Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom

by Anthony Robbins

the truth is you can always find a way to make the money you need. How? The secret to wealth is simple: Find a way to do more for others than anyone else does. Become more valuable. Do more. Give more. Be more. Serve more.

“What has been very successful for me through my whole life is to not be arrogant about knowing, but to embrace the fact that I have weaknesses; that I don’t know a lot about this, that, and the other thing. The more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know.”

Information without execution is poverty. Remember: we’re drowning in information, but we’re starving for wisdom.

“When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with the experience ends up with the money, and the man with the money ends up with the experience.”

Have you ever noticed that no matter how much you earn, you find a way to spend it?

Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give. —WILLIAM A. WARD

The fastest way to feel connection, a sense of how significant your life is, a deep sense of certainty and variety, and put yourself in a state where you can give to others, is to find a way each day to appreciate more and expect less.

If you want to be rich, start rich. What can you be grateful for today? Who can you be grateful for today? Could you even be grateful for some of the problems and the pain that you’ve been through in your life? What if you took on the new belief that everything in life happens for a reason and a purpose, and it serves you? What if you believed in your heart of hearts that life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you? That every step along the way is helping strengthen you so that you can become more, enjoy more, and give more.

McGonigal now highlights new research showing that when you change your mind about stress, you can literally change your body’s physical reaction to it. In an eight-year study, adults who experienced a “lot of stress” and who believed stress was harmful to their health had a 43% increase in their risk of dying. (That sure stressed me out.) However, people who experienced an equal amount of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no more likely to die! McGonigal says that physical signs of stress (a pounding heart, faster breathing, breaking out in a sweat) aren’t necessarily physical evidence of anxiety or signs that we aren’t coping well with pressure. Instead, we can interpret them as indications that our body is energized and preparing us to meet the next challenge. The bottom line is, science has now proven that how you think about stress matters—the story you attach to stress. Telling yourself it’s good for you instead of harmful could mean the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at 50 or living well into your 90s.

Social psychologist and Harvard professor Amy Cuddy offered a “no-tech life hack” in her famous 2012 TED Talk when she asked the audience to change their posture for two minutes. Cuddy’s research showed that just assuming “power poses” or postures of high power (think Wonder Woman with her hands on her hips and legs firmly planted on the ground; or the guy in your office leaning back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, elbows out wide—you know the one) increased testosterone (the dominance hormone) by 20%, while simultaneously reducing cortisol (the major stress hormone) by 25%.

What makes most people just dreamers versus those who live the dream is that dreamers have never figured out the price of their dreams.

MINDFUL SAVINGS Here’s a quick-and-easy six-step exercise to get you thinking more aggressively—more purposefully—about saving: 1. Brainstorm about all the recurring expenditures that you could eliminate or reduce to cut your expenses. Car insurance, cell-phone bills, lunch money, movie tickets. Think about where you can make changes. THE EARLIER YOU START, THE BIGGER YOUR NEST EGG (Assumes 10% Annual Rate of Return) 2. How much do these items or activities cost? Highlight the most significant of these expenditures and make a note of the associated costs. Next, calculate how many times per week you indulge in this expense and take a reality-check snapshot. 3. Now, on a scale from 0 to 10 (with 0 representing none and 10 representing extremely pleasurable), how much joy do you get from each of the items above? Attach a number to each activity or item to help you associate these costs to your life. 4. Next, think of what it would feel like to have Absolute Financial Freedom. Remember how you responded to that concept back in chapter 3.1: “What’s the Price of Your Dreams? Make the Game Winnable”? Remember how it made you feel? But at the same time, remember that this was a feeling you experienced in the abstract, in theory. Here it’s close enough to taste. What would you be able to enjoy, have, do, be, or give if you were absolutely financially free? 5. Decide which is more important to you: the joy you receive from the recurring expenditures on your list or the feeling of Ab...