Six Practices towards Prosperity
The following is adapted from Prosper by Ethan Willis and Randy Garn.
Think of someone you know who is prosperous. What is that person like? We bet there are certain habits or practices that this person abides by. In this book, we will describe six Prosperity Practices that ignite the fire that is necessary to generate the commitment, energy, and courage to produce lasting prosperity. These practices are also, by necessity, a springboard to personal change through an understanding that prosperity is an internal journey — it requires from you the clarity to know what you really value and to have the courage to pursue it.
The six practices flow from a careful study of thousands of our most successful coaching experiences, comprising over five million hours of coaching and training observation. At the same time, we were reaching out to a range of our most advanced students, CEOs, and business leaders to evaluate how their prosperity looks now, years after they began working with us. What emerged from our survey astounded us. The six Prosperity Practices predicted which students rose to the top and thrived in challenging environments. The students who followed these practices tended to be successful. In contrast, the outcomes for the students who had never quite mastered the practices tended to be unsatisfactory — or even if they achieved a measure of success, it was fleeting.
In brief, the Prosperity Practices are:
Practice 1: Locate Your Polaris Point
Everyone’s Polaris Point is unique. It’s your envisioned future and your soul’s True North: what you aspire to become, to achieve, to contribute, to create. It also includes the role money will play in those aspirations. A true Polaris Point is clear and compelling without being overly restrictive. It serves as a unifying focal point for your ongoing efforts, a goal that inspires creativity, and a catalyst for profound action.
Practice 2: Live in Your Prosperity Zone
When your earnings are aligned with your Polaris Point, we say you are living in the Prosperity Zone. There’s no prosperity in having a Polaris Point that your earnings cannot support. At the same time, there’s no prosperity if your earnings overwhelm your Polaris Point. You are living in your Prosperity Zone when your Polaris Point and earnings are in harmony. This allows for sustainable prosperity.
Practice 3: Earn from Your Core
Sustainable prosperity flows from your unique talents and abilities. Make an inventory of what really motivates you. What do you do that feels more like play than work? The more you leverage the energy that flows from that kind of passion, the bigger the competitive advantage you can deliver and the more income you can make. If you could be doing anything, what would it be? How can that be channeled into building an income and prosperity?
Practice 4: Start with What You Already Have
You have hidden assets around you waiting to be discovered. We show you how to put them to use. The pursuit of prosperity is fueled by an awareness of the abundance you already have, not by the abundance you believe you lack. The fullness of your plate when you start, however little your plate contains, matters less than realizing that your plate isn’t empty. Whether you start with a little or a lot, if you emphasize what you already have, you tend to end up with the most.
Practice 5: Commit to Your Prosperity Path
This is your new prosperous life that you have created — the road stands before you. You are now empowered by a clear direction that you know deep inside is directed to your personal Polaris Point. Apply your core abilities, resources, and life experiences, put metrics around it, and make yourself accountable. Something powerful happens when you decide to live the life you really want.
Practice 6: Take Profound Action
Go for it! Implement the prosperity plan that marries personal satisfaction with a sustainable income stream. Persistence is required in taking this step and the next step on the long-distance path to prosperity. No get-rich-quick schemes, just the “law of the harvest.” When your efforts are on purpose, hard work and strenuous efforts are satisfying.
For more advice on core values, you can find Prosper on Amazon.
Ethan Willis is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The One Minute Entrepreneur. He is also the CEO and a founding partner of Prosper Inc., which has mentored over 75,000 students in over eighty countries under his leadership. Ethan and his wife Ashley have eight wonderful children whom they thoroughly enjoy.
Randy Garn is a New York Times bestselling author, passionate entrepreneur, and high performance coach. He is also a founding partner at Prosper Inc. and a partner at High Performance Institute. Randy specializes in guiding leaders through personal and professional transformation. Randy loves his wife, Charlotte, their four beautiful daughters, and two rowdy boys.
