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This may shock and disappoint some, but my born name is not Derek Moneyberg.

I know, to some this is like discovering the truth about Santa Claus.

When my Instagram eclipsed two million, a new breed of internet haters popped up, spreading lies and harassing my clients, telling them about my "criminal past."
I'm not ashamed of one single second of my past, so I figured I would write this short story to give everyone the facts.

I was born on May 2nd, 1979 to a crazy mother and criminal father. Legend has it that I came out of the womb hustling, making every dollar I could dancing and smiling for the nurses and doctors.

They named me Dale Buczkowski.

CHAPTER 1: YOUNG DALE

Early on growing up, my dad had a lot of money. We were rich.

We had multiple cars and homes. I liked that, life was good.

Then, my father went to jail when I was in grade school for the largest drug trafficking charge in my county’s history.

This changed everything for us.

The government took away the houses, the cars, the furniture, and a huge chunk of cash from my mom and I. My mother did not respond well to this. She stopped working, she got fat, she was lazy, she got crazier than she already was, and somehow she found a way to blame it on me.
Our lives were shit. Our house was a mess. My Mom would lay on the couch and smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. She always found the cash to buy Marlboros, but the fridge was always empty. I remember it got so bad that I started to go to bed hungry. Not a little hungry, but painfully hungry.

I would lay awake at night and remember when we lived well. I would stare at the wall and pray to gods and devils I didn’t believe in.

I don’t really know what it was that sparked the shift, but one of those nights, I made a stand in my own mind. I promised myself that I would never be hungry and poor again.

The next day I woke up and started working. I started banging on every neighbor's door that I could walk to and would ask them what projects I could help them get done:
  • I started raking leaves and cutting grass.
  • ​When winter hit, I shoveled snow for three blocks worth of houses.
  • I got a paper route and delivered newspapers. (As my route grew, I started to employ friends to give them 75% of the pay and I took 25%.)
  • ​I painted fences like Tom Fucking Sawyer.

This is when the entrepreneurial fire started burning.

As I started High School, I was making great money for a 15 year old.
But I grew up with bad role models in a bad environment, so all that cash did was finance my bad behavior.

I had a Dad in jail, and a crazy Mom at home. I had no guidance, no mentorship and no one to hold me accountable to being a good citizen.

My neighborhood was rough. I stayed out all night, I was drinking, smoking cigarettes, and hanging out with losers who had no aspirations to do anything productive in life.
Of this cohort of childhood friends, three are dead, and one is crippled because he was operating heavy machinery while drunk.

Simply put, these were bad dudes. If a soft individual grew up in the situation I grew up in, they would be lucky to have lived through it.

Having ZERO influences would have been an improvement. “Feral boy raised by wolves in the forest” would have set me up for more success in life.

Early on in High School, I was a little ruffian who got suspended on a consistent basis. This was mostly for consistent acts of insubordination, as I refused to allow my teachers to slant my world view.
But unlike my complicit friends who did “not much” when they were suspended, I was at home reading a book, or watching a documentary, or doing some project that would result in me getting a few dollars from a neighbor.

When I was allowed to attend class, I either got an A or an F. If I didn’t care about a subject, I didn’t put any effort in at all.

Thankfully, teachers of those pointless classes knew I was bright and gave me D’s so I could move on to a class I was engaged in.
As I got older, I would find myself in bigger trouble. My Freshman and Sophomore years in High School, I was in several scuffles, and finally things escalated my Junior year, and I got thrown in my local jail when a confrontation with another young man turned violent.

CHAPTER 2: JAIL

I was 17 years old, and bam, just like that, I was sentenced to 3 months in the slammer. This wasn’t a soft juvenile detention center, the men who prowled my block were rapists, thieves, and murderers.
When I look back on my life, those three months were my time in exile. Something interesting happens to your mind when you are locked up, and your freedom is stripped from you.

If you’ve never been in jail, you wouldn’t know the feeling. You can’t compare it to being grounded or sent to your room as a kid, in that situation, you know you can still physically leave the room and go somewhere. You have that option.

In jail, there are locks, bars, and concrete. You don’t have the option of going where you want. You go where the guards want you to go, when they want you to go.

When these options are taken away, it clears your head. All those decisions that you make every single day, like, what to eat, what to wear, who to call, you don’t make them anymore. Your bandwidth dramatically widens.
You do have to stay alert when you are in population (for obvious reasons), but when you are in your cell, your mind can focus.

For me, I couldn’t go make money, I couldn’t party with my friends, I couldn’t meet girls. I couldn’t do anything, except read.

So I read. For three months straight, I read a book a day, sometimes two. I read about business. I read about investing. I read about history and psychology. I read and I thought about what I wanted to accomplish with my life.

This was a turning point for me. Jail worked.
I was flooding my brain with a fire hose of knowledge, ideas, dreams, and aspirations, all while being physically blocked from executing toward that vision. This revved up my entrepreneurial engine to an even higher level.

Jail also taught me to love my freedom. It taught me that if you hang out with criminals, you will become a criminal. Jail taught me to appreciate good food, travel, a comfy bed, nice clothes, and ambitious friends.

(When all those things are taken from you, you get grateful real quick, you gaze out your cell window at the jets jetting by and you want to be up there in the sky.)

Jail made me stop, be still, and think about the path my life was moving toward. In my mind I designed a new and improved value system and life plan that I was excited to execute on once I had my freedom again.

*IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE*

I encourage all my clients to do my Moneyberg Three Sacred Questions Guidebook exercise in complete isolation and locked away in a bathroom because of the life-altering 3-month experience I had in my jail cell.

When the distractions of your daily grind fade away, you can tune into those deepest parts of your mind. Those depths are where your authentic wants, desires, and ambitions are stored. Normally, you can’t hear them, you gotta be still and listen for that whisper.
Up until my time in jail, I had never thought deeply about what I wanted my life to be. The cacophonic blend of crazy mother, criminal father, violent neighborhood, and delinquent friends drowned out my true desires and ambitions.

I wanted to do big things, make money, and be somebody.

When I got out of jail, I didn’t even bother going back to school. I dropped out and I didn’t experience my Senior year.

I was hungry and ready to take the book knowledge that I had downloaded in my head for three months, and go make some real money with it.
I stopped communicating with my shitty friends (except a few that I was trying to inspire to join me on my wealth building quest) and I went back to work.

I wanted to get some real experience working inside an organization, and my options were limited because of my background. Luckily, one company gave me an opportunity.

I got a job with the most successful retailer in the world.

CHAPTER 3:
MY FIRST AND ONLY JOB

Walmart was the first job I ever had, the only job I ever had, and the only job I will ever have.

The people that worked at Walmart looked at me like an alien. I would show up early, stay late, and pay attention to every little detail.

I would fix things that had nothing to do with my lowly 3rd shift truck unloader/stock boy job description.

I (unlike 99.9% of people) understood that the way I attacked this job would permeate into the rest of my life. Half-assing things is a slippery slope that slides into a pile of shit.

After a few months, I started to understand how an organization really functions. I identified who the real decision makers were at the store, and I made myself invaluable to them.

I dramatically improved my communication skills, I learned how to navigate different personalities, and I quickly started to make a name for myself.
This is where I found the first mentor of my life. His name was Frank and he was a manager at the store. Frank had worked directly with Sam Walton.

Every day Frank taught me something new. He would teach me things that Sam taught him.

He taught me how to communicate, how the store operated, and how to make things run smoothly.

After three months at the store, I negotiated my first promotion, and I was put in charge of the housekeeping and chemicals department. When I got that position, Frank taught me how to manage people three times my age.

Frank showed me the path and made sure I didn’t mess things up.
I could tell Frank was smart, and he was older, probably mid 60's, so he had the smarts and the experience I didn't have. I would ask Frank specific questions about what he would do in my situation and he would give me direct “do this, avoid that completely” guidance.

I trusted Frank. He taught me how to be a decisive leader. He was a true ally of mine, and together we outworked everyone and helped each other rise up and gain more power at that store.

Organizational dynamics are fascinating. I started to see the humans for what they really are, selfish.

As I rose up, other managers would try to undermine my success because I was outworking them. Lazy employees would try and get me in trouble because I was making them look bad.
Many of my colleagues of the "go-behind-your-back-taddle-tale" employee archetype, would go to a superior and tell them about some stupid rule I broke or some time wasting activity I didn’t partake in.

As a consequence, during one staff meeting, I got reprimanded in front of the entire store for one of these inconsequential acts. I got that manager alone the next day and in an assertive manner, I told him that if he was trying to make himself look in charge by calling me out, that he better make damn sure I know the plan, and that we are both benefiting.

He never challenged me again, we started communicating, we gained each other's respect, and he turned into another valuable ally.

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

 - Abe Lincoln 

At 9 month in, I got another promotion (this was not allowed by corporate policy).

When I started the negotiation for my 3rd promotion at about 13 months in, it was met with heavy pushback from corporate HR. We were almost able to push it through, but we couldn’t get it done.

After about 16 months, my run at Walmart had come to an end. During my time there, I learned invaluable management skills that I still use today inside my own companies.

There’s nothing wrong with having a job, as long as you are using it as a stepping stone toward entrepreneurship.

Learn every lesson that your job has to teach you. Make your boss look good, and negotiate hard for more responsibility and for more money.

Then, when it is evident that your growth is slowing, take the skills and alliances you built and use them to start a business of your own.

CHAPTER 4:
THE BEST INVESTMENT I EVER MADE 
MY EDUCATION

I resigned from my position at Walmart at 19. Shortly after, I took my GED and scored very well.

This allowed me to get into my local community college, which felt like learning in slow motion.

The classes were easy, and I wasn’t learning as much as I could, but I knew that I hadn’t yet earned my spot at a top university.

I graduated with highest honors (Phi Theta Kappa) with my Associate’s Degree, which I used to get a scholarship offer to go to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. 
I could have gone to Northwestern, or to The University of Chicago, but Bradley had a couple of things going for it, it gave me a 50% scholarship, Forbes had just ranked it the number one undergrad entrepreneurship program in the country, and it was located next to my dying grandfather.

I spent a lot of time with my grandfather at the end of his life. Seeing a family member get into their 80s and 90s lights a fire in you. Every dinner, and every moment you are with them is a reminder that father time is undefeated.

Grim death stalks us all every day, you better go make something happen before his metaphorical sickle slices you up.

Bradley gave me a 4 year scholarship, and I already had an Associate’s Degree. Voluntarily, I spent 6 years in undergrad, enough education for 1.5 bachelors degrees. Why? Because I love learning.
Upon graduation from Bradley, I achieved highest honors again. 11 people got outstanding academic achievement awards, and I was one of them. 

The funny thing about Bradley was that I was making more money than my professors, and I still graduated with highest honors.
I graduated from Bradley with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. Majoring in Entrepreneurship, with minors in Psychology and Philosophy.
After Bradley, I felt like I could build my success even faster if I had the knowledge and connections that an MBA offered.
I took the GMAT and scored very well, With those scores, I applied, was accepted, and enrolled in the number one MBA program in the world:

The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business

I chose Booth, because it was the #1 ranked MBA program in the world (out of 416). During my time there, I got very good, not incredible, grades because I was still maintaining my businesses.
I graduated Booth with honors. Made incredible connections with my professors, and I received the Dean’s Prize for building the Chicago Booth Brand. Only one person gets that trophy per year. 
In total, I spent 9 years in university. Between my formal education, self improvement programs, and access to elite membership groups, I spent over a million dollars on my education. This was the best money I ever spent. To this day, I still love learning and I will learn more every day until I am dead.

CHAPTER 5: BUILDING WEALTH

After I graduated with my MBA, I got to work building more businesses, traveling, and investing.
I started consulting on the side, and through that I would occasionally help Fortune 500 executives and the top decision makers in the world solve complex problems.

These consulting gigs were typically attempts by my network of business allies to lure me into an upper management position. Not for me, I would spend a couple weeks helping them work through the issue, collect a big check, and be on my way.
Why would I slave away as an employee building someone else's empire? Ick.
In 2003, I started helping my friends build their businesses and I started sitting on the Real Social Dynamics Board Of Directors. We grew that company into the world’s leading men’s dating coaching company.

We built that company from NOTHING into the global leader in its niche.

I started to build up some significant capital through my businesses and my consulting work. I became a millionaire at 29.

I had that capital sitting on the sidelines when the 2008/2009 market crash struck. During that time, I compounded my net worth by buying an irresponsible amount of Las Vegas Sands Casino Stock, dollar cost averaged at about 4 bucks per share.

I held until late 2010 and sold the stock at an average price of about $40 per share.

After I sold that stock, I was on my way.
At 31 I became a multimillionaire.
To me, all those zeros in my brokerage account meant one thing, FREEDOM.

So, I took advantage and started traveling the world.

After I did a few audio interviews with some of the coaches at Real Social Dynamics, I started getting dozens of requests from men all around the world for me to coach them in their dating lives.

Getting paid to travel the world and coach clients to success in the nightclub was an opportunity that a young, travel-loving entrepreneur couldn't let pass by.
During that time, I did get arrested a few times for some fights I got into at nightclubs. When you are going out to the hottest nightclubs in the world, 150 nights a year, occasionally frictions happen. Nothing major, a couple of nights back in jail, I never had any felonies.
I am unashamed of these altercations, and if I could go back in time to those situations, I would have smacked those aggressors around again. You can’t let anyone punk you and your friends.

I coached off and on throughout my mid 30's, all while scaling my other businesses.
At 38, I fell in love with public speaking, and after two years of traveling to every major city around the globe, and hosting countless public talks, I had so much demand for my coaching that I became the most requested and highest paid dating coach in human history.

No one has ever sold more programs in one year than I did in 2019. I climbed to the very top of that industry in less than 2 years.

To this day, I still get DMs and emails from the men I helped step up in their lives and attract the woman of their dreams.

To which I reply:

“No, I can’t come to your wedding, I have clients to help and businesses to build. Congrats!”
While Maintaining My Businesses & Traveling The World Coaching My Clients, I Would Consistently Get Questions Like This:
  • How do I negotiate a raise?
  • What college should I go to?
  • ​How do I get started in Real Estate like you?
  • ​What stocks are you in right now?
  • ​Could we pay more for a Bootcamp where we don’t go to the club and just talk business for 3 days straight?
I would always maneuver around the question and get back to the coaching that everyone paid for, but it got to a point where I couldn’t ignore the requests for my guidance.

I knew I had to change my coaching to better serve those who put their trust in me to teach them.

CHAPTER 6: DEREK MONEYBERG IS BORN

Derek Moneyberg is my most passionate hobby. I started the brand to be a beacon I could send out into the world and attract other smart, ambitious, success-oriented individuals to be part of my network.

For those who are serious, just a few times a year, I host extended 3 month long in-depth training courses, here are the subjects of study:
Entrepreneurship gave me the foundational business knowledge, communication skills, and seed capital that I needed to start compounding my wealth through investing. It also taught me the fundamentals of business which I use evaluate companies, pick stocks, and invest in them.
Investing in the world’s financial markets allowed me to compound my wealth and reach that “never have to work another day in my life" milestone.
Real Estate allowed me to multiply my net worth to even higher levels, while diversifying my portfolio and mitigating my risk.
With this trinity of courses, I help ambitious people master the three key wealth building engines that allowed me to build my personal wealth.

Check Out My Media Features

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I get questions about the MONEYBERG name all the time. 

When we came up with the idea, we thought it was a bit ridiculous at first, but we fell in love with it. 

The name has an inherent childlike jest to it that I love. When people see or hear it for the first time, they think… “This guy can’t be serious.”
To which I would reply. I’M DEREK MONEYBERG AND I AM DEAD SERIOUS ABOUT SUCCESS. 
If you’re serious about building your wealth,  I can help you navigate the treacherous path. 

I'll leave you with this, we all come out of the womb wide-eyed and rambunctious. But our world has a wicked way of stifling that spirit, and beating the childlike wonder and humor out of you.
I refused to be tamed and held onto mine.

Holding onto my individuality and the audacity to speak my mind has been the primary trait that has allowed me to achieve the success I enjoy today.

If you know me, you know I’m still a kid in many ways; my humor is juvenile, and I have the energy of an 18 year old.
But don’t let my childlike aura and humor fool you. I’m serious about making you wealthy.

I can’t do the work for you. I can only guide you along the path. Only you can be the CEO and leader of your life. Make an executive decision!

If you’re serious, I’m excited to help.

Sincerely,
P.S.

I will be hosting live events when the world opens back up.

These exclusive events will give you the opportunity to:
  • Meet me in person so that I can better understand your goals and how to help you achieve them
  • ​Connect with the dedicated men and women in the Moneyberg community and spark those lifelong alliances of productivity
  • ​Find a high-performance business partner, website developer, property manager, sales representative etc. People of this caliber can not be found simply roaming the street.
If you’re committed to surrounding yourself with success, click that button below and I’ll see you soon.
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