Wealth Warrior was a term I created in the mid-90’s. It’s an idea.
A Wealth Warrior is a modern-day man who lives by his own code of Honor and creates wealth–not wealth as defined by the world, but as defined by himself. Wealth is “an abundance of values” and a Wealth Warrior chooses what his values are, rather than accepting the values that society conditions us to have. Two of the highest values a Wealth Warrior always has are Honor and Self-Mastery.
For my adult life, I’ve lived far more to gain Honor and Self-Mastery than I have to gain money or material wealth. Those who don’t understand my values being what they are, are surprised that I am not more financially successful yet than I am. I don’t drive a nice car or live in a nice house. I’m not making millions with my business yet.
Time and again, I’ve sacrificed financially to attain greater honor and self-mastery. What I have to show for living my life by these values thus far is not money or material wealth, but 1) programs and methodologies that deeply impact people’s lives and relationships (the work is based on Honor, and is what I’ve learned as I’ve lived my life), 2) an incredible ability to work with people in a way that produces lasting breakthroughts, 3) deeply intimate and loving relationships with family and many others (as living my work in my life is a natural result of pursuing honor and self-mastery), 4) a sense of Honor, confidence, courage, freedom and self-direction that defies the follower conditioning and training a young person receives in this world, and 5) a life of incredible excitement and adventure designed by me for me.
But my life has also been guided by the conditioned value of Image.
And this is perhaps the greatest challenge modern man faces: to live by his own Honor and Inner Guidance, rather than being swayed by image (desire for pride, fear of shame/embarrassment, desire for approval and respect, fear of rejection, etc.). As much as many of us like to tell anyone who will listen, “I don’t care what others think,” our mind manages our image/ego whether we know it or not. In fact, I’d say that image is the Primary Value of our conditioned minds, and we’ve been trained to compromise our honor and our other values when our image is at risk.
Promoting and maintaining a certain image is integrated into the culture of Western business. Advertising, marketing, positioning, branding–it’s all about creating and maintaining a certain image. And if you can do it right, you get paid very well.
Advertising also drives us to spend the money we earn on what we do. We want to be accepted, respected, desired–or viewed as sexy, wealthy, powerful, etc.
Everywhere we turn, we’re managing image. Trying to look good so we can get the girl, get the job, avoid being laughed at, etc.
I loved the term Wealth Warrior, when I created it, and I got a great sense of pride from using it. It made me look good, and it was a great name for marketing. But over the years, the term generated a lot of criticism from people in whose eyes I wanted to look good. And for largely the past several years, I’ve left the term behind, in favor of terms that appealed more to the people I considered to be more “enlightened,” conscious, sophisticated, etc.
Not using the term Wealth Warrior protected my image in the new social circles I found myself in, and it also was received better by my new chosen markets–and was in this way better for business.
Only later did I come to fully realize that the judgments my new friends and customers had about the term Wealth Warrior was preventing them from receiving the two greatest invitations I have to offer the world: honor and entrepreneurship. People who react to the term Wealth Warrior tend to also cut themselves off from many of the benefits that could be theirs, if they transcended their judgments.
But I am not bringing Wealth Warrior back so that these people can transcend their judgments. I’m bringing it back to serve men like myself, who want to be the best men we can be, and live by honor, creating wealth in the 21st century–without being limited by the judgments of the world.
Bringing Wealth Warrior back does not mean I am giving up any of my other projects or programs. It’s simply a way of honoring myself, my creations and the value that those creations can give to millions of people.
Wanting to be respected for my ideas has largely been an image concern for me over the years, and has had me make choices to project and maintain a certain image. This has led in many ways to compromises of my own honor, and has inhibited my financial life–especially when I turned away from the Wealth Warrior business and projects I was working on in favor of VisionForce and my new work.
Not only was I consciously choosing to honor my values of Honor and Self-Mastery, I was unconsciously guided by the conditioned value of maintaining my image–and consciously aiming to manage Image for business purposes.
A better way to transition would have been to fully establish the Wealth Warrior business and product line, and then create a new business, VisionForce, to serve the new markets I wanted to reach.
I have taken big risks with my image and reputation time and again, but in the business world, risking one’s image in certain ways can be a major liability. My personal journey has had me “evolving in the public eye” as I’ve openly shared a lot of my short-comings, failures, doubts, mistakes and more, as I build my business.
Only recently is our business culture coming to appreciate the level of transparency that I’ve come to live with (I’ve learned to let go of my image so much that I embarrass friends and family and am deemed rude or inconsiderate, because I won’t pay much attention to societal norms that maintain people’s images).
The internet is getting us accustomed to letting go of professional images, and having people get to see who we are in our personal lives.
And I’m throwing Image to the wind now, as I not only bring Wealth Warrior back, but do so via LIVE VIDEO webcasts… coming very soon! Check out the Flying Pig Phenomenon.