True Wealth: Principles and Practices

True Wealth – Practices and Principles

A New Paradigm of Thought

For Lasting Prosperity and Success

By Lee M. Spano

True Wealth - Principles and Practices

© 2014 by Lee M. Spano

Smashwords Edition

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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever with the written permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-0-9924700-2-9

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With Gratitude

This book is dedicated to my mother, Marianne, my wife Narelle and my dear children, Alecia and Liam.

My mother Marianne, I would like to thank her for her unique spiritual insights and perspectives. My wife Narelle, I thank her for her patience and strength. She is indeed my greatest gift. My children, Alecia and Liam, I thank them for helping me think in inter-generational terms.

"Abundance is in the mind first."- Lee M. Spano.

Foreword

This book has taken nearly a lifetime to create. It is the accumulation of many years of private research, learning and life experiences. It has also resulted from the ebbs and flow of my own life and the careful observation and study of the lives of others around me. These people have been family and friends, as well as the lives and works of leaders, business people, entrepreneurs, personal growth experts and the authors of many precious books that occupy the emerging wealth and personal growth field.

The golden thread I have observed that changed my own life was the idea of Creatness. Creatness is a term I coined which refers to creativity not just in a narrow sense, as in the creative arts, but creativity in a broad, dynamic, pervasive sense, which cuts across all human consciousness, behaviour and endeavour. It has been manifested throughout human history and no doubt will continue to do so, in human potential. Masters and leaders in business, the humanities, the arts, and ordinary people from all walks of life, either acknowledge it consciously or subconsciously in their thoughts, their attitudes, their actions and their destinies.

Closely related to the idea of Creatness is the idea of True Wealth. When we embrace Creatness we have a means to move to True Wealth. As you will learn from this book, True Wealth has very little to do with money or material things. These are consequences. These are only some of the consequences of Creatness and True Wealth.

The objective of this book is twofold. First, to explain in a clear and succinct way the meanings of Creatness and True Wealth. This involves a study and collection of what we might call universal laws of personal growth and prosperity. These laws are both modern and ancient. Second, at a very practical level, to help you rise and be able to apply these principles in your personal or business lives. This is our highest purpose- our call to serve. To assist this process, I have at the end of this book collected True Wealth principles for your daily reference.

It is interesting that as this book is written in the second decade of the twenty-first century, humanity faces both its greatest challenges, and sits at the watershed of its own potential. On the one hand we have challenges such as climate change, continuing world poverty, population growth, globalisation, continuing wars, and a movement in some areas towards extremism. One the other hand, we have an explosion of human communication and knowledge through the internet and digital technologies, major breakthroughs in human and medical sciences; breakthroughs in areas such as space travel and potentially colonisation, and potentially vast changes in international trade and commerce with the continued rise of Asian states, such as India and China.

These times of substantial change, need minds that can create and innovate like never before. Minds that can resolve paradoxes in the marriage of opposites; minds that can balance economic growth with happiness; minds that can expand production processes and at the same time balance environmental and social concerns; minds that can produce rational and material magic, and at the same time control emotion and work from a paradigm of inclusion, understanding, empathy and love.

These challenges and paradoxes are not new. For instance, the challenge between growth and social concerns have been around since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Yet as we move out of the Industrial Age, we now realise that wisdom, love and creativity are essential components of our higher selves, our highest values, values that have been eternally waiting to come to the fore.

It is hoped this book, in some small significant way, it is not for me to decide which, can shed more light on a hidden treasure buried deep inside of us. Perhaps carefully placed there thousands of years ago. A treasure that lies in seeing more, feeling more, thinking more, resolving more, understanding more, loving more, and paradoxically, realising that in less there is more, and it is through Creatness our real destinies are not in ourselves, but in the eternal service of others. Because it is only through the committed service of others can we RISE and become our true selves- something that was always there, waiting to be (re) discovered.

Other support materials and further education and training programmes which flow from this book can be found at: www.truewealthprinciples.com or www.creatness.com. The interesting thing in my own journey is that this website and the business that surrounds it has been around since 2003. I only realised some seven years later, how important it was to explain in detail the philosophical, historical and pragmatic foundations of Creatness to people, so they could better partake in our programmes, products and services.

Therefore, this book represents a ‘reverse watershed’ in my own life and work. It marks the moment and draws a line in the sand where one had been only lightly drafted in. Through the application of principles and practices in this book in my own life and work, have I had the courage, conviction and determination to write this book to try to reach more people beyond my ‘island home.’ Insodoing, Creatness has become infused with who I am, assisted me in my own journey towards True Wealth, and helped me to rise in the service of others. I hope it will do the same for you.

I would like to thank the many writers, mentors and masters who have influenced my life in many ways and the creation of this work. There are too many to list, but some of my main mentors over the last three decades have been: Sir John Templeton, Norman Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill, Dr. John Martini, Jim Rohn, Stephen Covey, Jack Canfield, Tony Robbins, Viktor Frankl, Robert Kiyosaki, Martin Luther King Junior, and Gandhi.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1: Beyond Paradox

Chapter 2: A Tale of Two Brothers

Chapter 3: False Dichotomies

Chapter 4: How Pervasive are these Dichotomies?

Chapter 5: Point of Unity

Chapter 6: The Great Pause

Chapter 7: Not Opposites and a Blank Canvas

Chapter 8: Abundance, Paradigms and Meaning

Chapter 9: Seeing More, Change and Success

Chapter 10: Manifestation and Interdependence

Chapter 11: What really is True Wealth?

Chapter 12: Consequences of False Wealth

Chapter 13: People, Community, History and Love

Chapter 14: Similarity, Non-Violence and Globalism

Chapter 15: Language, Forgiveness and Trust

Chapter 16: Teams, Leverage and our Creative Energy

Chapter 17: The Rise

Appendix - The Collected True Wealth Principles

Classic References

List of Figures

Figure 1: The Basic Paradox Concept

Figure 2: The Primary and Secondary Levels

Figure 3: The Point of Singularity

Figure 4: Anything is Possible

Figure 5: Service and True Wealth

Figure 6: Similarities and Differences – Interdependence

Figure 7: The Rise

Chapter 1: Beyond Paradox

‘A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.’ Aristotle

My humble aim in this book is to distil the ancient principles of success and what I call True Wealth for both personal and business development. I hope these principles will better equip us to solve modern problems, and to live fulfilled lives through the use of two golden keys- a strong creative ability, and second, through the lens of selfless service.

The Problem of Paradox

The starting point for me in this personal and professional journey goes back to my youth in my fascination with the idea of paradox. I remember when I first came across this word in high school. It confused and fascinated me at the same time. It challenged me to look beyond the ordinary meaning of things. To abstract and seek higher truths. It forced me to ask perhaps too many questions, questions often left unanswered by adults, teachers and others in authority. The apparent difference between a ‘correct’ and an ‘incorrect’ answer soon melted into a mystery surrounded by people’s opinions, biases, frameworks or ‘what was important’, such as getting good grades. The idea that there may not be an ‘absolute right or wrong’ was confronting to a young mind and begged a solution. I didn’t know it at the time, but trying to find this solution became an important part of my life.

Returning to the idea of paradox. A paradox is defined as: ‘a state that seems to contradict itself, or to conflict with common sense, but which contains a truth’, (Oxford Everyday Dictionary). What does this mean?

Breaking the definition down into two levels can help. On one level we have two opposites that appear to contradict, or appear to conflict common sense. This is not an absolute contradiction; the two things are not absolute opposites, only apparent opposites. What does this mean? On a second level we find a ‘truth’, this is usually a higher truth which unifies the apparent opposite things.

Refer to Figure 1 below for an illustration of the paradox concept.

A simple example might help. The Paradox of Hedonism is often stated as: when you pursue happiness, you are often unhappy; but, when you pursue something else, you often achieve happiness. On a basic level you have an apparent contradiction- the pursuit of happiness does not achieve it. On a higher level, when you pursue something else, then happiness often results. What is the higher truth? It might be something along these lines: when you pursue something that serves others, then happiness flows from others to you. This results in another simple paradox- when you serve, you are served. The higher truth is to serve, selflessly.

If we get stuck at the basic level of thinking, then we miss the higher truth. Using the above example, if we think that we will not be happy if we serve others, then we will not serve others, and happiness is likely to elude us. Therefore, to selflessly serve is an action of higher truth and purpose. There is ample evidence throughout human history from our great teachers and leaders that serving others is associated with a higher purpose, sense of well-being and happiness. Consider people such as: Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Junior, the Dali Lama, Desmond Tutu, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, St Francis of Assisi, and John D. Rockefeller Junior, and in more recent times, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Fred Hollows.

The question arises, how did these people shift their thinking, values and their life’s work from a focus on the self, to a higher purpose? To a focus on serving the needs of others? How did they overcome everyday things like the worry of paying monthly bills and providing for one’s family, to rise to a level where they stopped worrying about such things and focused on bigger issues, greater needs? In a word, faith.

Figure 1: The Basic Paradox Concept

Faith as a Forgotten Idea

Modern rational and scientific philosophy for much of the last century has created a brick wall between ‘enlightened’ thinking and ordinary or usually non-material, spiritual thinking. Many thinkers since Descartes and Newton created this dichotomy and used the paradigm that if an idea cannot be proved beyond some level of doubt; if physical evidence cannot be established to this standard, then that idea should be rejected. An idea based on faith, that is something which could not be satisfactorily proven, was rejected. We will talk more about this later, but suffice to say, this dichotomy is another paradox. It begs the question is faith and reason absolute opposites? Or are they really inseparable and our challenge is to rise to a higher level in our thinking where both are required to accept something as being a truth?

A quick example here will assist. In the context of the scientific method, many scientists fail to understand that science is founded on the premises of Induction and the ‘laws of logic’. Induction is simply where if something has happened enough times in the past, then it is highly likely to happen in the future. For instance, because the sun has been observed to rise in the East and set in the West for many, many years, then we can say that the sun will always do so, or more correctly, is highly likely to do so in the future. You will notice highly likely is not an absolute thing. It is a probability thing. Cosmologists today now believe our sun will eventually destroy itself, and have calculated a date when it will no longer rise nor set over our planet at all!

Scientists accept on faith the very tools they use in their reasoning. Induction and logic are their two main tools. At best they can produce probability statements, not absolute truths. The mission of science and rationalism is to constantly doubt and find evidence to get to constantly evolving propositions of truth that are more probably true! And things constantly change. When an experiment is conducted the observed ‘facts’ may be very different in ten, twenty, or fifty years’ time. Science and rationalism therefore is a journey towards better truths. They employ tools on faith that seem to work well in this regard, such as the method of Induction and the laws of logic. Faith is therefore a bedfellow of both science and spiritual or religious thinking. The dichotomy is a false one. The higher truth which unites them is faith.

This is the same truth which has united our great teachers and leaders. They had a faith in their ‘calling’, mission or higher purpose. This faith kept them focused on the needs of others. They knew their needs would be met, when they served others. Our great teachers and leaders embraced the paradox: serve and you fill be served.

Most people do not embrace this principle. They get stuck worrying about their own material needs. Modern consumerism facilitates this tendency. This worry or fear prevents us from seeing the bigger picture; from finding meaning in the service of others; from rising in our thinking to higher truths, such as faith. This fear is an example of negative, primitive emotion. Our life’s purpose is to overcome these things and to resolve life’s paradoxes and to serve. When we do this, we can be content in the knowledge that we will be okay, our family will be okay, and we will be served.

The Rise

The path to truth and finding meaning in life and in finding one’s calling, requires a delicate blend of rational thinking and thinking based on faith. Science is built on this foundation and, I believe all things, including the natural world and human behaviour are based on this principle. Additionally, faith and reason themselves may not be completely opposites. There may be degrees of difference between these two extremes. There may