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Knowing Winning Material
Multiverses of Entertainment explores how Hollywood, technology, finance, and filmmaking can converge into a new entertainment ecosystem without sacrificing the human creativity that gives stories their power. What motivated you to write this book?
The greatest motivation came from pure love for the cinematic arts. Working in so many of the filmmaking arenas gave me arguably the most diverse experiences. The love for this industry grew like a garden growing a dozen exotic flowers, each one beautiful in its design and complexity. Work – from being an extra, to a stunt double, actor, screenwriter, Producer, Director, technology innovator, and mentor, to running a Mini-Major studio – gave me multiple perspectives I refer to in my books as Parallax View. The vision in 2016 that Hollywood, in its role to deliver the Power of Story, Hero’s Journey, and great performances in motivating films, would be burned to the ground motivated me to sacrifice ten years to deliver a separate Multiverse for the highest quality films and series. The books are the foundation, the tech innovation is the ROI for investors, the products are over 100 of the most valuable screenplays, and the payoff for Talent, crew, and audiences is symbolized in the Imagii Avatar. This does more than save Hollywood – Hollywood saves humanity.
The book combines material written around 2016 with your 2026 perspective. Which assumptions about Hollywood, China, streaming, and entertainment investment from that earlier period turned out to be most right, or most wrong?
Great question. Simple answer: learn from the past. First, let’s tackle the question as it relates to the past and why so many chapters feature China’s rise, which was happening at the same time Hollywood began its death spiral. Crystal-clear success and disaster examples were in motion from 2008-2018, when China was not only the biggest investor for Hollywood films but also the biggest investor in the world. At the same time, it was learning to improve filmmaking as an art. Hollywood would have starved for money without China’s tens of billions in investment and box office – yet the Industry was screwing over Chinese investors at an unprecedented level. My book began as tutorials on the sins and dire future of Hollywood and became a book. Barry London, who just left Paramount and was mentoring me so we could open our own Mini-Major using my formulas for success, gave me a lot of insight into what nobody is supposed to know about major Studio good practices and also their worst mistakes. Every one of my predictions came true. The most useful half of my book is the first half that presents the concept of the film Multiverse I created; however, the second half spells out what was leading to the collapse I saw as inescapable. So how do we go forward? We can’t assume anything we read is true today due to the skewing of news and information by technology. Most of Hollywood is too young to know what a great film requires. 90% of agents and entertainment lawyers have never spent one full day on a set. Not one of them could survive a day of decision-making. The veteran lawyers and agents have surrendered to the idea that the Earth of filmmaking revolves around the Sun of Streaming. That gravity keeps them in an orbit that only intersects what the Streaming Giants allow, and this includes AI replacing film artists. There is a place for that in the world of eyeball time, but not in the world of great filmmaking. The two cannot coexist in the same universe, so a Multiverse is formed. It obeys the laws of the greatest era of filmmaking. The gatekeepers to powerful execs are usually under 25, and they rely on AI to make decisions. It’s laughable. Here is an example from the past that shows how few graduates can handle production pressure to be excellent at a job, your position determined as a meritocracy: If I needed 4 Production Assistants when I was Producer-Director, I would hire 6 and fire all but one or two. Then go through the cycle again until I got my four. Today, I’d have to go through 50 wannabe filmmakers to find 4.
You argue that better movies require a business structure that works for both investors and artists. What is the biggest change Hollywood could make today to give filmmakers more creative freedom while still making projects financially sustainable?
Even in the best era, every production wanted more time and money. But they could justify it with who starred in the film and their foreign pre-sale value. There is no guarantee any film will hit a theater anymore because Streaming Giants lie to top talent like Gal Gadot and Jake in Road House about guaranteeing a theatrical release. Hollywood Studios cooked the books, faked costs for production and advertising, to screw investors out of a big profit. The big test to this, of course, for any veteran of the 80s, was Coming to America, based on the story pitch by Art Buchwald. Paramount first claimed it wasn’t, and then lied to say it never made a profit. Paramount lost and paid a huge settlement. Films were commonly thought of as a bad investment, but this was not due to revenue; it was mostly due to every system in the Industry agreeing to screw investors who don’t know enough. This was the Nash Equilibrium then. The only way to get longer shooting schedules to ensure fine cinematic moves is to guarantee a new revenue stream far greater than box office and tied merchandise. This is where the patented tech innovation and ability to tap into the next generation of social Apps, and Gamer and Influencer revenue and fanbase comes in. The deals and IP Event Horizon presents investors will hold pages of unimaginable legal language developed by me to guarantee Actors, Writers, and Directors get a share of Multiverse revenue, exactly like how Death Row offered pennies of every sale to rappers and made them worth $200 million in a year. New legal also includes massive revenue streams for each Mini-Major investor from the Next Gen Apps, which returns revenue even before a film or series is released. This makes the stock of the investor skyrocket more than how much they committed to spend on production. This is the future. This is how to get a shooting schedule long enough to honor the greatest Actors in Hollywood. And there must be enough IP to last 3 years so Actors cannot be blacklisted by Streaming and law firms, which they are now if they do not bend the knee to Streaming’s shitty pay and schedules that would turn the best performance of anyone into mediocrity (ask Affleck and Damon the weird changes forced on them in scenes for The Rip.). Every Mini-Major is a group of one television series that can get on air within 8 months and Apps with them so ROI begins within two quarters for the investor. And being on the first Multiverse guarantees billions. If they go for an IPO the investor makes several billion before the big payouts begin for production. This is the perfect investment model for entertainment for the next 5 years. It’ll take that long for any tech competitor to copy the model.
After decades around filmmakers, producers, actors, agents, and executives, what have you learned about the qualities that make a story powerful enough to endure across changing technologies and platforms?
So much of knowing winning material is a gut feeling – an ability to feel chemistry brewing, an ability to know original concepts that will win. A good example is Speed. This movie was the first to not follow the formula for action films where there were low points of action, for the audience to calm down like in Die Hard. Speed was nonstop action and tension. Romance was thrown in. Next major change was Apatow’s formula for breaking a film into 12 sets of scenes that can stand alone so they could be binge-watched by teens on phones. You had to be around then to “feel in your gut” what High Concept requires. At the same time, the power of the story to win over audiences had to tickle your senses with surprises, like in the unpredictable humor of The Hangover. The new generation of assistants, readers, law school grads, production execs, casting people – their gut was never trained, never forced into the field, never went through test by fire, never had a genius like Ron Howard and Brian Grazer to mentor them. And none of them understand the concept that films are often “made great in editing.” If you do not have the coverage, two shots, dolly shots, that great films need, it cripples editors. My Multiverse film financing and production requirements ensure we have the angles and sounds needed to deliver a scene that hits the audience on the three levels of great filmmaking: voyeuristically, vicariously, and viscerally. Great films have most scenes delivering two of those V’s. And then have at least 2-3 scenes that deliver all three at once. THAT is when a film story becomes its most powerful, successful, and impactful enough to improve people and society. It makes the fan believe in being his own hero, waiting for the right love, being the parent that protects, and saving someone for the sake of Integrity or Virtues. The technology and platforms are there in new forms simply because the audience for Influencers, Gamers, and Social Media is evolving and likes using these in Apps. The methods for outstanding filmmaking and stories they seek remain the same: devotion to “the film always comes first.”
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What to Chase, What to Cut
In Hidden Profit, you suggest that the key to greater profitability isn’t reducing expenses, but understanding the underlying economics well enough to make precise decisions. What inspired you to develop this framework?
For most of my career, I got called in after somebody had already decided the answer was to cut costs across the board. Earnings were down, the board was unhappy, and the plan was to take ten percent out of costs. As they saw it, my job was to go find the ten percent. So I’d find it. And about a year later the company would be in worse shape than when I got there.
It took me a long time to understand why.
When you cut across the board, you’re cutting evenly into two things that are not even. You take the same ten percent out of the part of the business that’s making money as you take out of the part that’s losing money. And the losing part was always the part burning more of everything — that’s why it was losing money.
So you’ve made the company smaller, and you’ve made it weaker, and you did it with a perfectly accurate set of financial statements.
Here’s the thing that changed how I work. A company will tell you it runs at a thirty percent margin. Everybody manages to thirty. The budget’s built on thirty. The bank’s model says thirty. Then somebody finally looks — and half the business is at fifty, and half is at twelve. There is no thirty percent business. There never was one. Thirty is just the place where two completely different parts of the company met in the middle and cancelled each other out. And every decision anybody made — what to price, what to chase, what to cut — was made on a number that describes nothing that actually exists.
So, you look closer. Find out which customers and which products are actually making the money, and then you can make a real decision — reprice this, walk away from that, put the capacity somewhere better. That’s the book. The profit isn’t hidden because somebody hid it. It’s hidden because it’s been averaged.
Focus should be on those things that are draining the profits out of the company. They are never everything across the board. When you cut across the board, you are cutting symmetrically into two things that are not symmetric: the work that makes money and the work that destroys it. And because the work that destroys money almost always consumes more resource per dollar of revenue — that is precisely why it destroys money.
An across-the-board cut takes proportionally more away from the profitable work than from the unprofitable work. You have made the company smaller and you have made it worse. And you have done it with a completely accurate set of financial statements.
“Precision,” not “austerity.” Once you see it that way, the framework writes itself.
Why do you think so many business leaders focus on growth while overlooking the profit opportunities already within their organizations?
Two reasons. One of them nobody ever says out loud.
The first is that growth is a story you can tell. The number goes up, everybody in the room gets to be part of it, and it’s fun.
Now picture the other thing. Picture standing up in a management meeting and saying, “Good news — I’ve found seven hundred thousand dollars. It’s been sitting in Product Line C, which has been losing money for six years, and every one of us has been in this room the entire time and didn’t look.” That’s not good news. That’s an accusation. And everybody in the room knows it.
Nobody ever got promoted for discovering that the company has been wrong. So the discovery doesn’t get made. Not because people are dishonest — because the organization has no way to reward it and there are many ways to punish it.
The second reason is arithmetic, and this is the one that should worry a chief executive. Growth can be pursued in ignorance. Margin work cannot.
Growth is easier. It is not cheaper. It is easier. You can chase revenue without understanding your own economics. People do it every day, successfully, for years. You cannot improve margin without understanding your economics precisely — which means somebody has to do the unglamorous work of building a real cost model, and then somebody has to defend it against every function whose numbers it makes look bad.
When you grow, ask where the new business is actually coming from. It’s coming from the deals you won on price — because those are the deals that were available to win. So the new revenue comes in at a worse margin than the business you already had. And you needed more capacity to serve it. And the new customers pay you slowly. And it did not come free. You needed capacity, so fixed cost went up — call it a million. You needed working capital, and the new customers pay slowly, so a chunk of cash went out the door and is not coming back.
You can grow your top line twenty percent and barely move your profit at all. I’ve watched it happen more than once, and everybody in the building thought it was a great year.
And here is the part that should worry a CEO: if your incremental business comes in below your average contribution margin — and it almost always does, because you win the marginal deal on price — then growth is dilutive by construction. You are growing into lower profitability and calling it scale.
What are the most common misconceptions executives have about improving EBITDA?
I’d give you three.
The first is that people treat it like it’s cash. It isn’t. It’s an earnings number with a few things stripped out of it, and it will tell you nothing about whether there’s money in the bank.
You can improve it every single quarter and still run out of cash. I’ve sat with a management team that was genuinely bewildered by that — because the number they were watching had gone the right way the whole time.
The second is that you improve it by cutting costs. If you cut the cost without removing the work that consumes it, the work does not disappear. It relocates — into overtime, into expedite, into rework, into the good people staying until eight o’clock, into quality escapes six months later. You did not remove cost. You deferred it and added interest.
Mostly, you don’t. Because most cost is capacity. It’s people, machines, space, and time. If you cut the cost but you don’t remove the work that’s consuming it — the work doesn’t go away. It just moves. It moves into overtime. Into rush shipping. Into rework. Into your best people staying until eight o’clock and then quietly leaving in the spring.
You didn’t remove the cost. You postponed it, and it comes back with interest.
The third one is the one I’d actually want somebody to hear.
Ask any management team this question: “Profit moved by a million dollars last year. How much of that was price? How much was volume? How much was the mix of what you sold? And how much was cost?”
That’s it. Four buckets. That’s all there is.
I have been asking that question for thirty years. I’ve gotten a real answer maybe four times. And the answer, when we finally do the work, is almost always the same. Volume mattered less than they thought. And the mix — what they happened to sell, which nobody was managing at all — was the biggest single thing that moved the number, in either direction.
If you can’t answer that question, you don’t actually know why you made money last year. Which means you have no idea how to do it again.
What advice would you give leaders preparing their companies for acquisition or private equity investment?
One idea, and everything else comes out of it.
The buyer is not buying your profit. The buyer is buying how much they believe your profit.
Take two companies. Same industry. Same five million dollars of earnings. One of them sells for thirty million and the other sells for forty-two.
The difference isn’t the number. The difference is whether the buyer trusts the number, understands where it came from, and can see how to do it again. That’s twelve million dollars. And you don’t buy it with performance. You buy it with clarity.
So — three practical things.
Start two years out. Not six months. Everything that raises the price has a long lead time, and a buyer who has done twenty of these can tell from across the room whether you started last month.
Investigate yourself before they do. Go find your own bad news. Because there is an enormous difference between “we found this, and here’s what we did about it” and “the buyer found this.”
Every surprise in the diligence costs you twice. Once for the thing itself. And then again — much more expensively — for the doubt about what else you haven’t shown them. They don’t adjust the price for the one thing they found. They adjust it for everything they now suspect is still out there.
And the third — don’t dress the company up by starving it. Defer the maintenance, cut the sales team, stretch the vendors, run one hot year. A good buyer strips all of that back out in about a week. So now the price hasn’t moved, and they’ve learned something about you that they can’t un-learn.
You cannot manufacture credibility in a data room. You can only spend the credibility you built in the two years before it.
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In Hidden Profit, veteran CFO and turnaround executive David H. Tolly answers that question with a practitioner’s playbook built over forty years and more than forty engagements. Rather than generic advice, the book lays out seven specific levers — pricing and revenue, cost reduction, working capital, operational efficiency, customer portfolio, business model, and growth without proportional cost — and shows exactly how to find the hidden profit behind each one and capture it in a way that is durable, visible, and repeatable.
Drawing on real engagements — including a company he helped grow from $2M to $26M in EBITDA, and turnarounds that reversed nine-figure losses — Tolly writes the way he works: direct, numbers-first, and honest about the mistakes that cost companies money. Each chapter includes diagnostic tools, worked examples, and a “do this next” action plan, plus a 90-day execution framework and a chapter on preparing earnings to survive the quality-of-earnings scrutiny of a sale.
Because every dollar of recovered EBITDA can be worth six to ten dollars of enterprise value at exit, the stakes are far larger than the income statement. Written for business owners, CEOs, CFOs, private-equity sponsors, and the advisors who serve them, Hidden Profit is a clear, no-nonsense guide to finding money you already have — and keeping it.
Art. Money. Happiness!: How to Build a Fulfilling and Financially Rewarding Career in the Arts
Reto Salimbeni’s Art. Money. Happiness! is a practical career guide for artists who want to understand the business side of creative work without losing sight of why they started creating in the first place. The book’s core message is clear from the early line, “Passion is priceless – but it doesn’t pay the bills.” Salimbeni writes for actors, musicians, filmmakers, authors, and other creatives who are trying to turn talent into a real, sustainable life.
What makes the book useful is how much ground it covers. It moves from mindset and early career planning into film, TV, music, publishing, agents, managers, lawyers, contracts, pitching, media, and financial independence. That could easily become overwhelming, but the structure keeps it manageable. The sections titled Prepare, Deal, Promote, Relate, Gain, and Happiness give the book a steady progression from starting out to building long-term stability.
Salimbeni’s tone is direct, experienced, and encouraging without sounding dreamy. He doesn’t treat art as some fragile thing that business will ruin. Instead, he presents business knowledge as a form of protection. His advice on self-promotion, relationships, safety, negotiation, and money comes across as the kind of backstage guidance many artists wish they’d had earlier. The phrase “Tell the truth well” captures a lot of the book’s approach: be authentic, but learn how to communicate that authenticity in a way people can understand and act on.
The financial section is one of the strongest parts because it takes artists seriously as earners, planners, and future investors. Salimbeni talks about budgeting, fallback funds, negotiation, getting paid, side businesses, and financial independence in plain language. He’s not just telling readers to chase fame. He’s showing them how to build choices, which feels especially relevant for creative people whose income can be unpredictable.
Art. Money. Happiness! is a business-minded handbook for ambitious artists. It’s part pep talk, part industry map, and part financial reality check. The book works best for readers who want practical guidance and don’t mind being reminded that creativity needs structure, relationships, and money habits to survive. It’s conversational, thorough, and grounded in the belief that artists can build meaningful careers without waiting for luck to do all the heavy lifting.
Pages: 408 | ISBN: 3952608300
HIDDEN PROFIT How to Find and Capture $500K–$2M+ in Hidden EBITDA Without Gutting Your Business
In Hidden Profit, David H. Tolly argues that many mid-market businesses already contain substantial recoverable value, not in some glamorous new market or sweeping transformation, but in the quieter places leaders often stop seeing: pricing leakage, procurement waste, working capital, customer mix, overhead discipline, and execution cadence. The book moves from EBITDA fundamentals into a practical diagnostic framework, then through seven “hidden profit” levers and a 90-day execution model, grounding its advice in turnaround cases such as Creative Solutions Group, Renaissance Cosmetics, and Savage Arms. What gives the book its force is its repeated insistence that profit is not found by gutting the business, but by making the economics visible enough that leaders can act with precision.
I found the book most compelling when it stripped away the romance of growth and asked harder, more adult questions about the quality of that growth. Tolly’s point that revenue can rise while margin quietly deteriorates feels simple at first, almost obvious, but the examples make it land with real weight. The $50 million manufacturing company that had rising EBITDA but declining margin becomes a small drama of managerial blindness, and the Renaissance Cosmetics case is even sharper: a company chasing shipments so aggressively that it created its own flood of returns. I admired the moral clarity of that lesson. Less revenue at a real margin is better than more revenue at a loss. It’s the kind of sentence that feels plain until you imagine saying it in a boardroom full of people addicted to top-line growth.
The writing is at its best when Tolly sounds like someone who has actually sat in the room when the lender called, and the spreadsheet stopped being theoretical. There’s a bracing directness to the voice, and the book’s recurring phrases, such as “build the bridge” and “assign the owners,” give the material a useful drumbeat. The prose can become procedural, especially in the checklists and worksheet sections. But I didn’t mind that much. The book doesn’t merely describe rigor; it practices it. Its ideas are not especially mystical, but they’re powerful because they honor the unglamorous truth that businesses usually fail in the seams between functions, not in the slogans on strategy decks.
I came away seeing Hidden Profit as a practical, unsentimental, and quietly humane book about restoring agency to leaders under pressure. It understands that numbers are never just numbers when payroll, debt, legacy, and reputation are attached to them. The strongest conclusion I drew is that hidden profit is less a treasure hunt than an act of disciplined attention. I’d recommend this book to CEOs, CFOs, board members, private equity operators, and business owners who suspect their company is working harder than its cash position suggests, especially those preparing for a sale or trying to strengthen EBITDA without damaging the living organism of the business.
Pages: 315 | ASIN : B0GX2QBG9X
Numeral M: Volume II
Numeral M: Volume II is a short and practical savings guide built around one central promise: with discipline, structure, and repetition, a person can grow meaningful savings within a year. J. Baptiste lays out three main approaches: the “split it” method, using two savings accounts; the “all in” method, using one account; and a bi-weekly version for readers paid every other week. The book walks through concrete examples, from setting aside $150 per paycheck to reach $7,800, all the way up to $800 bi-weekly to reach $20,800. It’s less a theory-heavy finance book than a steady, plainspoken workbook, one that keeps returning to a simple but demanding refrain: no withdrawals, stay disciplined, and let the numbers accumulate.
What I appreciated most was the book’s emotional simplicity. It doesn’t try to dazzle me with jargon or make saving feel like some elite skill reserved for people who already have money. Instead, it speaks in the language of paychecks, local financial institutions, separate accounts, automatic deposits, and the small private battle of not touching the money once it’s been set aside. I found that reassuring. There’s something almost old-fashioned about the way the author repeats encouragements like “You did it,” “Keep going,” and “Cool Beans.” They gave the book a friendly feel. The “personal fund” advice in the introduction also stood out to me because it acknowledges real life. Haircuts, dinner, nails, movies, and other wants aren’t treated as moral failures. They’re simply things to budget for so the savings account can remain untouched.
The writing is clear, earnest, and deliberately spare. At times, I wanted more depth, especially around obstacles. The book tells readers not to withdraw from savings, but I found myself wishing it delved a little more into the reasons people do withdraw, such as emergencies, irregular income, debt pressure, or sheer discouragement. The ideas are strong because they’re concrete. The book contains an easy-to-follow structure, with each section following nearly the same pattern of deposit amount, account setup, yearly total, and encouragement. That repetition has its own usefulness. The book seems to understand that financial change often isn’t dramatic. It’s boring, rhythmic, and almost invisible until one day the balance has become something real. I liked that the author includes both the “split it” approach and the “all in” approach because it respects different temperaments. Some people need the psychological separation of two accounts, while others will feel calmer with one clean savings bucket.
I found Numeral M: Volume II to be a sincere and highly accessible guide with practical advice. It’s not trying to be a sweeping financial philosophy, and it’s better when read for what it is: a disciplined set of savings exercises designed to help readers see exactly what consistency can create. The book is modest, encouraging, and genuinely useful. I’d recommend it especially to beginning savers, younger adults, paycheck-to-paycheck earners trying to build their first cushion, or anyone who feels overwhelmed by financial advice and needs a simple plan they can actually follow.
Pages: 46 | ASIN : B0FZMS6SGV
One for the Tenant
J. Baptiste’s One for the Tenant is a short and practical guide for people who are preparing to rent a home or apartment. It walks readers through the process step by step, starting with the simple question of why someone might rent, then moving into money, roommates, credit scores, rental searches, inspections, leases, moving costs, and eventually vacating the property. The book says early on, “This book will outline some key factors that you should be aware of prior to deciding to rent,” and that’s exactly what it does.
The strongest part of the book is its workbook-like structure. Baptiste doesn’t just explain what tenants should think about; she gives them tasks, questions, and blank lines where they can calculate debt, income, available funds, deposits, and other costs. That makes the book feel less like something you read once and more like something you’d keep nearby while preparing to apply for a rental.
The tone is straightforward and encouraging, which works well for the subject. Renting can feel intimidating for first-time tenants, especially when leases, deposits, credit reports, insurance, and inspections all start piling up. Baptiste keeps the information approachable by breaking each topic into small sections and reminding readers to ask questions, keep records, and confirm details in writing.
The book also does a good job connecting renting with broader financial habits. The savings section is especially useful because it gives a concrete example of how small, repeated deposits can add up over time. Baptiste’s advice, “Remember to save, no matter how small the amount you put aside each time,” fits the book’s overall message: being a tenant isn’t just about finding a place to live; it’s about learning how to protect yourself and manage responsibilities.
One for the Tenant is a helpful beginner’s guide for renters who want a clear picture of what to expect before, during, and after a lease. It’s simple, direct, and focused on practical action. Readers who are new to renting will likely appreciate how the book turns a complicated process into a series of manageable steps.
Pages: 39 | ASIN : B0CJ95L98P
Your Retirement Routine
Your Path of Happiness presents the notion that financial readiness is only the beginning of a well-lived life in retirement. Why was this an important book for you to write?
First, and this is discussed throughout the book, any book is important for me to write because the creative arts are a significant part of any successful retirement; research has shown that conclusively. The creative arts for me is more focused on writing than it is on painting, performance, or music — although I love music very much — but the fact remains that imbedding the creative arts into your retirement routine will lead to a happier and more successful retirement. It’s indisputable.
Second, the aging demographic is a market that needs to be communicated with. Unfortunately, most of the communication is financially-focused, and much of that is writing and promotion that’s really a money-grab. There are 70 million Americans over the age of 50, there are almost 11,000 people turning 65 every day, the senior segment owns 70% of everything in the US, and controls more than 50% of the disposable income, yet we have been stereotyped, marginalized, and put in a box for more than 50 years. The subject of retirement is hot right now and I didn’t want to be left-out in the cold (I’ve been writing and speaking about it for several years now, ahead of many who are just discovering us).
Third, my publishers tell me that between 90-95% of retirement books are written about finances and investing; yes, it’s important, but those books lack the other part of the equation that needs to equal a happy retirement. And that’s what I focus on because 95% of the authors and researchers do not. For people transitioning into retirement, or retirees who might not feel that retirement was all that it was cracked-up to be, I’m the voice of truth, and the person who coined the phrase “Who are we when we are no longer who we were.” I feel a need to constantly provide answers to that question in hopes that the retirement mistakes I made can spare a few people from the unsuccessful retirement that I had for the first few years.
Lastly, I’m regularly asked on podcasts, at book signings, and at speeches what are my non-financial recommendations for a happy retirement so I decided to write my 10-step plan so, at the very least, it was documented.
The “hamster wheel” of retirement busyness is one of the book’s most memorable ideas. What inspired that concept?
Well, being on it, for starters. The hamster wheel, also more clinically referred to as Hedonic Adaptation, or the Hedonic Treadmill Syndrome is this notion where we’re spinning in busyness without purpose or intention. We’re keeping a busy retirement schedule most often times because we’re trying to keep up with the Joneses, comparing ourselves to others, or most dangerously, playing the role of retirement in someone else’s’ movie.
Retirement needs to be about individualism, but the forces of grouping seniors together and stereotyping them as feeble, lonely, sad, technologically incompetent, wrinkled, and the beat goes on, works in direct conflict with the entire concept of individualism. We need to do whatever the hell we want to do and not be bound by the hamster wheel of staying active every hour of the day.
The entire concept of retirement happiness can be found in the Buddhist lesson “There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.” It sounds simple but it’s not. Retirees need to understand that the destination isn’t happiness, the odyssey, or the path is where happiness is derived. My research has actually shown that what makes us happy, most likely day in and day out, is something that made us happy when we were younger, like playing an instrument, teaching, mentoring, or in my case, writing. We have the time to do what we might not have had the time doing long ago. But this Buddhist lesson also speaks to the concepts of staying in the present, slowing down and enjoying the smaller things, which invariably lead to larger things, and not waking-up with the broken pieces of yesterday (in Buddhism every day is a new beginning, yesterday is gone, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet); I’m not a Buddhist and my knowledge is fundamental at the very most, but much of the lessons sound so good because they sound so right.
You emphasize self-empathy alongside discipline and purpose. Why is self-compassion particularly important during major life transitions?
You cannot be an empathetic person unless you’re empathetic to yourself. The world needs more empathetic people, that’s irrefutable, but the funny thing is older people tend to be more empathetic than any other demographic group and because of that they have the ability to be happier. Research has proven that. So, in my 10 steps to retirement happiness, I include the practice of self-empathy because it’s a direct path to happiness. I’m just giving the readers a little nudge in that direction so they can understand the importance of it as they transition into retirement.
But I write a lot about the childhood song “Dem Bones” where so much is physiologically connected. But most emotional constructs are interconnected, too. So with self-empathy, you’ll also be connected to gratitude, a greater understanding of people, the dangers of comparing yourself to others, the pitfalls of leading a life based on the accumulation of possessions, of being all-consumed with bucket lists, and making list after list only to find yourself unable to manage the expectations because of all the list making that retirees have a tendency to do. In other words, if there was ever time to be kind to yourself, time to do yourself a solid, time for self-compassion, it’s in retirement.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Your Path of Happiness?
It would certainly be understanding the path itself. Once you’ve found what truly makes you happy, without the encumberments and influences of others, you will find happiness, but it’s a bit of an exploration. It didn’t come easy for me because this wasn’t a known retirement consideration before I started writing about it, but now, others should be able to find this more accessible than it was for me.
In addition to that, the primary takeaway would certainly be the actual 10 steps to retirement happiness: those are (1) managing your expectations; (2)reducing all your list-making tendencies; (3) practicing gratitude; (4) rethinking a life of possessions; (5)resisting the hamster wheel; (6) choosing your path of happiness, not a path to happiness; (7)understanding that mistakes will happen, but you get do-overs; (8) practicing self-empathy; (9) knowing that individualism is critical; and (10) believing that everything in retirement happiness is connected.
Of course this is chapter without the verse, so it’s important to dive into each chapter to fully embrace the takeaways.
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In less than one day, this book became the #1 bestselling book in America on Aging, Self-Help, Mental Health, and Philosophy. Winner of the prestigious best Non-Fiction Book Award by the Non-Fiction Authors Association of America, the International Impact Book Award, the Literary Titan Award, the Book Fest Award, the Readers’ Favorite Award, and the Book Excellence Award, Your Path of Happiness: The Credit Union Playbook for a Successful Retirement has been described as a “Masterpiece,” “A Triumph of Wisdom,” “Heartwarming,” “An Instant Classic,” and “Life Changing.”
Don’t let the title fool you. This book isn’t just for the 150 million credit union members and employees in the US or the 450 million credit union members throughout the world, it’s essential reading for anyone thinking about or transitioning into retirement, already in retirement, but not finding this life-stage as satisfying as anticipated, the 70 million Americans over the age of 50+, or friends and families of people who are entering the retirement world.
Written by famed bestselling author, many times over, Tom Marks, who is also known to be America’s leading voice on retirement happiness, and his collaborator, Ron Draper, a renowned credit union CEO with a law degree and an MBA who has been omnipresent in the credit union industry for more than 40 years, Your Path of Happiness: The Credit Union Playbook for a Successful Retirement should be on every bookshelf in every home in the US and is required reading for anyone over the age of 50.
You can learn more about the book, about Tom and Ron, and what the top book reviewers in the US are saying about Your Path of Happiness: The Credit Union Playbook for a Successful Retirement here: yourpathofhappiness.com.
PS. Some Things Really Are Easy
The Passive Income Power Plan isn’t about getting rich quickly; it is a guide to help readers build income streams that give them more breathing room. What is the biggest barrier to wealth, practical or emotional?
To me, our mindset is our biggest barrier, as any belief starts in our minds. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you’re right.” That belief system will lie to you and tell you that you’re too old or you don’t have the right education or your partner won’t support you or it’s too expensive to get started (I could go on… and on).
Even the shift from active to passive income begins in your mind. Do you believe you can only exchange hours for dollars? Might it be possible for you to earn income that was tied to something physical, like a house rental or someone purchasing a product that you had created? Once you set up these systems, they exist without much or any involvement from you. For many, it’s a matter of exchanging a belief of what financial freedom really looks like.
You frame passive income as “sovereignty” rather than hustle. What does financial freedom actually look like in lived, everyday terms?
I get asked this question when I speak. And the question is, what does it look like for you? For someone it might be the ability to build a tiny home and live off the land. For someone else it might mean $100 million. we’re almost everyone I’ve spoken with, it means time freedom: I can do with my day what I desire. And money freedom — I don’t have to worry about my bills. Where are you fall on that spectrum is up to you. Consciously focusing on what this would look like — creating images of it in your head and then going and living inside of those images — can help create a safe space for you where this is actually possible in real life.
The book ends with a simple directive: pick one idea and act. Why is that so difficult for people to do?
I love this question so much! We tend to overcomplicate things. Many people have a belief that simple and easy are the same thing. But they’re not. We will tell ourselves “That’s too easy! It won’t work.” What we are really saying here is that it’s too simple and therefore, I don’t believe that it will work. Quite a difference. Coaching can help shift your mindset here – even the bumper sticker coaching, I included in the book can be quite transformational. Yet many people won’t even try, because they want a 15 step system. PS. Some things really are easy.
What are the biggest financial mistakes beginners make when chasing passive income?
The first one is going where they think the money is as opposed to creating the stream they really care about. I believe that alignment is everything. You have to choose the thing that you’re going to want to stick with when there are bumps in the road.
I also see people making basic business mistakes because they haven’t bothered with business basics. If you started making income, put a portion aside for taxes. Simple, right? So much of this can be learned online right now.
Not doing basic market research before starting their passive stream. Are you in an industry where the kind of product that you want to create is already done trending? Do you want to open a laundromat but there are already four in your local area? Using AI tools, market research that used to take days or weeks can now be done in minutes.
The biggest financial mistake I see is people not getting started because they’re afraid they don’t have the money. I think something like half of the passive income streams mentioned in the Passive Income Power Plan can be started with less than $500! Some can be started for free, using just your brain and your computer. This bring us back to your mindset. Are you willing to believe in yourself and to know that the desire you seek is also seeking you?
Author Website
If you’ve ever thought, There’s got to be more than this — you’re right. The Passive Income Power Plan is your starting line.
In this powerful guide, transformational wealth coach and business strategist Halle Eavelyn delivers 108 proven ways to earn income while you sleep—no hype, no fluff, just practical ideas that work. Whether you’re stuck in a 9-to-5, running a business that owns you, or finally ready to make your money work harder than you do, this is your roadmap to financial freedom.
Inside, you’ll discover:
108 income ideas—from simple side hustles to scalable digital assets
How to turn what you already know (or own) into recurring cash flow
Mindset shifts to stop stalling and start building
Practical tools to grow wealth without grinding 24/7
You don’t need an MBA. You don’t need a six-figure budget.
You just need to take the first step.
Because freedom isn’t luck. It’s leverage. And this book shows you exactly how to build it.
