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When I was a kid I loved to play with Marbles, there would be this kind of play for marbles games in which all the kids from my street would gather at the park in which we had our marble arena, the game was very simple and the rules were known and respected by everyone just as a religious respect the bible. No one would argue against the rules. That made the game very fun.

The point of the game was to strike your opponent’s marble with yours and for doing that you would gain your opponent’s marble. There were also other advanced versions of this game in which you would be able to win 2 marbles if you strike it and the marble goes out of the square or ring. That was my most favorite game, because I had a very high strike rate and had a nice control of my marble. It was interesting but we all had a Favorite Marble and also a Lucky one, both were the most important ones and you would never trade them, for that you would have other marbles.

I had a good friend or so to say my game partner, we would always play together and one day we decided to grow our marbles together in association. We got a shoebox and each of us put our actual marbles there, we had both about 2 handful of marbles to start so we had a long way to fill the shoebox as that was our goal. It was very exciting and I really wanted to achieve that goal. We played every time we could in order to fill our shoebox during a year, and we almost got our shoebox full…

Little I knew at that time (I was around 12 years old) that would be my first lesson about how to make money.

It is incredible but all the same variables for the marble game were as important as if I were to try to make money in the real world. Let’s do a Review of all them:

1. Start Capital

For whatever you wish to start you need some sort of capital, for that me and my game partner had around 4 handful of marbles, we would use that to start build our marble empire. Obviously is always important to have enough start capital to make things right, if you run out of start capital in the middle of the process then all your efforts will be in vain and failure is imminent. If you fail because of a miscalculation you might end up considering that what you decided to do was not profitable when the real problem was lack of capital.

2. A good game partner

Your partner should over all means be someone that you can trust over all things, for example I knew that my game partner was so trustable that the shoebox would always be at his home and I was fine with that, if you are not even really able to trust your partner your marbles then why would I want him to be my partner? , just because he is good at the game?

Having a partner will certainly leverage your efforts as all that is related to build a fortune grows exponentially, you need someone of who you would be able to trust your money without even have second thoughts about that, if you doubt about him or her then just forget it and look for someone else.

3. An arena in which to play (market)

Marbles are always held by other persons, so if you want to have them you will need to have a group of people big enough so you can gain marbles from someone in a game or controlled environment. (In this case the marble game).

For money the same rule applies, money is held by humans and you need to have a big enough market in which you will be able to use your skills in exchange for the money.

4. Knowledge of the rules and how the game works.

Back in those days, there was no single rule of this game I would not know, I was the King of the rules I would always be the first chanting some of the rules in order to control the game to my favor, if my opponent was not fast enough to call a rule against me I would have already won some edge. Most of the time my opponents would not pay too much attention to the rules so they would not be able to counter-attack.

The same is completely true in the money world, If you know lots of rules then you have already an edge over the others, knowing where to go to make more money and how to protect it works the same as chanting those marble rules. What if you decide to lend some money to someone and you are not prepared enough to ask for a guarantee to the borrower, You already lost your edge. Get the point?

5. Skills to play the game

Obviously skills were paramount, if I were not able to strike my opponent’s marble with certain accuracy then I would get hit first. In this part I was above average but also not the best of the best, I had my technique and if my opponent would go too far away from me I would not be able to strike his marble, that was the main reason why I liked the square or ring kind of game which was more advanced, because I knew that if I was able to force my opponent to stay close to me I would almost always be able to hit him first.

I knew my weakness and my strengths and because of that I would never play other kind of marble game but only the advanced one.

This applies like a ring to a finger to the money world, it is exactly the same thing. You need to know what are you doing, have skills, have practiced, be a professional, know your opponents and know your strengths and weaknesses.

If you want to sharpen your skills there is only one way to do it: practice, practice and practice a little more. There is no other way, obviously practicing is costly and more in the money world as it might be possible that there is no other way to go but by doing real transactions so it is ok to loose when you are learning. Do not despair and keep moving forward.

6. Pick your games.

I was also very aware of my opponents, I knew how good or bad they could be in my area of expertise, I would assess myself, how good is my strike rate at the moment, how many marbles have I won or lost so I know if it is worth to risk a couple of marbles against someone that is very good. I would also do some test games with new opponents I did not know and that way I would be able to assess if I will keep playing with them or not. For me, the following was very important: “There is always a better opportunity to win”.

In the real world of money the problem is not failing but missing opportunities, they are always in constant influx, there will not be a day in which a new opportunity will be somewhere for you to grab, an opportunity that will fit your profile in a high percentage. Not all opportunities are suited for each of us, it depends on ourselves but still every time the world and our economies keep expanding and contracting there will be more opportunities at hand for you to grab.

Thinking that there is no way to make money is like negating life. Life is Money, Money is like the blood that flows in our body. If there is no money our society will just die. So better change your way of thinking.

7. Good Management

My game partner and I, would assess ourselves everyday and in front of our shoebox full of marbles, we would think and say: “Today we will not risk more than 10 marbles each, so If we loose them we will just stop for today, it is not our day”. I have to say that for being 12 year old kids I honestly do not know how we came with that idea of management, but I have to say that it worked great!!!, I assume that experience would let us know about how many marbles we would need to determine if that day was our day. That means that if I would be loosing 5 marbles in almost no time I would know that I am not doing good but I also still had the chance to recover easily with my other 5 marbles left, I did not need 20 marbles to know that I had to stop. I knew myself and also did my game partner.

After a good day of playing I would be returning to our shoebox with 1 or 2 pockets full of marbles, WHAT A GREAT SENSATION,,, I did enjoy every single moment when I heard the marbles piling up in my shoebox!.

Money Management is by far one of the single most important ingredients you would ever need to learn if you want to generate money and keep it. You need to be able to set your budgets, do some estimations, determine your probabilities and make everything fit your actual situation. I am very sure that everyone of you would be able to be successful in anything you would care to achieve if you love whatever you decide to do. There will always be some demand for your services, just as you are reading this which is one of my wishes, so there is demand for what I type right now. The problem might be that you are not managing your resources correctly and so your idea will die with it.

I have to say that management is one of the most fun things ever and over time this topic will be extended at success-is-in-you.com .

8. Discipline

When we would go to the field to play for marbles, there were always lots of people, screaming, chanting and competing. It was like a little battlefield in a good sense, normally kids would not fight because everyone respected the rules but could happen. Sometimes “foreigner” kids from other blocks would come to test our playground and you might not know how good or bad they would be, so here is when our discipline would come into play. If the environment was not the right one me and my partner would just restrain to play, easy to say but when you see the marbles rolling you feel like to play. Being disciplined and sticking with our plan of not loosing more than we had decided was sometimes not an easy task but rarely we would break our own rules.

Same is true for the money world, you need to stick to your plan once you have it set up, do not break your rules and do not just do stuff because you are bored. Discipline is something that you earn by being hard with yourself but then it will generate excellent results. Our society is really bad at teaching us discipline, most of us confuse freedom with lack of discipline. Saying that you are free to watch as much TV as you want is very different as saying “today I will watch only 1 hour TV and do it.”. You know when you have some discipline when you feel bad that you have broken some rules that you have set for yourself.

9. Attitude and the right mindset

When playing the game, I would always be serious about it and looking it as a business even though I was enjoying it completely. The thing was that my joy came from winning and in order to win I had to be prepared. I had the right mindset and I was ready to chant and apply all the rules that the game would let me and doing that would satisfy me greatly. I was always secure of my chants and plays, I would not hesitate, If I had to chant something I would do it with a firm voice like I know what I am doing. Boy! This is article is really making me go back to those days I feel happy now.

Again real Money world is the same, you doubt you are already a looser, you cannot just be indecisive when doing any kind of transaction, doing that will just cost your money and all your past efforts, so better be prepared, if you feel hesitant then better wait for another moment, analyze yourself and determine what makes you hesitate, sometimes your intuition is letting you know that what you are doing is not good enough or maybe you just need more education. Being self confident and of what you do is very important because winning start inside you. If you really want to increase your self confidence then do some sport that would make you feel confident of your abilities.

So my dear friends if you have kids and they get the fever of playing with marbles do not hesitate and buy them a bag of marbles and encourage them to duplicate the amount of marbles in a certain period of time, maybe your kids will be able to teach you a valuable lesson.