318 Richard Friesen

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth. 

I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg. 

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience. 

When it comes to your business deep wealth, your exit or liquidity event is the most important financial decision of your life. 

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After 30 years in the financial world, trading on the floors of major exchanges, building a trading firm, as a therapist reviewing thousands of financial assessments, and coaching traders, financial professionals, and entrepreneurs in groups and private sessions, Richard Friesen realized something was missing.

Richard's training as a therapist opens the door to the deeper drivers of financial and money behaviors that no longer serve us, yet we repeat them [00:02:00] over and over again.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. And for all you listeners out there in deep wealth land, I have a question for you. Truth Or fiction mindset makes all the difference between failure and success. While there are no spoiler alerts here, although you probably know where I land on that one, because today's guests, well, you heard the official introduction, but we have a fellow business owner, a thought leader, an author, someone who has been a student of success and ensures that other people around him are successful in every which way, but Richard, I'm going to put a stop in it right there.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. And I'm always curious because there's. Always a story behind the story. So Richard, what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Richard Friesen: Yeah, it was April of 1995, I think. I was middle of the night and I heard a voice, and the voice said, Rich, you're only worth 200, 000 a year. I woke up, looked around, you know, panicked. Wife was sleeping peacefully beside me, [00:03:00] so obviously it was a voice. in my head. And so I got up very early, dressed, and drove to the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange where I was a market maker and active trader.

So I got there so early the doors were still closed. So I sat on the cement con, Steps between those big pillars, and I thought, what is going on with that voice? So a little backstory. I would work for a big arbitrage firm, hundreds of millions of dollars, PhD quants, computers, most advanced things in the world, and I left that to move back to California, and I traded on my own.

So I had a small account. And the first year I made 125, 000, next year 150, 000, then 175, 000, and 200, 000.

And it was that final 200, 000, but it was only April of the year. And what happened [00:04:00] was I was trading Micron, the memory chip company, and they had just taken off. And there was, like three of us market makers that were trading it, and you couldn't help but make money.

And in the middle of February, I was up. Two hundred thousand dollars, which was my normal annual kind of income, and then it was 205, then 195, then 200, and I just kept making money and losing money, all from February to April, and that's when that voice woke me up that said, Rich, You're only worth 200, 000. So the doors opened. I went to the pit and for those people, there's no pits anymore. That's all electronic. But for those unfamiliar with it, you don't own a spot in the pit. It's just whoever is the meanest, the toughest, the most capitalized they usually take the best spot. And I went and stood in the very best spot in the pit.

Between the two busy brokers and right in front of the book staff. So I could hear everything and get [00:05:00] first crack at all the orders. So the, traders started coming into the pit just before 630 Pacific time when we were about to open. And the guy who always stood there

Looked at me,

Jeffrey Feldberg: hmm. Looked at the clock,

Richard Friesen: looked at me, stood next to me and bell went off and he tapped me on the shoulder. I didn't move.

We started getting into a pushing match and a shoving match and the book staff says, you guys get into a fight, 10, 000 fine for both of you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow.

Richard Friesen: So I pretended I had concrete boots and I stood there. The bell went off and Rich Friesen, the philosophy major, the therapist from, a long time ago, who stood at the back of the pit and very carefully bought this and sold that, I got to take my headset off.

Buy 50, sell you 100, buy them sold, sold. The pit thought that Rich Friesen had [00:06:00] gone crazy, and I went on to make many times that 200, 000. The important point here was that was just an internal limit in my head, and when I started to look at worthiness. belief about my worthiness. And I went on to build a trading firm and eventually sold it and started a software company that was eventually bought by Hewlett Packard. what I learned was through both the trading as I started trading traders, that some of them, like a third of them would just take off and make money with my methodology.

A third of them would do okay, just kind of average, but a third of them just couldn't make money. And we brought in a hypnotherapist. And we discovered if I look at my own issues. The issues they had around money, wealth, and meaning.

Jeffrey Feldberg: You know, As you're going through that, I have so many thoughts that are just rolling through my mind, but it's interesting because from the trading floor, whether it's owning a business or whatever [00:07:00] line of business that someone happens to be in, you know, it really comes back down to mindset, your worthiness, your belief.

You know, What's interesting is social programming, particularly today with all the different social media platforms, and I don't want to get on that soapbox. But it is just hammered into us. We're not worthy. And it's other people that are better than us. And we don't have what it takes. And who are we to think that we can become successful?

So really for our listener, the takeaway for them should be, hey, it doesn't matter whether it's the trading floor of the stock exchange or the trading floor of your business, so to speak. Mindset, that's the key that really unlocks everything. And for our listeners, by the way, in the show notes, there'll be a link.

To the book, A Private Conversation With Money, experience the 10 keys of financial freedom. And so let me ask you that because financial freedom, you say those words, a few F words, we're having a few other F words, mainly the F word fun offline with that. And I had having a couple of chuckles along the way, but when it comes to financial [00:08:00] freedom from the traders that you've worked with to now the entrepreneurs, the business owners, the founders.

What's the common theme that you're seeing? You know, I always love to ask the question in this kind of situation. Is it Pareto's law, the 80 20 principle that 20 percent of the same, we'll call it false mindset beliefs are creating 80 percent of the problems? I mean, what's going on out there?

Richard Friesen: Well, let me tell, start with another story. And one of my clients came to me and he had the goal of selling an HVAC business to a large firm. So he started, he knew the business, he had worked in it. He started, single ownership, single guy, started hiring, building the firm. But as he built it, he knew exactly the criteria that his business needed to have in order to be purchased by a larger company.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Richard Friesen: So he built the business with that criteria in mind, working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, doing [00:09:00] everything he could. Then, he was in negotiations with a firm, everything was going well. And what was he doing? Around the negotiation table, he was sabotaging the negotiations. And that's when he came to me, and he said, Rich, what is going on? So as I look at my own internal mental limitations, I look at what he did, and in our work together we discovered that his messages around wealth and success growing up were so negative. That if he were to succeed, he would have to what abandon his family, his friends, and everybody else who had.

This gestalt, this belief around money, meaning, and success, because he was stepping outside of that. So that meant, a change of his community. That meant a whole bunch of ramifications that he [00:10:00] was not prepared for. So one of the things that you talked about, what is the common theme? And one of them that surprises everybody, I've never had one client ever come to me and say, Rich.

I'm not prepared to be wealthy, and to give up, what the costs of that are, because everyone assumes, well, once you're there, whoopee. But so what we discovered was that the issues around his upbringing and where he wanted to be, we could then say, okay, how can we hold our values?

How can we stay connected to our community and how can we bring money, meaning, and wealth to you in a way that has internal rapport? And he completed the negotiations, made a lot of money, and now he's doing a lot of work that adds value to the world.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Love to hear those kinds of stories. And obviously when it comes to having some kind of liquidity event, that's our wheelhouse here at Deep Wealth and that's probably a whole other episode Rich that you and I can do. But let me ask you this. I [00:11:00] mean, a listener can go and they can pick up the book and go through the various strategies and tactics that you have.

At the same time, they can likely fast forward that process. They can do some coaching with you, some one on ones with you, have some calls. What's your process like? So if you and I are meeting today for the first time, and I'm saying, yeah, you know what, Rich? It seems like the closer I get to my goals, my vision, I take one step forward, three steps back.

I should already have been way past it, but I'm not. So obviously something's going on internally. What are you doing? What's your secret sauce, so to speak, to really... Uncloak my limiting beliefs or whatever issues behind the scenes might be going on that I don't really know about. I'm not really, they're not front and center for me.

Richard Friesen: Well, the audience can't see you, but would you be willing to do a little? Experiment right now.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Let's do it.

Richard Friesen: Okay, so what I just heard was the complications, something that is internally out of rapport, things aren't going well, and you [00:12:00] can pretend to be the client here, and so is that what I heard, or can you clarify a little bit about what your situation is?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. Yeah. So we'll go with this role play. I will make things as as we go along, I'll just pick them out of the air, but. Let's just do it. So putting my mindset into this particular kind of individual or role or experience that someone's going through. And I really hear it all the time when I'm working with business owners.

Yeah. You know, Rich, it seems the harder I work, just the harder it becomes. So really, I don't know why I just, I can't seem to surpass the goal. I'm so close. Sometimes I even get a little bit beyond it, but then in the blink of an eye, I'm back to maybe where I was last month or a few months back, I don't know why it's frustrating.

And it gets me aggravated, my family, my friends, they've noticed a change now with my personality and quite openly, it's literally keeping me up at nights.

Richard Friesen: blink of an eye. Let's focus on that blink. So, think about the moment that [00:13:00] you were moving forward, you're at your goals or past them, and then can you go back and look at a time where that blink of an eye happened?

Jeffrey Feldberg: hmm. Yeah. So I'm thinking about this Rich and when I just got past that goal, you know, I was feeling good, but now that you have me thinking about it, I'm remembering a time where the friend of a family. I had this success, I was much younger at the time. I didn't really understand all of what was going on.

And from that success, one day, this person went out of business a short while later, and I haven't remembered that. It's been years since I actually remember that, but now that we're talking. That's what's coming to mind.

Richard Friesen: So, imagine for a moment... You've had the success, you're on top of the world, you have respect, you have money, you have power, you have choices to make because of the freedom of the success.

Imagine for a moment, you lose it all.

It's gone. Can you close your eyes for a minute and tell [00:14:00] me what that experience is like to go from on top of the world to the bottom?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure. it's really earth shattering, the uncertainty, the fear, how am I going to provide for my family, for myself? What does that mean for the roof over our heads? What are we going to do? Am I letting people down? 

Richard Friesen: Yeah. Am I letting people down? My family. Wow. So, I'm going to step out of the role now and just give a footnote. It's what we have here is a conflation 

Jeffrey Feldberg: hmm. 

Richard Friesen: success And the devastation of total failure.

So we work, we get to the point, we get a bit past the point, and then that fear comes in.

So what you described so clearly and wonderfully is that conflation. So If we were to continue in, in a coach client situation, we would start to disentangle those two, and we would start to look at what success means to you, what failure means to [00:15:00] you, and start to mitigate the emotional intensity. And sometimes well, for example, I'll just think of a client who was similar to what you just so well described.

And I'm feeling a little emotion myself as I think of this.

His father went bankrupt. His mom left him. He was like 10 years old and he became the man of the family to take care of his mom emotionally.

He vowed that would never happen again.

So he, workaholic marriage was dicey because of his workaholism, got close to success.

And just what, how you so well. Demonstrated that particular issue, fear of his father's bankruptcy was built so deep into his physiology and into his neural connections that he stepped back to the place where he was just working hard and making money and not having that event, [00:16:00] that liquidity event.

So you know, what you've just demonstrated so well, and in that story, is all these mixed messages, these internal conflicts and what we do is, in fact, I have a list here of the exercises in the book, what we do is we go through them one by one, and it's a story about Joe. But Joe does these exercises In his conversation with a character called Money, we have a three chair exercise where you actually talk to Money, and Money talks to you. So much richness comes out of that. We do awareness exercise. We have what we call our set journal, sensations, emotions, and thoughts, so that we're aware of them in real time.

We do an analysis of different economic positions and to see where our emotional triggers are in those and to clarify those. One of the biggest issues is the belief that If [00:17:00] I'm wealthy, I've taken money from somebody else, there's some famous people like Michael Moore who said, there's only so much money in the world and it isn't theirs.

Jeffrey Feldberg: huh. 

Richard Friesen: The one pie thing. 

And so what we do is we move to a concept of certificates of appreciation. So Jeffrey, if you were to do a service for me, I give you certificates of appreciation, formally we call that money, a certificate of appreciation because the service you gave to me gave me more value than the certificates I'm giving to you and vice versa.

So the more, and this is going to blow a lot of people's minds, in fact, I get a lot of pushback, the more certificates of appreciation you collect honestly by delivering value, the more value you have delivered.

Oh my gosh, you don't have to make excuses like, I'm going to give it away or be a philanthropist.

That in and of itself [00:18:00] says you're delivering value to the world. And that's, you talk about the 80 20, and I'd say that's in the 20, that there is this reticence of taking money from others. Because well, My, my sample is skewed because the people who come to me have really good hearts. I don't get mean or selfish or, mean people coming to me because they will see right away that's not going to work for them.

But so the people with good hearts have a conflict about being good and accumulating capital. So we have a. Another exercise around capital accumulation and how that is valuable to the world also. So, we have a wealth identity exercise, money and value loss. And we talked about that a bit. If I become rich, nobody ever comes to me and says, Rich, if I become wealthy, what am I going to lose?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure. 

Richard Friesen: There are real losses becoming wealthy. Your time, you have to pay attention to a lot of other things. People will come to you and [00:19:00] want money or will like you because you're wealthy, just all sorts of things. So if we can deal with those so that in our imagination, we can step into that without conflicts.

So, there's several other hmm.

Jeffrey Feldberg: terrific. So many resources there. And again, for our listeners, it'll be a point and click. Everything's in the show notes. Now, for this next question, Richard, I'm really thinking of a listener who is more, and again, no judgment here, but this kind of listener is really more on the logical side. Everything that doesn't happen in a spreadsheet doesn't really exist because it's facts, it's numbers, one plus one equals two, all the way around.

And when it comes to the art side, when it comes to mindset, yeah, that's just all this feel good quote unquote stuff. But it doesn't really move the dial when it comes to creating success. And I can just imagine this listener saying, come on, really, you know, Jeffrey, you said some kind of a story from when you were younger is affecting your present day success [00:20:00] and Rich, you're now validating that.

Can really, can these experiences from when I was little, maybe even a child that I don't even remember present day, can that really affect me? So for those listeners who find themselves. Really nodding and agreeing with the narrative that I just spun. Can you speak to them about how incredibly wonderful our mind and the brain is, but also how powerful it is, perhaps in ways we don't even realize ourselves, but you're in the trenches, you're doing this day in, day out.

You're seeing the results that you're creating. So what would you say to that kind of listener who's asking those questions?

Richard Friesen: If that's working for you, I am not going to interfere with it. So in our world, we have people diehard capitalists who are out to make money. Well, they know they have to deliver value, yeah, but my real goal is to make money. So unless they're unethical... That's what they do, and they often provide a really good service for the rest of us or inventions.

In fact, most really [00:21:00] creative people, they're also a little nuts. You look at Tesla or Edison Einstein, because their ability is so focused and narrow, some of the rest of their normal life is perverted or doesn't exist. So, if it's working for you, God bless you.

For a lot of people that are just in their head, they find themselves sabotaging themselves, and they don't know why.

And that's why I use physiology a lot, because our words, we lie to ourselves, we lie to our spouses, we lie to everybody. And I don't mean that like you're purposely trying to deceive them.

But we deceive ourselves, and we deceive others, so creating an awareness of our physiology, that's why our sensations, emotions, thoughts, those exercises take us into our body, because our body tells us the truth.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure. And you know, a couple of things that you said, and for starters, we're with you, Rich, we [00:22:00] don't believe in a zero sum game that either I win, you lose, or you win, I lose. And whether it's growing a business or whether it's a liquidity event, when we're talking about the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, our 90 day program, we're always asking the question, hey, how can you create a win, win, win, win?

Because you know, Rich, if I can understand what your pain points are, I can actually help you. By helping you, you're going to help me and together we're going to help each other. It actually becomes, to use some of your earlier words, a much bigger pie than if I'm just out for myself. Okay. How am I going to screw over Rich?

And how am I really going to one up him? And, come out the victor here and, maybe if you're going to have a one off, perhaps you can get away with that, but you know, not really for us, it's not a way to really think, to behave or really act. It goes back to legacy, integrity, all those other kinds of things that go along with that.

But are you with me on that? Or you say, would you be saying, Hey, Jeffrey, yeah, I hear you, but not a chance.

Richard Friesen: Oh, Jeffrey, you just hit on the conclusion of the book. So spoiler alert, in the back of the book, [00:23:00] and we have these exercises, one of them is maybe you're old enough to know what the vision board is

Jeffrey Feldberg: Of course 

Richard Friesen: from the 

seventies. You put in your cars, in your mansion, in the cottage by the lake and all these things that you want, and then you visualize it.

That's really helpful that because our brains will not take us someplace. That we can't visualize, and we can talk about that in a little bit. But what I have is substituting a value board.

What that means is the end product is the value we're delivering to others. Now we work back. I need a little knowledge.

I need some skills. I need some context here. I need capital. But the goal is delivering value as versus What money is going to buy us? So that is just so in rapport with what you just said. So that if we are concentrating on the value we're delivering to others, and how can we expand that value? How can we [00:24:00] leverage that value?

I mean, if you look, especially in today's technology age, it used to be that if you were the best. Blacksmith in the world, I mean, you had techniques that were just awesome, you still had a very small community to expose those to and deliver value to. And the blacksmith in the next town over, he might have been mediocre, but you guys are making about the same amount of money.

But with the internet, if you can deliver value to a billion people, OMG!

Jeffrey Feldberg: And, you know, as you go through that, Rich, what's interesting, if we go to the very foundation of being an entrepreneur or a business owner. It's all about finding a painful problem. You're solving it so well that people are not only happy, they're thrilled. You call it certificates of appreciation, we'll just call it money, one and the same.

They're only too happy to pay you to take that pain away because otherwise their life would have been miserable. [00:25:00] And if we look to, for our listeners, why not pick your favorite company, whatever company that is, it doesn't matter, and ask yourself, go back to the origin story. How did that company go from where they were?

Ever. So where they are today, and chances are, they created really a raving fan community. They were having people feel good, or they solved their problem so well. And as we're talking about this, I'd love your insights. Apple really went from zero to hero. I mean, at one point it was people talking about why don't they go away, go bankrupt, and now, they're one of the most valuable companies in the world.

But along the way, they just had people feel good with whatever product that they did. They never necessarily invented it. That category, but they did it the best and they made it the easiest and it was so seamless. And here we are where they're really leading the charge and having people worldwide following them and the stock is through the roof and the value is over the top and all those wonderful things that go along with that.

How am I doing with that? I would love some of your insights.

Richard Friesen: Oh my gosh, don't take away my Google Maps. [00:26:00] I mean, I so love it. I went to a meeting the other day, and it was about 30 minutes away, but it had about 15 turns to get back to this office building. It just took me there. Whereas before, looking at a map, try calling, say, okay, I'm here. And then, or late at night, I'm someplace and I want to go home, I just click home, it says.

All right, I'll take you home. Oh my gosh, so that is so valuable to me because it expands my ability to meet people in person, for example, and that's just one small thing. So you know, we've got AI coming up, and that's a whole nother conversation. Oh my gosh, everybody's doing AI now, at this, even my, my online course application is now.

So, then we're going to see how that expands and the value that can be delivered there.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. So incredible where that's heading. Let me ask you this. I want to go back to one of the chapters in your book. It's actually chapter 26, [00:27:00] owning your success thermostat. And, I can go on and share the listener, the whole story behind that, but hey, he wrote it. You're the best for that. So for our listeners out there who are saying, what, a success thermostat, what the heck is that?

Does that even exist? Can you give them a little bit of the overview, Rich, of what's going on with that? And it really goes back to our self limiting beliefs that we may not even realize behind the scenes are really what's driving us. So chapter 26, the success thermostat, what's going on with that?

Richard Friesen: Well, I told you the story of my own thermoset to start with, and I had, I hit another one when I started a software company, and I had a, and this was when the market was starting to collapse And I realized it was all over, and I had a chance to sell my stock to a VC, and it would have been millions.

I made the excuses, well, I'm the CEO, it would be bad form, we'd lose morale, da da da da da da. But really, it was, I was not ready for [00:28:00] that event, that liquidity event that even I had surpassed that 200, 000, no problem, 

okay, but there's a series of mental events. Like, why is it that we have, we're talking about the lower class.

Why do we talk about the middle class? Why do we talk about the upper class? What is embedded in that language? And embedded in that language is that people in each class know that they're in the class and they respond, act, behave with those parameters of being in that class. So when we talk about economic classes, what is embedded in that is, is that internal limitation.

Now, the fortunately, we have a number of people who just bust out of it, and we have another group of people who get arrogant and collapse through, but the concept of class is exactly what you were describing. That's our [00:29:00] language for saying that we have a mental limitation.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And you're walking us through that. It reminds me of chapter 20 in the book, Riches and Resentment, and, words, beliefs, how we define ourselves when we look in the mirror, how we describe ourselves to other people or what we accept or don't accept. We really unknowingly are yielding ourselves, so words and thoughts are more powerful than most people attribute them to be.

Richard Friesen: Oh boy, you keep coming up with diamonds, and the language represents some subconscious parts of ourselves. So when I'm talking to a client, and they give a negative... wOrd, language to themselves, whatever, we stop right there, and we expand that, because the language we give ourselves is sometimes going back to those early childhood, or how our family raised us, or our family belief, or our cultural belief systems.

So those are, that physiology [00:30:00] and language, as you just pointed out, are two of the biggest clues as to what's going on in a deeper level.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, something so subtle yet so important. So let me ask you this. Let's circle back to that role play that you and I did at the start of our conversation. I was just picking things out of thin air and putting them out there and we're role playing one with the other and we got a resolution fairly quickly.

Maybe it's like that when you're working with a client and in that first conversation, boom, you've identified it. That said, though, and I know you're going to say, well, Jeffrey, the question that you're asking really depends on the person and how aware they are and, where they're going to be. But back of the envelope, generally speaking, Rich, in terms of number of conversations or length of time, how long does it take from someone to really, number one, understand where they are?

Things that they didn't know that were there, that are below the surface, they now actually see that. And then now that they know that, they can take with your skills, with your tactics, with your strategies, to begin the process to get [00:31:00] back to what we'll call their set point or their success set point, whatever that looks like for them, that they can go on and actually achieve their goals without holding themselves back.

What would that look like timing wise? 

Richard Friesen: Well,

I always offer a free session to almost everybody, and I'd say 90 percent of the time in that free session, we will discover the major block for them going forward. And for some of them, it's, oh my god, oh, I'm done with that. Boom. And then they come back, and when they realize they still have a lot of, we could talk about the brain neurology, how these old neural connections.

Are so automated that under a little bit of stress or whatever, they just kick in and we go back to an old behavior, but at least we're aware of them as they happen. And so I offer like 10 sessions, usually covers almost everything for people to move on. And then some people re up, but for most people, [00:32:00] we work very fast and quickly, just like we did in that demonstration to get down to exactly.

 In other words, I don't use discipline. Say, well, just be more disciplined, behave yourself, because discipline, just a word that says we don't know how to solve this. So We covered over with the word discipline but if we can get down to the core issue very quickly, then the building and re habituating our behaviors on top of that, that takes a little bit of time because what we're doing is we're re routing neural circuits and to create a new neural circuit that takes some time and some practice and some repetition.

Jeffrey Feldberg: hmm. So let me ask you this, you know, neural circuits and really we're rewiring our program, our set of beliefs, our success thermostat. I would imagine that our surroundings, our environment, the people that we spend the most amount of time with, [00:33:00] that's absolutely essential. And I can just imagine someone who's done a lot of work with you and they're on a new path.

But if they go back to the same environment, I would suspect, and you'll confirm one way or the other, that's likely going to create some challenges for them. And so for the listeners, can you outline why their environment and the people that they associate with are so crucial?

Richard Friesen: Oh, you couldn't have asked a better question. If people go to conversations. money slash deep, which is a page just for your listeners, conversations. money

slash deep, I have a guided visualization and the guided visualization addresses that. So what we do is because our brains are very visual, we, in our imagination, create a house of wealth that represents our wealth of success.

And as we approach it. And put our hand on the door, we look back, and we look at the people that are [00:34:00] significant in our life. And then we pause and say, who is objecting to you walking in that house? And sometimes they'll say, oh my God. They're all cheering. 

What? 

I never thought of it before. I just always felt oh, that they, my dad worked so hard and didn't make much money that I can't do this.

But I look back and he's cheering. And for others, they'll say, and it's mostly dads around finances will say, my dad says I am stepping out of where I should be, that I'm taking on heirs, that, and they'll say, okay. So let's. Go back and have a conversation with dad.

And oftentimes, the dad will break down and say, I've worked so hard. That if you make money, if you're successful, it will mean I was just doing everything wrong and working hard. And when you're successful, that's a reflection on my lack of success. So we'll have a conversation like that, or a dozen other kinds of conversations with [00:35:00] other people. And so the guided visualization then deals with exactly that issue, and I'm offering it there's a coupon, so you don't even have to pay for it, at conversations.

money slash

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And again, for listeners, we'll have all that in the show notes. Very generous of you, Rich. Thank you so much. And talk about having that abundance mindset where you're putting resources out there to really help people pay it forward, make a difference. So let me ask you this. There are so many strategies in the book and you have the 10 keys themselves to financial freedom.

It may be a little bit of a loaded question or maybe an easy one for you. You may be saying, well, Jeffrey, it's like, ask me to pick my favorite child or grandchild, as we're talking about offline, or, oh yeah, I know that. That's a no brainer, but you know, if a listener, because for every episode. If a listener can, before going on to the next activity, whatever that may be, an email, a meeting, a call, if they could do one strategy or action, what would that be that you think would be perhaps low hanging fruit [00:36:00] that could really move the dial?

If you had to pick one thing and one thing only.

Richard Friesen: Yeah, that would be the three chair exercise, one of the first exercises, where we actually have a conversation with money, and money has a conversation with us. Because oftentimes that brings up the deeper drivers of our behaviors and beliefs.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's interesting. So when you're talking about money and having a conversation with money, I suspect most people are thinking, what? Money has a voice. Money's actually going to talk to me.

Richard Friesen: And it's amazing, but it happens over and over.

Jeffrey Feldberg: and as you're saying that, it reminds me of the quote that you put at the very start of the book. It was by Les Brown, money is not the most important thing in life, but it's right up there with oxygen. So a little bit of a play in words, but is there a theme when people have a conversation with money, maybe for the first time in their life?

What do they tend to hear? What are some of the themes coming out?

Richard Friesen: Yeah. Well, what we do is we set up three chairs, all facing each other in a triangle, and the person talks to money. [00:37:00] And there's a whole bunch of kind of, I mean, there's dozens of them, but I'll just give an example. Damn it, money. Every time you get close to me, you go away. I have you in my hands, and then you're gone.

It's like everybody around me has money, but me, what is going on? the closer I get, the further you get away. So, this is, of course, you got to understand, I'm compressing 90 minutes into two minutes. Switch chairs, you're money. Every time I get close to you, you grab me.

Every time I get close to you, you throw me away. You don't respect me. You don't value me. You just grab as to fill some part of your heart that I can't fill. Then we go to the third chair, which is the observer, and the observer looks at these two conversations and says, Oh, what I see happening here is X, Y, Z, then go back to the person, and that person now has a new conversation with money with that understanding.

So there's some people that look at money and they're just giddy and [00:38:00] happy and want more of you, and money says, okay, how are you going to deliver value to others? So you know, there's just... I can't, there's dozens of different kinds of conversations, but each one, it's amazing. People who've never done any kind of visualization or talking about their parts or having different voices they get right into it.

It's not a problem.

Jeffrey Feldberg: What a terrific way of going through this. And it goes back to the old saying, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or if we do the same thing every day and expect different results, that's really the definition of insanity. So for the listeners out there, if you haven't tried this, why not try something different?

I suspect you'll be pleasantly surprised. And I suspect also Rich, that you see that in your practice, when you're working with different business owners, entrepreneurs, traders, whatever the case may be, that it really can be a fundamental shift. And how they view things and then moving forward really in the success that they're now able to achieve.

Richard Friesen: Well, you've just summed it up really nicely. And so, in our lives, what we want is abundance for [00:39:00] ourselves and for others. And if we can get into rapport with value we're delivering, receiving certificates of appreciation, which are a measure of the value we delivered, that shift is so powerful, it just opens the world up to most people.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And, you know, as you talk about certificates of appreciation, I suspect it really goes both ways when we talk about mindset. So just as we receive certificates of appreciation, when we're paying our bills, we're sending out certificates of appreciation

Richard Friesen: Exactly. One of the exercises we do is whenever we're paying something for cash or whatever, say, I appreciate the service and value you're delivering to me. You say it out loud, person on the other end is going to go, what? But the exercise really helps people really just put it, make it concrete, the certificates of appreciation.

Jeffrey Feldberg: What a terrific way to look at things. And it really does change things from, ah, here's another bill. It's going to be painful. I have to pay it to, Oh, you know [00:40:00] what? I'm sending some appreciation. This person, this company, this service added some value in my life. And there's another saying that we receive 10 times more than we give.

And let's go back to that mindset and whatever check you're writing or bill you're paying or cash you're putting forward, imagine you're going to get that back tenfold because you're putting it out there really into this unlimited. Universe, and we can talk about quantum physics and the field and all those other things, which you alluded to a little bit earlier, but it really is there.

Well, Rich, let me ask you this, because you and I can continue to go on, we are starting to bump up against some time, and I have the privilege, I have the, really the pleasure, it's a tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast where I get to ask the same question to every one of our guests, so let me set this up for you, it's really a fun one.

So think about the movie Back to the Future, and you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. So imagine now, and this is the fun part, Rich, it's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window, not only is the DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it is waiting for you to hop on in what you do, and you're now gonna go back [00:41:00] to any point in your life, rich as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time that would be.

What are you telling your younger self in terms of life wisdom or life lessons, or, Hey Rich, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like? 

Richard Friesen: You're going to bring tears to my eyes. Yeah, a young high school boy that was physically attacked in high school for being a nerd, and just to give him a hug and say, you're going to be okay.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Mm-Hmm. 

Richard Friesen: Rich, and if I could just do that. And let him know there's a positive future in his life at the time when he felt so abused and down that it's his mindset completely that makes all the difference.

If I could give him that message, that's what I would do.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. Firstly, thank you so much for being open and vulnerable. What a traumatic time at such a young age. That you had to personally go through that. And I'm just curious, looking back at that, not that you would have wished for that ever, [00:42:00] you did go through that though. How did that impact your future trajectory? 

Richard Friesen: It brought me down and I just huddled like a turtle. My survival mechanism was turling and so it took a while to start to open up. So I'm still basically a turtle,

 So I can go to a party, I can, demand a room. I can give public speaking. I can do all that. But, I come back and to my original survival mechanism and I appreciate that and it's okay because it gives me time to think and consider and reframe things in my life and do my writing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: But you know, I would imagine, and it's my best guess, and you can tell me if I'm on base or off base, that experience though, at such a young age really allowed you to be so much more empathetic. to the people around you because you knew what it was like on the other side and I suspect makes you a gem of a friend.

business colleague or associate [00:43:00] relative to the rest of the population I may be completely off on that but that's just

Richard Friesen: No, in fact, that's probably one of my negatives in the business world is a lack of being tough enough to push through some problems because I see people and empathize with them and that sometimes gets in my own way. So it's both a positive as a therapist. It's beautiful as a business person. It's probably less helpful. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, you know, there's always two sides to a coin, as they say, our superpower always has a kryptonite and

that's just how it goes. But you know what? I appreciate you. I'm sorry that you had to go through what you went through. Speaking with you now, though, all these years later, I can see really the positive in that.

Again, not that you would have chosen that, but, thank you for what you're doing and making a difference out there and really paying that forward. And, Rich, it's on that note of gratitude, that note of thanks, it's really appropriate to say, number one, congratulations! It's official, it's a wrap.

You were absolutely terrific, and as we love to say [00:44:00] here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Richard Friesen: Thank you, Jeffrey. I so appreciate the support and allowing the conversation to just blossom. So it's been wonderful for me. Thank you. 

Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me. 

Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions. 

Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity 

Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix. 

Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to [00:45:00] allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately. 

Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended. 

Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even. 

Sharon S.: Hands down the best [00:46:00] program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

 If you're not on my email list, you'll want to be. Sign up at [00:47:00] www.deepwealth.com/podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode, if it added value, if you walked away with some new insights and strategies, please leave a review on your favorite podcast channel. Reviews help us reach new listeners, grow the show. And continue to create content that you'll enjoy and as we wrap up this episode as always please stay healthy and safe.