Money is like air – it’s not important until you don’t have any. I can’t force financial management on you any more than you could make a child take a nap when she doesn’t want to. This guide will tell you what to do to make and manage money (spend less than you earn, invest the difference, reinvest the returns, blah, blah, blah). You know what to do, but until you are ready to put these ideas into action, you’ll continue to flounder. Some creative people will be perennially poor because they simply will not let money into their lives, and if it somehow sneaks in, they will find unique ways to get rid of it.  If you don’t feel like you deserve money in your live, you simply will not have it. This guide goes out of its way to show you how to change your attitude (for the better), but making the change is really an inside job. Start where you are with what you have (or don’t have). You can’t fix finances in one shot, so start small.

Make a commitment to be prosperous. This guide points the way and even holds your hand down the path, but you have to follow and put one foot in front of the other. Success is just around the bend if  you’ll just stay on the path to prosperity. Just keep hacking away. It’s your responsibility to make money and then protect it. Not dealing with money can be hazardous to your health. Every area of your life suffers. Some people are unwilling or unable to change even if what they have done to this point with their money has been nothing but bad. They are afraid of change. Stubborn. Proud. Indifferent. Mostly, they are in denial. Managing your money is a habit. A good one. It eventually becomes second nature.

This is not a guide about economics. This is a guide about how to create wealth, happiness and above freedom. It is about improving the quality of your life. About being financially secure so you can free up your time and your mind to pursue things more worthy than fretting about finances.

There are too many different types of artists (and art forms) and just as many paths to prosperity for me to say which one will work best. It’s a personal choice you will have to make based on what your vision is, your tolerance for dealing with the details of the business side of the arts, how marketable your art form is, and how hard you are willing to work at it. My role is to show you that 1.  it is possible to make and manage money and, 2. to show you how to do it. There is no magic to making and managing money (it seems that way until you know what others have done and a light goes on in your head and you say, ‘i could do that’).  There are people who have less money and more debt but were able to turn their financial life around, so there are no legitimate excuses you can use to say ‘I can’t do it’. You can. You will. The time to start is now.