CHAPTER 5
The Stream vs. the Rock

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance.

—H. Jackson Brown

Tony Cupisz knows that accepting personal responsibility and having dogged perseverance are sometimes all we have to see us through tough times. A component of a healthy and effective psychology of wealth is taking charge and doing what others can’t do for us—and then sticking to a vision and never giving up, no matter what may come. As a cofounder of a thriving international company who is also a great father and loved by many people, Tony has the manner of someone who is thoroughly enjoying his life. Listening to him tell his story feels like an unusual privilege, as though I’m being granted a rare view into a world of remarkable success and prosperity that arose from an unlikely beginning.

At one time, Tony Cupisz simply could not catch a break—from the moment he was born, as it turns out. “When my twin brother Mike and I were born,” he begins, “we were premature. Forty-five years ago, premature babies didn’t make it as often as they do today. When Mike and I were born, I came out first. I was blue and not breathing, and very sickly looking. The doctor said, ‘Just let him go.’

“I met the doctor when I was an adult, so I got the story directly from him and my biological mother. You know how most mothers’ eyes light up when they see their newborns? Well, even my mother recalled that when she saw me, she just looked away, thinking, ‘Oh my God.’ But then the nurse discovered that Mike was on his way. No one had known my mom was carrying twins. Our heartbeats were synchronized, so only one had been heard. According to the doctor, we were his first set of twins, and he didn’t want to lose his first set. So he went all out to save us.

“As I was listening to the doctor tell the story, I remember thinking, ‘Wait a minute. You mean you went all out only after you learned we were twins? Were you just going to let me go?’ When the doctor told me the story, maybe it just came across wrong, but I remember thinking, ‘Why wouldn’t you go all out to save any child?’ Anyway, we were both very small. We were put in incubators and needed help to keep our hearts beating. We also needed surgery. It wasn’t looking good. On the positive side, of course, we survived!”

Tony and Mike survived, but their early years were exceptionally hard. “When my sister Annette was three, and Mike and I were just two years old, our mother abandoned us on the steps of the trailer where we were living. Our father and mother were divorced, and we had been living alone with our mom in Arizona. She left us sitting there asking her not to leave. As we watched her jump on the back of a motorcycle with a guy and wave good-bye, our last words were, ‘Don’t leave, Mom.’ Many years later, when my mom was asking us for forgiveness, she said it broke her heart leaving us that day and seeing us cry. But still, she left.

“How the neighbors knew to contact our family back in Detroit is unclear, but they contacted them to come and get us. We were living in Arizona because of my mom’s asthma; it was supposed to be healthier for her there. My dad, who was very young, had recently gotten home from the service and was on his own, back in Detroit. He couldn’t get any help from his family, so we were placed with my mother’s relatives. An aunt took in my sister and eventually adopted her. This aunt knew a hairstylist who at the time was unsuccessfully trying to have children. When she was getting her hair done one day, she asked, ‘Would you be open to adopting these kids? I have twin boys who need a home,’ and she showed her our picture. And so the hairdresser and her husband adopted us.” The families agreed that the twins would not see their sister Annette again until they were 18 years old.

Amazingly, Tony and Mike’s difficulties were only beginning. Tony continues, “Unfortunately, the circumstances of our upbringing were not good, especially with our adoptive father. He was abusive. He told us that we were losers and that we were stupid and would never amount to anything. That’s what he told us all the time. We were made to feel guilty for everything. There was constant guilt about how they didn’t have any money, how we were lucky to live in that house, how we were lucky to have the life we did. He’d smack us around and hit us with a belt. It was mental, emotional, and physical abuse.

“The family never had a lot of money, and complaining about money was a constant. Everything was about money. Our adoptive parents were both very stressed out about that. They would call us poor, but I didn’t know what they meant. When you’re a little kid, you don’t understand that being rich or poor has anything to do with money. You just begin to notice that when you go to someone else’s house, it’s cleaner. The other kid’s bedroom is a lot cooler; he has a nice bike and clothes. You get these clues. Then you want something nice and you can’t have it. Then some kid will say something mean to you, and you’re shocked. You start feeling separated from other kids, and you start understanding what it means to be poor.

“Somehow, although we didn’t have money, I never actually felt poor. I loved my parents, but when I was growing up, I did not like them. If they represented being poor, I rejected it. I wanted to be whatever they were not. I didn’t want to be poor. They talked about success as though you just can’t have it. Don’t count on it; it’s not possible—that was the message we heard.

“But that’s not how I felt. I feel the same way now that I used to feel—that if I worked really hard and was ambitious and wanted to have good things happen to me, I could. Somehow I could. I realized early on that success was about making choices and that I was responsible for those choices. That’s all Mike and I had—the choices we made. I think having each other also helped our resilience.”

Despite the difficult family life, abuse, and lack of financial security that faced the twins, the two understood that if they were to move beyond their adoptive parents’ lifestyle, they had to do things differently.

“So I worked hard. I tried everything. And good things did happen to me. I always believed that everyone else could do the same thing. Now I believe that success is achievable if people choose it and work toward it. I also believe that what you seek is what you get. And there are sometimes circumstances that help you or hinder you, but I believe you should still keep looking for a path that lets you move forward. If you want success, you have to keep moving ahead, regardless of the obstacles that stand in your way. Success is not going to come to you if you don’t fight for it. You can’t try something and say it doesn’t work just because it did not work yet. For me, it’s about never quitting. You should never quit.”

Success is not going to come to you if you don’t fight for it. You can’t try something and say it doesn’t work just because it did not work yet. For me, it’s about never quitting. You should never quit.

—Tony Cupisz

With maturity comes the possibility for growth and change in our relationships. As adults, Tony and Mike reconciled with their adoptive father and healed many of the wounds of the past. With their reconciliation has come forgiveness and peace. As Tony explains, “Today our adoptive father is proud of us and has become a good grandfather. People can change and become better if they choose to.”

Tony has a magnetism that irresistibly draws others to him. When he speaks, everyone around him is captivated. Knowing that he started farther down in life than most people will ever go and has worked his way up to an exceptionally prosperous life certainly got my attention. After I heard more of his story, it was becoming clear to me that we have more power over our own path to prosperity than we might expect.

Personal Responsibility Is a Conscious Choice

“Everything in your life exists because you first made a choice about something,” says SUCCESS magazine publisher Darren Hardy. “Choices are at the root of every one of your results. Each choice starts a behavior that over time becomes a habit.” In his bestselling book The Compound Effect, Darren explains that this effect is the accumulation of all the choices that we make moment by moment, day in and day out, large and small. These choices add up to habits that produce either a prosperous life or a life that is something less than we want it to be.

“In essence, you make your choices, and then your choices make you. Every decision, no matter how slight, alters the trajectory of your life,” Darren observes.¹ I agree. Ultimately our lives are a reflection of the conscious and unconscious choices that we make each day. We make many—if not most—of our choices unconsciously. Although we may not intend to sabotage ourselves, by not being fully aware of our decision making, we may find that we have created results that we neither intended nor desire.

To make ourselves more aware, Darren suggests that we ask ourselves: “How many of my behaviors have I not ‘voted on’? What am I doing that I didn’t consciously choose to do, yet continue to do every day?” These questions capture the mindfulness that is needed if we are to create a prosperous life. By bringing awareness and some deliberation to our decisions, we can make choices that support expansion and true progress. Developing the habit of taking a moment to stop, take a breath, and consider what we’re doing and why—as well as what it is we really want—can help us make better choices. Doing this helps keep us from falling into unconscious patterns that may not have served us in the past.

Like the stream that wins over the rock, by moving forward and persisting with the right choices at each bend, we can reach our goals. The strength of the river is gained through momentum, by the focus of the flow in one direction. We can use that momentum to move toward our dreams and our goals.

Sardine Sandwiches

I enjoy a story told by author Brian Tracy. He relates the tale of a construction worker who, on his lunch break, complains loudly and profusely about having a sardine sandwich. To the annoyance of his coworkers, he repeats his complaint about his sardine sandwich every day for the next few days. Finally, one of his coworkers leans over and suggests that he ask his wife to make him something else for lunch. The man replies, “Oh, I’m not married. I make my own lunches!”²

The story is funny, but it reminds us to ask ourselves this question: what circumstances in my life am I dissatisfied with (and may gripe about) but do little to change? Sometimes we may feel stuck. But as the masters of our own lives, we have little cause to complain about circumstances that are of our own making. Too often, we place the responsibility for our situation elsewhere and don’t change the things that are clearly within our control. Tracy concludes, “The acceptance of personal responsibility is what separates the adult from the child. It’s the great leap forward into maturity. Responsibility is the hallmark of the fully integrated, fully functioning human being.”

As Tony’s story illustrates, creating a life that you value requires accepting the idea that you’re completely responsible for yourself. Such a good life also involves the realization that no one is going to come to your rescue—nor, in general, should they. There’s very little that you cannot do or have after you accept that “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”³ When we assign to others the responsibility for where we are or who we have become, we start to surrender small parts of ourselves. We begin to disconnect ourselves not only from personal responsibility, but from our personal power. If we absolve ourselves of the need to make changes on our own, we reinforce the idea that we lack control over our lives. Our own sense of powerlessness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Accepting responsibility allows us to persist, despite obstacles and setbacks. We become the stream that moves forward despite all the twists, turns, and rocks in our way.

Which Wolf?

A Native American parable captures an important lesson about personal responsibility and making choices. An old Cherokee was teaching his grandson about life. He said, “I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is vengeful, jealous, angry, and violent. The other wolf is loving and compassionate.”

The grandson thought about this for a minute and then asked him, “Which wolf will win the fight?” The grandfather replied, “The one I feed.”⁴

Whatever we focus our attention on is what we are nurturing in our lives. That attention is reflected in our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Whatever we feed will live, grow, and become real.

How We Respond

We cannot always control the circumstances that we are faced with, but we can choose the way we respond to them. Viktor E. Frankl, the revered Austrian psychotherapist and author, was a Nazi concentration camp survivor who endured imprisonment in Auschwitz. The degradation, brutality, and loss of life that he witnessed was beyond comprehension. Among many other causes for grief and despair, he lost his wife, who died after being transferred to Bergen-Belsen. Yet throughout this ordeal, he persevered and found transcendence. It was from his and others’ suffering in the camps that he came to his hallmark conclusion that even in the most absurd, painful, and dehumanized situations, life has meaning. Frankl realized that the meaning in life does not come from what happens to us, but from how we interpret what happens to us—and then, what we do with it.

Viktor Frankl thoughtfully argued that we must accept responsibility for our choices, even the most subtle and internal decisions, including what we think. He himself made conscious choices that profoundly changed the course of his life. In “A Tribute to Viktor Frankl,” Paul G. Durbin, Ph.D., recounts Dr. Frankl’s decision to stay in Europe in the early 1940s, when he had a chance to escape Nazism and come to America.

The situation in his homeland was becoming more and more difficult for those of the Jewish race. The local Jewish synagogue had been bombed and left in ruins by the Nazis.… As the synagogue was destroyed, he went to a nearby Christian church. He prayed that God would give him some direction as to what he should do. He wanted to know if he should go to America or stay with his family. Though he earnestly prayed, no answer came. He left the church feeling that God had ignored him.

On the way home, he came to the destroyed synagogue. He stopped for a few moments and picked up a piece of wood to take home as a keepsake for his father. When he arrived home, he examined the piece of wood more closely. As he read the inscription on the piece of wood, he realized that indeed God had heard his prayer and had answered him. The inscription on the piece of wood read, “Honor your father and mother.” His parents were in Europe and could not leave. He stayed in Europe and eventually ended up a prisoner of the Nazis.

If Frankl had not gone to that church, stopped at that destroyed synagogue, picked up that piece of wood and carried it home and read what was inscribed on it; would we have ever heard of Viktor Frankl? Maybe! Would he have had the impact on the second half of the [twentieth] century that he had? I doubt it! He did go by that church, stopped at the destroyed synagogue, picked up that piece of wood, carried it home, read it and become one of the great contributors to psychology….

Frankl survived the Holocaust and the Nazi death camps.… Even in the degradation and misery of the concentration camps, Frankl was able to exercise the most important freedom of all: the freedom to determine one’s own attitude and spiritual well-being.⁵

Under the most extreme circumstances, in which anyone could feel justified in blaming others for his distress, Dr. Frankl used his experience to help his fellow prisoners and ultimately to develop a new approach to psychotherapy that has helped millions more. His book Man’s Search for Meaning, written in 1959, remains one of the most widely read volumes in the world.

No matter what situation or challenge we find ourselves facing, we can decide how to respond. We can feel victimized and resigned and give others power over our lives, or we can take personal responsibility for the choices we make. To live a more prosperous life, we must accept responsibility.

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.

—Jim Rohn

How Did We Get into This Mess?

Today, in the United States and many other countries, our economies are reeling from a global financial crisis. As we work to recover and struggle to pay the bills, much has been said and written about how we got into this mess. How did we get here? What happened that allowed our economies to go so far astray, right to the brink of self-destruction? In other words, who is responsible?

We like to say that it was the “bad guys” (Bernie Madoff and his ilk) or the greedy bankers and brokerage firms, abetted by government policies that allowed the worst corporate behavior to emerge and consumers to run amok. All of this is undeniably true. However, just as each life is the sum of both the minute and the major choices that a person makes every day, our collective lives are the product of countless individual contributions. In other words, our national and international pickle is one that is of our own making. Each human being in any of the groups involved—brokers, bankers, investors, regulators, and regular citizens—made individual decisions that added up to a mess of massive proportions. To be sure, some contributed more than others, but in truth, we’ve gotten here together. If Bernie Madoff hadn’t been wicked, many people wouldn’t be in their current dire straits. But if we hadn’t borrowed excessively on our houses, neither would we.

The big mess came from a lot of individual decisions that accumulated to create it. Paradoxically, that’s the good news—because if we can make a mess, that means we can unmake it. We can start to make individual decisions and take individual steps that will strengthen our own financial lives and add up to a righting of our collective ship.

As I pondered what leads to individual prosperity, I wanted to know: What was it that we as individuals may have done to add to the pile of bad debt and financial dysfunction? As we went about our individual lives, doing our individual best to prosper and thrive, was there a point where we went wrong? How did we as individuals make so many financial decisions that were not in our best interests? Surely actions that are not self-enhancing are signs that choices were being made unconsciously. Was it mass hypnosis? No. But something resembling a seduction seems to have been taking place. We are responsible for our own decisions. But I was curious: what factors helped entice us down the path of unconscious borrowing and spending?

Borrowing Undergoes a Metamorphosis

For most people, acquiring wealth has been a matter of moving up by taking small steps in any way one can. Credit has long played an essential role in this process. Consumer credit has allowed generations of people to purchase such things as homes and cars, and to finance higher education—all actions that have materially improved their lives. For most of our history, this credit took the form of installment loans. Even a generation or two ago, it was this kind of loan that allowed people to buy washers, dryers, televisions, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and other genuine conveniences of a flourishing life. This budget-conscious form of borrowing required face-to-face discussions between the borrower and the lender on the consumer’s needs and means. How did borrowing morph from a transaction that required consultation and deliberation into writing one’s own very large check on a home equity line? During the prerecession borrowing spree, these easily written checks were often used to finance “conveniences” such as transforming one’s kitchen into a showcase of marble and brushed stainless steel.

When new, easy forms of credit entered the marketplace in the early 1960s, they began to replace the popular installment credit plans, especially for middle- and upper-class citizens. Unlike traditional installment loans, these new, revolving forms of credit—familiar to us now as credit cards and, more recently, home equity lines of credit—did not require repayment within a fixed period. Only minimum payments were required. They also offered the allure of nearly effortless borrowing. Retailers encouraged customers to pay for their wares this way, because they quickly learned that customers who used revolving credit or “charge cards” purchased significantly more than customers who paid cash. Indeed, the average charge sale was three times the average cash sale.⁶

Did consumers’ needs suddenly escalate by 300 percent? It’s unlikely. A need to borrow may be legitimate. However, when we aren’t required to deliberate on the real costs and benefits of a purchase or a loan, the likelihood that the decision will be a thoroughly conscious one diminishes. Simply put, this kind of instantaneous credit encourages unconscious spending. And it challenges our budgetary discipline sorely. The credit card is now the most widely used credit vehicle in the world. With a card in one hand and Internet access in the other, our self-control and discipline are tested at every turn.

They Don’t Make It Easy to Just Say No

Understanding the escalation of debt worldwide, and specifically in the United States, also requires a look at how marketing affects our suggestible consumer psyches. In a fascinating report, “Consumer Debt in the U.S.,” José D. Roncal explains, “The branding of our world has become one of the major problems linked to consumer debt. Everything is so branded, part of our personal identity has become tied up with the labels and products we choose. A teenage boy walks into an athletic shoe store. Before he buys anything, he spends a long time just standing there, staring at four walls stocked from floor to ceiling with too many choices. The most pressing question on his mind is not, ‘Which one will fit best?’ It’s certainly not, ‘Which one can I afford?’ It’s most likely, ‘Which one is me?’”⁷ Add to the mix instant and easy revolving credit, with virtually no time between desire and fulfillment, and you have a perfect formula for escalating debt.

In the 1920s, Edward Bernays, the “father of public relations” and nephew of Sigmund Freud, began to experiment with ways to manipulate public opinion. He was the first to use the psychology of the subconscious and “third-party authorities” to influence behavior in the marketplace. Since then, we consumers have been powerfully influenced by advertising. Roncal asserts that the psychological effects of advertising on the use of credit are nearly irresistible: “Once the suggestion has been planted in the minds of consumers that they are linked to the same habits as others similar to themselves, the marketing mission has been accomplished. It’s the same ‘wisdom of the crowd’ herd mentality that leads to stock bubbles.” This is one reason that even when people know that their spending is out of control, it’s difficult for them to put the brakes on. “When you throw technology into the mix,” says Roncal, “over-spending and debt picks up speed and puts tremendous demands on our self-control.”

If we look at the statistics, Edward Bernays’s experiments in public manipulation seem to have been highly successful. “Government statistics show online sales grew from $4.6 billion in 1999 to $136 billion in 2007,” Roncal reports. Forrester Research, a technology and market research company, projects that U.S. Web sales will climb from the current $200 billion annually to nearly $300 billion by 2015. As Roncal concludes, “If that’s the case, we could be clicking our way into astronomical heights of credit card debt!”⁸

Of course, we can’t pin all the blame for our sometimes questionable decisions on marketing gurus and ignore our own responsibility. Yet it’s apparent that certain types of credit require less thoughtfulness. Every form of credit can be used consciously and responsibly. Any form of borrowing and spending that intrinsically requires time for conscious reflection and a review of one’s budget will be most helpful in steering us clear of the rocks in the stream.

Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility.… In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.

—Michael Korda

Getting Control of Your Life

Last year, as part of my research, I attended an educational forum and press conference at which consumers shared their strategies for managing in tough times. There I met a career woman named Priscilla. She lives in a small Virginia town, attends church, and loves life. She married young, started working, and did everything she believed was needed to create a pretty nice life. Yet everything fell apart.

Priscilla quietly shared, “I went through a divorce, and that hurt my credit.” She paused and then explained what happened next: “And then I lost my job.” Already devastated from the breakup of her marriage, now she had poor credit, dwindling finances, mounting debt, and no income. As frequently happens, the divorce set her back emotionally and financially, but over time she persisted. “Eventually,” she said, “I found a good job with the State of Virginia.”

Even with her new job, her finances were in disarray. She made her next priority climbing out of her financial hole. Like other people who spoke that day, she wasn’t sure where to turn. She hadn’t wanted to face the problem. It had been easier to let things slide. However, she knew that she needed to make some tough choices, and tackling those choices head-on had become important to her. Priscilla continued, “I went to a consumer finance company near where I live and asked if they could help. I wanted to pay old bills and get my payments into something I could manage. I wanted to rebuild my credit.” She was pleased with the process, explaining what happened at the loan office. “We went over my budget carefully. We got all my bills together, and they helped me consolidate everything. They also taught me how to call creditors and handle each debt appropriately.

“It wasn’t easy, but facing the situation and getting my finances under control made me feel great,” Priscilla told me. “I was able to finally pay bills that had been lingering for years. Since then, my credit score has gone up, and my budget is balanced. I don’t live lavishly, but I’m able to purchase things again and move ahead. I was able to get control of my finances and my life.” As she stepped away from the podium at the press conference, Priscilla’s smile filled the room. People milled around her to congratulate her on her achievement, and I felt pleased for her. I was struck again by the power of taking personal responsibility and bringing consciousness to our financial decisions. It’s a big step in creating genuine prosperity.

Back to Tony

Tony Cupisz is not the first person to observe, “Life is not necessarily fair.” But he also understands that sometimes progress is made simply by putting one foot in front of the other. “Your circumstances may not be easy,” explains Tony. “Mine certainly weren’t. You may not know what you’re going to do or how you’re going to do it. But you have to do something every day. Just do something. Even if it’s absolutely what you don’t want to do, you have to take steps. It’s about taking personal responsibility for your life. To earn money and pay your bills, you may need to take a job that you don’t want to take. But then, when you do, you might meet people, and perhaps something will lead you to something else, to something good. Anything can lead you to something new. These are life’s stepping-stones.”

Tony’s observation reminded me of Norman Vincent Peale’s wise advice: “Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.”⁹