From the Starting Gate: The Winning Strategies for Wealth, Health, and Happiness

By Billy Peterson

Billy Peterson rode racehorses for nine years as a professional jockey, becoming the number one quarter horse jockey in the United States of America.
After retiring, he became a financial advisor and is a five-time member of Raymond James Chairman’s Council. He was also named to Barron’s list of top advisors in the United States and has been selected to America’s Best-in-State financial advisors by Forbes six times.

In short, the author knows all about winning, and it’s a lot easier to outpace your peers when you are prepared from the starting gate. In this book, a follow-up to Harnessing Your Wealth — The Pursuit of Millionaire Status, you’ll learn how to:

• create wealth – and just as important – sustain it;
• cultivate habits that will promote good health;
• avoid faulty medical advice;
• learn how to manifest miracles.

While the concept of miracles is fantasy to most people, the author shares numerous examples of how they have made a difference in his life and in the lives of others. By drawing on his broad array of experience as both a jockey and financial expert, he reveals how to enjoy the benefit of miracles at a greater frequency by connecting to the universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798765250907

Billy Peterson

Billy Peterson, a world champion jockey and top-ranked financial advisor, has a way of making the complex simple. His firm, Peterson Wealth Services, manages approximately $425 million in client assets and represents more than 400 households. He is also the author of Harnessing Your Wealth — The Pursuit of Millionaire Status, as well as hosts a podcast called Harnessing Your Wealth. He and his wife Heather reside in Morgan, Utah where they raise horses and operate Buck Way Ranch.

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Copyright © 2024 Billy Peterson.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

ISBN: 979-8-7652-5091-4 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-5092-1 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-5090-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024907187

Balboa Press rev. date:  05/24/2024

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to my wife Heather for your patience and support in giving me the freedom to spend the countless hours it took me to write this book. I also appreciate your willingness to read the manuscript multiple times and offer me your insights and suggestions which helped tremendously. I am so grateful that you came into my life at just the right time. Thank you for being you!

Thanks to Haley Weaver for providing encouragement as well as necessary critiques of the initial manuscript. Your suggestions were invaluable in organizing the sections of the book and keeping me focused on the important points rather than veering off into the weeds.

I am also grateful to the wonderful crew at Balboa Press for providing me with direction and support in moving my manuscript along the course to the finish line

Thanks to Cade and Morgan for their review and suggestions. Also thanks to my staff: Shaun, Cade, Emily, Jenny, Philomena, and Maggie for their dedication to our mission at Peterson Wealth Services by adhering to The Code of the West in serving our clients.

DEDICATION

To Cade, Karly, Kaiya, Brigham, and Berkley. Believe in

the power of your mind! The possibilities are endless!

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part 1: Mindset

Chapter 1     Conflict and Trauma

Chapter 2     Living the Dream

Chapter 3     Be Hard to Herd

Part 2: Wealth

Chapter 4     Build a Winning Stable

Chapter 5     The Winner’s Circle

Chapter 6     Keep Your Wits

Chapter 7     Broaden Your Horizons

Chapter 8     Don’t Leave the Gate Open

Chapter 9     Understanding Real Estate

Chapter 10   A Time to Sell

Chapter 11   Watch Out for Rattlesnakes

Chapter 12   Stay between the Rails

Chapter 13   Make It Make Sense

Part 3: Health

Chapter 14   Let It Go

Chapter 15   Wake Up!

Chapter 16   Health Care Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

Chapter 17   Trust the Science—Unless the Science Is the Narrative

Chapter 18   Dare Them to Doubt You

Part 4: Manifesting Miracles

Chapter 19   Forget about Thinking—Get Busy Living

Chapter 20   Be the Waterwheel

Chapter 21   Never Fear

Chapter 22   Share the Love

Chapter 23   Visualize the Outcome

Chapter 24   Change Your Energy—Change Your Life

Chapter 25   The Finish Line

Resources

Financial Disclosures

INTRODUCTION

Life can be like riding a racehorse—striding out nice and strong with no worries and an easy lead one minute, and then suddenly rearing over backward and dumping you on your head the next. We all face challenges. What we take from those challenges is ultimately what shapes our lives. We all have our own worldviews based on our experiences and the influencers we allow into our circle. My life has been shaped and influenced by so many people, and I obviously can’t name them all here. I have learned that the greatest truth in the universe is that we are what our thoughts and actions make us. This truth was perhaps better understood thousands of years ago than it is even today. As Proverbs 23:7 (Kings James translation) puts it, As a Man Thinketh, So Is He.¹ We have the ability to change. If we want something badly enough and put a vision of it in our mind—holding it firmly with total belief and without doubt—that vision will manifest into reality.

I wanted to write a book on what I consider to be the three pillars of life: health, wealth, and happiness. Having been a financial advisor for multiple decades, I have worked with many people from all sorts of backgrounds. Several years ago, one of my highly successful clients who owned a chain of restaurants put this phrase to me about a year before he died. He said, Billy, the three most important things in life are, first, your health, second, your happiness, and, third, your wealth. You can’t have the second without the first, and you can have the third without the first and second. To him, wealth was ranked last. Perhaps this was the case because he had wealth. Health was first, perhaps because he wasn’t in great health. I found that statement to be quite interesting, so I spent a lot of time thinking about it and analyzing how other people might prioritize them.

Happiness can seem arbitrary and fleeting. I am not aware of anyone who has been able to sustain happiness indefinitely. External triggers can throw us off course quite easily if we are not able to accept things as they come. To me, the better way to describe happiness is by using the terms positive thinking or positive mindset. I will refer to these terms interchangeably throughout the book, so it is important that you understand the underlying context I am attempting to convey. I am writing this book to share my insights in all three areas and highlight how they are all interconnected at some level, and with that, I hope you will not only gain knowledge and awareness but also be entertained. Some sections on wealth pull from my first published book, Harnessing Your Wealth, as I felt the need to reiterate certain points, examples, or stories. This book expands on those stories and tackles a broader range of approaches to build value and security in life. I’ll also share my personal health recovery stories as well as a number of stories from others who have overcome all sorts of chronic pain conditions, illnesses, and diseases—even those as serious as cancer—to illustrate how I learned to care for my health and mind in tandem. I have found that without harnessing positivity on a mental level, it is impossible to fully heal physically. This book guides readers on building an effective mindset and diligent strategies to achieve high levels of all three pillars. We can all have health, wealth, and positivity in our lives.

The word prosperity is synonymous with success, and often paired with words like peace and wealth. We see this when wishing people well, as in May your year be full of peace and prosperity. We want our lives to be full of wealth, health, and joy. But joy and happiness are inherently transitory emotional states, so I opt for cultivating positivity, which can be more consistent. Together, wealth, health, and positivity are pillars of success, of a life that feels good and wants for nothing. But is it possible to prosper in all three pillars of life at the same time? They are certainly interrelated yet often get thrown out of balance, with one being prioritized to the detriment of the others.

This book begins with a discussion on mindset, which is one of, if not the most important element in this conversation about creating prosperity in our lives. I believe it is important to lay out those foundational mental tools before getting into more focused guidance in the following sections on the three pillars. You will get some insight about why some people succeed, even in the face of extreme adversity, or perhaps even as a result of it. These introductory chapters will include advice that will serve you well in all areas of life and that has been key to my own success, on the racetrack, in business, and in my personal life.

I will also tackle some misunderstandings that kept me from achieving a healthy balance in my life for far too long. There are many misconceptions about health, such as the common myth that illness and disease are all predestined by your family DNA. This just isn’t true. We all have far more control over our health than we have been led to believe. We aren’t spinning on a roulette wheel, just waiting to see where our health outcome will land based on random luck or forces outside of our control. Health and wellness are based on choices, and choices originate from belief systems.

I rode racehorses for nine years as a professional jockey, from age fifteen to twenty-four. Since retiring from that career, I’ve spent the last twenty-five years working in the financial industry at three different firms. In my time as a financial advisor, I have been a five-time member of Raymond James Chairman’s Council² and was also named to Barron’s list of top advisors.³ I have been selected to America’s Best-in-State financial advisors by Forbes six separate times.⁴ As a jockey, I won more than a thousand races, riding at notable racetracks in over a dozen states. I was recognized as the leading rider at multiple race-meets and was the number one quarter horse jockey in the country in 1995.

I’ve had a lot of success in both of my careers as far as I’m concerned, but with all of the focus and pressure I put on myself to reach my goals, my health took a hit. This wasn’t by accident (although I did have several accidents during my time as a jockey). My chronic health conditions were a direct result of prolonged, intense worry and stress. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) was my first encounter with what would eventually be a number of long-suffering physical illnesses knocking on my door. At the time, I had no idea why I suddenly began having extremely painful and unpleasant acid reflux sensations. I had just retired from the racetrack after a relatively short nine-year career as jockey. Yet the career I had chosen to move into was filled with even more pressure than I ever felt riding racehorses. When I began my career as a financial advisor, I struggled to imagine how a job could be more intense and anxiety-riddled than busting out of the starting gates on a 1,300-pound animal, racing around a track with a pack of other horses and jockeys, all trying to get to the finish line first. It would take me many more years and a number of additional health problems, including eight long years of agonizing back pain, before I would uncover the secret to good health, and in these pages, I’ll give that secret to you. Here’s a little hint right now: it’s not a pill or a supplement or a diet.

Across the three pillars of life, there is one common enemy. As you’ll learn in the pages to follow, worry can cause significant destruction to your wealth, it can wreck your health, and it can cast a permanent black cloud over happiness in your life. Stress and worry are known as silent killers. They won’t be noted in most cause-of-death reports, which frequently list heart disease, cancer, kidney failure, or some other type of disease. However, all of these leading causes of death are linked in some way to how stress forces the body into illness and disease. These negative mental conditions produce cortisol and adrenaline, both of which can be helpful in the event of a sudden danger. Unknowingly, most of us are actually perpetuating the effects of stress, tension, and worry due to our inability to live in the moment. We worry about the past and fear what lies in the future, and in doing so, we create stress. Prolonged exposure to these chemicals creates many unwanted outcomes. A 2021 research review⁵ demonstrated that the following diseases are directly associated with chronic stress: anxiety, depression, joint and muscle pain, fatigue, heart disease, digestive disorders, memory disorders, diabetes, and cancer. Stress is the seed, and it is the sustenance for nearly every type of disease or illness known to humankind.

Most people casually accept that stress is just a by-product of a busy lifestyle—a necessary part of being successful. We all experience worry to some degree. Some of us keep the fire burning day and night, yet we truly don’t realize that this fire has even been lit. Sometimes our anxiety is smoldering; other times, it is roaring with flames, and the burns we suffer from them are masked as any number of problems (both physical and mental). We become so habituated to feeding the fire with our fear, anger, guilt, shame, and jealousy that we aren’t even aware we are doing it. It becomes second nature for us to keep this blaze burning. When we’re young, many of us don’t put a lot of thought into health issues. Living in the moment comes fairly naturally. When we are in the moment, we are free. The fires are non-existent simply because we are not offering them any fuel with which to burn. As we grow older, however, we become masters at avoiding the present moment. We torch our minds and bodies with negative thinking; fearing what is to come or beating ourselves up for what has already happened. Our thoughts are the logs to the fire.

Each of these areas are important. And yet positivity, health, and wealth are relative concepts, often intertwined and always determined by one’s own viewpoint. One person could consider himself wealthy living in his own studio apartment, while another would consider it an absolutely cramped and miserable situation to have any less than a six thousand square foot house. One person can find acceptance and feel blessed while living with lower limb paralysis, while another feels frustrated with their run time for a marathon. Satisfaction is a state of mind. Dissatisfaction in any of the three arenas might point us to what we need to change about our lives, or it may point us to what we should make peace with. Because all three pillars are vital to our lives, I’m going to spend a fair amount of time covering issues related to each category. Monetary wealth is a mirage for many. It feels out of reach or too difficult to achieve. Living a life in good health is becoming the exception rather than the rule. Happiness, in turn, seems fleeting and unsustainable. But do not believe this conventional thinking. By following the methods I am going to share, you’ll soon discover that possessing each of these is not a complicated undertaking. With the proper tools, you can change the course of your life in a dramatic way, strengthening all three pillars to improve your life overall.

We are all here for only a short time. We owe it to ourselves to spend as much of it as possible being happy, healthy, and financially secure. I’m going to offer time-tested methods to put you on track to achieve financial success and also share many personal experiences that opened my eyes and gave me the opportunity to help you live worry-free and with a positive outlook every day. Let’s dive in.

Don’t believe the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing; it was here first. (Robert J. Burdette)

PART 1

MINDSET

ONE

CONFLICT AND TRAUMA

Major trauma, even occurring at a very young age, sticks with you—oftentimes rearing up from the depths of your subconscious mind, triggered by a sight, sound, smell, or a passing thought. Every time I see a hospital or smell the over powering scents of a sterilized room, I feel anxiety rise up. When just three years old, I spent months in the Salt Lake City Shriners Hospital, lying in that hospital bed for hours on end, listening to the goings-on of the hospital staff tending to the dozen or so children populating the open-room ward in which I was a patient. To this day, wheelchairs still bother me greatly. Children crying and screaming for their mothers gives me great sadness. These sights, sounds, and smells experienced throughout the second-floor child-trauma unit are hardwired into my brain.

The trauma was certainly a by-product of the fear I felt in not understanding why my parents had left me there and not knowing what was wrong with me. I sat alone in my hospital bed, oftentimes crying to myself and wondering: Why did my family not want me? Did I do something wrong? My mom did visit me, but I was so scared and so sad that I mostly just remember her leaving, over and over again. I was placed in a ward with several other children. One boy had no arms, and I remember him pushing me in my wheelchair, using nothing but his chest. Another boy was so severely burned on his upper body and face that I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or frowning.

I learned when I was older that I was in there waiting to have corrective leg surgery because I was born with severely bowed legs. Back then, the only known treatment that provided some level of correction for the condition I had was cutting the femur bones, rotating the lower half of the bone slightly inward, and stapling them back together. My parents didn’t have insurance to cover the surgery at the children’s hospital, so they opted for Shriners—the charity-run hospital for kids in bad shape but who were unable to afford the medical treatments. The bowing of my legs resulted from a genetic condition in our family called X-linked Hypophosphatemia, more commonly known as rickets. It had been passed down from my maternal grandfather to my mother and then to me.

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Billy, age two, prior to first surgery

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Billy, age three, in full-body cast

The boys in the family are physically affected by the condition, including several of my cousins. The women are carriers, but they don’t display the condition themselves. Because it is linked to the X chromosome, my son didn’t inherit it from me, but my daughters have, and they will have a 50 percent chance of passing it to each of their sons and so on. After many weeks of living in the ward at Shriners, worrying and waiting, a surgeon finally became available to perform my surgery. After the procedure, I was required to remain at the hospital for a couple more weeks for observation. One morning, a nurse finally told me I was going home. I remember I choked up and had to turn my face into the pillow so she wouldn’t see me cry. I went home in a full body cast from feet to chest to recover, although I would need to endure several more surgeries before it was over.

These days, we have a clearer understanding of what causes the legs to bow. Those born with the deficiency can be treated orally with a potent combination of vitamin D and phosphorous. Their legs straighten right up, as long as this is done before the bones have a chance to bow due to walking and weight-bearing. Looking back on it now, I’m both sad and angry at what transpired. My grandfather, uncles, and several cousins have all endured such trauma related to this seemingly harmless deficiency of minerals and vitamins. I suffered through many episodes of ridicule and teasing from my fellow students as a grade-school student. Kids can be so mean. I walked funny. What fun to tease and mock the kid who is different. Adults were a little more discreet with their comments, but they couldn’t help calling me by the nickname bow-legged Bill, which someone had labeled me as a punch line.

In many of my elementary classes, the teachers would ask all of the students to sit down cross-legged for story time or some other activity. I couldn’t make my legs cross. The teachers would often scold me, as I did not comply with the request, drawing attention from the other students. Try as I may, I couldn’t fold them—and still can’t. I became so uncomfortable being in the spotlight because it was almost always due to the fact that I was different, a freak—at least that’s how I perceived myself. All of this triggered a complex with how I looked and how I walked and ran. I was so ashamed.

The surgeries helped some with the bowing, but in the process, I lost significant range of motion. I am grateful for the life experiences and the trials I needed to overcome. Regardless, I am more grateful that my kids and grandkids won’t have to endure the same fate. This is why it’s so important to continue medical research until we fully understand root causes, rather than relying primarily on surgical solutions.

Since noninvasive treatment wasn’t understood in my infancy, I still have pretty significant bowing. People often assume the bowing developed because I spent so many years riding horses. But being born with bowed legs was part of my destiny from birth. We have to play the cards we’re dealt. By cutting my femur bones and making the rotation to each leg, my growth was stunted. My family members are all quite tall. Doctors have told me that without the surgery, I would have reached five feet eleven or maybe even six feet. Without the rickets, I would have experienced a much different life.

As it turned out, I hit my maximum height at five feet six—and as fate would have it, my short stature enabled me to pursue a career as a jockey. I was able to ride at tracks such as Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Delmar, Bay Meadows, Ruidoso Downs, Los Alamitos, Remington Park, and Sunland Park, to name a few—riding some of the most highly accomplished racehorses in the country. I would later become the number one ranked quarter horse jockey in the United States in 1995.⁶

While crying in the hospital as a child, I had no idea the hell I was going through would be the key to proud achievements in my future. But my childhood had more challenges in store for me before I could reach that period of my life. My siblings and I had to endure what I would describe as a volatile childhood. I remember the fighting between my parents and the day my dad packed his bags and moved out, ultimately divorcing my mother when I was eight. And I remember the day my mom moved us to a new town and introduced us to her new friend, Randy.

Unfortunately, the friend soon became our stepdad, and he was not the father figure he should have been. When he was drunk—which was often—and looking for a fight, he would grab my brother and me by one arm at the top step of the stairs and then kick us in the ass so hard we would fly all the way to the bottom step. I recall how angry and scared I was when the ambulance had to come for my sister after he threw her over the railing and down onto the concrete garage floor, causing her spleen to rupture. We were whipped with horse crops and belts, knocked over our heads with metal spoons, and beaten with the wooden pirate swords my grandfather had made for my brother and me to play with. Our alcoholic stepdad, Randy, took them away from us and repurposed them—to take his anger out on us. He stored them on top of the refrigerator, where we couldn’t reach, and pulled them down anytime he felt one of us needed an education.

The cops were at our house on countless occasions. Mom would call them when she got scared—and she was often scared. One day when I was eleven, I decided that I had had enough. I made a decision to get out of there. I told my brother, Ben, that he was coming with me. Mom and Randy had left, and Randy had given us strict instructions to chop down all of the weeds in the field with shovels by the time they got home. I knew we had no chance of chopping all of those weeds down. I also knew he knew that. He was just looking for another excuse to beat us and knock us around later because the job wasn’t done. We left on my three-speed bike, me pumping the pedals and Ben sitting on the handlebar for most of the thirty-five-mile ride to Dad’s house. This was a ride full of steep inclines, busy city streets, and even riding the shoulder on the freeway.

Once they returned and Mom realized we weren’t there, she called Dad, who confirmed we were at his place. She and Randy were there within an hour to haul us back to their house, against our wishes and strong protests. Dad said he couldn’t do anything about it. He told us that Mom had primary custody and we would need to do as she said. I hated her for that. But the fact that we had taken such dramatic action caused her to shift her hardline stance. A few weeks later, during an argument we were having, she told me to call my dad and move out—see how I liked it on my own, as she referred to life with my dad. I packed my bags immediately. Mom figured I would be begging to come back within a week, so she wouldn’t let me take much of anything. I was twelve, and Ben was seven at that time. It was both the happiest and saddest day of my life. I can still recall precisely how the day unfolded.

I called my dad immediately and told him that mom said I needed to leave. He agreed to come and get me, but that it would be a while. He was going to the racetrack with my uncle first, as they had a couple of racehorses that needed to be worked out. I packed my bag and went outside, doing everything in my power to avoid Mom, in hopes that she wouldn’t change her mind.

I paced around outside, waiting. After a few hours, they finally pulled down the road. I didn’t even say goodbye to Mom, but Ben had heard the news and got busy packing his little Star Wars duffel bag. He came running around the back of the house and was smiling from ear to ear, ready to go.

Ready to go back home, to stay with me—his brother and trusted ally.

I will never ever forget Dad getting out of the truck, getting down on one knee, and holding Ben by each shoulder. He told him that he just couldn’t come with us; he was just too young, and he needed his ma for a while longer. Ben slumped his shoulders and looked down, the tears streaming down his cheeks. He was so little and so confused.

What was happening? I cried too and didn’t care if Dad saw me. How can we just leave him? I yelled at Dad. Why won’t you let him come? Why? He needs to come with us, Dad. I won’t be here to take care of him!

Dad got in, closed the door, and slowly pulled away while Ben stood on the edge of the street with his little black bag in his hand, watching us go. You just broke his heart, I said as I cried harder and watched him through the back window of the truck. I looked at my uncle for help. Make him stop. A tear rolled down his cheek, and he looked away. Nobody spoke the entire ride home.

A few years later, Mom finally found the courage to leave Randy. This wasn’t easy, because Randy had threatened to kill her and Ben if she ever tried it. She lost a good ten years of her life and most of her assets while she was with him. My siblings and I lost our identities and our youthful innocence during those years, as well as the trust we had always had in our mother to protect us and nurture us. She never recovered financially from the mistakes she made. The divorce set my father back in a number of ways as well. My parents both suffered tremendously from their failed marriage, emotionally and financially.

It was from these experiences that I learned the value of faith. I didn’t know it at the time, but it would also play a significant role in my health later in life.

Buried Emotions

Nadine Burke Harris, MD, has been studying childhood traumas for decades. Her book, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity, provides great insight into this often-misunderstood condition. At Harris’s clinic in Bayview-Hunters Point, a large percentage of the children she saw were suffering from physical ailments, such as asthma and eczema, as well as behavioral issues, such as irritability and difficulty paying attention in class. By talking with their parents, she learned that some of these children had been abused or were witnessing violence at home.

She decided to begin studying these and other conditions that were cropping up at an alarming rate in the pediatric patients seen in her office. The study on adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, first released in 1998, shows that early childhood trauma can cause lifelong negative health impacts. Poverty is often a root cause of factors that lead to trauma, but it is also important to recognize that people from all walks of life and income brackets undergo trauma. ACEs include suffering physical or emotional abuse, neglect, experiencing a divorce, or living