A prosperity plan is an outline of your priorities that helps you ensure that you build your business for you.
The most common challenge that entrepreneurs face is mindset and beliefs. Your business can become a multi-million dollar success; it can deliver what you need.
If you want to grow, create, expand, change, enhance or adjust your business, start by asking what it is you want.
What will you achieve for yourself?
What are you going to create that is meaningful to you?
Capture this as a plan: your prosperity plan, the outline of a life that you want to live for yourself.
This video gives you a bit more guidance… enjoy!
Video Introduction to the Prosperity Plan
Or, if you prefer to read, here is more detail on your prosperity plan in written form
Sam Walton had some sort of realization on his deathbed.
We can’t know precisely what that realization was because he’s dead.
But he didn’t give us a clue. After a life spent counting pennies, working nonstop, and always being on, he reportedly ended his life with the phrase: I blew it.
So the quintessential American businessman who created an empire died, thinking that he blew it and had made a colossal mistake – from the top of his almost unimaginable mountain of wealth.
Look, wealth matters, and I’m not going to suggest that it doesn’t; money is how we distribute limited resources in our economy. So if you want anything from heating, to Instapots, to education, you need money.
But chasing money and chasing dreams can become an endless game.
First, you have the car; then you want a bigger car.
Then you need a home, which they call a “starter home,” so that you know for sure this isn’t where you are supposed to end up. Your real home comes later. Then you need a second car and a vacation in the Four Seasons and so on.
The drive for more can overwhelm you, and somehow, the universe always seems to know exactly how much money you need to maintain yourself and maybe just stretch to that next goal, whether that be the better car or the “real” house.
The universe, however, does not know how to take the weekend off or take a vacation or spend time with your kids. You have to define these things into your success.
There is no magic here; the universe is nothing more than your mindset. As a human, you tend to focus on what is possible based on what you know.
But the truth is that looking forward, anything is possible. So a human-centric business defines success in three parts.
First is Wealth
Maybe someday we’ll live in some sort of Star Trekiann utopia where nothing is scarce, and everything is free.
But we’re not there now. So one aspect of your success and what you want to create has to be that wealth.
So ask yourself: What wealth do you want to create for yourself? What do you need, what do you want? What does wealth even mean to you? Is it important to you to have an endless stream of material possessions? Do you value having a massive bank account for the sake of having a massive bank account?
Whatever it is, it’s fine; it’s yours. Define wealth for you.
The second part of success is freedom.
You have the opportunity right now to live your life the way you want to live your life.
What does that mean?
For me, a life without skiing, hiking, yoga, or travel is terrible. Life without my family is awful, and my family is distributed across the US and Mexico. If I can’t travel, I can’t see them.
So the freedom to be in different parts of the world and work a schedule aligned with travel is important to me.
I also don’t do well reporting to an office every day. A highly structured environment does not work for me at all. I need the stimulation of variety. So the freedom to work with different people on unique challenges and in different places is important.
Others may focus on working short weeks, pursuing hobbies, having a high degree of structure, having and caring for kids, teaching, or a million other things that I haven’t even considered.
The question is, what is freedom for you?
Success part three is impact.
Simon Sinek tells the story of the Wright brothers and compares them to Samuel Pierpont Langley. Now both were working on solving the problems of human flight.
Langley had all the assets, support, and publicity but lacked a passion for the project. The Wright brothers wanted to change the world through flight.
Langley was driven by fame and fortune; the Wright Brothers brothers and their team were driven by impact.
This is why your “why,” as Simon Sinek puts it, and knowing your “why” is so important. It helps you communicate your business and connect with your prospects and your team.
But it goes beyond that.
You have the opportunity right now to change the world. So maybe it’s a small change, maybe a large change, but you can make a difference. This is motivational and fulfilling.
The impact I want to have for me is to empower people to take control of their lives to create businesses and help them live well as a result.
I imagine a community of business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers living well through creating and delivering products and services that make a difference and support a better world.
I want to impact 10,000 businesses. Now it’s a small fraction of the millions of businesses out there. So may not be a massive impact. But I feel that if I can help 10,000 businesses, I will have done my part.
So the final question is, what impact do you want to have?
Starting a business is hard work
Working hard is fine. But the key to staying motivated is to find alignment between yourself and your business. You don’t want to look back on your life and think you made a mistake.
If you change your mindset to focus on the bigger picture and deliver something meaningful, you can do it; you will do it. You just have to start. So what wealth, freedom, and impact do you want to create? I’d love to see your comments below.