Prosperity Equation

One crucial factor defining one's financial status, in my opinion, is one's cyclic dependence on each month's earnings. It matters little whether your monthly income is luxuriously high or pitifully low, if you consistently exhaust the entirety of that amount before the month concludes, then financial instability becomes an inevitable fate for you. Maintaining a profitable system regarding your income and expenses seems to be necessary for sustained growth. The one thing that ensures one's spiral into poverty is living paycheck to paycheck, saving no money.

I take that for a lot of people, saving money is not even an option. Their pay is so low that they cannot manage any savings. But what I am trying to emphasize here is growth cannot be expected if there are no savings. For the sake of a better tomorrow, you have to tighten up your belt today.

Envision this by imagining a graph of your finances. If your expenses are equal to earnings, the graph is horizontal. No loss, but no growth either. You are prone to financial turmoil because a slight change in variables disrupts the balance and sets your slope low. You are trapped in a rat race; in a loop: earn, spend, complain, repeat.

In order to escape the loop, the strategy most of us apply is work hard, expecting a higher pay. But that buries us further in the rat race routine because we are just earning and spending, hoping that the employer someday will bless us with a higher salary. Shall the employer never have that mercy, the employee will find himself spending his whole in the rat race.

A more sure-fire way of ensuring growth is to reduce expenditure instead of hoping for a pay raise. Regardless of what sacrifices you have to make, keep your savings high. And then, build up the heart to invest these savings instead of "saving it for when times get bad". Do a market survey and find a suitable investment. Maybe invest in someone's startup; maybe invest in real estate; or buy shares. Don't invest your entire savings because times indeed can get bad but keep investing a certain small percentage of savings. Even the smallest earned profits will start adding up for a better life for you.

In the journey to success (however success may be defined), I also attribute paramount importance to cultivating the right mindset. The mindset, I believe, serves as the guiding light, illuminating the subsequent steps. Whether through literature, visual media, or even leisure activities, every aspect of your engagement should ideally contribute to your personal growth.

However, it is also worth mentioning that one must have the determination to translate this mindset into tangible actions. Easier said than done-this is the step most "dreamers" fail at. Their mindset is an ideal one, but task completion probability is low. On the other hand, the people who focus more on completing the task but are not great dreamers have a higher probability at success. An hour worth of practical implementation overrules years of dreaming.

Thus, unlike many books, articles and podcasts, I would suggest you stop feeling worthy of success just because you have the "mindset". Developing the presence of mind required for on-ground work is what you should be worried about.

I'd conclude by quoting the actor and film producer Shahrukh Khan who once said, "Don't become a philosopher till you become successful."

Stop worrying about abstract philosophical things like "mindset". Learn to be productive, the mindset will develop automatically.