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King Midas vs Hans: Multiplication vs Attrition: Finding The Riches

You’re probably familiar with the fictional King Midas, who turned objects to gold with a touch of his hand. The downside is that he was unable to control this, and thus turned people to gold as well. But take it metaphorically, and having the “Midas touch”, of course, is a good thing. King Midas, however, also has a counterpart, Hans, who is like an anti-King Midas, turning everything he touches into something less.

A few years back, when I was managing several dozen young local musicians, I had one particularly talented young vocalist/ guitarist on my roster who wanted to be a history teacher. I had a tough time convincing him how talented he was.

AY, as I’ll call him, told me of his own experience, which parallels an old European (possibly German) tale known as “Hans and Gold”. According to AY’s version, Hans was a farmer who started a journey with a bar of gold. He soon got to a point in his journey where he needed something. All he had for trade was the gold, so he traded his gold. What he got back, however, was of lesser value.

Hans kept encountering these situations, trading what he had for something of lesser value. This happened to Hans several times, and at the end of his journey, all he had left was a pile of straw. Now as a farmer, maybe the straw was useful, if he had a horse. But he had already traded in everything he owned for that bar of gold.

This process of loss is sometimes called attrition, where something devalues or disintegrates through constant decrease. Many people go through it in life without realizing it. Such uncontrollable loss often comes from unwitting self-sabotage, which in turn stems from feelings of low self-esteem.

After telling me about Hans and Gold, AY told me of his own similar experience. He and his girlfriend won $10,000 in a radio contest. (I don’t remember which of them actually won, but they shared the winnings.) So they bought a motorcyle and set out on a journey from Ontario, Canada, through the United States, generally heading west.

The exact details of their trip now escape my faulty memory, but it includes being caught underneath a transport truck while on the bike, getting caught in a downpour while riding near Salt Lake City, Utah, trading in the now mostly useless bike for a crappy car, etc., etc. By this point, they had very little money left, had been arguing a great deal, and generally having a miserable time.

They made their way up through Washington state, into the Canadian province of British Columbia with the last bit of their money. AY’s girlfriend called her father, collect, and managed to get a prepaid airline ticket back home. AY, however, being the self-sufficient sort, stayed in Vancouver for many months, working as a dishwasher and cook to earn the money he needed for the trip back home.

The couple eventually got back together by the time I met them, but ultimately parted ways. Their relationship problems often spilled over and affected members of AY’s band, who thought of his girlfriend as another Yoko Ono, causing trouble and being a divisive force.

I never got to know AY all that well, so I can’t draw any parallels between him and the fictional Hans, except for what he’s told me. He did seem unaware of his vocal abilities, had some irritating beliefs about WWII, and seem to attract conflict to his life. But I thought of him when I heard about a young man from Montreal, Canada named Kyle MacDonald.

Kyle MacDonald, as his website suggests, got tired of paying rent and decided he wanted his own home. So he had this zany idea to trade up a red paper clip for a house, through a series of transactions. This young man was a subject of discussion this weekend at the Buddhist Truck Stop. While other people were dissing his crazy idea, I was thinking, “What a genius! King Midas returns.”

So far, Kyle has been having the opposite experience of AY, if his One Red Paper Clip weblog is accurate. So far, he’s managed to trad up from his red paper clip to a skidoo, a cube van, a trip to some hick town in British Columbia, and presently to a free year of rent in Arizona.

All I can say is wow. Sure, it’s easy to think, “There sure are a lot of idiots to fall for this guy’s scam.” But the other way to look at it is that there are a lot of generous people who want to help out an enthusiastic young man. I say bravo to him, for this incredible act of alchemy.

Alchemy, in a nutshell, is the study of being able to change common atomic elements into gold. Understand that scientists have never accomplished this feat. However, the work of alchemists resulted in the discovery of elements, substances, chemical processes and more. It is also tied in with mysticism, philosophy, spiritualism and much more.

If you take the meaning of alchemy and adapt it metaphorically, it means the study and act of taking something you have but don’t want and turning it into something valuable to you. By this definition, Kyle MacDonald is an alchemist, and one who must have enough of a positive mindset to have gotten as far as he has. (When was the last time you paid for a year of rent with a red paper clip?)

Kyle’s story actually isn’t all that unique. Back in the 1980s, when my father first started acquiring real estate, he used a technique called “nothing down”. The idea was to acquire distressed properties using no or little money of your own. Several real estate experts took advantage of the market at the time and held workshops on “nothing down”, then challenged people to an extreme experiment.

The exercise involved participants starting from nothing and ending up with real estate in their name. They would turn over all of their money, identification, and credit cards, then be dropped off in an unfamiliar city (in the United States). They were not allowed to leave until they had purchased a property with no money. This meant that if they had to stay several days, weeks or months, they’d have to come up with a way to get meals and lodging.

Not surprisingly, those people with a positive mindset and wealth mentality succeeded in this “reality” experiment. Some even managed to buy several properties and come away with valuable business contacts. And many of them did it in a week or less.

It’s an incredibly fascinating experiment that was repeated in cities all over the United States during the 80s and maybe the 90s. I’m not sure if anyone does it anymore, but I think it’d make for a more interesting reality show than some of the stuff on TV. It’s also an exercise in spiritual alchemy. Not everyone would succeed at it, primarily because of inhibitions about asking strangers - or anyone - for something, even a bite to eat.

The experiment really teaches you that even with no material wealth, we all have something in our personality that we can trade up for something else. For some people, it’s simply a sense of humour. (Ever wonder how come good Canadian comedians seem to have such an easy time becoming American citizens?) For others, it’s the ability to compliment someone sincerely, or just listen for a few minutes or a few hours. Or it could be knowledge that is valuable to someone else.

Whatever the case, understanding what you have within you that is valuable to others is the core of being a successful spiritual alchemist. And learning what your base elements are is a journey in itself. There will be ups and downs no matter how positive you try to be. (I’m proof of that.)

Study the biographies of successful people over time, and you’ll find a similar positive attitude and an ability to trade up from what they had to what they wanted. Elements of alchemy, as far as I’m concerned. Think of the greatest inventor of all time, Thomas Edison. Even after fire destroyed his workshop, and many of his inventions or notes were lost, he started over. Edison and other inventors like him (Ben Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci) have always been my heroes because they are prime examples of successful alchemists (and inventors).

I don’t reveal this very often, but I’ve been an spiritual alchemist now for over 30 years. Some of my experiments have worked, some haven’t. The problem, though, is that once you set your mind to be an alchemist, you step into a metaphysical existence which does not jibe well with most human beings you’ll encounter, nor with the world in general.

And the negative beliefs of others can affect your own successes if you are not fully, consciously aware of your environment. It’s hard to think that you are wealthy or can become wealthy if people around think and act like they are poor, even if they aren’t. If you’re around such people for long enough, you’re likely to either feel guilty for being well-off or their negative attitude will rub off on you, and you’ll suffer attrition. I’ve been through this many times in my life.

I know someone who has close to a million dollars in assets/ real estate. But a for a decade now, she thinks she’s poor, acts like it, and tells all her customers how badly she’s doing. And guess what? She’s been doing badly for several years. Many of her customers stopped coming. She brushes it off to other reasons, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they got tired of hearing her lament.

Besides the fact that no one wants to hear how poor you are when you’re taking their money, most people aren’t interested in someone else’s troubles in general. Worse when in their minds they think this woman is rich, but is saying otherwise.

It’s sad to see this, but often, there’s nothing you can do for someone when they’ve convinced themselves that they are poor. Wealth mentality has to come from within. Even in my poorest moments, I try to keep this in mind. Because there’s nothing worse than being poor and thinking that you’ll actually stay that way.

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