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HI! I AM MAX ALPHA KING. YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW ME AS THE “GENIUS-POLYMATH” MAESTRO OF BOTH CLASSICAL AND POPULAR MUSIC. WELCOME HERE TO MY SHREWD EMPOWERMENT MEMBERSHIP WEBSITE, DEDICATED TO YOU MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW TRAVELLERS ON LIFE’S JOURNEY TOWARDS WISDOM AND INNER FULFILMENT. SHREWD EMPOWERMENT IS BASED ON THE IDEA THAT BY EMPOWERING EACH INDIVIDUAL WE COULD PERHAPS HELP EMPOWER THE WHOLE WORLD. WE CAN REALLY ONLY DO OUR BEST.

ON THIS WEBSITE I SHARE MY COLLECTED KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM ABOUT HOW TO PURSUE A LIFELONG QUEST OF EMPOWERING ONE’S TOTAL SELF (BODY, MIND, SOUL AND SPIRIT) WITH ONE’S OWN UNIQUE BEST BALANCE OF HEALTH, HAPPINESS, WEALTH, AND WISDOM.

I SHARE A VERY WIDE RANGE OF KNOWLEDGE, FROM ANCIENT WISDOM ACROSS THE WORLD TO THE LATEST BEST PRACTICES WHEREVER I HAVE FOUND THEM.

Often the best measure of success seems to be how wealthy (i.e. financially well off) an individual is. This may be correct but, after long study and life’s experiences, I want to share a slightly modified viewpoint.

Success is really the achievement of goals, especially goals that enable us to fulfil our innermost aspirations and be self-actualised, and I have some original views on goal-setting and goal-getting, which I shall be sharing with you. In my learning I came across Benjamin Franklin’s quote “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”. I was surprised that the quotation omitted happiness.  Elsewhere, I found this quote “what God most surely supplies makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise“. I noted that this quote also omits happiness, perhaps because it is still referring to Benjamin Franklin’s good advice. However, somewhere in my own upbringing I remember having heard about some ancient wisdom of being being healthy, wealthy, happy, and wise.

Over the years, as I encountered, confronted, and apparently overcame many life’s challenges, I gradually re-arranged the four important life’s achievements of health, wealth, happiness, and wisdom as follows. This is entirely for me, and each person should arrive at their own prioritisation of these qualities.

Wisdom is the most important quality, but also the longest and most difficult to achieve in total. So we need to start with what we are already born with, i.e. health. Our first and easiest objective therefore is to maintain our good health or recover it, if we’ve compromised it. Without good health, other goals cannot be pursued satisfactorily. The next most important quality is happiness. It is another one we are already born with, but can gradually compromise and lose. An unhappy life, in my understanding, is really the least desirable for a human being. Wealth is important in order not have to struggle or suffer, except the kind struggle and suffering that present us with necessary challenges, which can actually end up improving us comprehensively.

Therefore, my re-ordering of the four desirable qualities in life is as follows. Maintain health and happiness long enough to acquire more wisdom, and, using whatever knowledge (early wisdom) we have, acquire just enough wealth to keep up our long-term quest for wisdom, unhindered by serious illness or unhappiness. I remember reading somewhere that the American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, had said in 1860 that “The first wealth is health”.

Shrewd Empowerment, in summary, is really about setting wise goals for these four qualities of health, happiness, wealth, and wisdom; then using our total natural gifts of body, mind, soul and spirit to achieve a balance of those four qualities. A balanced approach to everything is, in my view, the best because too much of anything runs the risk of spoiling everything. (My own quote, I think:-))