True Prosperity: Create the Life You Want, by Ethan Willis and Randy Garn (Personal Excellence Magazine)

November 2011 issue
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Prosper Inc. co-founders and national bestselling authors, Ethan Willis and Randy Garn contributed to Personal Excellence Magazine’s Financial category this month. The article summarizes their NYT Bestselling book Prosper: Create the Life You Really Want by identifying the unique relationship between Money, Happiness, and Sustainability.

TRUE PROSPERITY IS ACHIEVED WHEN NO conflict exists between money and happiness. The way you make your living is true to who you are. When your way of life is sustainable, you don’t fall victim to the boom-and-crash syndrome.

Much of what we are taught about prosperity and how we achieve it is wrong. Many people pursue prosperity, few achieve it. Financial turmoil has shaken everyone’s concept of prosperity. Parents are concerned that their children will be unable to attain prosperity. Everyone is facing challenges: college students starting their careers, middle managers trying to get ahead, entrepreneurs hoping to launch a business, or workers getting ready for retirement. All face harsh realities of employment, advancement, compensation, and job security.

Everyone has a different definition of what a prosperous life would mean for them. Many definitions include terms such as money, wealth, income, security, savings, health, family, friends, love and service. What does prosperity mean to you? You may find that your perspective on prosperity shifts over time.

When you are happy, have enough money and are at peace with how you are earning that money, you are on the path to sustainable prosperity. Balancing money, happiness, and sustainability leads to prosperity. The prosperity that you value depends on creating income consistent with your inner self; without that, no amount of compensation can fully make you happy.

• Money. Money is an indispensable component of prosperity. Money is not the root of all evil. It’s the want of money — meaning both the desperation for and the constant unfilled need for money. It’s the love of money, above what you value, that creates misery. When your potential and passions are fully engaged, you will earn the income needed to support your goals. How much money is enough? The answer: Enough to support your financial dreams in a way that honors your deeply held values and principles, but not so much that your money distracts or alienates you from those values and principles. The trick is to make your work feel more like an activity you enjoy rather than an activity you dread.

• Happiness. The concept of happiness includes: state of mind—having positive feelings about yourself and the world; authenticity—living life consistent with your deepest beliefs, values, and principles, and knowing that your earnings are aligned with your passions and purpose; commitment—adhering to what you most value; and health and wellness—pursuing a prosperity that supports complete health in mind and body.

  When you make money doing what you enjoy, living a life consistent with your beliefs, satisfied with your relationships, in touch with your health, and moving forward to realize your dreams, you experience happiness.

• Sustainability. If you can answer yes to four questions, the prosperity you seek is likely sustainable: 1. Can I feel good about it? You get anxious when the money you make comes from doing something outside your comfort zone. Sustainable prosperity comes when you align your earnings with what motivates you and gives your life meaning. When you love the work you do because you care about it, you become more attentive to detail, more committed to excellence, and more productive. Working from your core shields you from being defeated by setbacks or failure. 2. Can I sustain the work required over the long term? Do you have the passion and interest to keep at it for decades? Burning out or destroying your health by doing something that saddles you down is not a long-term solution. 3. Is the prosperity I contemplate ethical, beneficial to others, and environmentally sound? Success can no longer be measured by economic profit alone. You also need to ask whether it is ethical, moral, and of value to others. 4. Does it offer lasting value? There’s no room in sustainable prosperity for get-rich-quick schemes or flash-in-the-pan opportunities. Sustainable prosperity is based on the law of the harvest, the deliberate concentration of the life you want for yourself and others.

If you think of prosperity as an external event, something outside your control, something that happens to you, like an inheritance or winning a lottery, then life seems uncertain and fragile. What happens to you defines who you are. You become your circumstances. The more you envision prosperity as something out there, the less likely it will satisfy you. Consider these questions: What does my ideal lifestyle look like? How much money do I need to maintain it? What can I do to improve my key relationships? My physical wellbeing? How much exercise do I need? What can I do to improve my self-image and self-confidence? How do I see my spiritual relationship to prosperity? What makes me happiest? How much do I value an environmentally sustainable life? What you say about what you value matters less than what you do with your time and money. Your credit card statement shows what you really value.

It’s not always true that the more money you have, the happier you’ll be. Once you meet your basic needs, your happiness changes little as your income grows. Prosperity is more than just financial success. You can create sustainable prosperity. Be crystal clear about what prosperity looks like for you. The more clearly you articulate what prosperity means, the more likely you’ll achieve it.

Locate Your Polaris Point

Your Polaris Point is the ultimate destination that guides you, that inspires you when you’re making progress, and that rights you when you get off course, that lights your way in the dark. In astronomy, there is but one Polaris, the North Star. It is the beacon most nearly aligned to the north spin axis of the Earth. As the Earth turns, stars and constellations move through the sky—but not Polaris. It stays fixed in the sky relative to Earth, and any time it can be seen, true north is revealed.

Polaris, the North Star, has ensured the fortunes of countless navigators, and the Polaris Point can guide you.

To identify your Polaris Point, first clarify your values. List 10 things you want most in life. Eliminate seven until you are left with your top three, the basis of your Polaris Point. What do your selections have in common? Does the way you earn your income today align with the things most important to you? What does the list say about what you expect from yourself? How would your life and career be different if you focused on things you value most? Does the list reflect the way you conduct your life?

Ethan Willis and Randy Garn are coauthors of Prosper: Create the Life You Really Want (Berrett-Koehler). Visit www.pospering.com.