The Top 10 Factors of Prosperity

For any result you seek, only a few factors truly matter for getting that result.

There are thousands of considerations for growing your wealth, but only a handful that actually move the needle.

Same goes for prosperity. I've determined these are the most important factors:

Timing	Opportunity	Luck
Abundance-thinking	Responsibility	Unfairness
Money relationship	Persistence	Exponentiality
Ownership	Gratification	Attitude
Intuition	Love	Desire
Confidence	Passion	Gratitude
Critical thinking	Knowledge	Clarity
Tolerance	Adversity	Problem solving
Acceptance	Expertise	Advantage
Marketable skills	Capabilities	Investing
Criticism	Fundamentals mastery	Focus
Meaning	Law of vital few	Imperfection
Ambition	Boundaries	Compassion
Asking	Value creation	Longevity
Flexibility	Structure	Enthusiasm
Learning	Decision making	Contribution
Preparation	Presence	Curiosity
Communication	Leverage	Belief
Adaptability	Imagination	Growth
Experience	Comprehension

From these 59 factors, which are the vital few - the ones that make the most impact?

I'll reveal the 10 factors to you in this special report.

First though, let me share why I feel qualified to teach you about prosperity, and also let's define exactly what we mean by prosperity.

Who Am I?

My name is Jason Fladlien and I've been many things - a monk, a rapper, and a marketer.

I came from poverty and started a business from a little shed in Coralville, IA and turned it into an 8 figure business, transforming myself into a millionaire in the process.

I've also come from massive trauma.

My mother was a drug dealer and ended up serving 6 years in federation prison for selling crystal meth. I grew up around addicts in an unstable environment that led to me being clinically diagnosed with PTSD.

Because of my tumultuous upbringing, I sought out answers to find peace and happiness and security. First, my focus was on money.

I fell out of a tree one Sunday morning when I was 8 and ripped a huge hole in my hand. My father, instead of comforting me, yelled at me telling me I couldn't get hurt on a Sunday because he couldn't afford to take me to the emergency room.

That was the day I decided that when I had children, I'd never be in a positon where I couldn't provide for them.

So I got rich, but I found out money wasn't enough.

It brought stability, but it didn't heal my traumas. For that, I looked toward wealth. See, money isn't wealth exactly. Money can be a facet of wealth, but I know rich people who lack wealth and I know others with little money in the bank but a lot of wealth inside of them.

Prosperity Defined

Prosperity is an abundance of abundances, a wealth of wealths.

It is being whole within. To be the most YOU that you can possibly be, which is what this report is about - the 10 factors that are most likely to unlock prosperity in your life.

These 10 factors are:

1. Prosperous Purpose
2. Structure of Freedom
3. Adaptivity & Flexibility
4. Tenacious Persistence
5. Adversity
6. Strategic Leverage
7. Wonderful Unfairness
8. Serendipity & Luck
9. Marketable Expertise
10. Perfect Imperfection

Let's dive into each.

#1 Prosperous Purpose

Your first purpose is to uncover your purpose, then give your heart and soul to it.

For contrast, a lack of purpose reminds me of this quote:

"The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose"
-- Elena Ferrante

Too many live in the circle of an empty day. But it doesn't have to be that way. An easy way to start to play with your purpose is to consider this:

If there was a word or phrase that could be imprinted on your heart, what would it be?

Write that down. You're already on your way.

Many don't pursue purpose because they are too entrenched with where they currently are in life. You can't change the past and you can't pick your parents, but you can decide the direction in which you wish to move.

Seek to move into authenticity - because living out of line with your purpose is inviting in the pain of inauthenticity which puts you at dis-ease.

And dis-ease leads to disease ... literally.

The Health of Purpose

Studies on purpose have found those who have a purpose are less likely to get sick and less likely to suffer disease.

People with purpose have longer life spans.

Lack of purpose leads to increases in heart attacks, strokes, premature death, and a whole host of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders.

In his book Life on Purpose, Victor J. Strecher dives into the science of purpose and makes a convincing case for its link to psychological wellness, physical health, and longevity.

One study on purpose first scores participants on a six-point scale for measuring life purpose. For each point someone increased their purpose score, they decreased their risk of having a heart attack by 27%. Also for each point increase, there was a 22% decreased risk in having a stroke.

It's hard to know exactly why purpose affects health. Perhaps it has something to do with the number of decisions we're forced to consider on a daily basis, and the stress thrusted upon us from the burden of those decisions.

What to say no to?

Everyone has an agenda and these days it's easier than ever for someone to reach you with theirs and to apply subliminal coercion to get you to do what they want.

Children see over 3000 advertising messages each day. Starbucks has over 170,000 different drink combinations. Amazon has millions of products. We are faced with more stimuli than our brains can handle. Perhaps in another 50,000 years we'll be able to handle it all, but for now, we're ill-equipped for it currently.

Purpose filters out a lot of that stimuli and automates a lot of your decisions for you.

It's easier than ever to find opportunities these days, which is a curse as much as a blessing. We have more information we can freely access than ever, but has that made us happier?

Purpose gravitates you to what's important to you, and allows you to more easily feel what is right for you as opposed to think about what's right. And one part of the future is clear - the amount of stimuli is going to continue to increase while our brain's processing power is going to stay the same.

You need purpose.

Syncing up with purpose

It's unlikely one report is going to automatically uncover your purpose and that's okay. Simply daring to pursue your purpose is as good a start as any. So how should you go about it?

Here are some jump off points to spark your inspiration.

What are the things you would die for?

Maybe those are the things you could live for.

Who are your heroes?

Chances are their purposes overlap with yours. If they spark admiration in you, there is a reason - investigate it.

How are you still like your 6 year old self? Your purpose is your essence so it has always been with you. Kids are fortunate in that they haven't been distracted yet by the minutiae of life, so they generally have better clarity on purpose than adults do. Tap into that younger you and see what still rings true to you.

Where do you flow? The flow state is where you become one with the task at hand, where time seems to distort and you're just in harmony with whatever you are doing. Flow states are the breadcrumbs which lead to purpose.

What struggles have you transcended? You've suffered hardships but instead of having them consume you, you were able to grow from those challenges. There is something special about that. Can those experiences open the door to your purpose?

Purpose Preventers

Most people haven't been taught any purpose-process, so it's no wonder many live life without purpose.

For others, they aren't aware of the importance of purpose. That's okay. Just gently bring your focus to purpose for any day is a chance to start anew. Make that day be today.

Some have lost their way. It's not that they don't know their purpose, they've just been knocked off track. It happens. To them, I say be like a kid learning to ride a bike. Fall down. Skin elbows. Bleed from the knees. And get back on the bike. You got this.

If you feel you've lost your way, consider the other side of that coin - you now have the opportunity to reclaim your way. Exciting!

Some people get into their purpose, but don't stop and check in with it from time to time. A tortured poet may be in purpose, but not the prosperous kind. Adjustments need to be considered.

Any purpose that doesn't empower you the more you are in it needs retooling.

The challenge really is the fear of feeling inadequate. What if you go after your purpose but come up short? Well, good news - you can't. Purpose isn't a "point b" you journey to from "point a". Purpose is within you.

You don't find purpose outside, you uncover from within

And each sincere attempt will bring you closer to it. At age 6, I thought I was destined to be a rapper. That led me to meet a musician who turned me onto the Hare Krishna philosophy, where for a period of my life I lived as a monk.

That, in turn, vitalized me to the point I wanted to take my vision of my music to a higher level, so I poured myself all into my craft. Part of that was learning about the business of music, which shocked me by how fascinating I found it.

In fact, soon I discovered I had more passion for the business than for the music, and specifically for the marketing aspect of business. My favorite type of marketing was no longer entertainment, but marketing solutions to people's problems. And here I am in front of you.

When a river flows into an ocean, it becomes one with the ocean itself. Your pursuit of purpose is your river as it flows into the ocean, meaning pursuing purpose and uncovering purpose are one and the same. They can't be separated.

You're living on purpose because you're living in purpose.

#2 Structure of Freedom

We live in chaotic times. Structure helps us feel some sort of calm amidst that chaos.

The world is unpredictable and messy. Structure attempts to bring predictability and a bit of certainty to our life, even if the only true certainty in life is uncertainty.

Freedom, on the other hand, conjures up pictures of living boundless, of having no imposing rule upon which how you choose to live. But that's not freedom, that's anarchy.

The reality is the only way you can have freedom is with structure.

Our brain has a bug in its operating system. We seek structure, but we tend to do it in an overly-simplistic fashion. Behavior scientists have all sorts of names for this tendency: black and white fallacy, binary bias, dichotomous thinking, splitting.

In plain langauge, we see things as good or bad; we see ourselves as successes or failures; Things as right or wrong; thoughts as positive or negative; people as good or bad; as introverts or extroverts.

The beauty of this structure is its effortlessness. It takes the complicated activity of living and reduces it down to two words - this or that.

Under scrutiny, this black and white approach never holds up. Someone who always fails is extremely successful at it. If you liken yourself a positive thinker, that means you're negative toward negative thinking. A "bad" person can provide a good example of what not to do.

Yes, I'm splitting semantic hairs just to show you one way in which this-or-that structures can severely limit you from feeling free.

A better structure to consider is what I call the "spectrum of prosperity". A spectrum is the range between excess and deficiency. Being kind to others is generally an admirable trait. But kind is not "good" or "positive". If you are rarely or never kind to others, I bet you'll find life to be quite limiting. Yet, if you are overly-kind to others, you'll be used and taken advantage of - also a limiting and unprosperous experience.

The real structure of kindness is knowing when to be kind and to what degree.

Another structure I have found handy for prosperity is labeling.

Label the behavior not the person

If my son's room becomes messy, I do not call him a slob or accuse him of being lazy.

Instead I may say: "I see an unkempt room." That's the first layer of structure - to identify the situation independent of the causer of that situation.

Usually, that's all I need to say.

If the room still remains messy, I go to the second level of this communication structure - expressing my feelings.

"When your room becomes messy like this, it makes it hard for me to relax and feel comfortable, which can make me unpleasant to be around."

Notice no critique toward my son, just honest and healthy expression of my feelings. If that doesn't get through, the final layer of this communication structure is as follows:

"You have chosen to keep your room a mess. Because messy rooms make it harder for me to feel comfortable, I need more rest now so that means I have less time to go out and do things with you this weekend."

It almost never gets to that third level - but if it does, I'm okay with that because it's a perfect way for me to teach my children a life lesson. They have choice on how they behave, but their choices also have consequences.

Unintended Consequences

This side steps the traditional parenting problem I used to encounter - where my communication made it feel like I was punishing them, therefore they focused more on my behavior than they did on their own behavior.

Having structure allows you to work these things out - how to get what you want without unintended consequences.

My 'label the behavior, not the person' structure extends to praise as well. I no longer tell my youngest daughter "You're a really good artist" but instead I may say:

"I really enjoy how detailed you made each mushroom, and how you shaded your colors."

I structure it this way because I noticed when I labeled her (you're a good artist), it could create an expectation that, if she makes something in the future she feels isn't "good", she'll not have lived up to the label I've given her.

I also noticed "You're a good artist", sometimes bothered my daughter because she felt what she did was so simple that there was no way it could be good.

When I say "I like the colors you chose here" it takes the pressure off her - I'm not conveying any sort of expectations on her whatsoever.

Plus, my statement is 100% authentic. Even if she doesn't like those colors, she can appreciate that I like them. Most important though - when I describe what I see to her, she feels seen. If I say "You did great" - even if I feel that way - it can come across hollow because it's vague and general.

However, when I say: "I love how you drew the frog's smile!", it demonstrates that I truly have noticed what she's done.

This simple structure - which I developed reading lots of parenting books - and then refined and calibrated to my children and my personality, has worked wonders for me. It makes my communication easier and more effective. I don't have to think about what to say any more, which allows me to more easily just be in the moment - and being present is a huge part of prosperity.

Freedom through structure.

The benefits of prosperous structure

Perhaps the easiest way to grow your confidence is through structure.

The brain doesn't really distinguish between big wins and small wins. It's the quantity that matters. So structures tons of small wins and watch your confidence soar.

Structure allows for momentum as well. Newton's laws of motion say an object in motion tends to stay in motion while an object at rest stays at rest.

An avalanche is first triggered by a snowflake that starts to gather snow and soon turns into an unstoppable force.

Additionally, structure actually enhances spontaneity and creativity. Keith Jarrett has the best-selling solo album in jazz history and the best-selling piano album, The Koln Concert. It is completely improvised. Yet jazz musicians like Jarrett know more music theory than just about anyone.

The underlying structure within Jazz is vast, complicated, and formal and from that beautiful spontaneity occurs.

Or as Richard Rohr put it: "You need to struggle with the rules more than a bit before you throw them out."

#3 Adaptivity and Flexibility

I'm not a fan of the phrase 'comfort zone' - it's a far too comfortable way of looking at it. You can do more than just widen and stretch comfort. You can flip it. Fold it. Deepen it. Dimensionalize it.

As such I think of comfort as a tesseract.

A tesseract is a 4 dimensional object. It's to the cube what the cube is to the square. In fact, one way you can create a tesseract is to take three cubes and fold them together around each edge. Here is a tesseract projected into 3 dimensional space:

We want comfort because uncertainty is scary. We'd seek certainty, but unfortunately certainty doesn't really exist. I've studied Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in-depth and at the core of this disorder is the inability to deal with uncertainty in a reasonable manner.

Folks with OCD are actually more in tune with reality when it comes to certainty. They know you truly can't know if the oven isn't on when you leave your home. So they check it. Over and over again. They know no matter how many times you wash your hands, you can't truly get rid of germs. So they wash their hands. Over and over again.

Certainty is nice but if it dominates the decisions you make, you'll lose openness, curiosity, acceptance and growth. You'll gain anxiety, perhaps to such a degree that you end up with an anxiety disorder like OCD.

To thrive in the modern world, we need to be flexible.

Trauma

Inflexibility is the commonality of all trauma. If you are experiencing a situation that is traumatizing to you, you will respond only in one of three ways:

1) Fight 2) Flight 3) Freeze

If you are being physically assaulted, you might look for a weapon to thwart off your attacker. Or you may try to escape at all costs, including running out into oncoming traffic. Most often though, you will freeze.

Sadly, many have trouble extending empathy to women who are victims of repeated domestic violence. Their critics say: "Why don't you just leave him, you know if you go back, he'll beat you up again. He may even one day kill you."

All traumas contain triggers that, if set off, put you right back in the thick of your trauma. Soldiers who haven't seen war in decades can be triggered by fireworks, and feel as if they are right back on the battlefield. Until you can uncharge a trigger, it is hard not to freeze up from it.

For many years, tin foil triggered my trauma. When my mom and her friends would smoke their crystal meth, they'd pu it on foil, light it up from under the foil and suck it thorugh a pen tube. Then they'd leave their burnt out foils all over the floor. I can smell the residue of a freshhly burnt foil of meth as I type this.

The world is uncertain. At times it is cruel and unfair. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. How we learn to tolerate uncertainty and how we learn to heal from our traumas largely determines the degree of prosperity we end up with.

To start, we need to exercise our flexibility muscles.

Many people suffer from a cognitive distortion called filtering - where they can only see one perspective of a thing. Some people only focus on the ways things will go wrong; others only focus on how things can go right.

Both perspectives are dangerous.

Race or journey?

Some people look at success as a race - they start at point a, and when they get to point b, then they'll be a success. The problem with races is there are winners and losers. If I consider another perspective - successs is a journey that I can enjoy along the way, and as long as I'm moving toward my destination and am feeling fulfilled, then I'm in success.

Another perspective on success I learnt from Jim Rohn who said: "Success is something you attract, not something you pursue." Interesting.

What would it take for success to come to me, instead of me trying to go to it?

There is no right or wrong way of looking at things - just ways that empower you and ways that limit you. In fact, an overwhelming number of choices have no right or wrong answers to them - they are just decisions that have to be made. Yet people tend to treat minor decisions with the same attitude as major ones.

This leads to what I call the disease of indecision.

We want to make the right decisions from the get-go. But often decisions are made right through adjustments, adaptations and observation.

Get it going, then get it right.

#4 Tenacious Persistence

How successful could you be if you had the following obstacle handling mindset:

"I'll go over it, under it, through it. I'll pick the lock. I'll drip sweat on it until it erodes."

This is my general state when encountering a challenge. I wasn't born this way though - I had to work at it.

Specifically, I did a ton of visualization. The power of visualization is vast. In fact, it's more than visualization. You bring up a picture or movie in your mind, then you add sound, smell and even taste. You notice where you start to feel thing in your body, and in which directions an rate those feelings move.

I've run many movies through my mind of going over, under and through various obstacles. I've seen it play out over and over again in my mind's eye of me dripping sweat on a stone until it erodes.

Famed personal development trainer and friend of mine, Bob Proctor says it like this: "If you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand."

What most never realize it that persistence goes hand in hand with compassion. The more capacity you have for compassion, the easier it is for you to tenaciusly pursue your purpose.

You're already half the way there if you feel worthy of what you want!

Inadequacy and Justification

Many seek wealth but deep down feel guilt or inadequacy toward that wealth. But you need not justify it to anyone, least of all yourself. If someone asks you why you want to be wealthy just say "Because I want it. That's why."

Why do you want to be happy? Because you do. Why do you want to be courageous? Because you do. Why does a child want love from a parent? What a silly question. It's obvious isn't it?

Well what you want inside your soul is just as obvious. Embrace and accept it, and you'll find persistence comes naturally if you can be as compassionate toward yourself as you are toward a child's desire for a mother's love.

Compassion is a great salvo for emotional wounds.

For many years I questioned what was so wrong with me that my parents didn't create a safe environment for me. Was I unimportant to them? Did I not matter?

Of course, I realize now that was not the case. I now understand that they came from trauma as well and that they loved me as best as they knew how. I don't have to carry resentment toward them anymore. I am still hurt by some of the parenting choices they made. But I don't attach any additional stories to those decisions.

You did the best you could with what you had and what you knew. And somehow or other that led you here to reading this report so that tells me you are capable of amazing persistence. Check it - you're still alive. You know how many different ways you could've died by now. But that stubborn heart of yours keeps on beating.

When you were a baby, you didn't know how to say a single word. Yet miraculously you learnt a complicated language without formal teachers nor a manual. You learnt to talk because you wanted to.

Remember that the next time you're on a fantastic voyage that starts to get a bit bumpy so you can keep on keeping on.

Go at this long enough and when you hear others say "sky's the limit" you'll think hardly. The sky is just the beginning.

#5 Adversity

Albert Einstein said "adversity introduces a man to himself."

Live for a few minutes and there is a good chance you'll experience adversity. Loved ones die - sometimes tragic and too soon.

When I was 25, I held my 9 year year old brother Ryan's hand as he passed on, a beautiful angel whose life on earth was oh so short. 13 years later, I still feel his presence. I miss him dearly. I still cry sometimes.

Every adversity has, to some degree, a manufactured component to it.

My wife had to have a surgery where she came home with a tube inserted into her stomach to drain fluid out of twice a day. It reminded me of the PICC line my brother had where I would put in his medicine for him on the eve of his passing.

Soon I started attaching a story to the whole ordeal - how no matter what I did I couldn't escape the haunting memories of my brother's death. Yes, that's one way to look at it. But it's not the only way. I talked to my therapist about it, and she suggested that I think of two good memories of Ryan every time I got ready to help my wife with draining her line. Soon I realized that this was actually an opportunity for me to feel connected to my brother again through my wife - who he never got to meet.

Now I felt a bond, instead of seeming like a victim.

The best strategy for dealing with adversity is to ask for help, which is hard for many of us. I had trouble asking for help as a child because I was always the one being asked for help. I had to grow up quick and take care of the ones who were supposed to take care of me. For others, asking for help conjures up feeling of rejection - someone could say no.

Most of us simply have not been on top properly the structure for asking for help. Let's practice. Start on yourself. Yes, ask yourself for help.

"Jason, I need your help right now. What can I do that would be easiest for you to allow me to focus and write this report?"

Another good way to practice asking for help is to start by helping others first. It helps to connect you with the joy experienced on the help givers end. Go for quantity - do one hundred little favors in the next week. And don't reject the thanks you'll be given. When someone says "thank you" most of us reply "no problem". Instead, embrace the thanks with a "you're welcome" or "my pleasure".

Go to a local pet shelter and volunteer to walk a dog. They'll love you for it. You'll feel like a genuine hero. That's the power of helping out. So when you need help, now it should become easier to ask.

The mechanics of help-asking

Keep it short and simple. Be direct. "I could use your help with _______." No need to dress it up.

Allow the helper to define the terms of how much help they feel comfortable providing, and how they wish to provide it. Plan in advance on how you'll show appreciation for the help once it's rendered - a card, a thank you note, a kind word etc.

Lastly, remember that adversity is not a good or bad thing; it's just a part of life. Within adversity there is always opportunity. Adversity allows you to exercise courage. It helps develop your character. It presents a chance for growth; a chance to heal.

When faced with adversity, ask yourself this: how can I turn adversity into alchemy?

#6 Strategic Leverage

It's amazing how quickly we can get used to the many miracles that surround us.

For example, every week most of us have curbside service for our trash. What a miracle that, for a few bucks, a big giant machine will take our trash away for us!

In many parts of the world, that is an unexperienced luxury. In fact, over 2 billion people don't even have safe access to clean drinking water. It's a miracle that we can turn a knob and have clean water come out of a faucet.

We have so much around us and even more so you, that already sets us up for greatness.

Strategic leverage is getting more out of what you already have - and you have a lot more than what you think.

Many people think you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Thankfully experienced vets don't agree or we'd have a lot more dead horses. There are ways of making a horse drink. Give him salt. Put apple juice in the water. Warm the water up.

That's leverage - changing your outlook from "can it be done" to "what is needed for it to be done?" Or as my friend Dr. Alan Barnard says "Impossible, unless..."

Finding needles in haysticks is easy if you have metal detectors. Same with selling ice to eskimos - what do you think they build their igloos out of? One of my favorite quotes is from Archimedes who said "give me a lever long enough...and I shall move the world." He meant that in a literal sense.

I have never seen a disadvantage that didn't contain within it an equal or greater advantage.

People feel their fear is a disadvantage. But we can use fear. Fear is one of the most powerful evergetic forces I know of! Let's channel that into something productive.

Many say they get distracted too easily. Let's use your distraction to get you distracted by prosperity.

Procrastination can be quite useful - point that skill at your limiting behaviors... we'll get around to doing those limiting behaviors later!

To handle adversity, we must shift perspective. Here are several perspective shift techniques.

Work backwards

Many of us look at a problem and think forward toward possible solutions. Often a more useful approach is to look at the problem as already been solved, and then simply working backwards.

Zoom in

Many people want to meditate but never get started because they think they suck at meditation. What they aren't good at yet is long form meditation. It's simply too much to go from no meditation to even a 10 minute, uninterrupted session.

So start with one breath of meditation.

Medidate for one second. Then turn one second into two. Two into four. And soon you will more easily build a powerful routine on meditation because you're leveraging what you already can do instead of trying to attempt what you don't know if you can do.

I love yoga, but many people fail to stick to a yoga practice because your options are usually either one hour or nothing. Attempt to force yourself into one hour of yoga and you might do it, but it won't be fun and you'll probably not feel so good the next day.

Much better would be to start with ten minute yoga session. Practice ten days worth of ten minute yoga sessions in a row and you have a powerful structure. You get all the benefit with none of the drawbacks.

Child's Eyes

Children are naturally curious and less concerned with looking foolish, so there is a lot they can teach us that we once knew but have forgotten as we've grown older.

How would a child go about understanding this? If you were a child again, what would you consider as an option that your adult self wouldn't consider? Children are persistent and they're great at asking for help. Maybe you can use some of this.

Negation

We tend to think about what is here as opposed to what isn't here. The story of Sherlock Holmes catching a crook no one else couldn't came through deduction - the dog didn't bark. Everyone else was looking for some thing. Sherlock found his answer in the absence of some thing.

To solve problems, we tend to add more stuff to our to-do list. Start this, buy that. Instead, think stop this, remove that. In productivity, subtraction is easier than addition. What are the least helpful activities toward your prosperity? Remove them and you'll automatically become more prosperous.

Do less, get more.

Relative Comparison

Anything can be made significant or infinitesimal depending on what you compare it to. There are nearly 8 billion people out there, so there have to be 1000 of them who would pay you $1000 for something. You do that and you generate one million dollars.

You may feel insignificant; just one person. However, in your brain there are about 100 billion neurons, and over a quadrillion connections between these neurons. A quadrillion is one million billion. That's inside of you.

You can leverage perspectives to unlock empowering states which can jump start momentum to catapult you into prosperity.

#7 Wonderful Unfairness

There is much unjust with the world.

150 million children live as orphans. Suicide is the 4th leading cause of death in the world. When kids write to Santa for their gift, the number one ask is... a dad.

Heartbreaking.

It's easy to let injustice consume you, anger you and use up all your energy. I used to even think it was good to get angry - because it would amp me up so I could go out there and right all these wrongs.

Through analysis I've concluded anger has never been the most empowering state for me to unlock prosperity. There are other equally energetic states that don't have negative side effects. Anger may embolden you to action, but it will also burn you out and leave you wrecked.

If you try to carry the burden of unfairness on your shoulders, it will cause you to fall.

We can't make the world fair but we can make your interior world fairer.

Many of us are too harsh on ourselves. Is that fair - to hold yourself to an impossible standard? Any trauma I've suffered in the physical world I have suffered even more in my own mental world. I've perpetuated the abuse.

How can I accept that fact without judgement? I can acknowledge I was mistreated without attaching a story to it. It wasn't because I deserved it or that I was unworthy of love or that God hates me. Instead, I was an innocent child who was unjustly harmed and that's sad. When I don't attach a story to it, I can actually see that child, and see what he needs.

He never felt safe and looked after and taken care of. I see him now, and I can give him what he never had. I can protect him. I can look after him. I can love him. Hold him. Yes, it's "only" in my mind I can do this - just like "only" thinking of sucking on a lemon can cause your mouth to water. Or that "only" thinking about a rusty nail scratching across a chalkboard can cause you to cringe.

We can't rewrite the physical past but in our minds we can choose to no longer attach a story to the past that brings us down in the present.

Victim math

Let's say you "only" spend 10 minutes a day feeling a victim to unfairness. The average human life span is 78 years, meaning 60 years of adulthood. That means as an adult you'd spend 152 solid days of your life thinking of yourself as a victim.

You're being unfair to yourself.

On the other hand, give yourself "only" 10 minutes a day of love and acceptance, and you just gained 152 solid days worth of love in an average adult lifespan.

Consider the implications of a fair and just world. Does fair mean we all get the same everything? That sounds boring. Isn't it wonderful then that life is unfair? In fact, some of the greatest joys I've had in my life were in creating something out of thin air to address some injustice in the universe.

I like how Steve Maraboli put it: "The only thing that makes life unfair is the delusion that it should be fair."

#8 Serendipity and Luck

We tend to focus on our own efforts and characteristics. That makes it harder to enjoy prosperity.

Many things in life are beyond our control. If we ignore them or resist them, we close ourselves off to prosperity.

Luck, chance and coincidence are three powerful prosperity levers. To downplay or diminish these is to play the game of life with an incomplete deck of cards.

A study on luck

Test subjects were divided into two groups. The first group were people who described themselves as unlucky, while the second group considered themselves lucky.

Both groups were given the same instructions - go through a newspaper and count the number of photographs. Within a few pages of this newspaper was an advertisement that read: "Stop counting. There are 43 photos". A few pages after that was another advertisement saying: "Stop counting. Tell the experimenter you've seen this ad and win 150 pounds."

The result? People who described themselves as lucky were more than twice as likely to win the cash prize.

The man behind this experiment was Dr. Richard Wiseman, who has worked with the self-described "lucky" more than anyone.

In an interview, he was being pressed by a reporter who asked him: "But can we acknowledge that sometimes bad stuff - car accidents, natural disasters - just happens? Sometimes it's purely bad, and there's nothing good about it?"

Wiseman's response: "I've never heard that from a lucky person."

A lucky person is the real estate agent who gets in a car accident, and because he believes he is lucky, strikes up a conversation with the other party in the accident because hey, who knows? They might end up buying a house from him.

The science shows that people who consider themselves lucky objectively don't have any more luck than the rest of us. They just tend to be more open to serendipity, which explains how they see more than just the photos in the newspaper - they see the ad that says how to win a cash prize. Those who are more closed minded to luck tend to see less of that is around them - therefore they focus only on the photographs and miss the cash prize.

More than positive thinking

I know a lot of positive thinkers who lack prosperity. Positive thinking by itself is dangerous.

Nor does it mean successful people are also the luckiest. What it means is that luck can be a factor to prosperity, and if we are open to it, we can influence it. Getting lucky doesn't negate your own abilities. It doesn't diminish your efforts and achievements. It simply means you can influence luck.

It starts with making room for luck to occur. Some big achievers think they are the sole responsibility for their results, and are surprised when something they touch doesn't end up turning into gold. In fact, it's often the undoing of many otherwise successful individuals. They think that because it's always due to their own efforts, they don't consider outside forces in their plans, and end up getting humbled.

When you embrace luck you unburden yourself of having to feel like you must do everything and control everything to get what you want.

What Seems Like Luck But Isn't

When most think about luck, they think of winning lottery tickets. But is an 8-figure lottery winner luck? I don't think so.

An 8-figure lottery winner is:

• 20 times more likely to be murdered
• 17 times more likely to overdose on drugs
• 41 times more likely to be kidnapped

And my favorite: 22 times more likely to go bankrupt!

Given too much too soon is not luck. Completely disrupting your life is not luck, which is why most people have trouble surviving big lottery winnings, much less becoming prosperous due to such good "luck".

Luck is more about having certain unexpected things pop up that pair perfectly with your preparation. Rapping in front of crowds as a kid perfectly prepared me to embrace webinar technology in 2008, which allowed me to reach the top of the digital industry. The technology I learnt when using the computer to produce music prepared me for the ecommerce revolution that would come decades later.

Tapping into more luck

Start a luck diary. Write down when you get lucky and/or how lucky you've been.

You do this enough and soon, you'll come to expect luck, which opens you up to better recognizing and seizing upon opportunities. It will also allow you to feel more gratitude and compassion too - which will empower your prosperity.

#9 Marketable Expertise

Expertise is the most practical factor of prosperity.

First, it can solve the money part of prosperity. It also goes hand and hand with purpose. Plus, it's a great catalyst to connection - the easiest way to make a million dollars is to make a million people's lives better.

Expert Defined

An expert is someone who has a deep and competent understanding in a particular area. But expertise isn't enough - it has to be marketable. In other words, if you're one of the best at it but no one knows that, then your expertise has no impact.

The definition of marketable expertise then is this: Being elite at a thing that is in demand, and being well known for it.

Paradoxically, in many fields the most well-known are rarely the most competent. This is because the more time you spend on the mastery of a skill, the less time you have to promote that mastery. The easiest experts to find are often not those who are most capable.

It's a hard pill to swallow. In a pure dollar sense, it's better to be average at what you do and exceptional at promoting it than the reverse. But is that prosperity? No. We must find harmony between mastery and marketing.

The mark of a true expert, to me, is someone who can speak eloquently in relation to their field of knowledge.

I draw my inspiration from the spiritual text of the Sir Clatanya-Carihamrta, which put it this way:

"Essential Truth spoken concisely is true eloquence."

Your goal is to uncover essential truths and offer them in concise and eay to understand concepts to audiences who, upon hearing your essential truths, are empowered. At first, don't be too concerned with how polished you are or how nice you look. Instead, focus on capturing essential truths and sharing them with impact.

The Story of Agadmator

Several years ago I saw the Agadmator launch his YouTube chess channel. He was merely a slightly better than average chess player, and when he started, it was humbly:

Above we see an early video of his, shot with a cheap headset and webcam in what appears to be his kitchen. But that matters less than the way he covered chess games. He's accessible. He avoids getting too deep or being over simplistic. He has this innocence to him which is endearing in contrast to most other bombastic YouTube personalities.

And he is the #1 chess channel on all of YouTube. He speaks essential truths of chess concisely. That's what he focused on first. Over time, he has become more polished:

He now has thematic chess quotes, player pictures and higher production quality. But that without essential truths is like putting lipstick on a pig. He captured the heart and minds of the chess world, and rosee to the top. We can learn so much from him.

Many Types of Experts

Oprah became one of the most well known personalities in the world by putting others front and center. Warren Buffer is appealing because he is not your typical Gordon Gecko Wall Street type. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are practically opposite each other in all other ways except as titans of the compuer industry. My friend Alex Mandossian says "do you want to be a sage from the stage or a guide from the side?" Both are valid paths to expert.

You don't have to fit a certain mold or pretend to be something you are not. There is an expert-type suited for your personality type, no matter what type you are.

The Caveat of Expertise

We tend to hero worship our experts, thinking they are above the flaws and limitations of us mere mortals.

Alan Waits is a profound speaker, and I've gleaned many essential truths listening to his lectures. He seems like he has all of life's answers. Yet he wasn't without his own demons, including a drinking problem which probably was the cause of his death.

You can be an expert who has trouble following your own advice. In fact, those often are the best experts, because they understand the challenge most intimately.

My friend, the late Bill Harris had a company that helped millions of people with relaxation and meditation. Yet Bill was one of the most scatter brained people I knew, and I loved that about him. But he needed meditation just to be able to function at a level most take for granted. I know another guy who has built out some of the best software for creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for businesses. Yet he constantly has trouble with managing any new projects or partnerships that come his way. I joked one day that he can't tie his shoes without a SOP. Who better to give us such a great software than a guy who struggles with everything unless it's documented?

I know this is at odds with how most experts are presented. The limiting belief is that if they somehow reveal their own inadequacies, it illigetimizes their expertise. Instead they create a false ideal that they themselves can't even live up to.

Every expert is flawed and most have flaws related to the very things they are experts in. I teach compassion and empathy but I lose my cool and I yell at my loved ones from time to time. I'm not always in prosperity, even though I study it and try to apply its principles constantly.

26 Time Loser

Michael Jordan is probably the best basketball player ever to entrust with the game winning shot. He performs even better when the game is on the line.

Yet he has missed 26 game winning shots, some of them in championship games. He has punched team mates in practice before and has held grudges against opposing players for many years just so he could have a reason to run circles around them on the court. He is flawed like you and me. He is also an icon, and one of the greatest sports figures in history.

Dare to be an expert, who is both well known and amazing for what you do.

Do it because of your flaws, not in absence of them. The world needs you.

#10 Perfect Imperfection

Somewhere along the way we, as a society, have become obsessed with perfection. I was once in a mastermind with top ADHD expert Ned Hollowell. He told us about a friend who had sold a company for one billion dollars confide in Ned: "I was walking down the street with a billion dollar check in my pocket feeling like the biggest loser in the world."

What happened?

He felt he got the raw end of the deal and that he should've been able to sell his company for more.

My friend Keith Klein, one of the top weight loss and nutrition experts in the world, told me he used to look in the mirror and see himself as fat even when he had less than 8% body fat.

We often approach the conflicts in our lives as problems that need to be fixed, but that's a dangerous perspective because I don't think you're broken or in need of fixing. I think a better perspective is to become more of who you are, not change into someone else.

We feel inward pressure and outward pressure. Schools are predicated on you conforming to a structure of education that is useful for many but not for all. At least 20% of students are incapable of functioning effectively within the normal educational system. These exceptions are capable of learning and flourishing, but they need a different structure.

Society also tries to assert its norms on us. Cancel culture is all the rage these days, but it is just a different name to an eternal human phenomenon - we don't like things that are different than what we find acceptable, so we force others to adhere to the values we ourselves have accepted, despite our own poor ability to follow those very values.

The cost of societal progression

When societies progress, the pressure for perfection is heightened further. It's not enough for kids to go to school these days and get good grades. You have to get into Ivy League universities, which means you need extra curricular activities and hopefully some scholarships to offset the hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a diploma that only gets you a foot in the door to a nice job...maybe.

We do more to accomplish more and are surrounded with so much more luxury, yet anxiety disorder rates increase, suicide rates increase, substance abuse rates increase and domestic violence rates increase.

Perfection is one giant illusion and a great example of black or white thinking: you're either perfect or you're not. Hint: you're not. Pursuing perfection will disempower you from stepping into prosperity.

To strive for prosperity is to constantly scan for fault so you address it, fix it, optimize it. This will make not enjoyable company for others, much less yourself. The more we seek perfection, the more we begin to fear failure, leading us to suppress curiosity.

Never In the Moment

Most people barely live in the present anymore. Their trauma is on one end pulling them back to the past while their desire for perfection is on the other end trying to jerk them to the future.

Yet there is perfection and it is easy to obtain but only if you are you in the present. To me, perfection is that innocent smile of a child. Perfection is the smell of the crisp air in the mountains. Perfection is the flow state. Gratitude. Grace. Connection.

Let's be motivated for perfection, but the right kind of perfection. One reason why Michael Jordan is embittered and still holds grudges against players he hasn't played against in years is because in his pursuit to be the best, he manufactured faults to go after.

The more I am present, the more I can tap into prosperity and the more I can enjoy prosperity. The more I am present, the more of me I can give to others and the more of me I can give to myself. Which means it is ok to act boldly with imperfection and even contradictive information. You already missed the best time to plant a tree - that was twenty years ago. So use the next best time, which is now.

Just like it's better to tell someone you love them now than wait for six months to find the perfect words to express your love, it's better for you to do the best you can now with what you have. That is perfection.

Embrace it. Enjoy it. Intentionally wear one sock inside out. Put a fork with the spoons. Consider an alternative to perfectionism - I like conscientious. I'll just be more aware. I'll be more open.

I'll put my heart into what I do, and I'll take to heart what Nalo Hopkinson said: "Beauty and ingenuity beat perfection hands down, every time."

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

We're surrounded by algorithms.

Google uses an algorithm to determine what results to show for its searches. Amazon uses an algorithm to put the products in front of you that you're most likely to buy. All social media runs on an algorithm - to curate and bring your attention to what they think is relevant to you in a way that keeps you scrolling through the feed.

An algorithm is a combination of different considerations that, working together, produce a result, it extends beyond computers and digital media.

Prosperity has an algorithm. These 10 factors are the most important 10 factors that - working together - can propel your prosperity.

In this report I've introduced to you each of these 10 factors as well as given you context and instruction on how to leverage these factors. The content here is derived from my online training program called the Prosperity Algorithm. If you want to go deeper into prosperity and each of these 10 factors, then check out the Prosperity Algorithm where I do my best to give the full insight to each of these factors.

My desire is to have more prosperity in this world, and the only way to do that is have more people operating in prosperity. Hopefully this report will help. Regardless, it's been an honor to serve you and I appreciate the time you've extended to me in my attempt to help you empower your prosperity.