John A. Frederick’s new book, “Prosperity Now! A 12-Week Journey to the Life of Your Dreams,” is a tour-de-force of practical, spiritual, and financial advice on how to achieve the life you’ve always wanted. Drawing upon the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Frederick walks readers through a twelve-week course that teaches them not only how to find prosperity, but how to eliminate all the things blocking them from achieving it.
Early in the book, Frederick clarifies that true prosperity involves more than just money. To focus solely on finances is to cheat yourself from all the good the Universe has in store for you and that you deserve.
To begin the journey to prosperity, Frederick asks readers to make a contract with themselves and God to follow the steps of this Prosperity Now! journey. He then defines true prosperity and asks the reader to be willing to surrender to the good in store for them. Step One of AA is modified here as: “We admitted we were powerless over our old consciousness of lack and limitation and our lives had become unmanageable.” In other words, too often we have failed to be prosperous because we have not believed it possible; we’ve been too caught up in focusing on lack and believing our resources are limited. Instead, we must surrender. Many people do not surrender until a major change or crisis occurs in their lives, forcing them to quit trying to control everything around them and commit to making radical changes and accepting new ideas. But once that surrender happens, they pave the way for positive change to happen.
One limitation many of us have that Frederick points out is “Thinking that our boss, our partner, our parents, or our job is the source of our income is a mistake, a dependence that sooner or later can and likely will let us down. All these channels are avenues for our good, but they are just channels for the One Source, the infinitely abundant Universe.”
To remove negativity about our prosperity and to develop trust in the Universe, Frederick advocates for using powerful affirmations and also committing to tithing to show our confidence that the Universe will provide. One of my favorite parts of the book is Frederick’s discussion of how we need to go from being paranoid (constantly expecting bad and believing people or forces are conspiring against us) to being pronoic-believing the Universe is conspiring to bring about our greatest good. This process is not easy, but Frederick builds on the pronoic idea throughout the course so that gradually this new mindset will begin to operate in us.
Once we surrender, we quit worrying, and that includes letting go of “how.” As Frederick says, “How something will happen is not your concern.” Instead, we simply have to tell the Universe what we want, believe we will get it, and get out of our own way by not worrying about the “how.”
Frederick quotes frequently from the Tao Te Ching. One significant passage he shares is, “True freedom is freedom from your own ideas.” To achieve that freedom, Frederick tells us to question everything we think, asking ourselves, “Is it true?” We need to learn to question our thoughts so we can move away from negativity into possibility.
Another aspect of the Prosperity Now! course I really like is the focus on imagination. Frederick is clear that we are not to make up fantasies and just expect prosperity to fall into our laps. Instead, “Correct use of imagination is conscious and purposeful with awareness that higher forces are active in your life, always for your highest good. It also means doing the footwork, doing the next right thing to put wings on your dreams.” Once you begin to take action, all manner of help and resources will appear to assist you.
There is a great deal more in Prosperity Now! as Frederick walks us through the other weeks of the course and the Twelve Steps-everything from clearing out your clutter to forgiving yourself and others and learning about the power of gratitude.
Best of all, John Frederick shares personal stories throughout the book to demonstrate how these principles have worked in his own life. This is a man who has gone through divorce, drug addiction, homelessness, and HIV, and yet come out of it a successful person leading a happy life, including manifesting an apartment in Paris, France. Many people would have given up or even died from the situations he’s gone through. How has he managed? Here’s just one example. When he learned he had HIV and had to take pills, he decided to develop an attitude of gratitude:
“Soon after, I began that regimen, and used gratitude to bless the pills. I said, ‘Thank you, God. I can afford these medications. I affirm that they will work 1,000 times better than normal and with no side-effects whatsoever. And so it is, and so it must be!'”
Obviously, gratitude worked for Frederick because now, decades after his diagnosis, he is here to share with us his incredible story and the powerful truths about prosperity thinking he has learned and made a daily part of his life.
I hope you will read Prosperity Now! so you can also find yourself thinking in new, surprising, life-affirming, and life-changing ways. You have nothing to lose except the possibility of more and more good coming your way.
