A Teaspoon, a Bucket, or a Tractor Trailer? Reverend Ike Passes.

A Teaspoon, a Bucket, or a Tractor Trailer?

Financial Abundance

The Ocean doesn’t care! The Ocean just wants to OUTFLOW!”

If you are familiar with this statement then you know Reverend Ike. And it is with my deepest sympathy that we remember the great Reverend and what he did for the world. The Reverend passed away on July 28, 2009.

Reverend Ike

Reverend Ike, also known as Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter, delivers a sermon in 1977.

In Money & You®, we have been teaching, and giving credit to, Reverend Ike for decades. Graduates of Money & You® will remember that over the course of the 3 1/2 day program, students are taken from a mindset of scarcity into sufficiency and finally to one of abundance. And one of the most memorable and favorite teachings from the 3+ days is in a segment called “Ring Toss” – it’s a segment that teaches how successful people play in business, and ultimately, it’s a game about leverage.

At this point in the program the energy is high, tensions can be high, and the instructor is having a blast with participants engaging in this-for-that bargaining and pleading for answers.  The reason why Money & You® works so well is participants discover the answer from within and they truly learn, rather than being lectured and told the correct answer that sits in a notebook on a shelf for the next 30 years. It’s a pivotal point in the weekend seminar and we always have many reviewers coming back to re-experience this particular segment. In fact, we have noted that there are at least two PhD dissertations on this game.

As the game proceeds, the instructions are quickly and always repeated for the class upon request. And after each reading of the instructions, the instructor adds his or her own most excited rendition of, “There is an Ocean of Abundance! There is an Ocean of What!?”

And the class, already anticipating the answer, resounds, “Abundance!”

To which the instructor responds, “You can come to the Ocean with a teaspoon, a bucket, or a tractor trailer! The Ocean doesn’t care! The Ocean just wants to outflow!”

That is the famous line the Reverend left us with – and we will always remember! We have used it with his permission and I must say thank you, Reverend Ike! Everyone loves to hear it. It’s almost a Money & You® trademark because our grads have psychologically anchored this phrase with a new paradigm of thinking – away from scarcity into sufficiency and finally abundance.

The Reverend was also an instructor at the Excellerated Business School® for Entrepreneurs where he taught hundreds of successful entrepreneurs and business owners in exotic places like Hawaii, where we held the now 8-day program for many years.

The Reverend was outrageous and that’s why we loved him! He expanded people’s comfort with their own deserve-ability. We still teach Reverend Ike’s philosophy and will continue to spread the word of Ike!

With Loving Thoughts,

DC Cordova

Read more about the Reverend here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/nyregion/30ike.html

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

4 replies
  1. Jonathan
    Jonathan says:

    As a Money & You® grad, I remember this so much and it is one of my favorites too! Thanks for sharing this. I hadn’t seen this in the news. I didn’t know he had a church in Washington Heights… I was just there visiting.

    It looks like from the obits that he had a controversial philosophy, but I think his abundance teachings are extremely empowering.

  2. Patricia Reed
    Patricia Reed says:

    DC, I will never forget the moment the penny dropped in the Ring Toss game, for me, and that was 20 years ago now, and to this day I have an investment account by the same name !
    Thank You Reverend Ike!

  3. Paul Schumann
    Paul Schumann says:

    Money and U changed my life in ways I had not yet experienced. Kerry pulled out of me where I was stuck in my attitude. The games immersed me into my own stuff and when we debriefed the game I was surprised what I found. How I played the games opened me up to finding myself. As I played the games I felt strange emotions surfacing and challenging to me. This was not the first personal growth program in my life so I though it knew It all. What I experienced in the games taught me how I was off in my thinking about myself. This allowed me to grow and become more successful in life. Since 2000 when I took the course I have been back many times and each time I remember and grow even more. Being on the logistics team gave me another side to my understanding as I watched other people grow. I saw myself over and over again and watched their progress until the end and felt their gratitude outpouring to everybody. Come play with us and make friends for life.

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