You Are a Badass at Making Money

It doesn’t want to be dethroned.
And your Little Prince will pitch a full-on temper tantrum if it looks like
things are headed that way. Let’s say you make the bold decision to quit
your job as a kindergarten teacher and open the day-care business of your
dreams. You put very clear and no-nonsense financial goals firmly in place,
set about securing a loan to rent a space, come up with a name, like,
perhaps “Who Cares? Day Care,” and neatly get all your ducks in a row.
Meanwhile, beneath the surface, if you believe that struggling is more noble
than succeeding because that’s what your parents taught you, and that
everyone who loves you as you used to be will judge and abandon you
when you’re rich, your subconscious self might attempt to “protect” you by
suddenly getting the flu, by picking fights with people who can help you, by
inspiring you to procrastinate, make terrible investments, drink your face
off the night before (or morning of) an important meeting, etc.
When you change who you’re being, you’re basically killing off your old
identity, which completely freaks your subconscious self out. Change hurls
you into the unknown and puts you at risk for all sorts of loss and, of
course, all sorts of unthinkable awesomeness, which is why it brings your
biggest fears to the surface.
Your Little Prince is desperately trying to keep you in a safe, known
space, otherwise known as your comfort zone, but if the truths you’re

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running your life on no longer fit who you’re becoming, it’s like trying to
squeeze into the snow pants you wore as a kid when you’re thirty-six years
old. Not so comfy after all. Yet we do it all the time because even though
they cut off our circulation and hold us back from who we so desperately
want to become, the puffy pants are familiar, cozy, and feel safer than trying
on an outfit that we’ve never worn before. We are so attached to the
unhelpful familiar, in fact, that we will spend our valuable, very finite time
here on Earth crafting excuses to keep ourselves right where we are, instead
of leaping into the glorious unknown and growing into who we’re really
meant to be.
The walls of your comfort zone are lovingly decorated with your lifelong
collection of favorite excuses.
Love your Little Prince for being a great pal by trying to protect you, but
it’s time to step into your power, put on your grown-up crown, and take
your kingdom back.
Along with our overbearing Little Prince, the quest for Earthly security
holds people back from living the lives of their dreams more than almost
anything else, and the ridiculous part is it doesn’t even exist! People will
spend lifetimes slogging it out in “secure” jobs they hate, staying in
relationships with people they don’t like rather than risk being alone, never
spending money on anything fun in order to save it for a rainy day,
meanwhile we are flying through outer space in an infinite Universe on a
planet prone to earthquakes and plagues and ice ages. That secure job at
that secure company could dry up, some lunatic could run up and start
beating you to death with a tree branch—anything could happen at any
time.
Now, of course, focusing on this wouldn’t be helpful in living a
productive or happy life because we’d be crouched under tables and
clinging to buildings while trying to walk down the street, but I’m
reminding you of it in hopes of liberating you from the pointless, oftentimes
life-sucking trap of sacrificing living your dreams for false security. To free

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your heart up to follow your joy and ride the wave of awesomeness instead
of limiting yourself and playing it safe.
Trying to protect yourself from your fears protects you from experiencing
a fully evolved and juicy life.
I’m not talking about putting yourself in harm’s way, pooh-poohing
safety precautions, or acting like an irresponsible maniac—Screw it, we’re
all going down anyway, let’s cash in the kids’ college funds, buy a bunch of
blow, and drive to Mexico! I’m talking about freeing yourself up to thrive in
abundance instead of living life clinging to your fears. I’m talking about
focusing on your heart’s desires, on infinite possibility, on enjoying the crap
out of your life instead of worrying about what you might lose.
Be responsible, put money aside for the future, wear your seat belt, make
big, fun plans with your friends and family, don’t walk through shady
neighborhoods alone, invest your money wisely, exercise your body and
your mind, practice safe sex, don’t smoke cigarettes or get drunk in public
and bad-mouth your neighbors—act as if you’ve got a long, happy life on
Earth ahead of you. But do not shrink back from something you desire
because it’s too risky. Just being alive is risky. Allow yourself to experience
whatever your heart desires as if this is your one and only chance to take the
ride of your life.
WORDS
Our perception of reality is also greatly influenced by our words. Words
bring our thoughts and beliefs to life and help anchor them into our
“realities” through repetition. Words help us form our identities; we get
attached to our lingo, our schtick: My memory is crap. I left the keys in my
front door again—what a choob! The more you tell yourself you’re a
forgetful choob, the more you will believe it, and hence, act like a forgetful
choob. You tell a kid that she’s stupid enough times and she’ll believe she
is, even if she just taught herself to read in Chinese. I told myself pretty

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much every day for forty years that I had no idea what I wanted to do with
my life and, as a result, remained in the fetal position of hopelessness and
confusion for decades. Had I replaced the phrase “I don’t know” with
“Clues are all around me!” I would have opened myself up to receive tidbits
of clarity instead of slamming the door on lawd only knows how many
golden opportunities.
What comes out of your mouth comes in to your life.
Because we are creatures of habit who tend to have our words on repeat,
they become like a chisel that forms grooves in our minds, playing the same
stories over and over, anchoring in our thoughts and beliefs and defining
our reality. Our words are like water flowing over rocks—over time they
have the power to create grooves the size of the Grand Canyon. This is what
I love about the phrase stuck in a rut—you’re literally stuck in a rut or a
groove of thought, beliefs, and words, and in order to free yourself, you
need to consciously create a new groove, and a great place to start is by
getting yourself some new, better words.
Language defines and shapes our perception of reality by giving it an
understandable structure. We create, and reinforce, boundaries around time,
for example, talking about what we did yesterday, how tomorrow can’t
come fast enough, and how someday I’m gonna start eating healthy but
right now I’m going to explore what a cheeseburger tastes like with a slab
of butter on it, etc. Meanwhile, according to Einstein, time is an illusion, it’s
flexible, nonlinear, and the whole twenty-four hours in a day thing is a giant
hoax. We’ve all heard this before yet we are a staunch seven days in a
week, fifty-two weeks in a year kind of culture, and this is made “real” by
our language. The Hopi people, who perceive the world more in tune with
Einstein’s findings, have no words in their language to express the past or
future because they basically exist in the now. In fact, they don’t even have
a word for “now” because to step back and call it something would take
them out of the moment. There are countless realms of reality, and the
words we use wrap us up nice and tightly into whichever perception we’re