“Oh, that’s easy,” one of them said. “We’re the women who don’t give a crap.”

Don’t give a crap about — ?

“What people expect us to do.”

“Or not do.”

When you are following your curiosity and exploring an idea or discipline that you are passionate about, it’s not work. It becomes effortless, inspired. You find yourself pushing past frontiers, until one day, you are so deep that there’s nobody else to turn to for answers.

a common set of habits that were exhibited by the most satisfied individuals. They tended to be people who enjoy learning and who had developed a high level of expertise within an area that they were passionate about. And whether they work in small or large organizations, they utilize an entrepreneur’s approach to their work. In other words, they aren’t satisfied by the status quo, bring a high level of energy to their work, and attract highly competent people to help them explore new ideas for better serving the markets they are passionate about.

The Prosperity Cycle is a self-reinforcing cycle that will set you on your chosen path, keep you moving forward, and provide you with the vast amount of energy that you’ll need to get where you want to go.

Technology may have eliminated many daily interactions that used to require face-to-face communication, but it has also had the unintended consequence of making the human interaction that remains all that more important. We are all social animals with a need to share, a need to be appreciated, and a desire to work with people who care about us.

People who have a personal vision have a twinkle in their eye and a spring in their step. They are living with a purpose and their daily progress toward their vision builds confidence and leads to a belief that anything is possible. And those people are just fun to be around. If you want to be an inspirational leader, start by developing your own personal vision and by making sure you are doing work and living life in a way that allows you to make progress toward it.

n the sporting or business world the mentor/mentee relationship is the definition of win/win. The mentor gets satisfaction and, in some cases, compensation—in the form of a return on a financial investment—and the mentee, through extension, gains the experience and confidence to achieve something they have never done before.

Opportunities are typically seen most clearly by those who have pursued their passion the furthest and for whom the opportunity seems to be glaringly obvious. Like the 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book Outliers, when you have spent more time in a particular arena than anyone else, you have insights that others just don’t have.

Do these guys love what they do because they are good at it or are they good at what they do because they love it. I sincerely believe it’s the latter. And if you are serious about pursuing prosperity you better be doing something you love. If you aren’t sure that you love what you are doing, you aren’t. People who have found their passion don’t drag themselves out of bed; they awake with a mixture of excitement and wonder that they get paid to do what they do.

You aren’t likely to achieve prosperity without the help of a team. Pursuing prosperity by yourself is like trying to win a TDF stage with a solo breakaway at the start of the race—it is virtually impossible to do.