Pathway to Prosperity

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Kirstie Wood for always being there to type up my messes. A big thank you to Steven Slaven Spehar for checking the manuscript in the early days and giving me great insights. To Mark Badham for transcribing and translating my thoughts. To my editor Jem Bates — you are absolutely brilliant. To everyone in the Mesiti team for your tireless hard work. And thank you to my beautiful wife Andrea, who is selfless.

Introduction

Are you where you want to be?

I have a goal to create 10 000 millionaires in my lifetime. That’s why I run special events every year. That’s why I travel the world speaking to men and women who hunger for financial success. That’s why I’ve written this book. You see, I want you to become wealthy and prosperous, and I believe you can.

The word prosperity comes from the Latin prosperare, which means to prosper, thrive or flourish. I love those words! And I know you do too. After all, that’s why you picked up this book. Unfortunately, most people can’t honestly use these words to describe their life. So many of us aspire to prosperity, but our reality is quite different. We want to be financially secure, but we’re struggling to get there. The purpose of this book is to help you get from where you are now to where you want to be. I want to show you how to live your life by design, not by default.

Some 98 per cent of people spend their lives working hard, only to end up with fewer financial resources than they had planned. Most would confess that financially their life did not turn out the way they had hoped it would. In Million Dollar Habits, speaker and author Robert Ringer wrote: ‘The world is saturated with intelligent, highly educated, extraordinarily skilled people who experience ongoing frustration because of their lack of success. Millions of others spend their lives working hard, long hours only to die broke.’ In 2010 the National Bureau of Economic Research found that nearly 50 per cent of Americans would be unable to come up with $2000 in 30 days if an emergency arose. That means half the country is living one pay cheque away from financial collapse.

There is often a tension between where we want to end up in life and the path we choose to get there. We fail to see that good intentions are never enough. We need to understand why, despite our good intentions, we may have ended up at the wrong financial destination. One reason is that we are surrounded by people who are moving in the wrong direction with us. In recent years in Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK, for example, many people made the same bad decisions that led to too much debt: they bought overpriced houses they could not afford while they did not have enough savings in the bank. When everyone around us is doing the same thing we’re doing, it’s easy to deceive ourselves into thinking it will work out. And when we end up where those poor decisions take us, we’re confused about how we got there.

Over the years I’ve talked to many individuals and couples with financial problems who assure me they are close to a solution — a fix here or an adjustment there. But just as there is no easy fix when you accidentally wind up a hundred miles from where you want to be on a road trip, there is no quick fix when you wake up to the reality that you are far away from where you want to be financially.

Some years ago I was in Los Angeles and decided to drive myself to the airport. My hosts had given me some simple directions and a hand-drawn, step-by-step map, so I climbed into the rental car, grabbed the wheel and took off. My objective was to negotiate a labyrinth of interconnected freeways in a foreign city, yet I was so confident I decided to take a shortcut. Instead of getting onto Interstate 405, I decided to take another freeway that I thought would get me to the airport a lot quicker.

It wasn’t long before it dawned on me that I had taken a wrong turn, but I didn’t stop. I just kept driving. An hour later I found myself in what looked like one of the most rundown city neighbourhoods in America. Here I was, a budding young preacher travelling the globe, selling my message of good news, driving a rental car loaded with suitcases and t-shirts, and I had no idea where I was. I began to get nervous, and the more wrong turns I took, the more anxious I became. Worse still, it was dark outside and I could no longer see the street signs.

As I turned into a small street I noticed a light outside a van selling burgers. By now I was ready to ask for directions, so I pulled up next to the burger stand and got out of the car. As I began to ask for directions I suddenly found myself surrounded by four young men. ‘What are you doing around here?’ one asked. ‘This is not your place!’

Here I was in a dark street, in a foreign city, absolutely lost, accosted by four gang members. My knees started shaking and my mouth went dry. I knew I was in deep trouble, but all that came to mind was Crocodile Dundee. And in moments like that you don’t think, you just act. So in a broad, true-blue Australian accent, I said, ‘Oh, g’day fellas. I’m from Australia and I’m trying to find Los Angeles Airport. I’m totally lost!’

The mood changed in an instant. They stepped back and smiled. ‘You’re from Australia? You know Crocodile Dundee?’

‘Yeah, I’m a neighbour,’ I replied. ‘I live just down the road from his place.’

‘Man, we love that scene where he says, “That’s not a knife — this is a knife!”’

‘Yeah, in Australia we all carry knives like that.’

We were instant friends. Those boys ended up giving me directions to get back on track. The difference was that this time I listened.

Now I want to give you some directions too, so listen up. The first thing you’ve got to do is recognise where you are right now financially. Be very honest with yourself (after all, this is just between you and me). Don’t let another day go by in which you ignore the real situation you are in. Once you’ve given it some attention, ask yourself, did you plan to arrive where you are today or did you arrive here by accident? In other words, are you where you are by design or by default?

If you’re massively in debt, tied to a business or job you don’t like or living in a home in a suburb that’s not ideal, then my guess is you’re not there by design. But if you’re there by default, I don’t want you to worry too much . . . because you’re not alone. You’re living in a society full of people just like you.

Now it’s my turn to be very honest with you: I’m here to tell you that you are where you are today largely because of the steps you took along the way. It’s no good placing the blame on your upbringing, your background, your education, your accountant or the government. You are responsible for your current financial situation. But here’s the upside: you can do something about it. You can get out of your current financial surroundings. You can reduce your debt, increase your worth, make wiser investments . . . and even give away a lot more than you do now. And I want to help you get there.

Do you remember that great song by the band Talking Heads called ‘We’re on a Road to Nowhere’? You may feel like that sometimes. Or maybe you feel you’re on a carousel and don’t know how to get off. I have some good news for you: you can change the path you’re on. Your destination — your destiny — is in your hands. It’s up to you where you end up — with your finances, your business or career, your relationships and even your health. If you follow the right pathways you will prosper in all these areas. You just need to ask for directions, take advice and stick to the right roads. And if you find you are on the wrong pathway, you can get off again and find the right one. It’s your choice. It’s not too late to jump onto the path that leads to financial success.

If there’s one thing you don’t need in your world it’s another solution, another quick fix, another get-rich-quick scheme. Some of us think, Oh if I could just get connected on the internet it would be the answer to my financial problems. Or, I’ll buy and sell a few properties, and then I’ll be able to retire in a few years. Wrong! Most likely you’ll make the kinds of decisions you’ve always made and end up financially worse off. Why? Because you are looking for solutions. This book is about directions, not solutions. If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be financially, the answer is not in a solution. The answer is getting the right directions to steer you onto the right pathways to financial freedom. Certain pathways will surely lead to financial rewards; others will guarantee your financial ruin. Pathways are predictable like that.

A lot of people tell me they want to ‘make it’ financially. ‘I want to make it in business,’ they say. ‘I want to make it in property!’ ‘I want to make it in the stock market!’ Well, I don’t agree. I don’t want you to make it. I want you to build it. There is a huge difference between making it and building it. In the 30+ years I’ve been helping people create prosperity, I’ve seen many people make it and then lose it. Making money is not as important as building it. I want to teach you how to build your wealth so that it sustains you for many years to come. I want to increase your capacity to earn money over time. I want you to enjoy life, to prosper and flourish long term, to experience all the good things life has to offer, to taste what it’s like to live a life of abundance and increase.

Why am I encouraging you to build a life of prosperity? Because I’ve learned that money is good and that there’s enough of it on this Earth for everyone. I want to acquire all I can, give all I can and save all I can. And I am committed to the financial success of others, including you. In fact, I hope you will become one of my 10 000 millionaires. Will you join me on the pathway to prosperity?