What to Do When You "Get There"
By Bob Scheinfeld

OK. So you want to create prosperity in your life. That's fantastic. Let me ask you a question. Suppose you have the prosperity you want so badly - right now.

Now what?

Have you ever asked yourself that question?

"If I had money in the bank, life would be perfect." Have you ever thought that? Of course you have, we all have. But most people with money have certainly as many and possibly more challenges as you do. It happens because we fixate on getting the money, giving no consideration to what we're going to do once we have it. That's why I spend a good amount time teaching my clients and students not just how to create prosperity but how to handle it.

Here's a good illustration. Many years ago, during very intensive seminar, I participated in one of the "stretching exercises." I had to climb to the top of a 50-foot telephone pole, stand on a platform about the size of two small feet, then leap off to a trapeze some 15 to 20 feet away, grasp the bar, and swing.

Climbing the pole and standing on top weren't the problem. Once there, I took a big leap, launched myself forward, and grabbed the trapeze bar, but as my weight started to fall, I lost my grip and couldn't hold on and swing, which was the ultimate "victory."

I definitely wanted that victory so I asked the facilitator, "What happened? I had enough distance. I had my hands on the trapeze. But I couldn't hold on. Why?" He said, "The odds are that you were standing on top of the pole and saying to yourself, 'I have to get to the trapeze; I have to get to the trapeze.' You didn't say to yourself, 'I have to get to the trapeze, hold on, and swing.' You were just focusing on getting there. So you got there and that's it."

His analysis was absolutely accurate, so I re-did the exercise, this time focusing on getting to the trapeze, holding on, and swinging, and I achieved my ultimate victory. More importantly, it was a significant "aha" lesson I've never forgotten. We often focus on creating prosperity for ourselves, but we rarely focus on or consider what we're going to do when we get there.

With prosperity comes responsibility-to yourself and others. You want to continue to maximize the ongoing benefit your prosperity is bringing you by ensuring that you and the people you care about share in your improved "quality of life" by becoming as happy, healthy, and fulfilled as possible.

By "quality of life," I mean internal changes including your mental and physical well-being; your need for relaxation; specifics of how and where you work and live; your business and personal relationships; and so forth. Only your imagination and life purpose can limit the scope of what your overall quality of life looks like.

The Challenges of Prosperity

When you've built your prosperity to a certain level, you reach what I call "surplus," which means you have a consistent surplus of cash and assets. Surplus brings new challenges and complexities that are proportional to the size of the surplus and the number of people you're responsible for. Now you'll need to:

**Invest and Grow Your Surplus**
You must find the best ways for you as a unique individual to grow your surplus while preserving your base capital and taking only what you consider to be an acceptable level of risk. Today's multiple investment options can get confusing, even overwhelming. It's easy to make serious mistakes and incur great losses if you don't discover and apply the proper strategies.

**Protect your Assets**
The more prosperous you become, the more of a "target" you can become and you must protect your assets from lawsuits and other "attacks" by learning and applying specific strategies to your unique situation. With asset protection, there's no "one size fits all" solution and you must be cautious in how to set things up to achieve your protection goals. You must also protect expensive assets from all forms of loss and risk. A friend of mine went bankrupt when an avalanche destroyed his multi-million dollar home and he didn't have the proper insurance to cover the loss.

**Pass Your Assets Along**
Like it or not, you're going to pass on one day, and you must have in place the essential insurance, trusts and other legal strategies needed to protect the loved ones you want to receive your assets after your death. Again, however, there are zillions o choices in this arena and the solutions must be custom-designed for your unique situation, wants and needs.

**Minimize The Tax You Pay**
Do you want to work your butt off, finally create prosperity and then have Uncle Sam take a huge chunk of it? You musty get educated and employ strategies that allow you to legally, ethically, and morally pay the absolute minimum possible tax on your income and assets. What are the best strategies for you? Stay tuned. I'll show you how to find them.

**Create Streams of Passive Income**
The world changes at a rapid pace and you don't want to ever be dependent on just one stream of income (no matter how strong it may be now) because if it slows down or goes away, you're in trouble. You want to create numerous income streams through real estate, investing, network marketing, owning one or more businesses that can run without you, royalties or licensing fees on products you create, etc., so your income is safe and you can enjoy your prosperity without having to work daily. I'll show you how to choose and setup your own income streams in a minute.

**Plan For Your Retirement**
Similar to creating multiple streams of income, you want to arrange your affairs to ensure that you and your significant other can retire when you want and still live your preferred lifestyle without stress or worry. Once again, however, there are twenty million options for how to do this and you must have a system for finding the best ones for you.

The Responsibilities of Prosperity

In his book, How To Be Rich, the late oil tycoon J. Paul Getty wrote: "I felt that, in our contemporary society, far too much emphasis was being placed on getting rich, on amassing wealth. Little if any attention was paid to the very important question of how to be rich, how to discharge the responsibilities created by wealth even while constructively enjoying the privileges and prerogatives conferred by it."

Are there people who helped you on the road to creating your prosperity? Share your prosperity with them in as many ways as possible. Are there charities or causes you're passionate about that you could support financially? Share the wealth! How can you help make your local community, or the communities your business affairs may touch a better place to live - for yourself and others? The possibilities for giving back are endless. Find ways that work for you and inspire you.

While you may not be ready to give back, start thinking now, before you jump off the pole and head for the trapeze, about what you'll do when you've created your business success and wealth.

Just the Beginning . . .

As you can see, prosperity isn't an "end." It's just a beginning. Resist the temptation to focus only on what it will take to get prosperous. Keep a watchful eye on "how to be prosperous"-now that you have a clear understanding of what that term means.

How to Get The Help You Need

As you can see, managing prosperity requires work. You'll need help to make the best possible decisions and choices for all the challenges being prosperous brings. I get the help I need to create and manage prosperity by tapping into a system called "The 11th Element." To learn more about The 11th Element and how YOU can get the help you need to find the customized, personalized, unique-to-you prosperity solutions,
click here to visit my website.

Email this article
Printer friendly page