It’s early in the morning here in Sweden… gotta love that fresh air…
Not taking anything for granted…
Hope you’re doing great… focused on your mission & most importantly, your next step on your journey.
So, Primary Wealth… “Primary” meaning “of chief importance.”
I believe all this is in your control & in your power to cultivate.
This Indian saying brings the point home so well,
“The possession of material riches, without inner peace, is like dying of thirst while bathing in a lake.”
PRIMARY WEALTH & THE STRATEGIES TO CULTIVATE IT
(not in any special order)
1. Gratitude
Nothing is more unbecoming than a spoiled attitude, ungrateful & sense of lack. There is always something negative to point out or something that’s missing… This is a poor way to live a life.
Strategy: Keep a gratitude journal. (I’ve been doing it for years, and it’s a true game changer. Research also says that if you practice this daily, it will make you more likely to have a grateful attitude in the future. )
If you doubt this fact… check out: Research on Gratitude & The Brain
2. A World Class Attitude
An attitude of “seeing opportunities in every difficulty.” If you practice this attitude with everything that happens in your life, every obstacle will turn into an opportunity.
Strategy: If something unpleasant happens, or something didn’t turn out as you’d expected. Maybe you worked hard and it just fell flat. Maybe you’re ashamed of what happened… Do this… Ask yourself: “What’s the opportunity here? What can I learn?”
Take serious consideration to these questions. If it helps, sit down and write about it to gain deeper clarity.
“New brain-imaging research suggests that when some people fail their motivation centers become more active, making it more likely they will be able to learn from their experience. When others fail the brain’s pain centers become more active—it literally hurts—making it more likely they will do whatever they can to avoid thinking about the episode, which means they are more likely to repeat the mistake. Learn from your mistakes and use them as stepping stones to success.”
– Daniel Amen, MD
3. Self-Trust & Discipline
This is a big one and has meant a lot to me… A big part of my life, I thought that I needed to “feel like it” in order to do what I knew was right, good, healthy… But the approach I have now, due to my avid study of achievement & development psychology, I have understood this KEY LIFE LESSON:
What separates high achievers, successful, happy people from the rest, is the fact that they:
—>DO WHAT THEY BELIEVE TO BE RIGHT, NO MATTER WHAT THEY FEEL.<—
In psychology, they call this skill: Willpower. And what they have found, and what we benefit from believing, is that WILLPOWER is like a muscle… IT CAN BE TRAINED.
Strategy: Start practicing with little things. Start first by determining what kinds of actions and what kind of person you wish to be… This is the start… To gain deeper clarity on this, go to the exercises 1, 2 & 3 in: Post #2. Valleys & Mountains
As you gain more clarity on what is your “right thing” to do. You can just ask yourself as often as possible: “What’s the right thing to do know?”
“Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success. In a 2005 study, for instance, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania analyzed 164 eighth-grade students, measuring their IQs and
other factors, including how much willpower the students demonstrated, as measured by
tests of their self- discipline. Students who exerted high levels of willpower were more likely to earn higher grades in their classes and gain admission into more selective schools. They had fewer absences and spent less time watching television and more hours on homework. “Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic- performance variable,” the researchers wrote. “Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did IQ. Self-discipline also predicted which students would improve their grades over the course of the school year, whereas IQ did not….”
4. Vulnerability & Authenticity
This has all to do with the quality of your relationships. Do you feel you can be open and honest, to let yourself be seen with them?
This is really key, because one our basic needs as human beings is the need for love and belonging. And we can’t get this if we’re not willing to show our most authentic selves.
When we open up about how we feel to the closest around us, we allow connection to happen, and we need this.
The biggest obstacle to this is the fear that we will not be approved or loved if we open up… This can be daunting…
Strategy: If you’r struggling with a sense of loneliness, or a sense of isolation, even if you’re around people, you will want to check out: This TED talk by Brené Brown.
Otherwise, what I do is that if I feel this sense of isolation, depending on how deep it is, I go and Journal: I put words to how I feel and investigate reasons why I might feel this way. This is a practice of getting to know yourself better. Also, when you define where you are, you are in control, you are free to decide how the story will end.
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
– Brené Brown, Ph.D
5. Hope
Hope is the belief that the future can be better, brighter, than your present… and that you have the power to make it so…
This has all to do with first having a compelling & personal vision of what this brighter, better future looks like, the belief that you can go there, and the determination to go over, under, through, whatever obstacle that you know is going to stand in the way.
Strategy: Sit down with a journal and ask yourself liberating questions like these:
a) “What would I do If I knew could not fail?”
b) “What would average, perfect day look like to me in 3 years?”
c) “Who has done what I seek to do? What can I learn from them.”
d) “What obstacles might stand in the way of doing this?”
e) “How can I persist through these obstacles?”
“Hope matters. Hope is a choice. Hope can be learned. Hope can be shared with others.”
– Shane J. Lopez Ph.D (Author of Making Hope Happen)
8. Self Awareness
Knowing yourself, your weaknesses, strengths, what makes you come alive, what you want to do… this is a source of true power. Because if you don’t have this awareness, it’s impossible to make “good decisions”. If you don’t know what you stand for, you will fall for anything…
But if you on the other hand know who you are, what you’re all about, this self awareness acts as a filter, which you can use anytime to determine what actions to take.
This is key.
Strategy: Well, it might not come as a surprise but… journal… Actually, try to see all of life as a way to find out what you truly love… And then do more of that… and less of what drains you.
9. Healthy Habits
The last one… binds them all together…
So, which forms of Primary Wealth do you want to put into practice?
How can you make a daily habit of this?
You know, habits, sustainable, consistent, meaningful habits, are what’s really going to lead to change in the long run…
Strategy: Pick a habit that you would like to install, that would make a big difference in your life, and commit to doing it for 7 days. See it as a practice in willpower. And remember, remind yourself every morning that this habit is what you’re going to do for the next 7 days.
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
– Aristotle
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Please feel free to ask questions and join the conversation.
Live well!
Best wishes,
Daniel Galovan
DANIEL GALOVAN 
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