Prompt: What is rich?
The economic system most of us are trying to build a happy life within, capitalism, has defined rich as the acquisition of money, assets and status — homes, shares, cars, gadgets, designer items, titles, followings.
Most people build a life through the lens of this definition. Wealth and success looks like building the big business or getting the big job with the big salary, building the big share portfolio, getting the big house with the big mortgage and driving the big car.
But the truth is, most of what we call rich is leverage in disguise. The house is leveraged against the mortgage. The lifestyle is leveraged against the job they’ve outgrown. The identity is leveraged against what everyone already believes about them.
Most people can’t press undo on any of it without unwinding the whole thing, so they don’t. They keep servicing a life they no longer want or like because the alternative feels too risky and for many, in the short-term, it is.
But A Little, Rich Life — the philosophy my entire body of work bows down to — is unleveraged. It’s owned (mostly) outright. Not much about it depends on us staying exactly where we are.
Prompt: I’ve got what I said I wanted, but do I feel rich? Successful? Satisfied?
I’ve had the distinct honour of mentoring over a thousand women who look very successful on paper and not one of them has told me they feel rich, successful or satisfied.
What’s more common is they feel anxious. They tell me life is exhausting and expensive. They want to press undo but don’t know if they can because they are so leveraged.
The women I’ve mentored that do feel rich, define rich in ways capitalism doesn’t value.
A regulated nervous system. A phone almost always set to do not disturb. Choosing the shape of their day. A modest home with rent or a mortgage that doesn’t keep them awake at night. More than enough money but rarely the most money. Attending the school assembly. Quiet, meaningful work that doesn’t always look impressive on LinkedIn but allows them to use their gifts to meet a real need in the collective field.
And across the board, choosing their definition of rich and what makes for a rich life has been hard. I can also vouch for this.
Turning away from what you were told to be, get and do in search of something more true isn’t all dream catchers and rainbows.
They come, eventually, but before they do it’s mostly judgement from your high performing friend, difficult resignations that lead to toxic notice periods, relationship breakdowns rooted in the narrative you’ve changed, feeling painfully misunderstood, being labeled woo woo and sitting with the shame that arrives when you sell all the stuff you thought would make you feel successful but didn’t.
Once you’ve realised, your life and most of the things in it can quickly feel like a trophy cabinet that belongs to someone else.
If you are transitioning out of employment and into your own service business, I’d love to support you inside serve. It’s a practice room and program for service entrepreneurs. Study the program at your own pace, join live mentoring and deep work sessions, meet like-minded women building in right relationship with the season of life they’re in. Explore or join here.
Prompt: Whose definition of rich does my life currently bow down to?
Capitalism hates to see this question coming. The last thing an economic system funded by our fear of failing to ~meet our potential~ needs is us questioning the real author of our vision boards.
Prompt: Am I living my life or am I enduring it?
You’re telling me we evolved from literal star dust to merely endure or worse, survive our lives? No. Life is meant to be enjoyed. Life is meant to be pleasurable. Life is meant to be lived. It’s time to stop postponing our fulfillment and claim it in the here and the now. I know it sounds cliché but tomorrow isn’t promised.
Prompt: Do I want what I currently have?
One of the bravest things we can do is interrogate what we’ve cultivated and acquired, and ask ourselves how it all feels.
Feels.
This is the thing they don't want us to do — feel. Sure, you’ve got the big job or the successful business, but how does showing up to it feel everyday? Maybe you've got a lot of money in the bank, but do you feel rich? You're wearing the latest designer item, but do you feel like your True Self in it?
Prompt: If you're not winning, climbing or achieving, are you failing or are you free?
Rich is an internal experience. It’s always been a feeling not an asset class but they don’t want us to know this, either, because the entire system fails when we stop trying to get the next thing. Capitalism would collapse without the air we create from our desire for what we don't yet have or haven’t yet done — professionally or personally.
Prompt: What does a wealthy existence look like to me?
If you don’t dance with any of the other prompts, just dance with this one. Answering this question is how you land in your definition of rich.
And then the way you take it from definition to lived reality, is by participating in the co-creation of it and that starts with becoming the energetic, mental and emotional condition for it.
One way that we can do this is by having a regular (ideally daily) experience of the feelings, thoughts, beliefs and events that exist in this richer reality.
The more time the imagination spends here, the more normal and inevitable this reality feels. This has us making different decisions, taking bolder action, implementing more loving boundaries and overall just being an agent of evolution in our lives.
That’s it. That’s what this whole manifestation thing is about. The vital shift from desire to assumption.
The world is nothing more than imagination pushed out. — Neville Goddard
Now go there. Write out a typical day in your little, rich life, and then record yourself narrating it. Listen to it as much as you can. Meditate on your own voice speaking it into truth.
The story begins with you rising out of bed and ends with your evening routine
Be descriptive about the moments, events and activities — really take yourself there in the felt details
Fill in any blanks with logical but aligned details
Include specific interactions you want to have with your loved ones
Describe your internal landscape and how this life feels in your body
Use first person, present tense to create the feeling of immediacy and realness
Focus on sensory elements that really bring the scenes of your day to life
This is one of the first exercises co-creators complete in serve’s business program and I firmly believe it is behind the life I'm living today.
Everything changed when I allowed myself to claim a higher vision for myself, my life and my work.
Alison xo
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