What is wealth? How do you discovery the Secret of True Wealth?

The first question we need to answer on the path to wealth is What is wealth? This is the first question most people ask. Are we only talking about money? I believe that wealth covers much more than just money. I define wealth as abundance in our life. For everyone that means something different. A poor person who struggles to eat every other day would call a hot meal every day to be wealth. A single man might describe meeting his soul mate to be wealth. We have wealth in our families, in our bank accounts, in our spiritual life, in the time we have to do the things we want.

I want you to go outside of the traditional definition of wealth. This course is not about growing your bank account as large as possible. That may be part of the journey but rather this is about finding a balance in your life where abundance is a normal state of life.

For example if you could work for a company that you hated in a job you despised but made a MILLION dollars a year.. would you? I don’t mean a job you kinda dislike but one you get sick thinking about… one that goes against everything you have believed. Would you trade your time and values for simple dollars?

Wealth is about finding that point in your life where you have abundance. An abundance of joy, an abundance of money, an abundance of time, an abundance of health, an abundance of God. Most people spend their lives in trade offs. They find an abundance of money but trade their time at a job that doesn’t inspire them. Some focus only on spending their time on what they want and suffer from a lack of money sufficient to share with others.

Wealth is an attitude and not a bank account number. If it was, lottery winners would be the happiest people in the world, but we know they aren’t. Wealth is meant to be shared. When we share our wealth with others we create more. We do not live in a world with a fixed amount of wealth. Wealth can be created by us. By bringing value to others. By trading our time and expertise to others so they can spend more time on the things that inspire them.

Today I want you to spend some time defining wealth for yourself and how to create it for yourself and share it with others. This will form your foundation of the Pentagon of True Wealth.

Sit down. Clear your mind. Take a few deep breaths and relax your shoulders. Answer the following questions. Rate yourself from 1-10 with 1 being horrible (which means no one will put it down and 10 being fantastic (Which if we are honest we won’t put down either. You don’t have to show them to anyone, just yourself.

The Pentagon of True Wealth
1) Are you close to God? Having our spiritual wealth taken care of is the most important part of building wealth in our lives. Are you spending time growing that relationship? What can you do differently to improve it? Our true wealth is in heaven.

2) Do you have strong relationships with your friends and family? Having a strong support structure is the second building block to a wealthy life. Do you have a situation that you haven’t addressed yet? Are there actions you could take to improve things? Do you pray about them?

3) Are you healthy? Do you eat right? Take care of your body? Spend some time every day learning and implementing ways to stay healthy? It doesn’t matter how much money you have in the bank if you aren’t able to enjoy it. The richest man in the world would trade all his money for a doctor that could cure him of a terminal illness.

4) Are you using all your time? Do you get the most out of your day? We all have the same amount of time in the day, but some people maximize their use of it. They seem to operate in a different zone than the rest of us. Do you feel like you have good systems in place to have an abundance of time in your life?

5) Do you have enough money? Notice that this one is last. Money is simply a medium of exchange. Of all the items in our list, it provides the least to a wealthy lifestyle. Not having enough can be a terrible place to live, but spending all our time focused on it keeps us from being wealthy.  Of course having physical riches can help us to share our wealth with others. To provide for charity, to help others that are struggling, to pay our obligations, to live in abundance. Money is more than just a measure of dollars and cents though. Think about how you earn the money… is it a good trade for your time? We exchange time for money. Does your job or business create abundance in your life in ways that go beyond cash flow?

Once you have answered these questions, you have a good idea of where you are starting. Just remember that each leg won’t be the same size for everyone. It is your personalized pentagon of true wealth. It can be any shape you want.

Our next letter will talk about how to set goals to start working on the areas that you need to work on. Remember balance is the key to living an abundant wealthy life.

I look forward to our next visit.

On the pathway to wealth