I sold books and offered services that taught free-thinking citizens how to get out of the clutches of the State, how to stop paying excessive taxes, how to bullet-proof their privacy and how to liberate them from the mindless drudgery called ‘work’ that most people sign up for without ever thinking through the consequences of their decisions.

Yesterday I was given a book to read by Derrick Jensen called “Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control”, which my wife swears takes it’s title from a Pink Floyd song, well at least the WTTM bit of the title… for those old enough to remember.

On page 50 Jensen talks about hippies being outraged that they were asked to cut their hair in order to work at a salmon canning factory. He says:

“To be forced by a company to cut their hair was seen as an outrage, yet to be forced by an entire economic and cultural system to work a job they didn’t love (or, for that matter, to work a job at all) went as unnoticed as the hours that slip away in one’s so-short life.”

I come across this attitude a lot. It’s an attitude of blame which is endemic in our culture. The attitude of being a victim. That somehow it’s honourable to be seen as being beaten down. A turd on the shoe of the rich and powerful.

It’s a belief that “someone” out-there is doing something to us.

It’s a belief that big business, governments, gurus, the Man, and some such is making us do something we don’t want to.

Yet it is none of these things. It is you that decides to play victim. You that chooses to be oppressed.

After all no-one holds a gun against your head to buy product X, Y or Z. No-one but yourself is to blame for the leadership of your country. And no-one else is to blame if you wind up in a job you hate, feeling oppressed by the ‘nasty corporation’ you have decided to work for.

Corporations are there to exploit their workforce and their customers for the benefit of their shareholders. In a word PROFIT.

Shriek! Gasp!

So what? Stop playing victim. All these entities do is offer shiny, wobbly things for you to buy. Or tempt you with pensions, options and a ‘secure’ job. If you’re stupid enough to fall for this bollocks you’ve only got yourself to blame.

For the next 30 days I want you to think, breathe, live and act as though you are “Your Own Authority”.

I want you to keep a journal of how repeating the affirmation throughout the day “I Am My Own Authority” makes you feel.

Does it scare you?
Are you even able to say it?
What consequences will there be? If any.
How will you look at the world and the people in it?
How does it make you feel?

Go on… I dare you… look in a mirror and slowly say… “I Am My Own Authority”.

I mean what have you been doing with your money man?!?

Plain Truth: If you don’t have any money you won’t make it my friend… it’s that simple.

You have to at least have some money. Say $200-$500. I don’t care what the self-styled slick gurus tell you. If you’re flat out of cash your dead in the water before you can even start.

Now let me tell you another thing…. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE BROKE! You’re a liar and a self deluded one at that if you think you are.

• I mean how many Starbucks or soda do you drink a day?
• How many beers a week do you drink?
• How many cigarettes do you smoke?
• How much meat do you eat?
• How many new clothes have you bought in the last month?
• How many “gifts” have you just had to buy?
• How many magazines or newspapers have you bought this month?
• How many CD’s?
• How many snacks?
• How much candy do you eat a week?
• How many TV dinners?
• How much fast food have you been eating?
• How much did you spend on the lottery?
• How much did your TV cost you?
• How much money do you give to your church?
• How much are your monthly car payments?

So these are really essential to living are they?

No they’re not, they’re self-indulgent habits! Nothing wrong with that if you CAN afford them. But you tell me you’re broke! Wake up! Ding-dong!

Look if you really are in debt you need to do everything you can to get out of it fast. This guys a mate of mine and has been helping folk get out of debt for the past 10 years or so.

I used to walk the streets with no-more than $3 bucks in my pocket to last me the day. Yes I did that for months on end until something happened. I got mad, real mad. Not at the world but with myself.

You see I have always had a dream of being personally free, being self-reliant, totally in charge of my time and cash flow, beholden to no-one… not government, not masters, not gurus.

Now walking around with $3 bucks aient much fun. It hurts in the pit of your stomach. And when I only had $7 a day to feed my family (yup there were others my pathetic state was impacting) I can tell you, I felt at times of doing something pretty dumb to my body and mind… and occasionally I did.

If you live in the Western world, you live in the richest part of the planet with the most opportunities the world has ever seen at any point in the history of the human race.

If you want to see poverty take a trip to India or any other developing country. I have, and what I saw made me realize my $3 a day “poverty-trap” was simply an ego-trip. Kids working from 5am to 10pm every day for crumbs of bread. Rags and bones. So please don’t tell me you’re broke and poor, you don’t know the meaning of the word.

But now I’m not broke, now I’m not looking like a tramp feeling sorry for myself.

How did I change it, and get the money to start my business.

I’ll tell you. It’s real simple… and I want you to do it too:

Every single time you buy something, I don’t care how many cents or pennies or bucks it might have cost… you must ASK FOR AND KEEP THE RECEIPT!

At the end of the day in a small note book or on a scrap of paper, total up what you spent your money on. Now ask yourself: “Was what I just bought absolutely essential?” If not, take it back for a refund, you have the receipt after all.

Now put that refunded money in a pot or a jar and label the jar “My Business Building Fund”. Better still, don’t buy the goodie, treat or trinket in the first place and save the cash.

If you really want to get in control of your finances you absolutely, positively must raise some working capital, and the only way to do that is to stop buying crap and investing the money in yourself.

I mean do you really need that coffee or will water do? Do you really need that steak or will beans or rice suffice along with some healthy cheap vegetables thrown in?

“But I want to have a coffee, beer, steak” I hear you say. Well don’t tell me that you’re broke then. All you’ve done is exchange what little cash you have for something else other than investing in your business building fund.

No-one forced you. No-one but yourself is to blame for where you are right now.

You are in the situation you find yourself because of the choices and decisions you have made during the course of your life …. Stop pointing your fingers outside yourself…. You are the problem, and as such YOU ARE THE SOLUTION!

So stop spending money on useless trinkets, and superfluous goodies and snacks.

Bread, water, vegetables… you don’t need anything else to eat. Chances are you have a wardrobe full of clothes already so you don’t need anymore of those… correct?

Sell your TV it spews lies anyway. Use TV time to learn, surf the web to uncover opportunities etc. Sell your car? Either take public transport, which in the long term is cheaper than a car or get a bicycle. And yes it’s gonna pop your skull with frustration.

But use that frustration to get your act together and absolutely commit to get with the program and learn how to become a self-reliant cash generating human being.

And when that day comes, you’ll be able to walk into your bosses office, smack a cream pie in his/her face and walk off to the beach knowing you are, at the end of the day, an immensely and supremely powerful individual…. You simply forgot!