RULES OF PROSPERITY
Individual & Group
CONTENTS — FIND IN PAGE
INDIVIDUAL PROSPERITY CODE
"The Cheat Code To Wealth And Prosperity" by Myron Golden
1. The Cost of Ignorance
Myron Golden opens by emphasizing that ignorance is expensive: the gap between where you are and where you want to be is determined by what you don’t know and haven’t implemented yet. He illustrates this by having an audience member ask him questions-if he doesn’t know the answer, he pays them money. This demonstrates that every time life asks you a question you can’t answer, you pay an “ignorance tax,” whether in money, missed opportunities, or other costs.
2. Understanding and Quantifying Potential
Potential is defined as the difference between your current state and your possible state-what you could be doing, having, or being compared to what you are now. Golden encourages the audience to write down their financial goals (e.g., $10 million) and subtract what they earned last year. The difference is the “ignorance tax” paid for not knowing how to reach that higher goal, regardless of intelligence.
3. Defining Wealth
Wealth is not just money or abundance; Golden defines it as your willingness and ability to provide value for others, typically many others. The more adept you are at perceiving, producing, and presenting what others value, the wealthier you become. Money is received in exchange for value created for others.
4. The Importance of Empathy and Perception
A key to wealth is developing empathy and the ability to perceive what others value, not just what you value. Golden stresses that people often mistakenly believe others value what they themselves value. True wealth comes from understanding and fulfilling other people’s desires and needs.
5. How to Discover What People Value
The simplest way to find out what others value is to ask them directly or pay attention to the “clues” they leave. Value often comes from “past perceived voids”-things people were missing in their past become things they value in the present. For example, someone who never had a nice car as a child may value luxury cars as an adult.
6. Applying Value in Business and Sales
When selling or creating offers, focus on how your product or service fills the customer’s past voids, solves their current problems, or helps them achieve future visions. Golden gives an example from his own experience with real estate investing, explaining how understanding the reasons people hesitate (often rooted in past experiences or knowledge gaps) helps him create better offers and solutions.
7. Investing for the Future
People invest in things (like real estate, art, or cryptocurrency) because they believe these assets will be worth more in the future-a “future perceived vision”. Golden shares his own journey of investing in real estate and learning how to maximize its tax and wealth-building benefits, which he only discovered after seeking expert advice.
GROUP PROSPERITY
LifePower Video Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@LifePowerInternational/videos
Your Group's Prosperity - Section 1
1. Everyone Is a Manager of Their Own Life
Life doesn’t just happen to us; we actively create and manage our own lives to achieve our goals. Each person must choose their own goals-goals cannot be imposed by others.
2. The Power and Necessity of Groups/Organizations
No one truly survives or succeeds alone; everything we have is the result of group effort and exchange. The example of Vincent van Gogh illustrates that individual talent alone is not enough-organization and teamwork are essential for success and recognition.
3. The Concept of Product and Exchange
A “product” is something valuable you create that others want and are willing to exchange for. Most products today are information or knowledge-based, not just physical items.
4. Why Organizations Exist
To create more and better products, and to exchange them with more people, you need organization. Organizations (or teams) allow for greater impact than individuals working alone.
5. The Three Parts of Any Organization
Just like individuals have spirit, mind, and body, organizations do too: Spirit: The founding idea, vision, or goal (the “goal maker”). Mind: The planning, data processing, and decision-making (management, administration). Body: The actual work and execution (doing the tasks).
6. Effective Management
Good management is about collecting relevant information, analyzing it, and making smart decisions. The biggest mistake is making decisions without enough information.
7. Measuring Success
Success in any activity or business should be measured-by money, client satisfaction, or other clear indicators. Growth and expansion come from organizing well and measuring results.
Your Group's Prosperity - Section 2
1. Goal of LifePower
LifePower aims to improve the mind and decision-making. The belief is that the spirit is perfect and immortal, but most life difficulties stem from the mind-not the body.
2. Two Elements of the Mind
Aware Mind (Analytical Mind): Records experiences when you’re comfortable and aware. Stores information you can recall and use for decision-making (e.g., remembering traffic light rules). Operates by comparing new situations with past knowledge to make decisions.
Mistakes here happen if you have wrong or incomplete information.
Reactive Mind: Stores experiences from times of pain or unconsciousness (physical or emotional trauma). Trauma is defined as pain with a lasting effect, often experienced with lowered awareness or unconsciousness. Information stored here can cause irrational reactions or suffering later, even if you’re not consciously aware of it.
3. How the Mind Works in Practice
When you’re comfortable and free to choose, you use your aware mind. When under stress, pain, or trauma, experiences are stored in the reactive mind and can later trigger negative emotions or behaviors.
4. Sources of Mistakes and Suffering
Mistakes come from: Wrong data in the aware mind (e.g., bad advice, incorrect information). Reactive mind content from trauma, which can cause irrational or emotional reactions.
5. Unconsciousness and Coping
Unconsciousness can be total (e.g., fainting, anesthesia) or partial (e.g., feeling hazy, using alcohol to reduce anxiety). People sometimes seek partial unconsciousness (like drinking before a stressful event) to cope with discomfort or fear.
Summary
The video explains that the mind has two parts: the aware mind (which makes rational decisions based on experience) and the reactive mind (which stores trauma and can cause irrational reactions). LifePower’s goal is to help people understand and improve how their mind works, reduce mistakes, and overcome suffering caused by past trauma or wrong information.
Your Group's Prosperity - Section 3
1. The Cycle of Organizational Success and Failure
Organizations (and individuals) go through cycles: from non-existence, to danger, to normal, to affluence, to power-and sometimes back down. Examples (like IBM and Apple) show that even powerful organizations can decline if they make mistakes or fail to adapt.
2. Conditions and Formulas for Survival
Each stage (non-existence, danger, emergency, normal, affluence, power) has a specific formula or set of actions to follow for improvement or recovery. Non-existence: Make yourself known, find out what people need, and deliver it. Danger: Recognize when things are declining, act quickly, and change routines or habits to recover. Emergency: A flat or declining trend means you must innovate or improve; trying to keep things the same leads to failure. Normal: Aim for steady improvement, not just maintaining the status quo. Affluence: Sudden big success is risky - don’t get complacent or arrogant, or you risk a rapid fall (“affluence break”).
3. Personal and Executive Ethics
Personal ethics: The standards and decisions you set for yourself to achieve your goals. Out-ethics (acting against your own goals) leads to decline and failure. Executive ethics/justice: When someone in an organization isn’t doing their job, others must step in, or management must enforce standards.
4. Handling Danger and Failure
Recognize danger early-whether it’s personal (like a relationship declining) or organizational (like falling sales). Take responsibility, reorganize, and adopt new, positive habits or policies. All failures (in life, business, nations) are ultimately failures of ethics and not handling danger conditions.
5. Change Is Essential
Nothing stays the same forever; trying to keep things unchanged leads to decline. Continuous improvement and adaptation are necessary for survival and prosperity.
6. The Importance of Self-Analysis
Regularly analyze your actions and results. Identify what’s working and keep improving on it to move from normal to affluence and eventually to power.
Summary:
The video teaches that prosperity (for groups or individuals) requires understanding the cycles of growth and decline, following the right actions for each stage, maintaining strong personal and organizational ethics, and always striving for improvement. Recognizing and handling danger early, and never settling for the status quo, are key to lasting success.
Your Group's Prosperity - Section 4
1. True Power Is Influence and Control
Power isn’t just about money; it’s about having influence, control over your environment, and the freedom to make decisions. A powerful person is self-reliant, confident, and not easily threatened by external circumstances.
2. Understanding “Why” (The Real Reason)
In English, “why” is both a question and a noun (the reason for something). In business or life, when things are flat or declining, you must find the “real why”-the true reason for the stagnation or downturn.
3. Decision Making Point (DMP)
When you notice your progress or statistics are leveling off or dropping, you reach a Decision Making Point. At this point, you must analyze and make a decision: the right choice leads to improvement, the wrong one to further decline.
4. Being Cause, Not Victim
To improve your condition, you must view yourself as the cause of your situation-not blame outside factors (like the economy, competition, or other people). Only by taking responsibility can you create positive change; blaming external causes leads to victimhood and stagnation.
5. Why Finding and Change
“Why finding” means searching for the true, actionable reason behind a problem or decline-something you personally can change. Once the real why is found and handled, it opens the door to recovery and growth.
6. Personal Example: Organizational Growth
The speaker shares a story about running the Dror Center. When growth stalled, they realized their affiliation with a larger organization was holding them back. After careful preparation, they made the difficult decision to become independent, which led to significant expansion and success.
7. Preparation and Teamwork
Major changes require preparation, teamwork, and communication. The group worked together for months before making their move, ensuring everyone was ready and informed.
8. Results of Taking Responsibility
After taking responsibility and making the right changes, the organization experienced steady growth, expanded internationally, and became more successful than ever.
Summary
The video teaches that prosperity and growth-whether for individuals or groups-depend on finding the true reason behind problems, taking responsibility, and making decisive changes. Blaming external factors leads to stagnation, while being proactive and prepared leads to lasting success and expansion.
CO-OP SUCCESS
Mondragon: Cooperative Success
1. Origins and Growth of Mondragon
Mondragon began in the Basque region of Spain after WWII, an area devastated by poverty and oppression. Founded by Father José María Arizmendiarrieta, who believed in combining education, industry, and finance to rebuild the community. Started with a technical school, a small credit union, and a worker-owned factory producing kerosene stoves. Mondragon has grown into a network of over 120 core cooperatives, 260 related enterprises, and is now one of Spain’s largest business groups (over €14 billion in sales).
2. Worker Ownership and Democracy
All cooperatives are owned and democratically controlled by workers (one worker, one vote). Workers elect a Governing Council, which hires and can remove management. Once accepted as a member, a worker cannot be fired except for serious misconduct (e.g., embezzlement). New hires have a probation period; layoffs, if necessary, affect only new hires, and workers are often shifted between co-ops to avoid layoffs.
3. Types of Cooperatives and Support Structures
Includes industrial, consumer, agricultural, financial (Caja Laboral bank), educational (Mondragon University), and healthcare co-ops. Second-degree co-ops (like the bank and university) are owned by and serve the primary co-ops. Mondragon created its own social safety net (pensions, health care) before Spanish law allowed access to national benefits.
4. Key Principles and Values
Open admission (no discrimination by nationality, gender, religion). Democratic organization (one share, one vote). Sovereignty of labor (labor controls capital, not the other way around). Self-management (workers manage and train their own leaders). Solidarity and inter-cooperation (co-ops help each other, shift workers as needed). Limited wage differences (top earners make only about 4.5x more than the lowest). Social transformation and universal solidarity (mission to improve society, not just the workplace). Education as a foundation (continuous training and consciousness-raising).
5. Financial Structure and Surplus
Surplus (profit) is controlled by workers and reinvested in new co-ops, community needs, or distributed as benefits. Shares cannot be sold to outsiders, preventing takeovers by outside capital. Retiring workers receive the cash value of their share; new workers buy in (loans available if needed).
6. Governance and Participation
General Assembly of worker delegates is the top authority. Governing Council and Executive Board handle management. Social councils and regular meetings ensure workers’ voices are heard and issues are addressed promptly.
7. Challenges and Realism
Mondragon is not perfect; there are still workplace conflicts and class struggles. Success comes from strong principles, constant adaptation, and a focus on worker empowerment and community benefit.
Summary
Mondragon’s success comes from its unique combination of worker ownership, democratic management, community solidarity, and continuous education. Its model shows that large-scale, worker-run businesses can be efficient, resilient, and socially responsible-offering an alternative to traditional corporate capitalism.
I watched that video yesterday!