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I get it all the time, when people hear the name of my company "You`re just like all the other ministers," or even worse, the glassy eyed anxiety stare that screams "Is she passing the collection plate?"

The answer to creating an extraordinary life for yourself and your family is to create wealth.  When you live a wealthy life you are living the life you have always dreamed about.  For some people that does not include a Bentley, it may simply include being and doing your best at every given moment, or even better, breathing... on your own!

What is wealth to you?  Is it the ability to create your own income?  Maybe it`s being able to watch the sunrise off the bayou or dance with your babies in the middle of your living room.  Maybe it`s driving a Mazarati or shopping at Tiffany`s. That is what I want to know, what is wealth to you?

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Dr. LA www.SpiritofWealth.org Your purpose for your life is not written on some cloud in the sky; the blueprint is mapped in your Spirit, designed by your mind, and materialized by your actions ~ Dr. LA

Dr. LA,

I think that being wealthy and being rich are the same thing. They both mean in an abundance. It does not have to be specifically be monetary.  And as you mention above it can be perceived as either a very positive thing or a very negative thing.

When I think of being wealthy and rich, I first thing about it in regards to quality of life. I think that your state of mind and mental well-being directly correlates to your accumulation of riches or wealth spiritually, emotionally, socially, financially, infinitely

For example, if you would like to be successful in your business, ultimately there has to come a time, as Napoleon Hill states, when your fear turns to faith.  When you achieve this state of mind, you are confident then essentially you are `always prepared`.  You do not worry because you know that no matter what challenge you meet that you will be able to identify a solution/opportunity or even a couple and know where your resources lie and how to implement them.  Napoleon Hill says its know what you know it`s what you do with what you know. I say if you want to be a powerful person, empower others.  By constantly `doing and giving` in every sense of the word, personally and professionally, I am not living in a desensitized state of mind. I am able to appreciate and utilize everything that comes to me in both abstract and physical form.

With your mind in a reflective state in your business and your life you are able to constantly identify opportunities which ultimately can turn into revenue streams when you take action. They also bring you peace of mind and attract the same types of people into your network. In this case, you will not worry because you know `whose got your back`.

If you live your life otherwise, you will always be a victim. And I suppose that`s where you come in

Shonika

Somebody once said, "Being rich is working for a lot of money. Being wealthy is having a lot of money working for you."

I take your point, however, that you`re ascribing a metaphorical value to "wealthy" and a tangible value to being "rich." Individualism is a philosophy I believe necessitated by a deplorable lack of values and long-term thinking arising out of the Baby Boom generation`s instant gratification lifestyle. The highest value in the philosophy is quality of life.

What is money if you have no quality of life? And what exactly is quality of life? It took me a long time to settle on a definition of "quality." The closer something approaches the ideal, determines the measure of quality.

That presupposes a definition of "ideal." An ideal the correct statement of an entity, and can include many of its attributes. A "definition" isolates the unique attribute.

Wealth, metaphorically, speaks to the quality of a person`s life. But that rests on what do they hold as their ideal? We can split all humanity into two categories, where one group holds that nothing whatsoever continues following death. The other group holds that something continues past death. It doesn`t matter what it is they believe continues, only that they believe something continues.

I suspect that the concept of wealth and riches will fundamentally rest on a person`s category. All a philosophy accomplishes is that it puts a context around information and life. To believe that something continues beyond death---the considered ending of all thought and existence---places a very different context around money, work, life, goals, and everything else.

So the question could also be phrased as, "In what context do you believe that a person is wealthy?"

In Econ class, we learned that wealth is what a person has built up... retirement funding, housing, savings... etc. You can have a low income and still be wealthy, because you saved everything, or your house is paid off.

Rich, has more to do with spending. Rich people drive nice cars, eat out at nice restaraunts, wear fashionable clothes... etc. They may have nothing to show for it when it is all said and done, but they appear to have a lavish life.

To me, wealth will always be a technical term.

Be careful what you "ask for," because you`re likely to get it! Aren`t you saying that "I prefer to spend my life always with a technical understanding of wealth but never the personal experience of it?"

Positive thinking---that`s the ticket! :-) How can you ever know what will happen among the countless variables of the future? You have no profile, no picture, no note or message to the community, yet you`re an artist? Why not have some images of your art? Why not say who you are and what you do?

How many people might know someone or be interested in your work, your products, your art, your life, your thoughts? You`ve inspired me to action, to write this response to your thoughts. Why pre-determine what your life will be, how it will happen, how you will live it, and exclude any other variables that you can`t visualize ahead of time?

Life is about abundance! Wealth and money are everywhere. It isn`t a zero-sum equation where some people "gots" and other people "ain`t gots." Nobody "steals" or "takes" a share of a finite pie! There`s an always growing "pie," based on real products and real services.

5 million years ago there were 150,000 people on the planet. Today there are 6 billion. If food were a finite pie---a zero-sum equation---we`d most of us never have been born. Wealth refers to the concrete things that generate a need for symbolic accounting. That symbol is money. But wealth is a function of your own efforts to create.

Think big! Think expansively! Accept that particularly in America, your life is a result of your efforts, your work, your creativity, and your optimism! :-) Life isn`t something that happens while you`re waiting to die!

Craig,

When I posted it, I was thinking about the specific definitions I learned in a class. I wasn`t intending to pre-determine my life, but I do see where you`re coming from. I could use more optimism, and actually visualizing myself with lots of wealth is something I hadn`t thought very hard about. Thanks to you though, I am now! I appreciate your encouragement, Craig. I look forward to discovering the personal experience of wealth. (I will also get around to putting up a profile and a picture sometime in the near future.)

I am glad I found SuN, because this is the most optimistic and encouraging thing I`ve seen. I love reading the posts every morning!

Y`know, it`s interesting, but the human mind doesn`t at all store "words." We store images, and even the words are seen as separate images of each letter and grouping.

The problem all of us have is that when we move into abstractions like health, wisdom, honor, wealth, abundance, joy, and so forth, we forget to build a "word picture" in our mind. What is your pictured "model" of health, for instance? What picture do you hold that means the word "success," or "wealth?"

It`s astounding how many results you can get if you take however long you need to get those pictures. So for example, if you want to be optimisitic, what picture would you begin to hold? Go through magazines, Google Images, picture books, or other places where there are many images, and find one that just speaks to you! "That`s it! That`s what being optimistic is all about!"

It can be a picture of a child or stranger, animals, drawings, cartoons, or whatever. What matters is that it`s a picture, like a logo. You want to "brand" your word with a symbol-graphic. Then you`ll find your mind and subconscious can more easily begin to manipulate the symbols.

Most memory improvement books do the same, breaking out words, names, and letters into symbols you can use to "tell a story" in your mind. "Johnny Appleseed," to my mind calls up the picture of a toilet (the john), and a man with a bag of apples over his shoulder, spilling seeds from a hole.

Do apples work that way? No. But as a child, I vaguely sense some sort of illustration to a child`s book that told the story. Optimism in my mind, calls up the rising sun over a mountain range. Why? I have no idea, but I always used to draw the sun with a smiling face when I was a kid. Now, using adult psychology, I understand my subconscious has included the "mountains" and "hurdles" of obstacles that are overcome by the rising sun. Hence---optimism.

Walk away from trying to store sentences and phrases. It`s too hard! For "wealth" don`t make it technical; instead, think of a bag of gold, or a cloud of butterflies, or a big roast beef. I dunno...whatever YOU feel is a fun, nice, and most important, memorable picture of that particular word.

Craig,

Sometimes wealth is as simple as "getting it"

Are you familiar with the word Grok?

That`s what I strive for.

~Eric

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~Eric
JE Design Group, LLC
If all you do is what you`ve done, then all you`ll get is what you`ve got.
www.jedesigngroup.com

Eric

Yup..."grok" from my favorite Heinlein martian. Sometimes life is as simple as living it. :-) In fact, life IS simple! It`s only that people get all bamboozled at how it`s not supposed to be simple. Consider the problem people have distinguishing between "work" and "fun." Few people can even define the two words, and fall back on "Well, it`s like..." and then use an anecdote, not a definition.

If people would stop over-thinking everything, life would be a lot more fun, we`d all have a wealth of abundance, and there`d be lots of great food to eat. But the problem remains that most people don`t know how to stop thinking, or how to start thinking. They don`t understand how to develop intuition, or have answers to seemingly impossible questions.

"Grok" was replaced by "Getting it," and both replaced "Eureka!" :-D

I grew up very poor. My mother was divorced, raising 3 kids on her own. We often had to do without the things that many kids today (including my own) take for granted.

But there were times in our lives that we felt like the richest kids in town.

Our mother attended every single one of our sporting events--even in the rain and cold!

She came to every school play, dance recital, etc., and always encouraged us no matter how good or bad our performance may have been.

I thought these things were standard or "normal", until I was in high school and realized how many kids there were whose parents never attended these events for their kids. They didn`t even have dinner with their parents most nights. The funny thing is, most of these were the "rich" kids. The ones whose parents had all the money. They had a lot of cool clothes, electronics, cars, and fancy vacations to Europe, but they didn`t know much about their parents, and their parents didn`t know much about them.

It was then that I realized that we really were the "richest" family in town.

So, when I think of "wealthy" or "rich", I first think of my mother and the incredible gift she gave us--herself.

I strive every day to give my daughter the same gift of "riches".

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