I have lived elements of a “rags to riches” life. I have experienced times of severe lack but I now live a gracious and abundant life filled with the financial resources and possessions that most people long for. However, I did not achieve them by yearning after those things. This book contains the understandings, values, and principles that have allowed me to develop a generative prosperity in my life and by which I have developed businesses that reflect those values.
Key to my accomplishment is a learned ability to source the depth of my being and to follow a passion that drives my life. This passion underlies my experience — the lessons, defeats, victories, and struggles — my humanity. This passion is the essence of my purpose and my joy. It is in all the moments that led me to new methods, profound knowledge, and a vastly providential life.
This passion has been central in the development and management of the career of my daughter, Jewel, as a singer-songwriter, actress, author, and humanitarian. It is the principal impetus behind the development of the international companies for which I am responsible.
In The Architecture of All Abundance, I share the nature of this passion, the factors that have shaped it, and its integration into my life. In the process, I speak of Spirit, the Source, faith, the Soul. And I speak of God, having finally given up any argument about words and my frustrations with language as a means for discussing a power beyond the individual and collective human life. I have thrown up my hands at the attempt to pinpoint this and have chosen language I am personally familiar and comfortable with. I invite you to do the same.
All of the stories are from my experience and are in fact true — some have been altered in consideration of the privacy of those involved; a few are composite stories. They reflect different ages and stages of growth, including the voice of my childhood and youth, the confusion and pain of lessons of the young adult, and the wisdom of experience and Spirit. The observations, ideas, and conclusions are mine. They are presented to provide a landscape on which you, the reader, may construct your own understanding.
At its basis, this book derives from my realization that I have lived a life in which I have remembered to a greater and greater degree that there is a force within us that has the potential to move mountains. This is what I have been dedicated to: remembering. Remembering who we are in our essence and discovering that essence to be profoundly powerful and grace-filled.