Thank you, Pam Grout…

Reading Pam Grout’s Thank & Grow Rich while eating my breakfast smoothie bowl.  I’ve been reading it for the past week, or so.  On and off.  Reading.  Taking it in.  Pausing to reflect.  Picking it up, going back a chapter, or two, and re-reading.

As the title implies, the focus of the book is to be grateful to increase your own ‘capital’.  Grout has a very different portfolio that she suggests we review, and hopefully adopt, as our own.  What sort of capital could she be referring to — a self-help guru?!!?@**?!

Glad you asked.

Pam has 5 different types of capital for us to consider.  I’ve taken a stab at summarizing my understanding of each one.  They are:

1. Alchemic Capital – the capital of change; of evolution.  We should be in a different place in our lives/in our thinking/in our behaviors than we were 10 years ago.
2. Spiritual Capital – the capital that creates beautiful art, that has inspiring conversations; that contemplates meaning; that strives to be in service to other people.  Most important, follow your joy/bliss to connect with this part of ourselves.
3. Creative Capital – to bring new things to light in the Universe.  To birth new ideas/movies/plays/inventions.  It’s the thing you’d want to do if you never heard of the word money.  Follow your (internal) beeps; the ‘Divine Buzz’ (your internal GPS) and feel the chills and excitement.  That’s how you access and know it’s your creative capital.
4. Social Capital – Friends.  People to have beautiful food with; to have meaningful conversations with; to have fun with.  If we’re not having fun, what’s the point??
5. Adventure Capital – Step into an unfamiliar place; shake things up.  Try a new dish.  Say ‘yes’ to something you normally say ‘No’ to.  (And, maybe say NO to something you normally say YES to.)

Pam wants us to assess where we are in each of the above areas because a full life has all of the 5 types of capital working well and vigorously in a person’s life.  She suggests we take an initial personal earnings report and using a scale from 1 (poor) to 10 (awesome), note how we’re doing with each type of capital.

Then, after 30 days (and following her simple AA 2.0 system), take another assessment of our personal earnings report.

The AA 2.0 system?  Okay, it’s 2 steps, and 2 steps only.

A. Before getting out of bed each and every morning say, “Something amazingly awesome is going to happen” to you today.  Or, change it up and say something magical will happen.

B. Become an investigator on the lookout for ‘all the beauty and largesse in the world’.  In essence, instead of figuring out what could go wrong — do the opposite.  Observe and take note of what’s going right.

Simple.  Easy.  Almost ridiculous.  However, the shift in perception and viewpoint is wonderful.

I’m still reading.  Still reflecting but I like what I’ve reading.  A lot.