The Wealthy Gardener

Life Lessons on Prosperity

Audiobook Intro

John Soforic

Win first, and then go to war.

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The prosperous life is a productive life. Those who choose prosperity are willing to work and sacrifice, face daily challenges, and serve a cause more important than comfort.

There was once a warrior who was drawn into a battle. The odds were against him, he realized, since nobody he knew had ever won this battle. People started the fight but rarely finished it. They stood up to an opponent, but they eventually retreated to comfort.

A good start without a strong finish is wasted effort, he decided. But how could he ensure a strong finish in a battle that had toppled most others?  He knew that his own belief in the war cause was vital to sustain his resolve. What purpose was he fighting for?

To this end, the warrior thought long and hard about the threat of his enemy. This enemy caused him nonstop worry. The enemy posed a threat to his survival. The enemy wanted to steal from his life, to cause him vulnerability, and to limit future opportunities of his family. He faced these threats and became convinced that it was his duty to fight.

And so day after day, long before the start of the struggle, the warrior set out to shape his mind. He reaffirmed his deepest causes for the fight. He impressed upon his mind the consequences of not fighting. He thought of his future, his children’s future, and the regrets he’d later face in life if he failed to sacrifice for a worthy cause.

The warrior had a clear vision of outcome, and he strengthened this goal by describing it in words on paper, and then reading the words daily with emotion. He privately resorted to chants-spoken words of affirmations-to invoke an Unseen Power to aid him in battle.  The warrior gained clarity before the fight of what he wanted most and why he wanted it.

And day after day, he told himself he could win. He repeated it until he believed it. He spoke it aloud since no one else was saying it. And then he repeated it during his long battle.

The warrior understood one thing that those before him had failed to realize: namely, that few victories occur in this world without an initial victory in the mind of a warrior.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”  ––Sun Tzu.

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Success is little steps in mundane days.

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The greatest hurdle of wealth––the point at which most people throw in the towel and turn back––occurs in the middle of the journey. Success is little steps in mundane days.

A young man once had a peculiar dream to walk across America. Nobody quite understood his strange longing. Walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific? Are you serious? It was an unrealistic dream. And completing the task was deemed impossible by friends.

One day without notice, however, he set out on foot with only a backpack and a walking stick. This man strolled on sidewalks until he reached the outskirts of town. He camped for the night, awoke the next morning, and set out walking again.

Along the way, he stayed in towns and engaged in work to support his existence. At each stop, he saved a few bucks and moved on. It was a fun adventure for a while.

But the luster of adventure eventually gave way to the mundane boredom of an immense chore with no end in sight. He walked with little progress. He plodded along in rain. He trudged in blaring sun and heat. He suffered with blistered feet. He had good days and bad days. He grew tired of camping every night. And he was alone in his thoughts.

Days turned into months, and months into years. . .

Finally the man reached the Pacific coast and sat with his feet in the salt water. A newspaper reporter interviewed him and asked, “How did you do it?”

Of course, the reporter expected a profound answer, a kernel of wisdom about how to transcend the suffering behind an endless and rare achievement. What was the secret?

“I suffered some days,” the man admitted simply. “And I enjoyed some days. Most of the time, I just focused on moving forward. I figured if I stayed in motion, and my feet were moving, and I was heading in the right direction, then time was on my side.”

“But how did you persevere for years?”

“I didn’t decide to do it for years. I didn’t even think about the distance. I just kept moving in the right direction each day,” he shrugged. “and the finish line came to me.”

“It is by attempting to reach the top at a single leap that so much misery is produced in the world.” -William Cobbett.

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The essential key is to schedule your priorities.

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If time is the stuff life is made of, then life is a weekly schedule. We give our passing moments to something, I thought, even if we don’t plan that time in a purposeful schedule.

It was a long ride home from a class reunion with plenty of time to think. Thirty years ago, we had all graduated from college with high expectations. But we took different paths in our lives. We now had various experiences, adventures, travels, and financial outcomes.

One of my old classmates had recently finished an Ironman Triathlon. I asked her how in the world she had completed this grueling twelve-hour event?

“The Ironman event was the easy part,” she quipped. “The real challenge was the training that led up to it. I had to train for three hours every day for a whole year.”

“How did you find the time for that?”

“I cleared the schedule. I made it my priority.”

Driving home from the reunion, I contemplated her simple answer.

It was obvious that all of us were busy during the past thirty years. We all made time for something, consciously or not. But several people turned their dreams into their realities by making them a priority. They cleared time and made time in a weekly schedule.

If we don’t control our schedule, we won’t control our lives. Our conditions grow from the seeds of scheduled hours. We must weed out the schedule to make time to grow our dreams.

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”

Stephen Covey

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It’s okay to have bad days!

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“I’m going through a tough time,” a friend told me after I asked about her new business. I was shocked. She was young, ambitious, intelligent, and articulate––an obvious winner.  “I’m in a funk,” she continued, “and some days I get nothing done. And the truth be told, behind my happy facade I’m struggling and not feeling too good about myself.”

As she spoke, I contemplated how we alienate others when we pretend our lives are perfect. I had spent decades with a smile on my face and an upbeat veneer while I was battling my own demons. What’s wrong with me? I didn’t know that bad days are just normal.

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not, and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad,” wrote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Everybody is struggling with something. And if we envy someone’s perfect life, we just don’t know them too well.

There will be days when we wake up feeling worse than the day before. A mysterious wind sweeps through the night and casts a spell on us. It happens. And in the morning, we wake up to a bad day. We experience a poor attitude. Nothing goes right, and life is a struggle.

Brett Favre explained, “Every day is not perfect. You have your bad days and good days just like anyone else. You do not want to talk to people sometimes. It is normal.” “Some days are for living,” suggested Malcolm S Forbes. “Others are for getting through.”

It helps to look at every week like a baseball player who aims for a good batting average. Sometimes, four to five good days is a great week. And it’s enough to succeed in life. We won’t like our bad days, but life gets better when we know that bad days just happen.

“Some days are just bad days, that’s all,” wrote Dita Von Tesse. “You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that’s just the way it is.” The best thing about a bad day is that it’s over at bedtime.

I told my young friend that bad days happen during successful weeks. “The goal for me is to avoid two bad days in a row,” I admitted. “I aim for a good batting average every week, with more good days than bad, and that tends to be a wonderful week for me.”

Just because you’re having a bad day doesn’t mean you’re having a bad life.

. . .

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How to make your life much, much better.

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I recall soul-searching moments of discontentment as I strove to “figure things out.” I had everything that seemed to please others, but I yearned for something more in my own life. I suffered with unfulfilled ambition.

And at these times, I gained a clear understanding of the words of Sterling W. Sill when he wrote, “I am sure in my own mind that the one business of life is to succeed, that God did not give us these magnificent brains, these miraculous personalities, and these wonderful physical qualities and then expect us to waste our lives in failure.”

What price would be required of my life to avoid failure?

I wanted physical fitness. And to gain fitness, I’d need to exert the body. I wanted to grow in wisdom. And to gain wisdom, I’d need to spend time reading, listening, and studying. I wanted wealth and power over life. And to gain wealth, I’d have to use my gifts and my time profitably. I wanted close relationships. And to form intimate bonds, I would be obliged to engage in authentic communication and mutual enjoyments with others.

In the end, it all required nothing more than turning wasted hours into useful hours. And what’s so hard about that? It is mindfulness and intention. There is a flow to the river of life that feels useful. And conversely, there is a flow of life that feels meaningless.

The yearn for something more is a call to reevaluate our activities and time. We are what we do. And we are all doing something, mindfully or not, as time passes.

I realize I must I pay the price of time to get the things I want in life. Conversely, I also pay the price of time to get the things I don’t want in life. The difference is in the activity I engage in. The price of time is constant, but what I get from my time varies.

A Sanskrit verse hangs on my wall to focus me on the value of a day: “This is the beginning of a new day.  God has given me this day to use as I will.  I can waste it or use it for good, but what I do today is important because I am ex-changing a day of my life for it!  When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it.  I want it to be gain, and not loss; good, and not evil; success, and not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I have paid for it.”

. . .

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In a crisis, move your body!

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“A peak state helps you handle adversity.” – the Wealthy Gardener

Physical exertion improves your mind. It turns your worry into confidence and your fatigue into vitality. No other remedy does more for the spirit.

I had a friend who faced a midlife crisis so awful that he later admitted to me that he ONCE considered suicide.

He tried antidepressants, psychotherapy, religion- you name it. Nothing worked. Despite a loving family, he was miserable. He figured it must by his job, or his life condition. He felt overwhelmed and trapped.

But then he found his solution.

It turns out, he didn’t need a new career, but he did require a stronger on-going emotional state to keep up with the increasing demands of his life.

He joked about it later. “Everything was different since the day I decided to take care of my physical animal.”  He focused on his body to strengthen his mind.

He told me that nothing in his world changed around him, but he changed himself in the world. He began every day with vigorous exercise. .

He started walking, jogging, and finally running. He set a goal to finish a half marathon and then he did it. He slowly restored his physical strength––and what followed was more mental energy, and spiritual vitality.

If your life is perfect, then you get a pass. But if you need a boost, if you feel inadequate to meet your challenges, if you feel doubtful over your ability to endure life’s trials, exercise may be the cure to unlock your full powers.

“I go for a face sweat,” said Steve Young, “as a minimum daily workout.” If sweating doesn’t appeal to you, then at least aim to stimulate deep breathing, go for a walk, or try daily yoga. A peaks state helps you handle adversity.

“I believe that when the body is strong,” Henry Rollins said, “the mind thinks strong thoughts.” Cicero told us, “It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor.”

Beyond the obvious physical benefits, exercise provides clarity of mind, increased cognition, higher energy, quicker thinking, greater stress-handling capacity, more self-confidence, more poise, and steady composure in the face of stressful problems.

Arthur Dobrin said, “A good sweat, with the blood pounding through my body, makes me feel alive, revitalized. I gain a sense of mastery and assurance. I feel good about myself.”

“Sweat cleanses from the inside,” said George Sheehan. “It comes from places a shower will never reach.”

Of course, you don’t absolutely need to exercise. You can exist with less than full energy and still be productive. You can survive with less than your best thinking.  You can operate from a position of weakness.  In fact, you can even take comfort in knowing that you’re like most people.

But if you choose exercise to cultivate a daily peak state, your days in the world will be better . . . because you will be better in the world.

Buddha said, “To keep the body in good health is a duty—otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.”

. . .

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