What does it really mean to be rich? Most people think it’s about money. But it’s actually about something deeper – power, purpose, and a very specific way of thinking.
In this video, I read the Preface to The Certain Way – a modern rewrite of Wallace D. Wattles’ 1910 classic The Science of Getting Rich. I’ll be reading the whole book, chapter by chapter
This isn’t a self-help scheme. It’s a practical method. A way of thinking and acting that reshapes not just your income, but your life.
You don’t need to study philosophy or quantum physics. You don’t need to believe in magic or manifesting. You just need to apply a handful of clear principles – consistently – and watch what happens.
This is the start of a full video reading of my book. If your most pressing need is money, start here. If you’re looking for clarity in a noisy world, this may be your path.
This video introduces the full reading of The Certain Way — my secular, updated version of Wallace D. Wattles’ 1910 book The Science of Getting Rich.
Wattles’ original book was the spark behind generations of self-help ideas. But it’s written in outdated language. I’ve stripped it back to its core principles and rebuilt it for today – for creative people living in an age of distraction, algorithmic pressure, and economic uncertainty.
This is not about hustle culture or blind manifesting.
It’s about:
Thinking with clarity
Acting with purpose
Creating with integrity
And staying certain in uncertain times
The Certain Way is rooted in creative practice, not mysticism. And this video series reads the whole book aloud – chapter by chapter – with the clarity and depth it deserves.
Subscribe to the newsletter for Chapter 1 and the rest of the chapters to follow.
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The best way to support my work and get yourself on track is to buy the book or pdf today.
I had a realisation the other night: platforms, magazines and influencers don’t just entertain us, they instil desires. They make us want things we never even knew existed until someone told us we needed them.
In this video I share a story from my teenage years, when music magazines filled my head with dreams of guitars, amps, and the rockstar lifestyle. Looking back, I can see how the system pushed that dream to keep the industry going – creating fresh talent to exploit.
Fast-forward to today, and it’s the same game. YouTube, Instagram and influencers are not selling you objects, they are instilling desire. And if you’re not careful, you’ll spend your life chasing things you don’t really want.
Let’s unpack how consumerism works through culture and platforms, and how we can resist by stepping off the hamster wheel and rediscovering the joy of what we already have.
I’ve always loved history – not for blaming our ancestors, but for learning lessons we can apply today. History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.
I grew up in the shadow of the British Empire. At school we were taught about the East India Company and how this small group of men built an empire from a coffee-house meeting. Over time, they controlled ports, armies, and trade. But what they were really doing was extracting value – draining wealth from India and across the Empire, funnelling it back to Britain until the whole system collapsed.
Fast-forward to today: YouTube has done something very similar in the so-called “creator economy.” What began as an exciting place for creators to share ideas turned into an advertising empire. Google’s customers are not us, they’re the advertisers. We, the creators, provide the content that keeps the machine fed. All the value rises upward, to shareholders.
That doesn’t mean YouTube is evil. In fact, it’s generous: it gives us a free global distribution platform. But if you build your whole creative life on YouTube alone, you’re building on someone else’s land. Like the Empire, they own the ships, the ports, the rules. You own nothing.
So what do you do?
Be grateful. YouTube is an incredible tool — treat it as a gift.
Use it as a distribution network, not a livelihood. Forget virality and AdSense.
Own your own land. Build your own site, your own list, your own community.
Think creatively, not competitively. The Certain Way is about staying on the creative plane, not fighting the algorithm.
The lesson from history? Empires always fall. But creators who value creativity, gratitude, and ownership will outlast them.
You may have heard the universe described as a catalogue – just believe hard enough and what you want will arrive. It’s not true. Imagine Amazon. There’s abundance out there in their warehouses, anything you can imagine, waiting to be delivered. But first, you’ve got to stop wishing and actually order something. You need the means to pay for it. You need to give your delivery address. You need to be ready to receive it. Want it tomorrow? Get Prime or pay for express. Otherwise, it doesn’t come. Anything else is just window shopping. The Certain Way is this: form a clear image of what you want, then open the channels that bring it to you. Go earn the money. Actually place the order. Go find people who might help you. Do anything you can think of to help the thing you want to happen come towards you. Stop dreaming. Start doing.
When you imagine something – a project, a relationship, a home – you don’t make it real by simply wishing for it. You make it real by creating channels that allow it to flow into your life.
This is the core of The Certain Way, my modern take on Wallace D. Wattles’ 1910 classic The Science of Getting Rich. Wattles taught that we can either live competitively – fighting for scraps – or creatively – offering value and allowing good things to come to us.
Putting channels in place can be as simple as picking up the phone to arrange coffee with a friend or as complex as years of study, networking, and preparation for a world-changing project. The principle is the same:
You can’t receive rain if you don’t have a bucket under the downpipe.
This isn’t about passively waiting for luck, and it’s not about aggressive acquisition. It’s about holding a clear vision, taking deliberate steps, and making space for what you want to arrive.
We keep calling it burnout, but I think we need to tell the truth.
What many creators are feeling right now isn’t just exhaustion – it’s grief.
Grief for the promise we bought into. For the dream that content creation would be fulfilling, sustainable, and meaningful. Grief for the parts of ourselves we gave away in return for metrics, likes, and a whisper of success.
I’ve lived through it. I know what it feels like to wake up hollow, to not recognise yourself in the mirror, and to wonder if there’s anything left to say.
But here’s what I’ve learned:
You’re not done. You’re not broken.
You’re just grieving.
And like the soil the farmer leaves left fallow for a season, you will recover and create again.
Building a personal brand, chasing followers, or playing algorithm games is not creativity, it’s performance.
Real creativity starts with an idea, not one you invent, but one you encounter. Ideas come looking for you, because you’ve done the work, lived the life and because you’ve tuned your mind to the right frequency.
You don’t own the idea.
You collaborate with it.
You bring it into form as best you can.
You may never finish your masterpiece, but you might be the one who plants the seed that one day inspires a Mozart, a Turing, a Picasso or someone no one’s heard of yet – someone who changes everything.
That’s legacy, and legacy doesn’t need attention.
It needs truth, commitment, and presence.
Create to reach into Nature, into mind, into meaning, into something real.
And teach others to do the same.
The more you walk, the more you make a path for others to follow.
This is the Certain Way.
Legacy, not influence.
Faith in form.
Gratitude for the gift.
And the quiet, disciplined work of bringing ideas into the world with integrity, and without apology.
Absolute certainty invites Hubris and inevitably, Nemesis.
In Greek mythology Hubris was the worst kind of pride or self-congratulatory pomposity, that would call to Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance and retribution, to come and sort things out. in short – Pride comes before a fall.
Certainty, however, keeps us on a chosen path, heading in a chosen direction, doing what we want knowing that there will be a preferred outcome.
The trouble starts when doubt or uncertainty enters the room.
There is an everyday kind of certainty that allows us to run our lives. The Sun comes up in the morning. The TV works when you switch it on. Trump will be grabbing the headlines. Coffee keeps you awake at night.
The smallest thing can upset your certain daily routine. The milk has gone off. Someone ate the last slice of bread The coffee machine broke. It spirals out from there into a day of chaos.
It doesn’t need to, but that’s how it happens. Can you, in that moment, think, “I’m so grateful that there is clean water in the tap, that cornflakes taste really interesting with orange juice or that crisp bread is a great and handy alternative to toast in the morning.”
The bigger the disruption, the harder to stay grateful and grounded.
In our life, at the moment, we are moving house and downsizing. How is a roomy family home going to fit into where we are going? Will we make friends? Will old friends come to see us? Will there be problems in the new neighbourhood? Are we doing the right thing? What if, what if what if…?
To try and calm my brain down, I go to read The Certain Way, my own book based of Wallace Wattles’ book, The Science of Getting Rich. Surely I have some advice in there for myself?
As I read, I feel uneasy. Who am I to put this book and idea out there into the world if I can’t be certain of what lies ahead in the next few months?
My advice to someone in the same situation sounds a bit glib. Be grateful for the fantastic opportunities that are opening up for you. For this lovely new house that you have found, and that has found you. A house that is calling you to this new neighbourhood, a surprise area that was not on the list of choice places to move to.
It’s not just about the person moving, it’s also about the place making room for you to enter, it had to be ready for you as much as you were ready to move.
Be thankful for all the new opportunities and experiences that will open up. the closeness to family, new friends, new ideas.
Be thankful for the opportunity to go through all the stuff that fills our life and house at the moment. To choose the things we love and say goodbye to the things we have no need for anymore. To thank our old things for their service and send them on their way to a new home, if possible, or back into the system of creative recycling of the world.
That is not an easy message to hear when problems are pouring your way, and it really does sound glib to just say, “Don’t worry about stuff that hasn’t happened yet and work your way though the stuff that needs attending to in a timely fashion.”
But that is the way to handle it – he says, as his wife comes in the room and talks about how we might keep some curtains we hate because they will cover that new window until we get new blinds instead.
In all the maelstrom of chaos and uncertainty, try to keep a tiny part of the brain ticking over, reminding you that there is a certain way, to not fall into the stream of doubt and be swept away in the flood. To find a tiny piece of higher ground and wait.
One of those everyday certainties is that the flood will recede, the sun will come out again and the ground will dry up, ready for you to carry on in a sure and certain way.
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