Source: Forbes

The catalyst for discovering her life purpose was the dual suicide of both of her parents due to money stress when she was 29 years old. Then, after making a fortune in the stock market, she lost everything in the tech collapse in 2000 and found herself in an abusive relationship. “With my identity and worth correlated to the external, I became deeply depressed and decided that I was going to end my life,” Fredrickson says. “Like my parents, I held the delusional belief that my security, freedom and well-being resided in my bank account.”

Instead of committing suicide, however, Fredrickson chose to be transparent and share what was truly going on with her. She went on a path of self-discovery, spending a lot of time in nature. Over time, she realized that she needed to leave behind her old beliefs and misconceptions, but not her actual body.  She chose to live and to create a life of purpose, renegotiated her own terms and decided that if things weren’t adding up, she could write a new equation. She would create the life of what she has coined a “Fulfillionaire” – achieving an experience of personal fulfillment, emotional wellbeing and material success.

“I began to see the direct correlation between my parents’ suicide and my own bout with suicide due to money stress as the ultimate zeitgeist of our time,” Fredrickson says. “With rates of suicide and disease escalating, and money issues topping the list of stressors in our modern society, I realized that the pain point was our fundamental relationship with money and wealth.” Having journeyed into the darkness herself, and having found her way out, she had wisdom to share with others to help guide them away from their “cultural hallucinations” and towards true security, fulfillment and wellbeing. Fredrickson authored 20 principles and practices concerning true wealth, which guide the clients she serves.

“The work I do through my personal coaching and the Institute of True Wealth is a direct reflection of my life purpose – to empower people to shift their fundamental relationship with money and wealth,” Fredrickson says. “True wealth is founded on emotional wellbeing, which is directly correlated to our inner dialogue, the stories we tell ourselves and the focus of our attention. Experiencing greater fulfillment begins with nurturing our core relationship with ourselves. Life treats us the way we treat ourselves.”

Here, Fredrickson offers 5 tips for realizing true wealth: Progress, process, patience, perspective, and practice.

1)   Honor your progress. Instead of focusing on all of the things you have yet to accomplish or being fixated on the ways you need to improve, take time to celebrate your progress and take stock in your accomplishments. What you focus on expands. The more you honor your progress, the more you will progress.

2)   Realize that your life is a process. Acknowledge that each trial, tribulation and perceived setback is an opportunity to catalyze your experiences for the purpose of greater clarity and fulfillment. Life experience is a process to embrace. Each experience provides a building block of greater awareness and with that an opportunity for a making a wiser choice next time. 

3)   Offer patience to yourself. Patience is indeed a virtue. Why? It feels better to be patient with yourself and trust the timing of what is unfolding. The irony is the more patient we are in our lives, the more things will flow in our favor. One of the primary ingredients in being able to be patient is in our ability to trust in the intelligence that is coursing through all of life. This infinite intelligence has the capacity to coordinate timing in a way that our ego minds cannot possibly comprehend.

4)   Operate from a higher perspective. How we perceive our life and what is unfolding is the foundation of our emotional wellbeing. When we operate from a higher perspective, we are able to liberate ourselves from drama.

5)   Realize that your life is a practice. Each experience we have delivers to us greater clarity. When we apply our greater awareness to making higher choices, we develop our character. The more we practice operating in integrity with our values, the more our lives will reflect this – not only in personal wellbeing and vitality, but also in literal new opportunities coming into our lives.

Fredrickson’s advice for young people to tap into their life purpose is this: “Follow your bliss. Listen to your intuition and your heart. Connect with what brings you joy. It is essential to have a ‘why that makes you cry.’ This emotional connection is a vital ingredient in sustaining passion, which is an essential component to be fulfilled.”