Over the past few weeks, my speaking engagements, coaching sessions and problem solving has really gotten back to the basics. What are the basics? Mindfulness. The universe is really trying to tell me something. The basics are not basic. Mindfulness is the foundation for a life well-lived, and is the teaching that is most needed in the world. 

So here we go!

Let me begin by saying this article is not about sex. Sure, sex is a form of intimacy, but sex and intimacy are not synonymous. Sex can be intimate, and sex can be superficial. 

Real intimacy is never superficial. I spent decades of my life in superficial relationships - with my friends, my employers, even my wife. When I was always left wanting a deeper connection with everyone, I began to understand and experience real intimacy. This takes courage.

Let me explain what it is.

This week I ran across a bit of wisdom that really struck a chord with me. The graphic read "You should have three hobbies: one which makes you money, one which keeps you fit, and one which allows you to be creative." This concept really connected with me because it feels like my business is a hobby,  I enjoy and look forward to my daily workouts, and I love to write and record podcasts. It feels like my life is bouncing from hobby to hobby. 

In this blog I wanted to dive into each of these areas a little deeper. 

A few times per week I'm asked about what a mastermind is, how a mastermind works, or even if I could send more details about my mastermind. I've never had the details all in one place, so in this blog I'm taking the opportunity to outline the workings of a powerful mastermind. Here's a summary of what you're going to read below:  "If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together." - African Wisdom

After reading, if you're interested in joining a journey with The Happy Millionaire Mastermind Community, email me at mike@livesoulout.com and I'd be happy (see what I did there?) to set up a time to share more!

The folks I work with are looking for freedom. For most of the business owners I engage with on a daily basis, the word freedom feels like, well, freedom. Basically they're looking for a way to take complete control of their lives and their circumstances. 

I work with many super wealthy and successful people, but many of them aren't happy. Money and success do not take away their happiness, but there's a science to creating wealth and success and there's an art to creating joy and happiness. 

For most of my life I allowed worry, doubts and fear suffocate me and crush my dreams. The weight of my mind and emotions became so heavy that everything eventually collapsed - including my health, income, and my family. 

That's when I realized that I had nothing figured out, and I got the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start all over. Lucky for me I had some financial reserves to fall back on while I took time to reset everything, and the new me is so much more peaceful, powerful, and prosperous than the old me. I now have internal joy and love to share with my family, friends and clients. 

A long time ago a mentor told me that teaching the basics of human growth and development creates wealth and success, but that I'd be tempted to teach advanced topics and neglect the basics. 

He was completely right. My wife Angie and I were having a discussion this week and I recalled my mentors words. I realized that I don't teach enough on the most basic wisdom for why people grow or remain stuck - the infinite power of the subconscious mind. 

I've got a close friend who is very wealthy and successful, and he also just happens to be the most loving and caring person I know as well. If you're around him long enough you'll eventually hear him say this:

"You can have anything you want in this world."

When I first me him and he told me this I thought he was nuts. Anything I want? That just seemed like crazy-talk. 

The problem is that over the 5 years I've known him he's proven it true over and over. Seeing this with my own eyes forced me to reflect and understand what I've been doing wrong in life to sometimes get what I want - and sometimes not.

Do you listen to that internal voice that is constantly whispering to get your attention?

I would guess that if you're like most, you're so caught up in the drama, conflicts, and challenges of life and business that you rarely stop and quiet your mind long enough to hear your internal guidance. For 43 years I was oblivious to what it was saying, and even when I heard it, I ignored it. 

That internal whisper holds the key to new levels of wealth, success, and happiness. All you need to do is sit still and pay attention long enough to listen to what it is trying to tell you. 

I shifted from a disastrous life to a beautiful life because of one word: trust. 

I know it's hard to believe, but everything changed when I decided to trust myself, trust my talents, trust my intuition, trust my desires, and most importantly, to trust life. 

Years later, learning to trust has shown me that life is not hard - it's lack of trust in life that makes life so difficult. 

I didn't understand when I was in the midst of it, but I've made everything harder than it needed to be. When things were easy, I questioned the legitimacy of the circumstances, and when I was rewarded for being successful I felt that I needed to punish myself more in order to justify the rewards. 

Without knowing why I was doing it, the more successful and the more money I made, the more I caused myself more pain. 

It wasn't until everything collapsed under the weight of my self-imposed punishment that I understood why:

I glorified struggle and things that were hard. Easy wasn't valuable. If it wasn't hard it wasn't worth doing. 

That's just pure insanity. 

Not everyone is growth oriented, and if you're not, you don't need to be in order to be ok. You're perfectly fine as you are. If you are growth oriented, you're not better than those who are, you're just different. 

It's critical we state that up-front so that we are in alignment. No one on the face of this planet is better or more significant than anyone else - we're just all living our own journey and we're all doing the best we can. 

You can't reject yourself to higher states of wealth, success, and happiness, so let's just accept each other as we are. 

We are only born with two fears: the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises. The rest of the worries, fears, and doubts you experience and carry around with you have been learned during the course of your life. 

In other words, you are carrying around a bunch of stories in your mind and in your belief system which are limiting your sense of aliveness. 

I was sitting with a very close friend of mine having breakfast, and the conversation turned to our visions for our businesses. He asked me what I was working on. I told him that I was working on filling 3 mastermind groups for my Happy Millionaire Mastermind Community of business owners - who are creating more wealth, success, and happiness in their lives and businesses. 

I asked him the same and he shared his. 

The content of the conversation turned to why we want to create what we want to create. So we moved to how we each create our visions for our future.

Over the last few weeks, I've talked extensively about the importance and the criticality of getting really clear about what you're looking to create in the future, in your wealth, your success, and your happiness.

Today, I want to give you my top three tools for getting clear, but first I want to tell you that the wealthy, successful, and happy people I work with are not too proud to use these tips and tools. Some of the unsuccessful people that I have worked with in the past – who said they wanted more success – weren't willing to humble themselves and to be “uncool” and use some of these tools.

I want to advance the conversation about the art and science of creating wealth, success, and happiness. Last week in my blog and in my video, I spoke about how unsuccessful people – people to who struggle to achieve and accomplish anything – focus on studying their craft. And, people who are wealthy, successful, and happy – who have accomplished something significant in the world – focus on the art and science of creating wealth, success, and happiness.

I’ve worked with small business owners who struggled to create results, success, and wealth in their business and in their lives.

I've also worked with small business owners that were self-made and created massive success and massive wealth in their business, which fueled and enabled them to create massive success and massive wealth in their lives.

Let's talk about my three favorite words in the entire English language – wealth, success, and happiness.

I say these words over and over every single day because these three words, I feel, are our birthright as human beings. The only reason we wouldn't possess wealth, success, and happiness is if we're resisting them and pushing them away, and we don't understand them at a very granular level.

So, I want to provide my very elementary, very simplistic definitions.

We've been walking through my seven Prosperity Principles. When put into place, these principles will create more wealth, success, and happiness in your life.

We've covered Prosperity Principle #1, which was about accepting yourself, embracing yourself and knowing your talents and desires, and then reaching complete self-acceptance.

The past few weeks, we've been covering my seven Prosperity Principles. These are the principles that, when put into action, will help you create breakthrough levels of wealth, success and happiness in your life.