Success & Prosperity Lessons

The Prosperity Principles to Live By
By Randy Gage
Jul 9, 2004, 10:57

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When you look at the issue of manifesting prosperity in your life, there are at least two factors that are unalterable.

First is prosperity itself. Prosperity operates by unshakable, unchangeable laws, which can only be broken with ramifications.

The other thing I’m thinking of is principles. Principles are unwavering and set in stone. They don’t change with the winds, whim, or convenience.

At least not if they are real principles anyway . . .

Today we live in a very complex world. And this world will challenge our principles like nothing ever before. The Middle East, free trade, human rights, and cloning are all examples of the modern day complexities that can cause us to examine our principles. Each year progress and technology create new and complex political, philosophical, and intellectual dilemmas.

In response to this, politicians, the media, and society in general often talk of compromise. They would have you believe that today’s world is now so complex that general principles no longer work. They argue that we must all compromise more, so that everyone can benefit.

And that is the problem with the world today. It’s “tribal thought” and it’s one reason so many people are sick, broke, and unhappy. Because it is only your ability of forming principles that allow you to deal effectively and positively with the complexity of life today. This denial of principle in ethics, government and relationships is why things are so messed up.

In many cases, compromise solves the immediate problem, but actually creates more complexity, and more challenges for the future. When this happens, it’s because you violated a principle, for the sake of compromise.

When we opened our direct marketing agency in Central Europe, the first company that approached us about representing them was a tobacco company. Actually they were the only company that approached us.

It would have been easy to validate or justify taking them, especially with no other client in sight. But we didn’t even consider it for a minute. There is no way on this earth that I am going to create marketing campaigns to promote cigarettes, not even for a multi-million dollar fee. And that gives you a clue.

If a principle doesn’t cost you something, it’s probably not a principle.

Now being the way prosperity works, the vacuum we created by not accepting the tobacco company’s business opened up a place for others to come in. But that was irrelevant. If I had to sell cigarettes to make my marketing agency a success, I would rather dig ditches.

Now let’s get a little intellectual, and explore the objectivist philosophy. Ayn Rand maintained that reason is our only means of perceiving reality. She saw reason as our only source of knowledge, our only guide to action, and our basic means of survival.

Now if reason is our source for knowledge, and our guide for action, it stands to reason (no pun intended) that reason will have a great impact on our prosperity.

At my “Prosperity Power Experience,” weekend event I challenge many people’s beliefs in a variety of areas. One of them is their purpose in life. And I do this by presenting them with a dilemma that pits their emotion against their reason.

Purpose is important, because if you don’t have a purpose, it’s next to impossible to be consistently happy. And you certainly can’t be prosperous if you are not happy!

I explain that my life’s highest purpose is my own happiness. To achieve that happiness, I live my life based upon the fundamental values of

Purpose.
Self-esteem.
Reason.

And that based on these values, I have formulated principles I live by.

Unfortunately, most people are so infected with lack programming that they have no principles they live by, and as a result, have a sick, twisted view of their purpose. They view their purpose through the eyes of servicing others, contributing to the greater good, or looking after the people around them. This is nothing but decadence; a make believe view of the world that is dysfunctional and causes low self-esteem and codependency.

And if you see your main purpose in life as serving others, you’re probably personally responsible for the founding of at least three co-dependents anonymous chapters. Let me go on the record and say, if your main purpose in life is to “serve others” or “serve God”—you have an extremely low opinion of yourself, don’t believe you are worthy, and will experience a tremendous amount of lack and limitation in your life.

People who spend their existence worrying solely about the needs of others and not themselves are not noble, benevolent, and spiritual. They are crazy. And they will not be happy, nor will they be prosperous.

To repeat an oft-quoted line from a character in “The Fountainhead,” “To say ‘I love you,’ one must first know how to say the word ‘I.’”

You know that to love anyone else, you must first love yourself. But are you really aware of what that means on a practical application level? We’ve discussed the virtue of selfishness in an earlier lesson. Let me refresh your memory and tell you what I said then:

Your highest moral purpose must be your own happiness.

Because this is the only healthy, sane way to live. And the only way that ensures the survival of the species, and the well-being of the most people. In fact, it is the only honorable way to conduct any relationship!

You must not sacrifice yourself to others because that is depravity. It is depravity because it is a certain state of moral corruption and degradation. It is sick, a sure symptom of mental illness. Do you really get that?

And likewise for the opposite situation. You shouldn’t ask others to sacrifice for you, for that is no less sick and depraved. Corrupting the morals of others is no less evil than corrupting your own.

It doesn’t serve anyone to degrade yourself or to degrade others. And that is exactly what sacrificing yourself for others is. In the book “Atlas Shrugged,” one of Ayn Rand’s main characters is asked, “What is the most depraved kind of human being?” His answer would likely surprise most people, since he doesn’t suggest a murderer, or rapist, or other sex offender. His answer is, “The man without a purpose.”

When asked about why she suggested this as opposed to the other possibilities, Rand replied, “Because that aspect of their character lies at the root of and causes all the evils which you mentioned in your question. Sadism, dictatorship, or any form of evil, is the consequence of a man’s evasion of reality. A consequence of his failure to think. The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out of control of his own life. In order to have control of your life, you have to have a purpose—a productive purpose.”

When you have your own happiness as your highest moral purpose, you have a productive—and moral—reason to exist. And here’s the important thing . . .

If everyone did this, the world would be a much better place! Instead of dysfunction, depravity, and codependence, we would have healthy, functional, value-for-value relationships. No one would be asking others to sacrifice yourself for him or her, and you would behave the same way. That is the way healthy relationships are done.

The next important fundamental value is running your life by reason. Which means that you analyze things with the criteria of whether it serves your highest moral purpose, which is the perpetuation of your happiness.

The question people ask me the most is, ‘How do I know whether a belief I have is lack oriented?’ This is actually quite easy. Don’t make it complicated. The question to ask is simply:

“Does this belief serve me?”

And the way to discern that is with your rational mind. Emotions are good. They are a vital part of living a full and rich life. But a truly sane and emotionally balanced person will know—or will make it a point to discover—what is causing those emotions. There does not have to be a clash between your emotions and reason.

I often tell the story of Ayn Rand being interviewed before the publication of “Atlas Shrugged.” A publisher’s rep asked Rand whether she could present the essence of her philosophy while standing on one foot. She hopped up and said:

1 Metaphysics: Objective Reality
2 Epistemology: Reason
3 Ethics: Self-interest
4 Politics: Capitalism

Some big words there. What does it all mean?

If you pressed Rand to come up with simple words to describe the above, it would be:

1 “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.”
2 “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.”
3 “Man is an end in himself.”
4 “Give me liberty or give me death.”

I believe you can hold these concepts with total consistency, as the basis for your own philosophical system to guide your life by. But to actually do this—to really understand, define, prove and apply them—requires a lot of intellectual exercise. Which is why philosophy can’t be discussed while you’re standing on one foot. And why it can’t be understood while you’re standing with one foot on each side of a fence.

And unfortunately, this seems to be the prominent approach to philosophy in the world today. So after centuries of this bad philosophy, most people actually have no philosophy to live by, and thus, no principles they follow.

And when you talk about principle, most of them will start labeling you with words like “stubborn,” “unreasonable,” “narrow-minded,” “unrealistic,” and “intransigent.” Then they pull out the arguments about the complexities of today’s world requiring you to compromise more, be more flexible, and relax your standards.

I’ll take my cue from Thoreau, and settle for a “majority of one.” Try this premise on for size:

1) To be happy, you must have a purpose.
2) To have a purpose require values.
3) Your values create a congruent philosophy to live by.
4) Your philosophy is congruent only if you stand by the principles that make it up.

It is your rational mind’s ability to form principles that gives you the means to deal with complex issues. Your need to act on rational principles is inescapable, if you want to live a life of happiness, meaning and significance.

And this is going to require that you use your reason and intellect, not emotion as you determine the principles by which you live.

-RG

P.S. Give all of this some real thought and if you want to test your Prosperity IQ go to www.ProsperityPowerExperience.com and click on the link to take the short quiz to see if you need to break out of self-limiting beliefs that are sabotaging your success!

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For over 15 years, Randy Gage has been helping people transform self-limiting beliefs into self-fulfilling breakthroughs to achieve their dreams. Randy Gage is a modern day explorer in the field of body-mind development and personal growth. He is the author of over 40 works including the best-selling album, “Prosperity” and best-selling book “Accept Your Abundance”.

© MMXI Randy Gage. All Rights Reserved.

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