Mike Pagan’s book Mental Wealth is subtitled “Unlock Your Potential, Enrich Your Life”. In the preface to the book, Mike talks about Tom – a man who had committed suicide, but about whom he was unaware that his situation was so desperate. It’s knowing that people like Tom are suffering, often in silence, which prompted Mike to write this important book about the need to surround yourself with a mental wealth team.
Mental Wealth is about creating the environment in your own life where you’re able to build the mental resilience and emotional awareness through the support of others, to enable you to perform at your best. To literally unlock your potential.
The book begins by examining what mental wealth is, and how it can be developed, and how it can be destroyed. The book then moves onto the important aspect of self-care.
Throughout the book, Mike provides insights and key actions that guide the reader on how to take action to make a difference. The importance of taking action and managing deliberately how you turn up in the world. He goes on to recommend that you find a coach for what you need right now, highlighting the difference between mentors, consultants, counsellors, therapists and coaches, and the importance that each may have in a particular point in your own development. He talks about the support team; the people each of us really do need around us if we’re to perform at our very best. We may seek out people to look after our financial wealth, to keep an eye on our businesses in the legalities and contracts that we enter into. Perhaps an accountant, or a specialist who knows how to make the most of what our businesses and our work is doing. These are just a few examples of some of the professional support team members you may choose to have.
Importantly, Mike talks about trust, too. It’s important to trust that support team – to be open and share all your fears, as well as all your goals.
Then, he talks about having a Mastermind team. From personal experience, I can tell you how important having a great mastermind team around you is. These are people who know me well and people that I trust, and who share a desire to ensure that I achieve my goals. These people will go deep, but they bring a different perspective or a different insight to the challenges that you may face. They are, as Mike describes them, “an inner sanctum of committed peers who are there to help you personally and professionally”.
Mike’s book concludes with a mental wealth team score card, which gives you an opportunity to work out who is in your sphere of influence and who is influencing you, and how important they are to you. This is a relatively simple exercise, yet the insights I gained while doing it were significant.
Finally, Mike concludes by saying it is time to get on with it, and rightly so. The book comes complete with links to resources and people who can help you to develop that mental wealth team around you. It also has support resources if right now your mental health, as well as your mental wealth, need something urgently.
This book is not just important for a time when you may be struggling, but for all times – for every day. I hope you’ll take the time to read it.