Trading Your Life Away: Do You Control Money or Does Money Control You?

By Rich Hopkins

Trading Your Life Away is the true story of an unsuccessful bond trader trapped in the world of money worshipthe spirit of mammon. He spent a career controlled by a compulsive drive to trade bonds, alternating between fear and greed to get money.

His life began to change on July 6, 2012, when he was touched by a supernatural encounter. While looking at the Bank of England in the square mile City of London, England, he was engulfed in a brilliant white light. He stood frozen with tears dripping down his cheeks as he clearly heard:
you have been controlled by the same spirit that controls the City of London - the spirit of mammon. It will begin to come off of you. As it does, it will begin to come off the City of London.

Rich looks at how the power of money has affected his life. If you see yourself locked up in an emotional prison as he was and want the key to filling your empty life, he offers a four-letter heart word as the escape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490878591

Rich Hopkins

For over twenty years, Rich Hopkins traded/managed/hedged fixed income securities, including over three years with the California Public Employees Retirement System, one of the largest and most powerful pension funds in the world. He ended his career in 1995 to become an entrepreneur, but to this day trades the marketan addiction coming under control. He and his wife of thirty years live in Phoenix, Arizona. They cherish the love of their three children and four grandchildren.

Book preview

Trading

Your

Life

Away

Do You Control Money or

Does Money Control You?

Rich Hopkins

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Copyright © 2015 Rich Hopkins.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright @1996. Used by permission of Tyndale Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (MSG) are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright @ 1993, 1994,1995. Used by permission of Nav Press Publishing Group.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Cover design by Joy Hopkins.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7860-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7859-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015906987

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/12/2018

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Do You Control Money? Or Does Money Control You?

Money Addiction

Trading Your Life Away

The Love of Money Defined

Controlled by The Spirit of Mammon

Across The Pond: A Supernatural Experience

Developing The Spirit Of Mammon: Traveling The Yellow-Brick Road

Finding The Faith Road: I Was Lost, Then I Was Found

Mammonized Family Redeemed

Back To The Square Mile: Mammonized

Free From the Spirit of Mammon

Detoxing the Spirit of Mammon - A Scientific Solution

How To Walk The Faith Road: Man Does Not Live By Bread Alone, But By Every Word That Comes Out Of The Mouth Of God

The Mammon Killer: A Heart Solution

Finding Peace and Contentment: The Mind of Heaven

Some Verses To Live By From The Bible, God’s Word To Us

Bibliography

Foreword

This revealing autobiography of Rich Hopkins gelled in a holistic approach to mend the mind and spirit, creating a simplistic strategy to break the chains of any addiction. Trading Your Life Away: Do You Control Money or Does Money Control You?is for anyone who desires to be released from an area of bondage and wants to experience freedom. Familiar with family destruction caused by gambling, I was encouraged by his story, the scientific studies he used to explain his story, and Biblically-based references that are to help live the life God intended.

Diana Pignato

Stewardship Leader

Gateway Church

Scottsdale, AZ

In Trading Your Life Away: Do You Control Money or Does Money Control You?, Rich Hopkins allows you to travel with him on his personal journey of revelation regarding the power of money to control. Without realizing it, Rich was trapped by the power of mammon and its influence and impact in all aspects of his life. It was only when he saw the clear light of realty that he was able to break away from the grip of money and possessions and finally find freedom through the power of Christ.

In the Bible, Jesus says something very powerful when He states no one can serve two masters. You will with hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." Each of us makes a choice as to whom we will serve: the God of the Universe or the god of money. For many years, Rich chose to serve the God of money until the one true God got his attention and changed his allegiance and his direction.

Rich’s experience is a challenge to each of us to seriously consider whom we serve. Are we following after and serving the wrong God? Are we aware of where that is leading us? If you are ready and willing to change, you will find Rich’s journey from financial bondage to liberating freedom a pathway to peace. I hope you will take full advantage of the wisdom you will find in the pages of Trading Your Life Away: Do You Control Money or Does Money Control You?

Dave Briggs

Stewardship Pastor

Central Christian Church, Phoenix, AZ

Preface

The book you are about to read was actually published in 2015 as my autobiography. I wrote it to a specific audience: to my family to explain why they had an absent dad and to Wall Street-type equity and bond traders addicted to a sort of gambling spirit. My vision was to take it to the traders working the capital markets in the City of London. It is now two years later. I have come to see my vision needed a magnifying glass viewed while consuming an energy drink. Though I went to London in September 2015 with the desire to market my book and minister to London’s traders, I was not prepared to tell my story. The follow-through was not in me. I didn’t have the burning call to do it because in my heart I was ashamed of my life. The last two years have humbled me to the point of truly understanding the supernatural experience described below that shook my world on July 6, 2012. It was the motivating push to write the book as first published.

In this revised edition of the book, I am leaving my story originally told as is. However, it is no longer the subject of the book. The book’s title is in two parts. Trading Your Life Away is my story. Do You Control Money or Does Money Control You? is the question and message to the reader. The subject of the book is now money addiction. My life story becomes the example of the love of money addiction and is, therefore, the latter portion of the book. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Darvin Smith of Boulder, CO and YWAM for the education on addiction. Most importantly, I ask my family to forgive me for trading my life away. Being deeply involved in the lives of my family is essential to an emotionally healthy family, and I was absent.

I must emphasize that the central focus of the book is a relationship with money, the love of money. In its extreme form, it is revealed as an addiction. Yet, it is hidden everywhere in our economy through marketing techniques that entice us to spend, spend, spend. Recent studies show that the bottom fifth of income earners in the United States spend 40% of their income on what economists call luxury goods and 60% on what they call necessities. Read The Love of Money Defined chapter below.

The book is written mainly to someone whose focus, whose life goals and values, revolve around money or the lack of it. Do you have a job so you can be productive, helpful, and relational or do you go to work with a narrow focus of accumulating money? Can you easily give away what you have or do you live in fear of lack? Do you gamble to try to satisfy the need?

Read on.

Rich Hopkins

February 2018

Do You Control Money? Or Does Money Control You?

Money Addiction

We begin with the supernatural experience that shook my world and now creates the framework for my study of the love of money addiction. It was a drizzly Friday morning, July 6, 2012. My wife, Mary Ann, my Youth With A Mission leader, Judy, and I walked from our Holborn Viaduct flat in the center of London to a huge roundabout called Bank. We stopped at a tourist information plaque describing the buildings around the Bank traffic circle. Looking across the busy intersection of several streets, we saw the Bank of England and the old London Stock Exchange. Facing the Bank of England, the British equivalent to America’s Federal Reserve, I put my hand on the plaque standing waist-high. As I began reading about the Bank of England, I suddenly stood frozen. A brilliant white light encased me. As tears started streaming down my cheeks, I clearly heard:

You are under the same spirit that controls the City of London, the spirit of mammon. It will begin to come off of you; as it does it will begin to come off the City of London.

The spirit of mammon is the Biblical term for the love of money. In its controlling form, it is an addiction. The second part of the book looks at how to identify the love of money. Let’s spend the first part of the book taking an inventory of you. Hopefully, you will be honest with yourself. You will see if your personality is susceptible to addictive behavior and whether the addictive love of money (spirit of mammon) could be lurking inside you. We will then live an example of it’s control through my life story as a bond trader.

Let’s look at YOU. Please answer yes or no the following twenty questions from Gamblers Anonymous to roughly gauge if you are bent toward a gambling spirit.

1. ___ Did you ever lose time from work or school due to gambling?

2. ___ Has gambling ever made your home life unhappy?

3. ___ Did gambling ever affect your reputation?

4. ___ Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?

5. ___ Did you ever gamble to get money with which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?

6. ___ Did gambling cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?

7. ___ After losing did you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?

8. ___ After a win did you have a strong urge to return and win some more?

9. ___ Did you often gamble until your last dollar was gone?

10. ___ Did you ever borrow to finance your gambling?

11. ___ Have you ever sold anything to finance finance gambling?

12. ___ Were you reluctant to use gambling money for normal expenditures?

13. ___ Did gambling make you careless of the welfare of yourself and your family?

14. ___ Did you ever gamble longer than you had planned?

15. ___ Have you ever gambled to escape worries or trouble?

16. ___ Have you ever committed, or considered committing an illegal act to finance gambling?

17. ___ Did gambling cause you to have difficulty sleeping?

18. ___ Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to gamble?

19. ___ Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by gambling?

20. ___ Have you ever considered self destruction as a result of your gambling?

TOTAL YES’S: ______

Compulsive gamblers answer yes to at least seven of these questions. Now answer True or False to the next questionnaire from "Looking Good Outside -