Eight Pillars of Prosperity

Those eight virtues are the pillars for our roof of prosperity. Each has its own chapter and its own associated sub-virtues.

A very quick recap:

Energy: The opposite of laziness. We get up and work hard. It all starts with Energy. Always. Hence, our obsession with our fundamentals—that help us show up most fully day in and day out. I shall ask again: How are yours?

Economy: We don’t want to waste our money or time or energy on nonsense stuff. ESPECIALLY our mental energy. Allen wrote this in 1911. If he were alive today, I have NO DOUBT he would *go off* on the need to tame our Distracted Mind (see those Notes) and do Deep Work (see those as well).

Integrity: Do you follow The Leadership Challenge guys’s Rule #2? DWYSYWD! Do you do what you say you will do? Well, do you? Integrity is essential.

System: Scott Adams sounds like he read this section when he said: “You could word-glue goals and systems together if you chose. All I’m suggesting is that thinking of goals and systems as different concepts has power. Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at every turn. The systems people are feeling good every time they apply their systems. That’s a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.

The systems-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavors. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system.

For our purposes, let’s say a goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.”

Sympathy: Be a good person. Literally, a “gentle-man.” Or a “gentle-woman.” Remove the harshness. Have a great soul—which is the literal meaning of magnanimity.

Sincerity: Be honest. Period. And don’t be cool in public and a nightmare in private.

Impartiality: Be open to multiple perspectives. Tame your impulse to be 100% right and remember, as Ken Wilber says, no one is smart enough to be 100% right about anything. And no one is ever 100% *wrong* about anything either. Find the common shared perspective.

Self-Reliance: I had just re-read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s classic Self-Reliance for the 100th time so it was fun to read this: “Every young man [and woman] ought to read Emerson’s essay on ‘Self-Reliance.’ It is the manliest, most virile essay that was ever penned.”

Amen.

Short story with that pillar? Trust thyself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Where are you strong? Where are you weak?

What little thing can you do get 1% better today?

Pillar #1: Energy.

It’s a moral virtue. And, as Allen tells us, it’s one of nature’s “primal forces; without it, nothing can be accomplished.”

Very important question: Which side of that morning rubbing eyes equation do you live on? :)

Reminds me of my interview with Phil Stutz and Barry Michels about The Tools. One of them joked that their clients get more done before breakfast than the normal human gets done all day (or was it all week? :).

They talk a lot about INTENSITY. And having a sense of URGENCY.

I like this passage: “A few rare individuals refuse to have limited lives. They drive through tremendous amounts of pain—from rejections and failures to shorter moments of embarrassment and anxiety. They also handle the small, tedious pain required for personal discipline, forcing themselves to do things we all know we should do but don’t—like exercising, eating right, and staying organized. Because they avoid nothing, they can pursue their highest aspirations. They seem more alive than the rest of us.”

P.S. You know that motivation equation I’m always talking about? You know, the one from The Procrastination Equation: Motivation = Value x Expectancy / Impulsivity x Delay

I absolutely love it and I’ve been working on how to make it more accessible and a go-to tool to sustain high levels of motivation.

The short story here is very simple: Our motivation will always be driven by how fired up we are about getting something (Value) and how confident we are that we can have it (Expectancy). To the extent we REALLY REALLY want something and REALLY REALLY know we can get it, we’re going to show up and work hard.

Then we need to make sure we don’t dissipate that motivation by being distracted by all the shiny push notifications, etc. (Impulsivity) and that we keep micro goals in front of us so we’re always making progress (Delay).

All of that is super powerful. Throw your current Motivation into that equation and look at the data to see where you can Optimize.

But…

I realized that the equation should *really* be:

Motivation = ENERGY x (Value x Expectancy / Impulsivity x Delay)

Fact is, if your energy sucks, the whole equation falls apart. When you’re tired, you just don’t *see* the world the same way. Literally.

Hence, our #1 priority: Optimize your energy. If you have a hard time getting out of bed, you’re going to have a hard time reaching your potential.

So… What’s the #1 thing you’re going to START doing to Eat/Move/Sleep/Breathe/Focus better and the #1 thing you’re going to STOP doing?

To your energy!!!

Kindness and generosity. They’re brother and sister.

Which reminds me of Barbara Fredrickson’s Love 2.0 where she tells us about “gratitude’s generous cousin”: celebratory love.

Practicing gratitude for all the things that are going well in our lives is, as we know, one of the most scientifically robust ways to boost and sustain your happiness.

So… What are you grateful for?

And… Know this: One of the most powerful ways to boost the quality of your relationships is to practice celebratory love. Seek out and celebrate OTHER PEOPLE’S GOOD FORTUNE! Look for all the things going right in other people’s lives and make sure you high five your loved ones when they’re rockin’ it.

Think of your loved ones. And… CELEBRATE them!

Lots of goodness in that little passage.

First, prosperity.

Eric Butterworth defines it for us in Spiritual Economics where he tells us: “Prosperity comes from the Latin root which literally translates: ‘according to hope’ or ‘to go forward hopefully.’ Thus it is not so much a condition in life as it is an attitude toward life. The truly prosperous person is what psychologist Rollo May calls ‘the fully functioning person.’”

Now THAT is awesome.

To be prosperous is to go forward hopefully. I like it.

Quick science lesson re-cap: To be hopeful means to believe that your future will be better than your present. To go forward hopefully has three components:

1. You have a vision of the desired future/goal that inspires you.
2. You have a sense of empowerment (agency is what they call it) that you can make that future a reality.
3. You’re willing to do what it takes to make it happen (you have what they call “pathways” to your goal achievement).

How’s your hope? You prosperous?

That’s part 1. Part 2: You want to be a genius at whatever it is you do?

Newsflash: You will NOT get there by hammering out more of your work. You will get there by cultivating the “soul of genius.”

Which happens to be the “soul of virtue.”

Which happens to be precisely why all great teachers, including one of The Greatest tell us, “First seek the Kingdom of Heaven within.”

As Butterworth tells us in Spiritual Economics: “The goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it.”

In other words: Turn off all the distractions, chip away at your vices, connect to something bigger than yourself and let the Divine within shine forth.

That’s from a chapter on the Second Pillar—Economy.

The virtuous person. And the vicious person.

I never saw that one who lives with “vice” is, technically, “vicious.”

Powerful.

What’s your #1 vice?

Is now a good time to (finally) eliminate it from your life?

Let’s be virtuous, not vicious.

(And, fun: Once you’ve removed that #1, ask the question again and keep on chipping away until your beautiful ideal is carved from the marble and you shine with even more radiant awesome.)

Here’s another quick reflection: I often talk about Abraham Maslow’s point that in any given moment we can step forward into growth or back into safety.

I like to think of that choice point as +1 or -1.

+1 or -1. +1 or -1. +1 or -1.

All day. Every day.

The days we choose the +1 more often are the great days. Good daimon. The other days? We want to rush home and indulge in our favorite vice, eh?

Here’s what we need to remember: That wasted energy, when properly applied via the +1 step forward, becomes productive energy. And, the incremental benefit isn’t just “+1.” It’s actually +2 because we gained the step we would have taken backwards and went forward.

+2. +2. +2. +2. +2.

That’s where it’s at.

To your virtue and your prosperity!