Dear friend,

In modern times, we talk a lot about being ‘successful’ or becoming ‘successful’.

But when we say "success" — what do we really mean to say?

Success

To be more precise, when we say "success", I think what we are really trying to say is to ‘prosper’.

And when we think of the word ‘prosper’ — let us try to think what ‘prosperity’ means.

To have much ‘prosperity’ generally means to be surrounded by material wealth. For example, an ancient King in Ancient Greek times might have lots of land, a big house, lots of cattle, rare items, weapons, soldiers, wiv(es), children, etc.

But I think we must separate the verb (to prosper) from the final state (prosperity).

Because once you have attained ‘prosperity’ — it is boring. Once you have it all (Tony Montana from Scarface), it feels a bit empty — or it ain’t as great as we thought it would be.

Rather, I like the idea that we can be active our whole life– that we focus on prospering (active sense).

My definition of ‘prospering’

To prosper to me means:

To keep augmenting (increasing) yourself, to keep becoming stronger, and to keep increasing your muscles and mental power.

Beyond material wealth & money

Of course the basic concept (in modern times) is that to prosper means to just keep earning more money. But what if we lived in a society where we didn’t have money as a means to quantify success (like in Homeric times, where they didn’t have coined currency yet). You could only accumulate gold, cattle, and items– but ultimately– having all this wealth only augmented your feeling of strength and power. For the most part, once you have all the money, toys, etc in the world– it doesn’t amount to much.

Get stronger, every single day.

I think what we really want is this:

To everyday, feel like we are becoming stronger, more powerful, and more influential.

This is why I think most of us use money as a way to quantify or measure our progress — to measure our growth. Perhaps this is because we don’t have enough self-confidence to measure ourselves and our own growth by our own internal measure; we must externally measure ourselves with numbers. But I believe it is a petty thing to measure yourself with numbers. You must measure yourself according to your own table of values. And similarly, you must only measure your own progress, and your own augmentation of strength via your own internal measures.

How do we become stronger every single day?

How do we become stronger, more powerful, and influential every single day? Some simple ideas:

1. Always push your body to the physical limits every day: This means lifting heavier weights at the gym, or increasing the resistance of your physical exercise.
2. Always challenge your mind: Avoid reading or studying stuff which bores you. Only study what is interesting to you, challenging, and fascinating to you.
3. Master your own personal willpower: This means dictate outloud: "My personal needs and desires are of supreme importance. I will not allow anyone to prevent me from doing what I must." In the words of Ayn Rand in the book ‘Fountainhead’, "The question isn’t who is going to let me; the question is who is going to stop me?" (Similar sentiment in JAY Z & KANYE’S ‘Watch the Throne’ album, in their song: "Who’s gonna stop me now?"

BECOME STRONGER! ERIC