“What is your personal life or financial motto and how has it helped you create wealth?”

“Learn the rules. Then play them.”

From birth, say my parents, I wanted to know what the rules were, so I knew the boundaries. My brother Dirk, however, liked to know where the boundaries were so he knew what to jump over to get to where the fun started.

Every game, every workplace, every relationship, every object, every situation has rules. Most of the time, you can’t control them. But learn the rules well enough, you’ll discover how they can be pushed and prodded, even bent.

The best in any particular field know how to “play” the rules – to bend those rules to personal strengths. Think Australia II and the winged keel. Or Melbourne Storm and salary caps … oops, bad example.

Money has rules too. And anything with rules can be learned and played.

I reckon there are five global money rules (you can read more about them in Debt Man Walking) that are the foundation blocks of wealth creation.

They are the rules of delayed gratification, risk versus return, compounding growth, diversification and leverage.

Once you really understand the rules of money, you realise that becoming rich is not about having a big salary, getting lucky, being smart, or looking like Claudia Schiffer. Take the late Kerry Packer – not particularly scholastic, certainly no Claudia.

My motto has allowed me to understand that financial success is actually more like a recipe. Follow money’s simple rules and wealth will follow.

Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and a licensed financial adviser.