If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.

—Billy Graham

A true story of awakening:

The United States in the 1960s was not an easy time for many. Working on the railroads, the boy knew hard work from a young age. His father was the type to never skip a day of work. He put his son to work when he was five years old. Any time he wasn't in school, he would work on the tracks. It was rewarding in its way, as he got paid a dollar an hour and got a free lunch, but hardly the stimulation the young kid wanted.

His rural town in Ohio wasn't much to talk about. William McKinney had been born there. And the public library, a memorial to the U.S. president, was a tourist attraction. His family was deeply rooted in working class values. He saw the suffering and misery on the faces of his fellow locals. He heard the stories when neighbors would stop by for a cup of coffee or after work for some homemade wine. Everyone struggled.

The fuzzy family television told similar stories. Even hit comedies like Gilligan's Island innocently programmed people to think rich people were greedy and not likeable. And top shows like The FBI Story taught that people do horrible things in the pursuit of money. Other TV shows, like The Rockford Files, conveyed the idea that money corrupted. The programming was insidious, but few noticed. After all, it was simply entertainment.

From a young age, he knew he wanted to be a writer. Part of it was the mythos around the writer's life—the adventures impervious to the doldrums of most people's lives. He read books by and about Jack London and lusted for the wild life. Traveling far and wide, experiencing exotic cities, and tangling with fabled monsters were captivating thoughts that could barely fit in that small-town boy.

But part of it was his desire to give joy. He wanted to make people feel better. It's hard for a young child to understand the complexities of the whats and whys behind people's suffering, but the long faces and smell of sadness was easy to understand.

He wanted to make people happy.

He wanted to write comedy, or humorous plays, to make people smile. He wanted to write books that inspired people to reach for a happier life. He was tired of seeing the doom and gloom, and feeling his own sadness at the struggle of life. He wanted to make a difference with his writing.

The writer's itch spread deeper within him as he grew older. The weight of the world around him made that itch spread faster. He didn't know what it would look like, what he'd write, but he knew he wanted to write. And he knew he wanted to make people happy. Seeing the horrors of the Vietnam War broadcast into everyone's home. Witnessing the civil rights struggles right on national television. Experiencing the trauma of a beloved U.S. president, a senator, and a leader of peace being assassinated were almost too much to bear.

Being young and unschooled in the ways of the world, he didn't know how to accomplish his goal. He went to college, but hated it. He failed nearly every subject, except the ones on American literature. There, he shined.

He put himself through a self-study program, reading biographies of authors, devouring books about writing. Because he was interested in human potential, he also read about self-help, psychology, hypnosis, philosophy, and metaphysics. Books like The Magic of Believing changed his life, teaching him that if he just believed, he could accomplish anything. Even being a writer.

He continued to work weekends on the railroad, hating the labor but enjoying the pay. He saved a small fortune for a kid, nearly $2,000, working on the rails. He said his goodbyes and jumped on a three-day bus to Dallas, Texas. Why Dallas? Because he loved the Dallas Cowboys. They were his favorite football team. And TV shows like Dallas made the city alluring.

He was not prepared for the intensity of a big city. The hustle, the speed, the diversity, the fury.

Dallas dug in hard. Work was hard to find. Friends were even harder to find. He was a likeable guy, outgoing, with a whip of a sense of humor. But he felt invisible. No job he got would stick. He made no friends at work. It was a struggle. And it almost broke him.

One day, after being in Dallas only weeks, with only $1,000 left of his hard-earned savings, he saw an ad for high-paying hourly work in the oilfields of Alaska. An adventure, good money, and hard work. He knew how to work, he ached for the adventure, and the money couldn't be better timed.

He went to the recruiting office and handed over the final $1,000 he had to pay for both the trip and the opportunity. His nerves bristled, but he was excited. Alaska was a bold adventure calling his name. He put all his chips, all his money, on the gamble of high-paying labor. He planned to work for a year, save money, and return for a sabbatical of writing. It was a bold, well-reasoned plan to implement a dream.

It never happened.

The company went bankrupt. His last $1,000 trapped behind their shuttered doors. Nobody answered the phones, no address was listed, and his money was gone. Later, he learned that the owner committed suicide.

It started as shock. Then disbelief. Which then turned to anger. And then panic. And finally an inescapable desperation.

What now?

All the hours of hearing his neighbors back home spill their sob stories about life's struggles hadn't prepared him for the reality of it. He knew he could go back home. His parents would welcome him, even if with the unbearable “I told you so” that was bound to come.

But he couldn't. He couldn't go home. He had to move forward. He had to get through this. He had no idea how, he had no money, and very quickly, he had no home to sleep in.

The next 15 years of his life were shrouded in poverty. He spent several months as a homeless man, sleeping on church pews, the Dallas post office steps, in the public library, and on benches at the train station.

The train station was the hardest. Working the railroad was the source of his early strength, his convictions, his wild imaginings, his work ethic, and the money he used to set off to claim his adventure, his success as a writer, and his chance to make people happy. Now the tracks simply taunted him. They said nothing. But they saw him. They knew he had failed.

Harder and faster he plunged. He watched as his soul, once a mighty block of marble, was slowly chipped away as if by the hand of a careless sculptor with no vision.

He felt hopeless.

He got off the streets by saving a little money from odd day jobs, hitchhiked out of town, and migrated to Houston. The big city was a boomtown in the late 1970s and early 1980s. You could get a job doing manual labor in the morning, quit it if you didn't like it, and get another job in the afternoon.

The dreaming writer did this. He took countless jobs, some of them so unfitting for him that he cried on his way to work. Along the way, he married a woman just as alone as him. Together, they struggled. They took turns working. Sometimes she worked while he wrote. The woman became an alcoholic, had to be hospitalized, and began the long journey of AA meetings and healing. She didn't drive at the time, so the writer-to-be drove her and attended almost every meeting. It was a nightmarish time, but they endured.

Over the years, the writer got published. He saw a play he wrote produced in Houston. He made no money, but received a taste of success. Cover story feature articles were published in national magazines. They paid little, but they built confidence. His first book came out in 1984. He made nothing but it was a personal milestone.

As he persisted in pursuing his dream, lucky breaks came about. Someone he met introduced him to a wealthy businessman. The writer was paid well to ghostwrite his book. Then the Internet came along, and the writer put his words online. Things began to speed up. Success, a little bite at a time, began to come his way. The sun began to shine. As years passed, he became more known, had more books published, and was invited to be in a movie called The Secret that changed the world.

Why? How?

In the deepest moments of desperation, where our souls are trapped in a viscous, primordial sludge, there is no momentum. There is no movement. All appears to be locked in darkness. Sadly, some rot away in this thick desperation.

But if not, what pulls you out? How do you escape? It takes a supernatural force, one buried within us. The same force that drives the Awakened Millionaire. The same force this young man used to finally escape and prosper.

Passion. Purpose. Mission.

His passion was to be a writer. His purpose was to make people happy. Together, they form the existential mission that finally pulled him from the sludge. It took years. Years of work, years of effort, years of dedication.

But he did it. He became the writer. He made millions of people happy. And even though money wasn't his main goal, he made millions doing it.

When he was poor in Houston, his wife broke a jar of tomato sauce intended to be their special meal for the week. He didn't have the dollar in his pocket to buy another jar.

He now has millions of dollars—enough for a sea of sauce if he wanted. But even with his prosperity, his passion is the same. His purpose is the same. His mission is the same.

He wants to write and he wants to make people happy. He is living the creed of the Awakened Millionaire.

He wanted to profit from his passion.

He wanted to profit by making a difference.

He wanted to profit by helping, serving, inspiring, and transforming.

And he did.

Today, he lives his mission.

This is my story.

I tell it for a simple reason: Both you and I are of the same flesh and blood. We share the same human condition. And whether your story is like mine or not is irrelevant. I came from the depths of poverty and despair. I've tasted the worst of the worst. I went through the dark night of the soul. And here I am.

And my path to the Awakened Millionaire is one of many.

To the person who doesn't yet have a clear vision of their passion, purpose, and mission, you can find your way to become an Awakened Millionaire.

To the person who is filled with passion, driven by purpose, dedicated to a mission, but hasn't found the way to execute, you can find your way to become an Awakened Millionaire.

To the person who has tried and tried and tried…and failed and failed and failed to bring life to their passion and purpose, you can find your way to become an Awakened Millionaire.

To the person who already experiences financial prosperity, but who lacks the passion, purpose, and mission, you can find your way to become an Awakened Millionaire.

No matter what path we come from, the creed of the Awakened Millionaire, the path of the Awakened Millionaire, and the vision of the Awakened Millionaire is ours for the taking.

If we all gathered in one place and shared our stories, those stories would be a wild and unpredictable mish-mash. But no matter our starting point, no matter our challenges, no matter our passions, no matter our visions, the path to becoming an Awakened Millionaire is a path we all can follow.

Because it is simple in its very origin. The path to becoming an Awakened Millionaire is uncomplicated, but it does have four pillars that it must be built on. They are:

1. We must awaken our passion.
2. We must forge our purpose.
3. We must activate our mission.
4. We must embolden our relationship with money.