Spencer Sherman - The Cure for Money Madness: Break Your Bad Money Habits, Live Without Financial Stress--and Make More Money!

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideasas in escaping old ones.

John M. Keynes

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous monthsto speculate. The others are July, January, September,April, November, May, March, June, December,August, and February.

Mark Twain

Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities.

Graham Greene

My next book, as I tell anyone who will listen, will be entitled Everybody Should Write a Book, for I have found authorship to be the most challenging and rewarding of experiences. But I didn't do it alone, and I want to acknowledge and thank the many people who helped me turn my ideas into a book.

I am profoundly grateful to renowned marriage therapist and international workshop leader Anne Watts. The moment that we decided to join forces and create our Financial Intimacy workshops was the beginning of our commitment to take our message to a wider audience. Throughout the process, Anne has been my mentor, my friend, my public speaking coach, and my helpmate in writing this book. There would be no Cure for Money Madness without Anne.

Defying the conventional wisdom about the dangers of doing business with friends was one of my most successful and rewarding acts. Brent Kessel is my dear friend and my trusted colleague and business partner. He urged me to take a risk and do what my family had consistently failed atpartner in business with someone who is (practically) family. His life, his work, his beautiful family, and his own book, It's Not About the Money, have been inspirations for me, and I thank him for helping me flourish in innumerable ways.

My friend Reavis Moore was one of the first people to see a book in my ideas, and he introduced me to Bob Levine, my agent extraordinaire. I'm still astonished that Bob can be so fierce, say no so often, and yet be so incredibly generous and easy to love.

It was Bob who put me together with two women who played key roles in the book: Susan Dworkin, who gave the book its incredible and, as it turns out, absolutely prescient title; and Susanna Margolis, who helped me clarify my ideas with patience and common sense.

I am pleased to acknowledge and thank my wonderful colleagues at Random House: Kris Puopolo, my editor, who helped me sift through the dirt to get to the gold, the selfless and understated David Drake, Julie Sills, Catherine Pollock, and Stephanie Bowen. I am grateful also to my team in California for helping me to disseminate the cure far and wide: Jesse Seaver, Maria Freebairn-Smith, Savala Nolan, and Janine Sternlieb.

I was well along in the process of writing the book when I had the opportunity to meet the legendary Byron Katie. The instant rapport we shared and the seemingly automatic meshing of our work have been a profound joy to me. The Work of Byron Katie and her life-transforming Four Questions are a powerful resource for curing money madness.

So many other peopleteachers, friends, family, clients, and workshop participantshave contributed to the writing of The Cure for Money Madness. I reach back to my earliest influences, starting with my late parents: my father, Lester, who gave me permission to speak my mind even if no one agrees with what I have to say, and my mother, Phyllis, who gave me the sense that everyone is my friend. I am immensely grateful also to my very-much-alive dear sister, Carol, for showing me the value of a sense of humor. I am grateful to the three of them for their immense love and support.

Mordecai Mitnick was instrumental in helping me understand my own money madness so I could explain the cure. Charlie Fisher and Maury Stein, Brandeis professors who became close friends and mentors, provided valuable critical feedback on the manuscript. So did Pat Jennerjohn, Marty Dirks, Jonathan Marks, Brian Kennedy, Brian Heath, Billy White, Karen Solomon, and lifelong friend Bennett Cohen.

Jason Cole, my business partner and friend, helped me to focus on what I really love doing in the financial world and thereby helped create much of the material for this book. All the employees of Abacus have helped me to think outside the boxessential both for our business and for this book. Their community of support and collegiality has brought me a great deal of joy. In particular I must acknowledge Greg Aloia and Suzanne Lawrence, who have been long-term loyal and supportive colleagues at Abacus.

Paul Jaffe, owner of one of the last remaining independent book chains, Copperfield's, was another friend who saw the book in what I was doing and encouraged me to go forward.

Jocelyn Rasmussen, friend, coach, and all-around inspiration, gave me the confidence that my ideas could actually help people. She has been a steadfast cheerleader of both my life and this book.

Lenny Linsker offered me the use of that most prized commodity, a Manhattan apartment, so I could finish the manuscript.

Many people have served as mentors for this work, whether they know it or not: David Michael; Frank Donoghue, a once-and-current writing mentor; and George Kinder, a financial advisor I respect enormously and the man who launched me into the workshop arena. Al Winner was the first mentor in my life.

In providing emotional support, friends from every corner of my life helped make this book possible and enriched the writing process. B. J. Wasserman, Michael and Donna Stusser, Chris Deckker, Gera-lyn Gendreau, artists Alex and Allyson Grey, Bex Wilkinson, Josh Mailman, Parker Johnson, Dana Zed, and my dear lifelong friend and college roommate, Howard Levine, all provided the kind of steadfast encouragement that is so essential to the writing process.

My men's groupRick Phillips, Tom Sipes, Saha Johnson, Tom Wick, Jahn Ballard, Murray Lewis, and the late Andy Davidson was also a bulwark of support on more than 400 Monday nights over ten years. The collective wisdom and loving presence of these friends helped me share my money secrets, keep my money monster at bay, cure my own money madness, and stay madness-free.

From the world of established authors, I am grateful to exercise guru Kathy Smith, to Deepak Chopra, and to QVC host Kathy Levine, who can sell anything. All provided early encouragement that gave me confidence in my ideas.

I am deeply grateful to my wife, Janine, for her enthusiasm for my ideas, for her editing skills, for being my partner in financial intimacy, and for her love. I am also grateful to the two most extraordinary beings and teachers in my life, Jeremy and Talia, who remind me daily that my net worth is so much larger than I could possibly calculate.

Finally, I want to acknowledge my first cousins, Steven Gilbert and Jane Shelofsky. Even though money madness drove our families apart for decades, our recent reunion is proof that anything, even a fight over money, can be healed.