Starting this month, we will begin a series of Nelson Nash’s personally written BYOB lessons. Nelson used his best-selling book Becoming Your Own Banker © as the reference; we will continue these lessons until we have gone through the entire book.

Part I, Lesson 1: Becoming Your Own Banker Content: Page 11, Becoming Your Own Banker, Fifth Edition.

Perhaps it was that eminent author, “Anonymous,” that made the observation, “If you take all the money in the world and divide it equally among all the people in the world, within ten years time 97% of the money will be in the control of 3% of the people.” There is no way to measure the validity of this, but do you suspect that there is a lot of truth to it?

Even if you change the proportions to 75% vs. 25%, it still is an appalling situation. Have you ever wondered why this is happening? I think one strong possibility is that the common man knows next to nothing about the most important business in the world – banking! Without banking we are all back in the caves and dealing with each other by means of barter. Our standard of living would be vastly degraded.

When you go to buy something, money must flow from you to that other party in a relatively short period of time or, otherwise, those narrow-minded folks won’t do business with you. They have no sense of humor at all! Similarly, when you sell something, money must flow from that other party to you. The flow of money is absolutely necessary. It is the method of keeping score with one another. Where the money comes from is the subject of this course. It must come from a reservoir – a pool of money – a bank! And it must be adequate to complete the transaction plus all the contingencies of life that we all face. The money in your pocket is all part of the banking system.

Consider this analogy. Look at a globe and it is rather obvious that about 80% of the earth’s surface is water. The sun heats it up and causes some of it to evaporate into the atmosphere. That causes wind currents that carry the moisture around the earth and it will precipitate out as rain, sleet, snow, and hail. And, somewhere along the way some of it will flow through you and me – eight glasses per day. After all, we need to acknowledge that most of you is water and that proportion must remain fairly constant. Have we all not heard the phrase, “Don’t get dehydrated?” Does it dawn that you are a pool of water? When it flows through us, pray tell, where does it end up? Back in the oceans, of course! It is a system!

There is only one pool of money in the world. The fact that various banks, insurance companies, corporations, and individuals are managing it in various countries and currency denominations is incidental. To argue otherwise would be the equivalent of a person looking at the globe and saying, “Oh, look! There is South America – and look, there is the Amazon River flowing into the South Atlantic Ocean. But, that has nothing to do with the Indian Ocean on the other side of the world!” Nonsense! That is ridiculous! There is only one pool of water on the earth. It is all part of a system – and they are all connected in one way or another through the various forms of water–solid, liquid, or water vapor.

Another analogy – would you agree that everyone needs a heart? Its function is to pump blood to wherever it is needed within your body – so you need one, personally, and it must be functioning to make your blood flow. But, have you ever considered that you can live without one? I did, back in January 1988! The doctors had mine outside the chest cavity and were re-plumbing it in four places. They can’t do that without shutting it down for the duration of the surgery. My heart did not work for about two and a half hours! But, here I am talking to you today! What made all this possible?

There is this wonderful machine called a heart-lung machine that performs the functions of the heart. But, as I look back on this event, there is no way that I could classify those 2 ½ hours as “living.” That was “existing!” I don’t remember any of that time – thank God! The other thing I noticed is that the procedure was very expensive – but worth it! I would gladly have paid three times what it cost without objection.

Now, translate these analogies over into terms of money and banking and pay close attention to what is happening in the world of the common man. You will see that he is doing the equivalent of living on a heart-lung machine 35% of the time! Absurd! He should not be living on it at all!

This course is all about building a banking system so that you control 100% of your needs for money at all times. You can recapture that “financial energy” that is now flowing away from you (you will never see it again) and it will accumulate on an income tax-free basis for your benefit.

We live in an age of instant gratification, sound bites, and a pill for every known or imagined malady. This is the “now generation” – looking for immediate gratification for every action. Put on a garment and wear it for a while until something else comes along that looks more attractive – or worse, that is more “in style.” Becoming Your Own Banker is not of that nature – it is a major paradigm shift. This is a concept that needs thorough examination so that one can make a life-long decision. It can’t be done overnight. It will take a long time and will require patience and complete understanding – but if you absorb its meaning and adopt it as your “new paradigm” it will be worth all the effort!

Exercise: Try to figure out how much interest you pay per month.