7 Harmful Lies About Prosperity

There is a lot of conventional wisdom about success and prosperity that's actually quite harmful.  It’s caused by negative memes that create false beliefs, that produce self-sabotage behavior. Here are the seven lies about prosperity that I believe are the most damaging…

1) You’re Meant to Always Be Happy, Confident, and Certain.

Absolutely not. Sadness, challenges, and uncertainty are part of life too, molding you into who you are meant to become. And you wouldn’t become the highest possible version of you without these speed bumps along the way.

2) If You Work Hard Enough, Success is Guaranteed.

Sounds like this should be true, but it’s not. Reaching the top of the ladder doesn’t help if you’ve got it leaning against the wrong building. Sometimes you need to pivot and learn some different skills.

3) If You Want Something Bad Enough, that Qualifies You to Get It.

This is a bad premise, fostered by hot takes on social media.  It creates entitlement mentality and disillusionment.  You must want something bad enough to pay the price. This means learning the necessary skills, doing the necessary work, and making the necessary sacrifices.

4) There’s Always a Success Hack.

We’d like to believe if we work smart and do things the right way, success will come effortlessly and instantly.  There are many forms of prosperity and success that come from working smart and doing it the right way, and still require time for the ideal outcome.

5) Breakthroughs Come from Being Right the Most.

Some of the world’s wealthiest and most successful people are the ones who were wrong the most.  (Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, etc.)  They had the guts to try things and fail, then use those failures to inform, learn, and grow.  As Mark Cuban likes to say, you only have to be right one time.

6) There is a “Right Time” for Your Big Move.

If you’re waiting for the “right time” to propose to your love, launch your new company, start a family, or write your great American novel – you could be waiting forever. There’s always a great excuse for not starting now.  And they usually end in mediocrity.

7) Your Reward Comes in the Afterlife.

The gospel means good news and scriptures contain a lot of it.  Unfortunately, organized religion also disseminates a lot of limiting beliefs which turn into bad news. Too many of them teach that you are pitiful, unworthy, undeserving, or even inherently evil, in need of redemption.

If, as a child, you were taught that you were born a sorry sinner, aren’t worthy, are meant to suffer in this lifetime, won’t reach enlightenment until another 44 lifetimes, or you’ve been reincarnated in this lifetime to pay penance for a past lifetime – it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll grow into adulthood with low self-esteem and worthiness issues. Which essentially cause you to self-sabotage all forms of prosperity offered to you.

You fall prey to these lies when you become infected with limiting beliefs.  Beliefs that are propagated through memes (mind viruses) disseminated by governments, organized religion, the educational system, and what I call the datasphere (media, social media, pop culture, etc.).  Together they make up the Matrix. It’s just not configured like the one in the movies...

As I broke down in my Radical Rebirth book, the real Matrix is a collection of machines, algorithms, and AI used for surveillance and data-gathering.  (This includes every online search you perform, what you buy, every website you visit, your social media posts, the things you ask your voice assistants, what apps are on your phone, and what you stream for entertainment.) Then this data is exploited to manipulate your habits, moods, identity, beliefs, and behaviors.  The objectives are to make you feel powerless, needy, and helpless – and drive you to take self-destructive actions that reward the managers of the Matrix.

Once you become aware of a limiting mind virus and what it’s designed to make you do, it loses its power over you. So, recognize the seven lies above for what they are.  And take your power back. The power to create your own prosperity.

Peace,

- RG

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