Prosperity, Plenitude & Infinite Possibilities

We’ll start with Prosperity 101.

That passage above is, of course, Beckwith’s take on it—which, you will notice if you’ve been following along, is very similar to the way Butterworth frames it in Spiritual Economics.

Here’s how Butterworth puts it: “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.’”

Note: That passage from Butterworth is one of my ALL-TIME favorite gems.

I repeat... Prosperity is not so much a CONDITION in life as it is an ATTITUDE TOWARD life. The word prosperity LITERALLY means “to go forward with hope.” It’s etymological opposite? It’s not poverty. It’s despair.

Which is why Butterworth ALSO tells us: “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.”

btw: I almost used the quote from the introduction up there as a Big Idea. If I did, I would have drawn a parallel between Beckwith’s wisdom and some Rollo May wisdom. When I saw Butterworth reference Rollo, I figured I should as well.

So...

Beckwith tells us: “Just like the air we breathe yet can’t see, and the law of gravity which we experience but whose mechanisms we can’t see, the universal laws that govern all life, including prosperity, operate in the same way. However, unlike oxygen and gravity which operates in spite of what we may believe, our thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, conditioned by what we’ve been taught, actually determines how prosperity flows to us.”

That made me think of wisdom from Rollo May’s great book, The Courage to Create.

He tells us: “The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.”

Here’s to moving forward with courage and hope, Hero!!!

That’s a pretty funny story.

It reminds me of this parallel wisdom from Anthony de Mello.

In Awareness he tells us: “You’re much more energetic, much more alive. People think that if they had no cravings, they’d be like deadwood. But in fact they’d lose their tension. Get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding, you will be yourself. Relaxed. You wouldn’t be driving with your brakes on. That’s what would happen.”

Spotlight on YOU. Are you driving with the brakes on?

Are you allowing yourself to get overwhelmed by your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding and getting all tense and uptight in the process?

Perfect. Take a deep breath. Shake out your body. Take another deep breath. In through your nose. Down into your belly. Back out through your nose. Exhale slightly longer than your inhale. Flip the switch on your parasympathetic nervous system. Pull that thread through your head as you sit or stand a little taller. Chest up. Chin down. SMILE. Invite the best, most Heroic version of yourself to the party. “Hi, Daimon!”

Now, with your foot off the brakes, ask your daimon: What are we here to do?

Is Today a good day to joyfully do what needs to get done and enjoy the ride?

P.S. Yogananda wrote a whole little booklet on the subject of Living Fearlessly. In it, he tells us: “Under no circumstances let fear take control of your mind and will. Whenever there is fear, look at it squarely in the face: Try to remove the outer cause and take steps to embolden the mind to overcome that trepidation.”

P.P.S. This isn’t just spiritual wisdom. Adam Grant echoes the same basic idea and uses the metaphor of brakes as well in his great book Originals.

He tells us: “To overcome fear, why does getting excited work better than trying to calm yourself down? Fear is an intense emotion: You can feel your heart pumping and your blood coursing. In that state, trying to relax is like slamming on the brakes when the car is going 80 miles per hour. The vehicle still has momentum. Rather than trying to suppress a strong emotion, it’s easier to convert it into a different emotion—one that’s equally intense, but propels us to step on the gas.”

P.P.P.S. This is why my Yoda Phil Stutz tells us to tell ourselves, “BRING IT ON!” the moment we feel even a niggle of fear. Here’s to getting comfortable being uncomfortable as we take our foot off the brakes, hit the gas and move toward our INFINITE POTENTIAL.

That’s from a chapter called “There’s Great Possibilities for All of Us.”

Beckwith tells us that it’s the “virus of the mind” that tells us that our possibilities are limited. Marcus Aurelius has a much more empowering way to see things. In Meditations, he tells us: “Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for a man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity.”

In The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Debbie Ford echoes Beckwith’s perspective on the fact that, whenever we see ANYTHING in anyone else, we’re “projecting” ourselves onto others.

Very important note: This applies to BOTH the “negative” qualities we each have within ourselves AND the “positive.” Which is why she says: “If you admire greatness in another human being, it is your own greatness you are seeing.”

In The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker echoes his perspective on the importance of celebrating the good we see in others. He tells us: “Bless that which you want. If you see a person with a beautiful home, bless that person and bless that home. If you see a person with a beautiful car, bless that person and bless that car. If you see a person with a loving family, bless that person and bless that family. If you see a person with a beautiful body, bless that person and bless their body.”

btw: Beckwith also tells us: “Jealousy is wanting what someone else has. Envy is not wanting them to have what they have. Envy is jealousy on steroids!”

Socrates comes to mind. He tells us: “Envy is the ulcer of the soul.”

Sonja Lyubomirsky also comes to mind. She tells us: “You can’t be envious and happy at the same time. People who pay too much attention to social comparisons find themselves chronically vulnerable, threatened, and insecure.”

The antidote to envy? CELEBRATE other people’s awesome. TODAY.

When we’re feeling worn down and beat up and overwhelmed, it’s easy to lose hope and ruminate on all the challenges we’re facing and the “worst-case” scenarios that could unfold.

That, of course, is not helpful in general and it’s DEFINITELY not helpful as a starting point or default orientation.

Even in the midst of our greatest challenges (make that: ESPECIALLY in the midst of our greatest challenges!), we MUST be able to flex our Heroically hopeful, antifragile confidence muscles and SEE a better future.

If we can’t get ourselves to do that, then rather than move forward with HOPE (and literally prosper!) we will lose hope and feel despair.

So...

YES! Starting with a vision of our ideal, best-case vision for our lives is SUPER IMPORTANT.

And...

We can’t stop there.

As we discuss in our Notes on Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson and Rethinking Positive Thinking by Gabriele Oettingen, science is unequivocal.

We START with the ideal future, then, while staying connected to the best within ourselves and not pretending that achieving our outcome will be without challenges, we have the Wisdom and Courage to ALSO look at potential obstacles that might get in the way.

Then we come up with a plan to go over and under and through any and all obstacles—knowing that each one is making us stronger and giving us an opportunity to practice our philosophy and give the world all we’ve got as we show ourselves and families and communities what it looks like to LIVE these truths.

And, very importantly, we do it with JOY.

As another great spiritual teacher, Satchidananda puts it in The Golden Present: “Life must be a challenge. Only then is it exciting. In an obstacle race, you are forced to surmount all the obstacles: to jump over the hurdles, go through the barrels, crawl under the rugs, climb over walls. What would happen if, to avoid all that, you went around all the obstacles and asked for the winner’s cup? Would they give it to you? No. They would say, ‘You must go back and face all the obstacles.’

... Make your life as exciting as possible, but always think of it as fun. The adversities as well as the harmony should be enjoyable. Don’t become sober and morose and have a castor oil face in the name of spirituality. Just be happy. Jump with joy. Even if you make a mistake, say, ‘Hey, I did this? Great! What a wonderful lesson I learned!’ If you really want to, you can make everything fun.”

I love this.

Abraham Maslow comes to mind. Of course, he echoes this wisdom when he said: “Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization... It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything one is capable of becoming.”

I like to think of our purposes in what we call “The 3 U’s”: We each share a UNIVERSAL purpose to connect to and express the best within us. We also each have a UNIQUE purpose to show up and do what we are idiosyncratically here to do. And... We each share the ULTIMATE purpose to close the gap and be that best, most Heroic version of ourselves right.this.second.

Let’s do that. Together. TODAY.

And, if you feel so inspired... Tomorrow morning, let’s wake up and say, “Thank you. I have another opportunity to live my purpose and give my gifts.”

Day 1. All in. LET’S GO, HERO!