Pat Mesiti - Pathway to Prosperity: The 12 Steps to Financial Freedom

About the author

Pat is a highly effective communicator and income acceleration coach. His passion is to equip and empower individuals and businesses to experience growth and prosperity to their full potential. He is an expert in shifting mindsets and building bigger people to produce results.

Pat has spoken at some of the largest conferences around the world, and his books and materials have sold over two million copies. Having built some of Australias largest peopledriven organisations, Pat understands the power of harnessing peoples potential.

Pat Mesitis enthusiasm combined with his great sense of humour gives him the ability to move an audience into action as well as give them practical resources to help them achieve their goals. He is a gifted communicator and adds tremendous value to the lives he touches. Pat is dynamic, entertaining and unforgettable!

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Kirstie Wood for always being there to type up my messes. A big thank you to Steven Slaven Spehar for checking the manuscript in the early days and giving me great insights. To Mark Badham for transcribing and translating my thoughts. To my editor Jem Bates you are absolutely brilliant. To everyone in the Mesiti team for your tireless hard work. And thank you to my beautiful wife Andrea, who is selfless.

Introduction

Are you where you want to be?

I have a goal to create 10 000 millionaires in my lifetime. Thats why I run special events every year. Thats why I travel the world speaking to men and women who hunger for financial success. Thats why Ive written this book. You see, I want you to become wealthy and prosperous, and I believe you can.

The word prosperity comes from the Latin prosperare , which means to prosper, thrive or flourish . I love those words! And I know you do too. After all, thats why you picked up this book. Unfortunately, most people cant honestly use these words to describe their life. So many of us aspire to prosperity, but our reality is quite different. We want to be financially secure, but were struggling to get there. The purpose of this book is to help you get from where you are now to where you want to be. I want to show you how to live your life by design, not by default.

Some 98 per cent of people spend their lives working hard, only to end up with fewer financial resources than they had planned. Most would confess that financially their life did not turn out the way they had hoped it would. In Million Dollar Habits , speaker and author Robert Ringer wrote: The world is saturated with intelligent, highly educated, extraordinarily skilled people who experience ongoing frustration because of their lack of success. Millions of others spend their lives working hard, long hours only to die broke. In 2010 the National Bureau of Economic Research found that nearly 50 per cent of Americans would be unable to come up with $2000 in 30 days if an emergency arose. That means half the country is living one pay cheque away from financial collapse.

There is often a tension between where we want to end up in life and the path we choose to get there. We fail to see that good intentions are never enough. We need to understand why, despite our good intentions, we may have ended up at the wrong financial destination. One reason is that we are surrounded by people who are moving in the wrong direction with us . In recent years in Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK, for example, many people made the same bad decisions that led to too much debt: they bought overpriced houses they could not afford while they did not have enough savings in the bank. When everyone around us is doing the same thing were doing, its easy to deceive ourselves into thinking it will work out. And when we end up where those poor decisions take us, were confused about how we got there.

Over the years Ive talked to many individuals and couples with financial problems who assure me they are close to a solution a fix here or an adjustment there. But just as there is no easy fix when you accidentally wind up a hundred miles from where you want to be on a road trip, there is no quick fix when you wake up to the reality that you are far away from where you want to be financially.

Some years ago I was in Los Angeles and decided to drive myself to the airport. My hosts had given me some simple directions and a hand-drawn, step-by-step map, so I climbed into the rental car, grabbed the wheel and took off. My objective was to negotiate a labyrinth of interconnected freeways in a foreign city, yet I was so confident I decided to take a shortcut. Instead of getting onto Interstate 405, I decided to take another freeway that I thought would get me to the airport a lot quicker.

It wasnt long before it dawned on me that I had taken a wrong turn, but I didnt stop. I just kept driving. An hour later I found myself in what looked like one of the most rundown city neighbourhoods in America. Here I was, a budding young preacher travelling the globe, selling my message of good news, driving a rental car loaded with suitcases and t-shirts, and I had no idea where I was. I began to get nervous, and the more wrong turns I took, the more anxious I became. Worse still, it was dark outside and I could no longer see the street signs.

As I turned into a small street I noticed a light outside a van selling burgers. By now I was ready to ask for directions, so I pulled up next to the burger stand and got out of the car. As I began to ask for directions I suddenly found myself surrounded by four young men. What are you doing around here? one asked. This is not your place!

Here I was in a dark street, in a foreign city, absolutely lost, accosted by four gang members. My knees started shaking and my mouth went dry. I knew I was in deep trouble, but all that came to mind was Crocodile Dundee. And in moments like that you dont think, you just act. So in a broad, true-blue Australian accent, I said, Oh, gday fellas. Im from Australia and Im trying to find Los Angeles Airport. Im totally lost!