Having trouble with money and building wealth? Is there something more going on than simply not having enough cash to start with? Could it be something psychological? Really? Take a listen to this interview.

Richard Friesen is the founder of the Mind Muscles Academy, and creator and developer of the innovative and exclusive “Mind Muscles™” training process that turns the psychology of money and wealth on its head.

Richard works with financial professionals, independent traders, business leaders and entrepreneurs of all types who want to expand their mental game to make more consistent profits. With experience as a broker, floor trader, financial software developer and entrepreneur, he brings concrete real-world experience to his clients.

Richard is offering a free course exclusively for our listeners that will help improve financial results. You can check it out at https://conversations.money/left.

During the years dedicated to building Mind Muscles™, Rich was an independent consultant to the financial industry specializing in intellectual property development and management. He also founded and built ePIT Systems, a software company which produced internet exchange software solutions. And, before that, Rich founded, built and sold Trade Management LLC, one of the most consistently profitable options and equity trading firms on the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange.

Friesen is a popular speaker on the psychology of money management, politics and personal transformation. His latest book entitled: “A Private Conversation with Money” is available on Amazon.

Here are some questions we discussed:

Q. So are you saying that one reason why a lot of us haven’t been able to build as much wealth as we’d like has its roots psychologically? In other words, money makes us crazy?

Q. You say that your training as a therapist opens the door to money behaviors that no longer serve us, yet we repeat them constantly. Please explain.

Q. Tell us about the Mind Muscles Academy and the training process that you’ve developed. Q. What is the SET Awareness Workout?

Q. Tell us about your book, A Private Conversation with Money. What’s that about?

Q. You say that “Everyone can build new “Mind Muscles” designed to expand their personal awareness.” Please explain.

Q. You wrote a blog, “Uncover Your Creative Victim in 15 minutes.” What’s that about?

Q. You wrote another blog, “The Value of Information and Belonging.” It talks about filling our emotional need for “belonging” and our critical thinking need for surprises, reframes and challenges. Can you elaborate?

Q. After all of this, what would you say are the keys to financial freedom?

Q. What is the difference between financial success and failure?

Q. You have an online course in which you present 10 money-liberating exercises. What are they? Q. You have an offer for my listeners. How can we take advantage of that.

Q. How can people connect with you and find your book?

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Show Notes

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Show Transcript

A Private Conversation with Money

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: Richard Friesen is the founder of the Mind Muscles Academy and Creator and developer of the innovative and exclusive mind muscles training process that turns a psychology of money and wealth on its head. Richard works with financial professionals, independent traders, business leaders, and entrepreneurs of all types who want to expand their mental game to make more consistent profits with experience as a broker, floor trader, financial software developer and entrepreneur, he brings concrete real world experience to his clients. During the years dedicated to building Mind Muscles, Rich was an independent consultant to the financial industry specializing in intellectual property development and management. He also founded and built ePIT Systems, the software company, which produced internet exchange software solutions.

[00:00:55] And before that, Rich founded, built and sold Trade Management LLC, one of the most consistently profitable options in equity trading firms on the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange. Friesen is a popular speaker on the psychology of money management, politics, and personal transformation. His latest book entitled a Private Conversation With Money, is available on Amazon. Rich, welcome to the Lean to the Left Podcast. 

[00:01:25] Richard Friesen: Bob, it's so good to be here. We've had a little chat beforehand and I got a feeling we're gonna have a lot of fun. 

[00:01:33] Bob Gatty: That's good. I'm looking forward to it. You say that one of the reason why a lot of us haven't been able to build as much wealth as we'd like that, the roots are psychological.

[00:01:48] Really in other words, money makes us crazy? 

[00:01:51] Richard Friesen: Or Crazy? Makes us financially insecure? 

[00:01:56] Bob Gatty: I don't know. It certainly makes me crazy, that's for sure. 

[00:01:59] Richard Friesen: Good. Maybe we can just do a session right here. Yeah. Okay. Let's do it. Yeah, it might come up. Yeah. You know what we have, especially today if I look back at my upbringing culturally politically, religiously there, there wasn't a lot of internal conflict about our future wealth success, but not with our culture so heavily divided. And if I look at my clients, how they grew up, their families, the some families were whoopy, let's, if we got it, we spend it. Others money is so tight, we don't let it go. Some people were brought up in poverty. I. And the wealth were evil. Wealthy people were evil. And for our you and I share a religious background and money was the root of evil in, some of our religious upbringing.

[00:02:57] So we incorporated all that, and along with our educational system today, our peer group pressure, wokeness conservatism, you bring it all in. And oh my gosh, it's no wonder we don't have clear energy around money we're in so internally conflicted that it's very difficult to move forward and move forward clearly and cleanly.

[00:03:22] Bob Gatty: I cracked me up. You, brought up wokeness. I'm not even sure what the hell wokeness is, are you? 

[00:03:30] Richard Friesen: Yeah, it's. This is a really hard question. So if you have, let's say, on one extreme, a conservative religious framework for your beliefs in the world. Yeah, you have something that is fairly concrete.

[00:03:51] You have a culture and a community that has expectations for you, and there's the morality. And what you strive for is pretty clear. If we look at the current culture, and we can, you know what philosophically you can call it post-modernist philosophy, the anchors that you have are shifting according to the socially accepted values and as a result, those can go off into an extreme.

[00:04:29] I'm in the process of starting a book called Healing the Political Divide, and in it I talk about the extremes of all positions and every position has a positive intent. It has a terrific contribution. And then some of us, because of our human fall fallibility, we go off the rails in one direction or the other.

[00:04:54] And that's where I think you, you talked about being crazy. That is because of the human frailty. That is a vulnerability we all face, and that includes myself. 

[00:05:04] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Now you te you say that your training as a therapist opens the door to money behaviors that no longer serve us yet. We repeat them constantly.

[00:05:16] What are you talking about? 

[00:05:17] Richard Friesen: Sure. One of the advantages I've had was working with active traders. Cause as you mentioned in the intro, my background is, in trading, is in financial investing. So the, advantage of working with active traders and money managers is that there is a really clear feedback mechanism. It's the dollars. There's not much more. It's not complicated. You're either making it or you're not. And as a result of that, I could really suss out the psychological components of people's relationship with money and their success and their failure. So what I use is money as a symptom of some of the deeper issues that, that my clients face.

[00:06:09] Bob Gatty: What are you talking about? 

[00:06:13] Richard Friesen: For example, I'll be working with a client who will, trade very steadily. He'll follow a system and then he'll get to a point, or she'll get to a point where all of a sudden they go on tilt. And they start losing money. In fact, I've had clients work for three, four months or six months, slowly make money and then lose it all in a day or two days.

[00:06:39] Wow. Wow. So what happens is we hit a point where Our financial situation has exceeded our identity and beliefs about ourselves and the world, and then we have a survival mechanism that comes in and says whoa, guy. You're way out of your identity and belief system. In fact, I have a story that I could tell you.

[00:07:07] It takes about five minutes about my own personal life. 

[00:07:10] Bob Gatty: Go ahead. 

[00:07:11] Richard Friesen: . It was April of 1995. It was the middle of the night. I was asleep and I heard a voice and the voice said, rich, you're only worth 200,000 a year. I woke up, looked around the room expecting somebody to be there.

[00:07:33] My wife was still sleeping, so I realized it was a voice. Inside of my head. Okay. So I got up, I showered, I dressed, and I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Pacific Exchange in San Francisco. And I got there so early that the doors were still closed. I sat on the concrete steps between the big pillars and I thought, what does that voice mean?

[00:07:59] And I realized that it was part of my identity of my worthiness. Of my abilities, my skill levels. So when the doors opened, I went to they don't have trading pits anymore. So a lot of the younger people, this this'll be totally outside of their visual concept, but imagine 20 by 20 place with 150 men and women, and they're yelling and screaming orders.

[00:08:28] So normally I stood at the back of the pit. Rich Friesen philosophy major therapist former psychologist looking at the pit and being very careful, taking small bites out of orders, doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And to give you some background, is that when I started trading on my own, I made 125,000 the first year, then a hundred fifty, a hundred seventy five, and then I got stuck at $200,000 a year.

[00:09:00] Okay. And I re, and at that point, at the back of the pit, I said, I'm done with that voice. It was just a belief system I had about myself. So I went and stood in the best spot in the pit right up front. And you gotta understand the pit's, kinda like a jungle. Lord. Of the flies, the toughest, the meanest, the most capitalized, the most socially adapt.

[00:09:26] They get that spot. The best spot. Rich Friesen, okay, stood in that best spot and the other traders and market makers came in. And the guy who always stood there, who owned that spot. Looked at me, looked at the clock just a minute before the bell. He tapped me on the shoulder. Say, okay, rich, I didn't move.

[00:09:50] Yeah. So right away pushing Match started. The whole pit went whoa, and backed up the order Book official. The exchange official said, Hey, you guys get into a fight. It's a $10,000 fine for each of you. So I stood my ground, the bell went off. Okay. And Rich Friesen went crazy. I'm gonna step back from the mic five 50, sell your 20 buy 'em, sell.

[00:10:16] You sold, sell 10. I just went crazy and I went on to make many times that $200,000 limit. Yeah. So what it was, my belief system, my worthiness. And when I started building a trading firm, about a third of the traders would make great money cuz I had a process of trading options and stocks and futures.

[00:10:42] Uhhuh, about a third of them would do okay. Not bad, but, okay. And about a third of them just wouldn't make it. So I thought, maybe they have some internal conflicts like I did, so I brought in a hypnotherapist. It turned out I got lucky. My sister Wendy had just graduated from hypnotherapy school. And so she came in and started working with the traders and one of them was from poverty in West Virginia.

[00:11:09] Very smart guy. But if he made more money subconsciously, he would isolate himself from his family. Another one had a handicapped brother and a younger brother, and a resented him. If he made money, his mom would come to him to take care of his brother. And there was three or four more stories like that they had internal conflicts.

[00:11:31] About money, success, wealth, and identity. 

[00:11:36] Bob Gatty: Okay. Wow, that's amazing. Now is that where Mind Muscles Academy comes in? 

[00:11:43] Richard Friesen: Exactly. That's the perfect lead in that, from that experience on the floor and working with traders that once I sold my, company and I started a software company, which is a whole divergent, but I had manuals, I had stacks of cards and all sorts of these scattered ideas.

[00:12:05] So I started training in N L P Neurolinguistic programming, started putting it together and out of that came Mind Muscles Academy and eventually my book, a Private Conversation with Money. 

[00:12:18] Bob Gatty: Exactly. What is Mind Muscles Academy? 

[00:12:22] Richard Friesen: Mind Muscles Academy is an invitation to its clients to step into rapport with money, meaning, and wealth.

[00:12:33] So we look at all the issues that most people have. We have online courses. In fact, I'm just developing a course called Alpha Presence, and the ability to take people who are uncomfortable with relationships and personal power and to invite them to step into it. So our whole goal is to give you a rapport with yourself.

[00:13:00] The world in a way that gets you to your goals and honors your values. 

[00:13:06] Bob Gatty: How do people get involved with Mind Muscles Academy? 

[00:13:10] Richard Friesen: Oh, they can go to Mind muscles.com. And that's a a jump off place. Depending on what they want, they can send me an email, rich@ mind muscles.com and I can help guide them as how we can help best.

[00:13:27] Bob Gatty: Okay. Now, is there a charge for being involved with Mind Muscles Academy? 

[00:13:33] Richard Friesen: I'm always happy to talk to anybody. I just love conversation. So we can start there. But online courses and online. there's just a lot of support there. You can, in fact, if you go to conversations.money, there's a huge amount of just free online stuff or mind muscles for traders.

[00:13:53] There's a, just a lot of free stuff. There's online courses and, there's booklets and things that run from 20 bucks all, the way up to private and personal coaching. 

[00:14:05] Bob Gatty: Excellent. Now what is set awareness? The, what is the set awareness workout? What's that about? 

[00:14:14] Richard Friesen: Our, one of our core methods is called the Golden Keys, and that's awareness, acceptance.

[00:14:23] And then to develop agency to ask, now what do I want? So the set scores are a way to break down awareness in a way that we can start self-awareness. So the S is for our sensations, our physical sensations. In fact, let's do it right now. I'm gonna take a breath and I'm going to just pay attention to my body.

[00:14:48] I'm gonna start at the top and work my way down. Okay. Ah. My face is fairly loose. Jaw's loose. My throat feels fairly relaxed. I noticed my chest is really tight. Now I'm going there and I'm machine gunning. Okay. Ah, I'm gonna take a breath that And I'm not, one of the things is awareness.

[00:15:12] I'm not beating myself up. I'm just noticing, say, okay, what would I like? I'd rather, than machine gunning Bob Gatty. Oh, huh. What if I took a re relaxing breath and we just had more of a conversation. Okay. I'm going down to my stomach, it's a little tight and down to my leg. So there's the set, there's this, there's the physical sensations.

[00:15:35] Then I look at my emotions. So I'll take a moment. I'm feeling excited. Just a judgment. I just noticed a judgment come in. So then I look at my thoughts, which are okay. I'm, talking to you. So it's, more of a challenge to be aware of my thoughts in real time. But if I stop for a moment, I just noticed a slight judgment about me rushing and pushing a little bit.

[00:16:01] Okay,

[00:16:02] so we take our set scores, and we start with awareness and then we add acceptance. Can we both be aware of what's going on in our lives? Without judgment. In other words, if I'm going to discover that my stomach's tight, or my voice is tight, or I'm machine gunning Bob Gatty if I say, oh, you idiot, what are you doing?

[00:16:29] Then my, the, what I really need to get down to, the deeper awarenesses are gonna say I don't wanna expose myself to that guy. So we accept what we discover. And with clients, this is really important. I look at the physiology, their face, their motions, the their voice quality, and then sometimes that will trigger a deeper voice inside of them, and sometimes we can get to the truth much faster rather than through analysis by just asking their physiology to speak to us.

[00:17:05] Bob Gatty: Okay. Is that it? At the end of that thought. Okay. Now let's talk a little bit about your about your book, A private Conversation with Money. I, gather that this all flowed from this experience that you're talking about, right? 

[00:17:25] Richard Friesen: Yes, indeed. One of my concern is, and. Now leaning to the left, this might become a very interesting conversation, is I look at our cultural divide and if we look at the left end of the political and psychological spectrum, there's just a huge conflict if we, I'm taking this to the extreme, so this may not be. Your users are you, but at the extremes, it's the wealth that the wealthy people have too much.

[00:18:02] We need equity, we need to share it. If you're rich, you're probably an asshole. There's not a we need to tax more to bring equity to us. So we have all of those beliefs and, people who are goodhearted. People who want a better world for everybody. You, take all that in and it creates internal conflicts and stress because you want a secure financial future.

[00:18:35] You want to take care of your family, and yet you have all these niggling little things from the extremes that prevent you from rapport with money, meaning, and wealth. So my book takes a journalist, Joe. Who's definitely leaning, in fact, maybe way leaning to the left. And he meets the character money.

[00:18:59] And he and money have Socratic conversations. By that being questioned, pushing deeper and they get into a huge amount of fights and conflicts and. They continually move towards resolution so that Joe can move from anger and. From just angry at the system to actually delivering value. And in the book, the way he delivers value is through improving the educational system.

[00:19:32] And he ends up inheriting a charter school in the inner city, and he works to really work with kids who have been disadvantaged and give them not just a standard book learning education, but how the world works, how skill stacking works, and what they need to move forward and give them hope in the world.

[00:19:55] And that's, if I look at my personal values and look at the concerns of the world, I see a lot of people who, don't have a model for hope, and that is just, Very painful to, to consider that they're human beings in the world in that condition. Wow. 

[00:20:16] Bob Gatty: That's amazing. Now this your, new book you just mentioned a minute ago what's the name of it again?

[00:20:22] The one that you're working on 

[00:20:24] Richard Friesen: Healing the Political Divide.

[00:20:26] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Now does that kind of follow up with with your, first book private conversation? 

[00:20:34] Richard Friesen: Yeah. If we look at the psychological principles of how do I have rapport with myself, maintain my values, In the world, then we can look at what the extension is.

[00:20:49] I belong to some very left leaning transformational psychological WOOWOO groups. WOOWOO groups. Yeah. But they've tr provided me tremendous value in the past. To be in a group that is accepted, that loves you for who you are, and they have just a tremendous amount of value for a lot of people.

[00:21:18] And I look at that value and how it translates into their political views. So my job in this book that's coming up is to help them coordinate their deepest values, their love of humankind, their acceptance. Into an effective political sphere. 

[00:21:39] Bob Gatty: Okay. Is it a book that helps you successfully invest your money while holding onto your principles?

[00:21:52] Richard Friesen: It's a book about principles. It doesn't have any investing strategy in it. Okay. And the basic principle is delivering value. For example, one of the concepts we have is certificates of appreciation. So Bob, if you do something for me and I go, okay, here is a certificate of appreciation, here's my money.

[00:22:18] So if we relabel that certificates of appreciation when you receive it. We're all of a sudden we're outside the realm and all the history and guilt and trouble and stress around money, we are now into a human connection where you've delivered to value to me and I give you an appreciation. Conversely, it goes the other way.

[00:22:42] If I do a service for you, you give me a certificate of appreciation in the form of money and I go, wow, I've done some good for the world. So we reframe money to a certificate of appreciation. Now, Bob, you're gonna have to hold onto your head here cuz this might blow it open. Okay. The more, okay.

[00:23:02] The more certificates of appreciation that I collect honestly and delivering value, the more value I have delivered to the world. Okay, now there's value. Martin Luther King, huge amount of value to the world that had nothing to do with money, for example taking care of my family. There's, far outpaced the value we deliver to the world then in commercial.

[00:23:27] But if you decide to go into the commercial world, as many of us do, The more certificates we receive, the more value we've delivered in the commercial world. 

[00:23:40] Bob Gatty: Okay. I need some more certificates, that's for 

[00:23:44] Richard Friesen: sure. 

[00:23:45] Okay. 

[00:23:46] Bob Gatty: All right. Now I wanna go back to mine muscles for a minute. You said that everyone can build new mind muscles designed to expand their personal awareness.

[00:23:58] Can you explain what you. What you meant there. 

[00:24:02] Richard Friesen: Sure. The easy analogy is when you go to the gym and you work out, how does it feel the first day, okay, yeah. You're sore. Yeah, Second day you're sore. What it you, your muscles grow by stressing them. If we look neurologically, for example maybe you're old enough.

[00:24:25] When I started to drive a car at 14, they gave me a license at 14 years old. I can't believe that. In Kansas. Ah, really? Yeah. Four. 14. 14. Oh my gosh. Wow. This stick shift put the clutch in that time, the stick shift was on the column put it in first gear. Sure.

[00:24:47] Let the clutch try to give it more gas engine dies.. Now you and I could be traveling down the freeway and we could have a discussion about postmodern philosophy. What happens is all those neurological connections about driving the car haven't been made. So as we do it more and more, these connections are made and they're automated, so we don't even have to think about 'em.

[00:25:15] So when you talk about creating new behaviors, new beliefs, new all this is like building muscles in a gym. At first, eh they're not there. You have to focus. And repeat them. So if we create new behaviors that serve us better through repetition, eventually they become automated. Okay. 

[00:25:40] Bob Gatty: Now you wrote a blog that I saw the other day.

[00:25:43] Uncover Your Creative Victim in 15 minutes. What's that all about? Rich. 

[00:25:50] Richard Friesen: I'll see if I can remember it. What happens is one of the primary aspects of mental and emotional health in my current model, by the way, I'm gonna stop here. The reason I say my current model is to keep me from being attached to a truth that boxes me in.

[00:26:14] Okay. As I learn more and find out more. So I'm in the habit now of saying my current model or my current way of thinking. So in my current model one of the aspects of health is agency. So for example, if my wife looks at me or says something cross to me immediately there's this whole response.

[00:26:39] Yeah. Yeah. What I do is with agency, I say, oh, I'm aware of it. My chest is tight. I'm a little irritated, but with agency I say, oh, okay. How would I like to experience this? And I can choose how to experience that rather than reacting. So that's the higher level agency. So victimhood, on the other hand, on the O, and again, we're talking about extremes here is you did something to me or there was an event and the meaning of that event comes packaged with that event.

[00:27:16] So the meaning to me is already determined by the event itself. Whereas with agency, I can say there's the event, oh, how do I choose to make that mean for me? So victimhood is, if you don't have the ability to create meaning, but the meaning comes with the event. I think that's probably what that blog was about.

[00:27:43] But yeah, anyway that's a, an important piece of information anyway. 

[00:27:49] Bob Gatty: Okay, good. Now you wrote another blog, the Value of Information and Belonging. It talks about filling our emotional need for, belonging. And I think you talked about that a little bit and our critical thinking need for surprises, reframes, and challenges.

[00:28:06] What are you talking about there, rich?

[00:28:08] Richard Friesen: Okay, so when I talk to a client and let's say they've gotten along in their family and their social group by. Being really nice, trying to please trying to especially if mom or dad was emotionally volatile, being really sensitive to other people, being an empath as it were, and that's the way we belong.

[00:28:37] Or if we look at our political beliefs if I, look at my friends on the right, I look at my good friends on the left, I look at my libertarian friends. A whole part of their belief system is wrapped up in their, groups that they choose to belong to and the way they choose to belong to them.

[00:29:00] Yeah. So if we look at information, That just solidifies the beliefs that I have in the peer group that I have. I'm safe. There's no risk to that. But what if I take in information that's different? What if I allow information that is does not support that belief system? Oh my gosh. Am I gonna be shunned from that group?

[00:29:34] I grew up in a Mennonite background and if you look at the extreme of that, the Amish there was shunning. If you didn't have the right beliefs and the behaviors. But in today's political climate both on the right and the left, they're shunning. If you look at something different.

[00:29:56] So if information is just the same as your group, it's noise. It's just amplification and allows you to bond with your group. On the other hand, if you take an information that is a surprise, it's different. It's something that challenges you. Then it's actually valuable because it's information that's going to add to your abilities to deal with the world, but it also is going to conflict with your belonging.

[00:30:27] Bob Gatty: Okay, now what's all that have to do with making money in the stock market? 

[00:30:32] Richard Friesen: Okay, so let's start even lower. What's that? How do we make money? First if my clients are conflicted For example, a client will come and say I, I'm wanna make a lot of money I'll give it away.

[00:30:51] I'll be a philanthropist. That tells me we're already dealing with a lot of guilt. So my job is to look at our core relationship with money, our psychological health around money, success and meaning. Then once we get there, Then we can look at your skill stack and your opportunities and the abilities you have to see what direction to go.

[00:31:12] Now, as far as investing goes there are times that it's pretty clear that you want to invest for the long term. Now the question is, now we look at the Silicon Valley Bank, we look at probably a lot of banks that have similar conditions. Are we going to see that same growth? And this is high risk.

[00:31:37] So when we're in a high risk situation, then we, move to preservation rather than growth. And that's where I am right now. I'm into preservation mode. 

[00:31:49] Bob Gatty: Okay. All right. Now after all of this rich, what would you say the keys are to being financially independent? Financial freedom. 

[00:32:04] Richard Friesen: Yeah.

[00:32:06] One of the exercises that I do with my clients is called the three chair exercise. And in it I put set up three chairs all facing each other in the triangle and I have them bring in what represents money. Some people have brought in gold, some a pile of a hundred dollars bills, brokerage statement, whatever, and I have them talk to money.

[00:32:28] I. And out of that we get a whole bunch of interesting inner voices. For example, you just leave me. You come, you go, I can't hold onto you. You seem so far away. Or, oh, I love you, I want more of you, but I don't know how to get you. So we have all these attitudes towards money. We have 'em sitting in the money chair and often money will tell them exactly why they're staying away, why they're not more part of their lives. And then we have 'em sit in a wise observer chair. Note the conversation in the process. So the job for the financial future is first to gain rapport with money, meaning in your values. And once those are together, then we can look at how do you add value. I don't know if you're familiar with vision boards.

[00:33:22] And often, no, I'm not. Yeah. All vision boards. That was a bigger thing in the seventies where you, put a cork board up and you put all the things you want, swimming pools, maseratis hot babes, whatever. Yeah. Whatever it's you want and you envision it. And that can sometimes be helpful.

[00:33:41] And give you some clarity about where you're going. But what I have is a value board instead. And it ends up with the value you're going to deliver to your family, your employer, your employees, your community. What value are you going to deliver now? Then we work back from there. What skills do you need?

[00:34:02] What knowledge do you need? What connections do you need and how do you deliver that value? And once you come to clarity about how you're going to deliver that value, and again, knowing that life will take you in many different directions. Now, we have a clear vision of the future. My vision is to deliver value.

[00:34:25] Once that becomes just a core part of yourself, everything else, the whole world opens up to you.

[00:34:32] Bob Gatty: Okay. Now you have an online course in which you present 10 money liberating exercises, rich? What, are they? Can you tell us about that? 

[00:34:43] Richard Friesen: Yeah, we just talked about one of them, and that's the three chair exercise.

[00:34:47] We have more analytic exercises where you take a very left View of the world and analyze it and break down the language, a very libertarian view of the world. We analyze it and break down the language because a lot of us get swayed just back and forth with, the news, the language the, different things that are coming at it.

[00:35:13] So the job is to develop agency around what you hear. There's exercises on your history, what generationally has been handed down about your beliefs around money and success so that we can go down and, learn about those. Hidden anchors to wealth. What might be stopping you?

[00:35:33] Some people are afraid that if they get money, they'll become an asshole. So we look at, okay, let's step into money. What is your experience and how do you prevent yourself from that fear? We talk about capital. What is the value of capital? And capital expands the, timeline of what you're able to contribute to the world.

[00:35:58] Here's a big one. What will you lose if you become successful and wealthy? And people go, huh, oh, I won't lose anything. Of course not right? But as we drill down, almost 70% of my clients will come up with stuff like, oh, all the accounting. Oh, taxes. Oh, my relatives will come to me for money. Oh all the things.

[00:36:25] I'll, just buy things and, then they'll just time me down and I'll have to take care of stuff. And everybody's different, but they come up with, A whole bunch of things that they'll lose. And, the theme that comes, keeps coming back is I'll lose my freedom if I have lots of money.

[00:36:45] So these are all subconscious belief systems. So we do a whole thing is what happens if you become wealthy? How do we create a vision of that is okay with your values and who you are? So those are the kind of exercises that we do that hit almost all the sore points that I've discovered in my clients over the last 30 years.

[00:37:11] Bob Gatty: Okay. That's interesting. Now you've got an offer from my listeners that you mentioned. How can can you explain what that is and how people can take advantage of it? 

[00:37:22] Richard Friesen: Sure. If they go to conversations.money/left L E F T. There is a page there and it's a coupon that brings the online course down to the fantastic price of zero so your listeners can get the course.

[00:37:43] And we, I encourage them, of course, to get them the book also because the course is a companion to the book, but if they want. They can just go through the course and there's also just a ton of blogs on conversations.money for free. And of course there's always an invitation that to see how we can support you in different ways.

[00:38:02] Bob Gatty: Okay, great. Now how can people connect with you, rich, and find your book? 

[00:38:07] Richard Friesen: Yeah, the book is almost everywhere. I just finished the audio book. There's the ebook, there's the paper cover, and even a hardback, and that's on Amazon and all book sellers. So that is A Private Conversation with Money, and that is available in almost all formats and almost everywhere.

[00:38:28] Bob Gatty: All right. Have you got anything else you'd like to add? 

[00:38:31] Richard Friesen: Yeah I, just appreciate the conversation and Bob, you've asked some really great questions and you've opened me up and you've gotten me excited. And I notice right now I'm so going, woo, you've really jacked me up here.

[00:38:44] Bob Gatty: So glad to know that.

[00:38:46] Richard Friesen: And if if you take a look at yourself and the money issues and. And you just take a moment to look at your own belief systems. They're a microcosm of what, how everyone else is facing and the world is facing. So can we give a gift to people so that they can feel safe and secure in their financial future?

[00:39:11] And can we raise a generation of kids that are educated and have the ability to deliver value and receive compensation. My gosh, the if I look at one of the pain points that I see is our educational system, especially inner city and disadvantaged kids, and can we create an educational system that allows them and permits them to deliver value and receive a ton of certificates of appreciation.

[00:39:43] Bob Gatty: Okay, Richard, that sounds great. I appreciate you joining us today on Lean to the Left. This topic need not be a political discussion. It's not a political discussion. Everybody needs to find a way to improve their financial situation. I think I, I certainly know that I do, and so I hope that this, has been helpful to you guys that are.

[00:40:11] Listening and watching to the, watching this this episode. Thank you, Richard. 

[00:40:17] Richard Friesen: Thank you Bob, and I look forward to a follow up conversation after you've read the book and taken the course. 

[00:40:23]

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