Get in the Game or Die in the Bleachers Watching Others Play

San Diego wakes up slow. Each morning I walk the streets with a coffee in my hand and a notebook under my arm. I watch the sun push through the clouds and the city stretch into another day.

Before the calls start, before the noise, I sit and write. Writing clears my head. It reminds me that every day is a gift. If you opened your eyes this morning, it means your work is not finished. If your purpose was done, you would not be here. You are still in the game. So get your ass out of the cheap seats and onto the field. Play with everything you have.

I have not always played well. In the early 2000s I was close to bankruptcy. In 2019 I had a health scare that forced me to see how brittle life is. In 2020, during the COVID lockdowns, I took another hit that almost broke me. Each time I went down hard. Each time I had to fight my way back.

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I am not special. These are the lessons all of us face if we live long enough. Life forces you to choose. You either get up, or you die. Literal death or the slow death of giving up while you are still alive. I have failed more times than I can count, but I am still here. Every scar I carry proves I stayed in the fight. Every time I thought I was done, I reminded myself: you are still in the game.

I am still in the game because I am not dead yet. Do not live like you are dead when you are still alive.

Scars are the best teachers. They tell the truth in a way no classroom ever could. Safety that has never been tested is fake. You only know if something is strong when life hammers it with trials. For a long time, I thought the answer was safety. Build walls. Make a life no one can touch. I was wrong. Paper safety looks strong until real life tears it apart. Real strength shows up in scars. Scars mean you did not quit.

Years ago, I saw a movie by Albert Brooks called Defending Your Life, which came out in 1991. I never forgot it. In the story, Brooks dies and ends up in a strange afterlife. His whole life goes on trial. The only question is: did he live with courage or with fear. If he lived with fear, he has to go back. Meryl Streep plays a woman who lived with courage. Rip Torn plays the lawyer who tries to defend Brooks.

The message cut deep. Hell is not fire. Hell is seeing all the things you could have done and knowing you chose fear. Hell is wasting your time by living too safe. Fear tricks you into running from what you do not want. The cost is you never run toward what you are meant to do. You never find your calling. You never move with speed or conviction.

Hesitation is another hard lesson. Waiting too long is still a choice, and indecision carries a heavy price. Inaction has killed more families, more wealth, and more dreams than bold mistakes ever have. Hope without action is nothing. If you sit too long on the sidelines, life moves on without you. You cannot cheer your way to victory from the bleachers.

These lessons shaped my life and my work. They are why Adrian C. Spitters and I wrote It Starts With Gold. That book told the truth about what endures when illusions collapse, and it became an international bestseller.

They are also why we are finishing our next book, Killing Crypto, to be released in early 2026. It exposes the trap of digital money and financial fictions before they break people the way old illusions did. Both books came from scars. Both came from real pain.

I do not write because I know everything. I write because I have lived through the fight. Writing helps me close one chapter and move into the next. It is also how I pass on what others gave me.

I lean on the words of men who walked before me. In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt said it best:

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I read that and I remember: better to be scarred and striving than to rot in the stands.

I think of Viktor Frankl, who survived the Holocaust and wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. He said, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear almost any ‘how.’” He lived through horrors I will never know. His words remind me that as long as I am alive, my why is not done.

I think of Wayne Dyer, called the “Father of Motivation.” He died in 2015 in Maui, Hawaii. In 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace he wrote, “Don’t die with your music still in you.” I think of the mornings I almost gave up. His words tell me: you have something inside you that must be shared before you leave this world.

I think also of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India’s nonviolent movement for independence. He said, “Be the change you want to become.” Those words matter. They are not about speeches. They are about work. They remind me and should remind you: be the work to become the individual you would want to be invited at your table.

So I hold on to Roosevelt, Frankl, Dyer, Gandhi, and even Albert Brooks’ 1991 film. If you are alive today, it means you are not finished. Do not live in fear. Do not let safety cage you. Do not waste your time by running from what you do not want. Run toward what you are meant to do, and run hard. Get in the game or die in the bleachers.

That is also why Adrian and I are careful with our table. There are only so many seats, and who you let sit there matters. When Adrian and I met, we found out through a string of events that we shared three things. First, we had the same values. Second, our work styles fit together. Third, because of those two, real opportunities opened.

Out of that came true creative power. We wrote It Starts With Gold™. We are finishing Killing Crypto. We have written hundreds of articles. More than that, we have walked with hundreds of people who wanted to take back their freedom from the Financial Industrial Complex.

This is not theory. Collectively we have spent more than 70 years inside the system, working on different sides of the continent before we even met. We know its tricks. We know it’s traps. We know how it steals agency. And we know how to get it back.

If you are reading this, you already know you cannot stay in the cheap seats. The choice is simple. Stay where you are, or stand up, walk toward your calling, and join a community of sovereign individuals who have taken back the narrative.

Join Adrian and me if you have the right stuff at our table of questioners, of doers, of sovereigns who have gotten themselves off the bench and onto the field playing like it matters. Each of us has one life. Play like it matters, because it does.

Peter J. Merrick, TEP

The same truth applies in finance as in life: safety on paper is not enough. When tested, only real strength endures. That is why the scars I carry have shaped not only how I live but also how I work. At our firm, we assist clients in structuring wealth by Owning Assets in Order of Asset Security. We prioritize the most secure assets and safeguard those that are most vulnerable.

Book your complimentary review to learn how to structure for the shifts ahead.

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