.
And the question then is,
do we still have a spiritual need and an emotional need,
a higher mission need, a higher purpose need?
And the ultimate, of course, is that you can combine the two.
And sometimes, like I did on trading on the floor,
you know, I accumulated the certificates of appreciation.
And I could go into why that is a certificate of appreciation,
but that's more detailed.
I accumulated those.
So now I can live my purpose in life,
which is to help people with their mindset, their development,
their transformation, their relationship with money,
and their political belief systems.
And so now I'm 77 years old, I have the freedom and the time
to do that.
And I just love what I do, and it meets my higher goal.
So it's not necessary that you have to do both together.
Great if you can.
But the world's an imperfect place.
I'm an imperfect human being.
So it's a little messy.
But if you have the goal in mind, it's
more likely to become true.
Do you think that political and cultural beliefs
contribute to financial conflict?
Oh, sure.
If you look at the post-modernist,
if you look at the concepts of equity that removes skill
and determination and mindset and doesn't account
for the human fallibility and how humans operate
and our motivational systems.
So I think that the current political culture on the left
does not honor us as individuals and what we can accomplish.
In other words, if I look at the definition of a healthy person,
let's do it this way.
Let's say everybody in the whole United States,
everyone, man, woman, and child, woke up tomorrow
and said, I am a self-responsible human being.
I am going honest with myself and with other people.
My goal is to deliver value monetarily or otherwise
to my family, to my workers, to my employers,
to my clients, my community.
I am going to have that mission to be of value to myself
and the world.
I am a worthy human being.
And as I look at everybody, I look at them honestly.
I tell the truth.
And I look to see how I, as an individual, can deliver value.
Now, Michael, if everyone woke up like that tomorrow morning,
what kind of political world would eventually
evolve out of that?
Well, it wouldn't be as divisive.
It wouldn't be what?
No.
It wouldn't be as divisive.
I don't know.
There's something I don't know.
Yeah, it would be a minimal.
You wouldn't need a lot of rules and regulations.
You need to define what's property.
And you'd have to have all sorts of legal, basic old things.
But you wouldn't need 10 million rules and regulations
on how to live your life.
Yeah.
So the problem politically is when
we come from the top and try to create a better world politically
without a spiritual revival to the point where we, as human
beings, strive to a higher self.
Again, I'm not religious, but man,
to have that higher meaning and that commitment,
what we end up doing is creating millions of pages of rules
and regulations to try to replace at that core what
we're missing.
So in terms of politics, I see politics, especially when
it creates a mindset that I am a victim
or that I need a political structure in order
to be safe, that I need to appeal to a higher powerful
government.
If everyone's looking up to a powerful government
to get their will, then we have huge political struggles
because it matters.
I mean, because if the government is so powerful
that it can make such a difference in our life,
then who's in office really matters.
Right.
But again, if we were all, and this is not possible,
so I'm not suggesting it, but if we're all
transformed human beings, the political structure almost
goes down to some basic rules and nobody even
would care who was president.
So politics definitely plays a role in how money is viewed.
Sure.
Right now, if we look at the Robert
Reichs and the Bernie Sanders, is fairness, equity,
we've got to redistribute the wealth.
The problem with that is you need a lot of political power
to do that.
So we move in order to create a financial equity,
we create a huge power unequity,
disequity, huge difference in order to do that.
So the corruption moves from money power
to just sheer political power.
But given us as human beings, when you centralize power,
Lord Acton in England a couple of centuries ago or a century
ago said all power corrupts and all absolute power
corrupts absolutely.
Yes.
So again, the issues I don't think in our country
can be solved.
And this is really an interesting conundrum for me.
Having grown up religious and not being religious.
And I keep coming back that the solution is almost
a spiritual solution in our country.
It's a personal solution and not a political problem.
Yeah, I believe that it doesn't have
to be necessarily religion, but a spiritual sense of a higher
self, like you mentioned earlier.
Yes.
And yes.
Yeah, go ahead, please.
No, no, I interrupted you.
Go ahead.
No, and I was going to say, and I think that we would look at,
if we looked at things differently in a higher sense,
then I don't know what could be resolved.
But I think that we would have a relationship with money
and things like that differently.
Well, I think I would like to emphasize what you just said.
I'd like to underline it, put it knee on lights.
OK.
And lest there is a higher mindset, a higher vision,
a higher goal, something of a higher purpose,
whether it's religious, spiritual, or whether it's
just transformational, that my well-being is connected
to creating value and a higher purpose in my life.
And I think that without that vision, for example,
with my clients, I ask them to create a vision of what they
want.
And sometimes they'll go, well, they'll just talk words.
They can't even, in their mind, articulate, visualize,
see what they want.
And if you can't see it, feel it, touch it, and taste it,
you'll never get there.
You'll never get there, yeah?
So what you said and what I think is so important about what
you said is unless you can visualize, touch, taste,
and just have that vision, a reality in your mind,
you're never going to get there.
Because if you can't create it in your mind,
you're not going to create it in reality.
I agree with that wholeheartedly.
I think one of those, the practices that I've taken on,
is seeing the future or being the future
and really actually thinking that I'm in it.
Yes.
Yeah.
And that, from what my experience is,
is that I don't have to go chasing after anything.
It starts to flow towards you.
And but it's not about having wealth or being wealthy.
It's really about just me living my purpose full out.
Yes.
And being able to, as we've been saying,
just bring value to just why I'm here.
So I think it might be valuable, and you'd
have to agree with this because it's kind of personal,
is to talk about how you visualize it and what that vision is
and maybe give us all a little more of a very concrete feeling
about that.
Because I think what the process that you're doing
is really important.
And is there a way that you can maybe give some stepping
stones to it?
Well, the first thing, what I do and a lot of teachings
that I have from Dr. Joe Dispensa and people around that
world, I just sit and I get silent.
And I know pretty much what my future look like.
So I have the house that I want.
I have the car that I want.
But I also have, I see the career that I'm in in the business
that I want.
So I would begin to just first close my eyes
and then just take breaths and start
to believe in what that vision is, what those pictures are,
in my head.
And then I would just, as my eyes are still closed,
I would just walk around.
If it's the business I want, the studio that I want,
I would just walk around in those places.
And then I would feel like how it would feel in that space.
So I'm in that space.
And I'm filling it in, just looking at the furniture,
looking at potential people that are in the studio
or in the building.
And if it's just on, like this morning,
if it's just that building, a studio, then I open my eyes
and then in real life, I keep my eyes open
and almost pretend that I'm in that studio.
But when I sit down behind these lights in this camera,
it's like, in my mind's eye, I would see the studio.
As I'm talking to you, in my mind's eye,
you're actually sitting in a chair across from me.
So that's how I start to practice that over and over again.
Michael, Michael, you just described
one of my most powerful exercises.
Amazing.
Is this the mind muscle?
What?
Yeah, mind muscle exercise.
So what I do is I ask people to step into the space of the place
that they are going to be.
And then I say, let's create a house that represents it.
And I ask them, is it near the ocean?
Is it in the mountains, near a lake?
And they'll describe the house.
What is made out of timbers, bricks?
What color is it?
Is it stucco?
How many stories?
And I'll have them just visualize the house from the driveway.
I ask them how long the driveway is.
And I'll have them start in their imagination.
Well, I do some prehypnosis first
so that they're in a very relaxed state.
I'll have them walk toward the house.
And every step of the way, what is your physiological experience?
Oh, chest is tight as I get closer.
What is your emotional?
I'm afraid to step in it.
I don't deserve it.
Somebody will take it away from me or whatever comes up.
And at some point, I have them turn around,
look back up the driveway.
And there is a group of everybody that's important to them
that they've known who in that group
objects to you having that house.
Sometimes it'll be mostly it's dad.
Dad worked hard.
Rich people are bad.
It's more righteous to be poor than it is to be greedy and wealthy.
Or it could be a brother.
Or it could be some other person.
Or it could be a political figure.
Who objects?
So then we take them out of that and we have a conversation.
Then we go back to the house and walk,
put their hand on the handle.
What kind of handle?
So a twist handle, a push button.
And we open the door.
And every step of the way, we ask them
about the voices inside of them.
And what you represented and what you talked about,
this exercise brings us to there and then
looks at every bit of sabotage or voice
that stops us from getting there.
So this is an exercise you can do by yourself
or your listeners can do.
But it's more difficult if you don't have somebody guiding
you because we tend to avoid those voices we don't want to hear.
Whereas I don't mind pushing you to get them.
You're a coach.
That's what you do.
Indeed.
Yes.
In that exercise, I know that people
have myths about what it's like to have wealth.
What is the one myth about wealth
like you wish everybody understood?
That is a really interesting question
because there are a lot of voices.
For example, if I have wealth, I'll lose my friends.
If I have wealth, I have all sorts of,
like for example, I'm not a detailed technical person.
Unfortunately, my wife is.
She does all the taxes.
There you go.
But if I'm wealthy, I'll have bank accounts.
I'll have to meet with accountants.
It'll just take my life.
Or if I have wealth, and this is a big one,
I'll become a bad person.
I'll get, I'll treat people badly, whatever.
So everyone has a different voice.
But what you said is really important
is what will it be like?
Because if we have those hidden voices,
we'll sabotage ourselves all the time
so we don't have to deal with those unspoken fears.
But once those fears are acknowledged,
then we can talk to them.
We can say, OK, what is the positive intent of this voice?
And then we'll talk to the voice, for example,
says I'm going to become a son of a bitch if I'm wealthy.
OK, so what is the positive intent of that voice
is to keep your humanness and your heart open.
So then we can talk about, OK, step into wealth
with an open heart.
What's that like?
Oh my god, I'm not a bad person.
I do have an open heart.
I can be a caring.
In fact, I have more resources to be a better person.
OK, let's see what the opposite of that.
One piece of advice you could give to someone
to cultivate joy and grace while becoming financially
healthy, wealthy.
Yeah, well, my personal example is talking to you right now,
for example, brings me a tremendous amount of joy.
I mean, our conversation, our give and take,
are both of our core values of a higher purpose of delivering
value to other.
I mean, and we're filling out the details.
This, for me, is your joy.
Will it lead to more book sales?
Will it lead to more money or some coaching?
Yeah, it might.
And that would be great.
So the joy of delivering value and, again,
being feeling worthy enough to then get
the certificates of appreciation and those certificates
of appreciation and the resources it brings to us
gives us more joy in terms of how we can help others
or how we can deliver more value.
Yeah.
Wow, I was having so many thoughts in that moment.
Can money and mission coexist?
Well, that's the whole point of the book,
a private conversation with money.
Not only can they exist, bringing them together.
And it's not always possible, and that's OK.
I mean, even hard-hearted people who deliver value
and make a lot of money and they're son of a bitch
and all that, they're still delivering value.
So there's times in our life where I've just
been out to make money as a floor trader.
I'm just out there to buy low, sell high, and to make money.
Now, the value, I can make an argument about the value
I deliver, but it's not nearly as hard felt of value
as talking to you right now.
That's awesome.
Thank you.
All right.
I have more questions, but let me go ahead and bring it
to a close.
What legacy would you like to leave
through all the work that you've done and through your book?
Young people growing up and say, my mission in life
is a higher mission.
I want to deliver value to others,
and I want to become, and it's OK if I become wealthy
or it's OK if the value I deliver is non-monetary.
A mom who raises her kids, a father who works two jobs
to get a better life for her kids,
there are values outside of money,
and there are values that also we deliver that.
So if everyone would say, good to be wealthy, honestly,
and deliver value, and it's good to have a free market,
it's good to have personal character
and to have a personal revival in our country
rather than government-mandated political outcomes.
I hear that.
Richard, as your last words of today on this podcast,
what advice or last words, story, or something
that you would like to leave for someone?
Yeah.
Be aware and accept those voices from the past of yourself
lovingly.
They have positive intent.
Accept them, learn what they have to say,
and develop new ways to express that positive intent
that the old ways are trying to give you.
And on that, Richard, I appreciate your wisdom
just from being here.
I can't really put in words what I'm experiencing right now,
but thank you.
Thank you.
And if there were certificates of appreciation for this
and the fund I've had, I would send them to you.
Oh, well.
That would be welcome.
Richard, how can someone from our listeners,
how can someone get in touch with you
or get to be coached by you or in good.
Yeah, rich at mindmuscles.com.
Richard, mindmuscles.com.
You can go to Amazon and pick up the book.
And there's a free online course there.
I'm always happy to talk to anybody
and to find ways to help people and get them on a path where
they have the joy and can relieve their financial pressures
and deliver value.
Richard, again, thank you for being here.
My joy.
My joy as well.
And to other listeners, you know what we say around this time
is make thriving your new normal.
Richard, thank you.
I love that.
Make thriving your new normal.
I'm going to take that away with me today.
Nice.