The Hindu Business Line : The road to prosperity is paved with value

AIMING to offer `the key to true and lasting success', Mike Hernacki begins with a promise in The Secret to Permanent Prosperity, from Magna (www.magnamags.com): That you can become prosperous in good times and bad.

Our politicians hold out such mirages of prosperity all the time, don't they? True, but it would be a folly to equate money with prosperity, says Hernacki, citing a report from The Psychonomy Journal, titled `Winning the lottery is the worst thing that can ever happen to you'.

A sudden overdose of money can produce a diminished sense of reality, he argues. "Scientists at the Centre for Psychiatric and Economic Fusion in Palo Alto, California, have dubbed this phenomenon post-cash syndrome or PCS." One learns that financial planners advising lottery winners have found in their clients fear of handling the money improperly, guilt at not having earned it, and distrust and paranoia as friends and relatives besiege them with advice and requests.

What Hernacki considers the most disturbing effect is that the lucky ones allow their new wealth to sap their personal drive. "They lose their motivation, and just drift through life" after taking lavish vacations, buying luxury cars, giving friends and family gifts of cash and generally spending themselves into "holes they can never dig out of". You can't call them prosperous, can you? The quote by W.C. Fields that a rich man is nothing but a poor man with money, may be apt.

In contrast to the `instant rich' who have a lot of money, but no prosperity, are the `productive poor' with little money but much prosperity, says Hernacki. The essence of prosperity is abundance, and the essence of abundance is creation, he argues. It doesn't happen, he goes on to add. "You can't win it or inherit it. You have to create it."

Hernacki declares, therefore, that you are prosperous when you have what you really need, and the means or the ability to get what you want. "When you define it in this way, prosperity can be yours whether you have a lot of money or not." It is better you define prosperity as `successful progress in any business or enterprise', giving yourself a lot of room to grow. Remember, however, that money plays an important role in your future, "unless you plan to join a monastery". For, money may be "the only way for you to get most of what you want". As Johnny Carson said, "The thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money."

Hernacki would like to begin not with what you have, but with who you are to achieve the picture of prosperity that he presents — where you may not have much in common with the folks you spend time with now: "When you become prosperous, you'll put an end to relationships that don't support and nurture you. You'll distance yourself from the people in your life who have been draining you emotionally. Instead, you'll become closer to those who practise the prosperity principle of give-and-take."

That may be a caveat difficult to swallow, but as you grow prosperous, you'll be wasting less time on useless activities, explains Hernacki. "You'll view life as being full of valuable opportunities and fascinating information, so you'll soon grow impatient with things that give you little or no value." Also, you will tend to be healthier, "knowing you're a person of high worth". The hardest part is that you've to endure the scorn of those who dislike prosperous people! A guidance of value, therefore, is that "you'll have to resign yourself to being regarded as `filthy rich', or a snob, or an exploiter of the poor — even if you're not all that rich, and not snobbish, and care deeply about the poor".

Using an example from the auto industry, the author notes that to create prosperity you need to deliver value and accept value in return; not a one-shot affair, this is, because you must keep going this way for as long as you want your prosperity to last.

"If you give too little and take too much in return, you're not delivering value, and eventually the market will stop coming to you. On the other hand, if you give too much and take too little in return, sooner or later you'll lose your ability to create more."

You are literally surrounded by opportunities to create value, says Hernacki. "You can create value by doing your job exceptionally well... When someone is really good, it doesn't stay a secret for long. The marketplace — every marketplace — is looking for value, and when value is spotted, it gets snapped up." Moral: The road to prosperity is paved with value.

Becoming prosperous is not enough, cautions the author. Make prosperity permanent, he counsels, citing cases of superstars who knew how to create prosperity but not how to live with it. The first mistake they make is to think their glory years will last forever; and the second: Bad investments, being as they are "hopelessly naïve about money", and therefore falling for every scam that comes along!

Essential and prosperous read.

BookValue@TheHindu.co.in