The 5 am club

The Billionaire’s Maxim #2
Collect Miraculous Experiences over Material Things.
The world has burdened and hardened you. As a child, your instinct showed
you how to spot the miraculousness of a snowflake, find fortune in a spider’s
web and adore the splendor of falling leaves on a colorful autumn morning.
The pursuit wasn’t about acquiring things. It was about exploring life. To
switch the lens through which you see life from one that views what’s
ordinary to one that perceives the extraordinary is to multiply your ability to
create miracles. And to re-engage with the lost purity you knew in your youth
before a broken society trained you to value objects and cash over joys and
delights. Laugh more often, dance more regularly and play more frequently.
Please.
“The future holds promises of mysterious good. Anything can happen
overnight,” said the mystic Florence Scovel Shinn. Be more alive to the
wonders that inhabit your days: gentle breezes, squirrels chasing each other in
a park and music that is so wonderful it makes you cry. And you will begin to
live as royalty along with heightening your primal powers to produce even
more magic in your mornings. Never sacrifice your well-being and quality of
life for greater annual income or larger net worth. The determinants of a
magnificent life have remained the same for centuries: a sense that you’re
growing and capitalizing on your human potential; effortful work that draws
out your finest productivity and is profitable for humanity; weighty
connections with positive people who escalate your jubilation; and time doing
that which nurtures your spirit as you advance through your days with a
grateful heart.
Yes, in Rome I licked my journal. It’s one of the rituals I run to actively
heighten my aliveness by raising my appreciation of all the good blessings
that have been given to me. The more vividly I value everything in my life,
the more everything in my life climbs in value.
So, become a collector of awesome experiences instead of a consumer of
material things. Simplify your life and make a return to the essential
enjoyments that are sitting right under your noses. As you do, you will
overcome the forces that have suppressed your fire and tear down the charade
of superficiality that so many fine souls among us are stuck in. And as you
continue, you will come to know how gorgeous and terrific your life really is.
And please do remember that your past is a servant that has made you all
you now are—not a companion to spend much time with in your present or a

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friend to carry into your spotless future. It’s impossible to enter the magic that
each fresh morning brings if parts of you are holding on to old
disappointments, resentments and hurts. You know that well now.
Lightheartness of being and ancient pain can’t stand the sight of each
other. So, train yourself through steady and ceaseless practice to immerse
yourself fully in this moment. Yes, it takes work and patience. Yet savoring
this very instant is an essential move for a dazzling life. This time is all you
really have. And it’s an empire worth more than any amount of money in the
world. One day, you’ll see.
The third magic charm was a symbol of a door.
“Every ending marks a new beginning. All we experience happens for a
helpful reason. And when one door closes, another will always open for you,”
noted the billionaire. “Trust—always—that life has your back—even if what’s
unfolding makes no sense.”
The attached letter read: