For me, HBBO spells the good life.

It was a hot summer day in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1977, and I was driving to an assignment across town from The Charlotte Observer, the local daily newspaper, where I worked as a staff writer. I listened to a cassette tape by Zip Ziglar, one of my favorite mentors. The following statement from Ziglar triggered a process of new thinking that gave me the key to the good life. Ziglar said: "You can have everything you need and want in life if you'll just help enough people have what they need and want!" Quickly, I reversed the tape and listened to that statement once more before cutting the player off to ponder what Ziglar had said.



"So," I thought aloud, "helping causes having, and needs precede wants."



Now, more than 30 years later--during an unusually warm Spring in North Carolina--as I write this, I credit that shorthand version of Ziglar's assertion with being the key to the good life. Helping triggers having! Needs precede wants!



In this article, I will share with you the laws that define and govern the good life. I will also outline knowledge you need to live the good life. I will close with three questions to answer to determine if you're on the road to the good life.



I live the good life! Am I wealthy? Not yet, by the standards I set for myself, but during the past 30 years I have built a massive foundation to sustain wealth. Now I am ready to build wealth.



Consider my standards: I will consider myself wealthy when I can sustain a $10,000 per month personal lifestyle for 144 consecutive months with revenue I've already earned whether any more revenue comes in or not. Believe it or not, I need just $1, 440,000 cash on hand in my personal account to meet that standard. That's not all! To be wealthy, by my standards, I will have to have cash on hand to sustain $15,000 monthly expenses in my business for 144 consecutive months whether any new money comes in or not. That's a total of $2,160,000. Finally, I will consider myself wealthy when I have a business contingency account that totals the combination of my personal and my business operations accounts. That total is $3,600,000. Thus my contengency account must be $3,600,000. That's a total, cash on hand, of $7,200,000. So you see, I define wealth by the standards of controlled costs---$10,000 per month personal and $15,000 per month for business operations , and at least $25,000 in contingency money, just in case I need it--over a specific period of time. In my case, I've selected 12 years as that period of time.



Only the wise, judicious, and committed operation of a home based busiess will provide me the resources I need to hit these standrards. In another article in this series, I will share with you the resources---aka--contracts I have put in place to achieve these goals.



But if I am not wealthy, how can I describe my lifestyle as the "good life?" First of all, realize that wealth, however you define it, will not make your life good. Money and other resources do not change your life. They simply allow you to be more of whatever you are. For example, if you are broke and violent, with money you can afford to be more violent. You see, being precedes doing, and money finances doing. Money will not change being, or who you are.



So let me explain the definition I use for wealth and the relationship between wealth and work.



Wealth is how long you can live a specific lifestyle with no new money coming in. For example, if I have $250,000 in the bank and my monthly expenses total $2,500, I am eight years and four months wealthy! In other words, your ability to manage resources, ie. money, determines your wealth, not just how much money you have. Using this formula, a person with $100,000 and monthly expenses of $2,500 is three years and four months wealthy. A person, then, with $50,000, and the same monthly expenses is one year and eight months wealthy. I trust that these examples clarify the point. Resource management and time define wealth, not just how much money you have. Conversely, lack of money does not cause poverty. Inadequate planning and money management causes poverty.



Yes, you have probably guessed it. I define work differently, too.



I define work as the variety of ways you enjoy helping people have what they need and want and for which they're willing to pay. Every day I help people learn how to be successful. I define S.U.C.C.E.S.S. as striving until clear, comprehensive, empowerment secures stability. I will save a detailed explanation of that definition for another article. Suffice it to say that I teach customers to understand success as a lifelong process of serving others, rather than a retirement destination.



Okay, given that, if I apply these principles in my life, why am I not wealthy, and what makes this the good life?



I am not yet wealthy because I have crafted a wealth vision statement that says: "I will be wealthy when I can finance my personal and business lifestyle as I just described above. Additionally,  I will give $22,000 each month to my former wife who hung in there with me for 22 years as I struggled to change. It was a long arduous struggle, and she just got tired.  I will give each of our sons $5,000 per month so they can have a monthly "resource pool" for success. I will give two people who aided me during two years of homelessness $2,000 and $1,200 each respectively to demonstrate how much I appreciate their help. That is the $35,200 I will give each month to specific individuals God used to help me during 40 years of transformation along the Change Continuum.



I am on my way to wealth because I know how to accomplish that objective.



Well, since I will be 67-years-old this year, will I live long enoughto accomplish this? Yes, I will! I will explain how I know that in a future article. Now, though, why should you care about this?



First, please understand that the good life does not just happen. You must plan it. Planning the good life means to learn, understand and apply the 21 laws that define and govern it. We begin with the five good life planning laws.





1. Acquire and use the key to the good life. The key says: helping causes having; needs precede wants.

Understand and plan for wealth. If you become a people helper before you are wealthy, when you are wealthy, you will be empowered to help more.



2. Help a large and expanding group of people to have what they need and want.



3. Learn how to organize your work into automated systems that function efficiently and effectively whether you or someone else push the buttons.



4. Write your good life plan because an unwritten plan cannot be followed. Those are the good life planning laws. Here are the good life policy laws:



5. Establish clearly defined goals

6. Prepare to achieve those goals

7. Achieve and maintain wellness

8. Develop and sustain drive

9. Develop and sustain resourcefuness

10. Develop and sustain perseverance

11. Align your life with powerful principles that lead you unerringly to your objectives.



Here are the good life operating principles



12. Get started

13. Develop a powerful "why" statement for your venture into success and wealth.

14. Become and remain teachable and coach-able.

15. Learn and master systems and process thinking.

16. Learn to work S.M.A.R.T. (be Specific, do what is Measurable, always be Action-oriented, make certain that all you do is Relevant to your goals and objectives, always be Time-focused).

17. Learn to work hard.

18. Never quit!

19. Master N.I.C.E.

20. Master R.E.A.P.

21. Master RACE



In subsequent articles in this series, I will provide specific explanations on how to align with and apply these principles.



I use three "road signs," if you will, to reaffirm that I AM living the good life on this journey to wealth. These three questions define the beginning of your journey to the good life and to wealth.





Do I know where I'm going and have I planned to arrive?

Do I have a correct "map" to my destination?

Do I understand and apply the laws of this trip?



When you can truthfully answer a resounding and confident "yes" to each of those questions, you're living the good life!



I have spent 40 years mastering the principles of how to stay out of crime and prison by transforming myself into a community contributor rather than a personal predator. I am now an expert and I want to share this expertise with others. For more information, please visit: http://miltoncjordansr.com