A HARSH WORLD

by David Trammel

When I was in my teens and old enough to drive, my Father made me change the tire on the old Pinto we had as a second car. The tire wasn’t flat, but his purpose was to make sure that I was prepared in the event I had to change it by myself. A few years later, he did the same with my sister when she got old enough to drive as well.

My Father grew up in a very rural part of northeast Oklahoma. Imagine all the clichés and jokes about hill people and that was him. There was a dark side though. His father, my grandfather, had abandoned his wife and two small children, leaving them alone to fend for themselves.

He had gone through an emergency he had no knowledge of how to handle. No child that young ever does, and he was determined not for my sister or I to do the same. Over the years, I would learn many lessons in a similar manner. First explanation, then exercise.

I continue his tradition here, with you. Knowledge gives you agency. Ignorance does not.

In this book, you will get chapters which teach you the concepts and skills you will need in the challenge of this World we are about to enter. Followed by workshops like this one, which will allow you to put that new knowledge into practice.

Let us begin…

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Would it surprise you to learn that roughly a third of American adults don’t even have five hundred dollars saved up to use in an emergency. Events like a sudden automobile repair or a visit to a clinic because of illness aren’t temporary disruptions. They become traps which snare us and grow.

It’s a sad thing that in what might factually be said to be the most prosperous nation on the planet, that a large majority of its adult population lives one unexpected expense from poverty and sometimes homelessness but it is example of just how far the “system” has changed.

Money might be called ‘the root of all evil’ but while having too much of it can be dangerous, not having any when you absolutely need it, can and will be worse.

In our first workshop, we are going to use a basic tool of personal finance; “The Audit”.

You will need a small notebook. The pocket spiral kind are ideal but you can also use a few 3×5” note cards, paper or another method to record what you will need. You might be tempted to use your cell phone, but I’m going to ask you to not.

Here is why.

When you use your phone, the act becomes invisible. A tap, a swipe, a quick entry and it is gone. Your brain registers it as a task completed, not an action examined.

Writing by hand is different.

It is slower. You must pause. You must form the numbers, the words, the categories. That small amount of friction forces your attention onto the act itself. You feel the repetition. You begin to recognize patterns not because you analyzed them, but because you experienced them.

This is not about nostalgia or rejecting technology. It is about using the right tool, at the right time for awareness.

Speed is useful for execution.

Slowness is useful for understanding.

For this part of the process, we are not trying to move fast. We are trying to see clearly.

Your homework for this workshop then is, for the next month record every time you spend money. And I mean, everything. The $750 rent payment and the $5 morning coffee.

And do NOT do what so many people do with self-examinations, try and look better. No one, least of all me, is going to hold minor things against you. There is a reason many people avoid doing this kind of exercise. It is not because it is difficult. It is because it is revealing.

When you begin to write everything down, you may notice patterns you would rather not see. Small habits that add up. Impulse decisions. Money spent not out of need, but out of stress, boredom, or routine. None of these make you a bad person. They make you human.

But the moment you see them clearly, you are faced with a choice. Continue as you are, or change.

And that moment of choice is what people often avoid.

If you feel resistance while doing this, understand that it is normal. Do not negotiate with it. Do not delay. Simply continue writing things down. Clarity comes first. Change comes later.

A personal financial audit is not merely arithmetic. It is confrontation. Not with numbers, but with patterns that usually remain unseen.

The objective with this workshop is to identify just where and how, you spend your income. You can’t figure out how you can fund the changes and resources you will need to succeed in the harsh world we are headed towards, without first knowing how you spend in your life now.

And, keep your receipts. You will need to take note of things like taxes and fees, or tips.

For now, use a simple set of categories like these:

– Housing, Insurance and Utilities

– Transportation, Gas and Auto Expenses

– Food, Lifestyle and Technology

– Health Care and Personal Hygiene

– Debt, Loans and Credit Cards

– Long-term Savings and Emergency Funds

– Pets or Child Care

– Miscellaneous

Remember, for now nothing is set in stone. You can and probably will make changes later if needed. In approximately a month, in Part Three of this workshop, you will learn how to analyze this initial data and convert it into usable information.

When you reach that point, what you will have in front of you is more than a list of expenses. You will begin to see patterns.

Spending that felt small will reveal itself as consistent. Categories you assumed were under control may be larger than expected. Other areas, where you thought you were struggling, may prove more stable than you believed.

There is often a moment where the picture becomes clear. Not good or bad. Just true. That clarity is what allows change to become intentional instead of reactive.

That is all you need to do to start. Gather the information.

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You may already be familiar with budgeting and financial audits.

If so, I do not intend to waste your time. The mechanics themselves are simple. What matters here is not novelty, but discipline and integration.

Throughout the workshops of this book, there will be a major track: the direct concepts and knowledge of that workshop, and a minor track: the strengthening of attention, mindset, and foundational principles. If you are advanced, move efficiently through the mechanics. But do not dismiss the structure. Mastery is not found in knowing the steps; it is found in practicing them deliberately.

We live in an age where information does not merely surround us. It presses in on us. Notifications, feeds, headlines, commentary. Ten pounds of input forced into a five-pound mind. In response, the brain adapts by offloading. We skim instead of study. We bookmark instead of absorb. We tell ourselves we will return to it later.

Often, we do not.

Psychologists refer to this as cognitive offloading, which is the habit of outsourcing memory and processing to devices. While convenient, it carries a cost, and that cost increases as our tools become more capable. When we no longer wrestle with ideas internally, our capacity for sustained focus weakens. Over time, this can resemble a mild form of learned helplessness: a quiet assumption that deep understanding is too slow, too demanding, or unnecessary.

Yet the research is consistent. When we read a physical book, words on paper, without hyperlinks, without alerts, the brain engages differently. Comprehension deepens. Retention improves. Neural pathways associated with reflection and integration activate more fully. The act is slower, yes. But it is cleaner.

It is also worth acknowledging something that will become increasingly relevant as you move forward. Tools like artificial intelligence are becoming part of how information is created, filtered, and used. They are powerful, but they also accelerate the same tendency toward cognitive offloading we have just discussed. Used carelessly, they can weaken attention and reduce the need to think things through for yourself. Used deliberately, they can extend your capabilities.

In later sections, we will look at practical ways to integrate these tools without becoming dependent on them. The goal is not to replace your thinking, but to support it. In a world where these tools are becoming more common, developing a disciplined approach to their use will matter.

This is why, for this workshop, I am asking you to go analog.

When you write down your expenses by hand, you interrupt automation. You feel the friction of each entry. That friction is not inefficiency; it is awareness forming.

In the same way reading deliberately, one chapter at a time, becomes training. You are strengthening the muscle of attention in a world designed to erode it.

Before we can master money, we must first master attention.

And attention cannot be outsourced.

If you are not much of a reader, that is precisely why we begin here.

The book I am asking you to read is The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason.

First published as a series of pamphlets in the 1920s and later collected into book form, it has remained in print for nearly a century. That alone should give you pause. In a culture that constantly replaces its advice with newer and louder versions, this small volume endures.

Its staying power comes from its simplicity.

The book does not lecture in technical jargon. It tells short parables set in ancient Babylon, stories of merchants, laborers, debtors, and savers learning timeless principles about money. The language is straightforward. The chapters are brief. You can read one in a single sitting without strain.

And yet beneath its simplicity lies structure.

It introduces foundational ideas: paying yourself first, living below your means, guarding against debt, seeking wise counsel, and allowing savings to multiply. These are not complex strategies. They are habits. The kind of habits that build stability slowly and invisibly, until one day they are unmistakable.

For someone who does not identify as a “reader,” this is an ideal first book. It is narrative rather than academic. Practical rather than abstract. You will not need to fight through dense theory. Instead, you will encounter ideas through story, and stories are how the mind remembers.

In truth, this is why it fits this workshop so well.

You are not merely learning techniques. You are reshaping patterns. And patterns are most easily changed when the lesson enters not only through logic, but through imagination.

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Some final thoughts.

If you’ve read this far, you are already in a smaller group than most.

Not the ones who jump at every new idea. Not the ones who reject everything unfamiliar. Something in between. Curious, but cautious. Open, but not fully convinced.

And that is enough to begin.

You have likely encountered some version of this before. Budgeting advice. Systems for improvement. Books that offered structure and discipline. Maybe you started them. For a few days. A few weeks. And then life resumed its usual pace, and the effort faded.

That is not unusual.

Most approaches ask for change before they build awareness. They move too quickly toward fixing, optimizing, improving. But without clarity, those efforts have nothing stable to rest on.

So what is different here is not complexity.

It is order.

We begin with something simple: seeing clearly what is already happening. Writing it down. Not judging it. Not changing it yet. Just bringing it into awareness. Because most people do not struggle from a lack of information. They struggle from a lack of sustained attention.

That is what this first step builds.

This approach will not appeal to everyone. It is not meant to. Some will read this and move on. Some will try it briefly and stop. That is part of the process.

But those who continue will begin to notice something subtle. The world does not shift all at once. It changes slowly. Unevenly. A little here. A little there. Enough that those who are paying attention are rarely caught off guard.

This is not about extreme preparation.

It is about becoming the kind of person who notices early, adjusts steadily, and is not surprised by what comes next.

That is where we will truly begin.