Beyond Wealth E-Book

Alexander Green

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 403

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

It's not all about the money; the key to true riches Leo Tolstoy said, "Nobody knows where the human race is going. The highest wisdom, then, is to know where you are going." Yet many today chase the false rabbits of success: status, luxury, reputation and material possessions. In the quest to "have it all," our lives often lack real meaning and purpose. Beyond Wealth is the antidote. New York Times bestselling author Alexander Green takes things right down to brass tacks: We are here for a short time. Knowledge is limitless. Therefore, the most critical knowledge is not any particular skill but rather wisdom about "how to live." Fortunately, men and women have had several thousand years to think about what it means to live "the good life." And the answers found here, from Plato and Aristotle to Mahatma Gandhi and Stephen Hawking, will both surprise and delight you. Beyond Wealth provides insightful commentary on the most important aspects of our lives: love, work, honor, trust, freedom, death, fear, truth, beauty and other timeless issues. The book is both a thought provoking read and the ideal gift, guaranteed to ennoble, uplift and inspire.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Part One : Dollars and Sense

Are the Rich Smarter Than You?

Are You Losing Your Soul?

Impatient Optimism . . . and Radical Generosity

You Can’t Google This

The Only Thing that Really Matters

The Principle Thing

The One Thing that Changes Everything

The Trouble with Happiness

The Key to Personal Freedom

Change Your Perspective, Change Your Life

How Your World Will At Last Be Built

The Most Important Job on Earth

One of Life’s Great Miracles

The Power of Negative Visualization

How to Reclaim Your Life

Why It’s One of The Seven Deadly Sins

The Ruling Passion of the Noblest Minds

Part Two : Wealth Beyond Measure

Are You Uncurious?

The Road Not Taken

They Make Us All Richer

Are You Ready for the Grand Tour?

The Quintessence of Life

What Women Really Want

An Incandescent Drop of American Fire

The Most Civilized Thing in the World

How to Eat Like a Zen Master

The Sublimest Activity of the Human Mind

Drunken Monkey Ice Cream . . . and the Wisdom of Thornton Wilder

The Lost Art of Conversation

What Success Really Means

What Are Your Sins of Omission?

The Beauty of Slowing Down

When Entertainment Becomes Art

Do You Have a Secret?

Are You Amusing Yourself to Death?

In Praise of Idleness

The Tyranny of the New

Why You Should Know “The Indispensable Man”

A Revelation at 4,500 Feet

Part Three : Knowing and Believing

Tolstoy’s Forbidden Book

A Shameless Veneration of Heroes

A Path to Personal Freedom

Your Greatest Risk

Are You Part of “The Great Conversation”?

A 2,600-Year-Old Manual for Living

If You Knew What Jim Brown Knows

The Noblest Expression of the Human Spirit

The Art of Living Consciously

How to Let Your Life Speak

A Legacy of Inspiration

The Only Thing New in the World

The University on Your Shelf

We Are All Greeks Now

The Wisdom of Hillel

Meditations of the Philosopher-King

Part Four : Matters of Life and Death

Discovering a New Sense of the Sacred

The Highest of Arts

Emerson: The Quintessential American

The Life You Can Save

Coming of Age in the Milky Way

The Literature of Truth

Your Connection to Everything

The Difference between Knowing and Believing

The Lessons of Haiti

Your Trip to “The Undiscovered Country”

The Beginning of Wisdom

Of Lost Souls and Lucky Stiffs

How to Pull the Universe Out of a Hat

It Makes Everything Meaningful

The Truth about Myths

Your Place In “The Great Story”

Seven Principles of Spirituality

Afterword

Appendix : Recipe for Mom’s Insanely Great Vegetable Soup

Further Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Index

Copyright © 2011 by Alexander Green. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Green, Alexander, 1958-

Beyond wealth : the road map to a rich life / Alexander Green.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-02761-5 (hardback); 978-1-118-07832-7 (ebk); 978-1-118-07833-4 (ebk); 978-1-118-07834-1 (ebk)

1. Success in business. 2. Success. 3. Wealth—Psychological aspects. 4. Conduct of life. 5. Self-actualization (Psychology) I. Title.

HF5386.G73 2011

650.1—dc22

2011002025

To Karen

When the Buddha began to wander around India shortly after his enlightenment, he encountered several men who recognized him as an extraordinary being.

They asked him, “Are you a god?”

“No,” he said.

“Are you a saint?”

“No.”

“Are you a prophet?”

“No,” he said again.

Perplexed, they asked, “well, what are you then?”

The Buddha replied, “I am awake.”

—The Pali Canon (29 BCE)

To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

FOREWORD

As the head of a $45 million financial publishing company, I lead a very “bottom-line” kind of life. I spend a good deal of time thinking about how our team can generate more products, more revenue, more profits, and more satisfied customers.

Yet, like many of us who are employed full time, I strive for balance between work and play, responsibility and enjoyment. Too often, for instance, I’ve forfeited a beautiful Saturday morning outside for work projects that could have been delegated or postponed. That may give you a clue why I consider the book in your hands essential reading.

Since you’ve picked it up, it’s safe to assume you already know there’s more to a genuine sense of wealth than just working, saving, and investing. For one thing, we have to define what “being rich” actually means to us. Then, no matter how much financial success we enjoy, we have to learn how to spend not just our money but also our two most precious commodities: our time and attention.

During my 20-plus years as publisher for The Oxford Club, I’ve had the good fortune to work closely with some of the most astute investing “gurus” in the business. Certainly, the author of this book is one of the best. Alexander Green is a “wealth master,” a trusted guide for hundreds of thousands of regular readers.

More than 10 years ago, in his desire to help others reach financial independence, Alex left a major investment bank to join the Oxford Club as our Investment Director. Soon after, the Club’s Communiqué track record was named one of the best in the nation, and still is by the leading industry-tracking group.

Thanks to Alex and his clearly defined investment principles and recommendations, I’ve made better personal financial decisions than ever before. And, as he leads the world’s largest private investment club, countless others have benefited from his work, too. Perhaps the most rewarding part of my job as his publisher is to read the testimonials that hit my inbox each day. This comment about The Oxford Club was recently posted on the respected financial web site MarketWatch:

The key player is undoubtedly Editor Alexander Green, who has developed a dramatically successful track record, expressed through several portfolios, since arriving in 2001.

—Peter Brimelow, author of The Wall Street Gurus and an editor of the independent Hulbert Financial Digest

About three years ago, however, Alex proposed a new kind of advisory for our members, one that discusses wealth not in material but spiritual terms. At first, I thought it might be too risky. So did my colleagues. The subject matter would be deeper and more controversial than our normal financial communications. It might offend our most conservative membership. It would take us beyond the “core competence” of our normal business. Worse, it would cost money to produce with no expected financial return.

But Alex knew there is a questing, philosophical side of me—and our readers—that would be intrigued. I liked the idea of exposing a great talent like Alex to a broader audience. Once he showed me a few drafts of what he had in mind, I couldn’t say no. I subdued my bottom-line rationalizations and recognized that this kind of “wealth guidance” could be priceless.

And so, after much going round on the name, we launched the first issue of Spiritual Wealth in February 2008. It was one of the best moves I’ve made and an instant hit with readers, generating more positive feedback and gushing testimonials than anything we publish.

Through Spiritual Wealth, Alex deftly manages to present his readers with fresh insights on how to lead a mindful, compassionate, and intelligent life— being ever respectful of different religious and political beliefs. With each concisely written essay, he titillates us with a nugget of truth or lesson from history that we can apply to our lives, here and now.

After a year of broadcasting Spiritual Wealth online to our readers, John Wiley & Sons published the first 65 essays in an anthology, The Secret of Shelter Island: Money and What Matters. The book was an immediate success, climbing the best-seller lists within days of publication.

Alex has now taken the next 65 essays and turned them—along with some of his other thoughts—into the book you now hold in your hands. If your experience is typical, you won’t just enjoy it, you’ll tell your family and friends about it and give it often as a gift.

Alex stands out in the financial publishing world because his writings are smart and accessible to readers. His views are sharp, uplifting, and often amusing. More importantly, his investment advice works.

But his thoughts on how to live a fuller life are just as valuable, perhaps more so. In Beyond Wealth, Alex engages us further, both intellectually and soulfully, fostering our inner wisdom so we can see things more clearly and make better choices in our lives.

Alex is a master craftsman of the written word. Through each short essay, we are provoked to give attention to the things in our lives that matter most.

You will notice in these essays that he virtually never tells you what to do—or even what to think. Yet the sheer persuasiveness of his voice compels you to acknowledge his point of view and follow his pathway to a richer life.

If you are like me, whenever you come across something that makes you feel energized, uplifted, reborn, set straight, or enlightened, you want to share it. It could be a new song or piece of art that exhilarates you or touches a deep chord. It could be reading a short story that opens your eyes to something new or meeting someone that you want to have in your life. When these magical moments happen, we want to share them. That is how I feel about Beyond Wealth. I already know you’re going to love it.

Julia Guth

Executive Director

The Oxford Club

INTRODUCTION

“Beyond Wealth?” a friend asked with a strange look when she heard the title of my new book. “Why beyond wealth? I’d be happy to settle for wealth.”

No she wouldn’t.

You can’t wear your stock portfolio, ride on your bank account, or eat gold and silver coins. Money is never an end, only a means to an end.

Even if you have plenty of money and the things it can buy, your life won’t mean much if you don’t have decent health, someone to love, close friendships and personal interests, and something to get you out of bed in the morning.

I don’t mean to downplay the importance of money in today’s world. Over the past 25 years, I’ve worked as an investment adviser, research analyst, and financial writer. I feel strongly that everyone should strive for some measure of financial freedom, whether you define that as being independently wealthy or just getting out from under your credit card debt.

You can’t reach your potential or live life to the fullest if you spend your days swimming in concerns about money.

Money is independence. It liberates you from want, from work that is drudgery, from relationships that confine you. No one is truly free who is a slave to his job, his creditors, his circumstances, or his overhead.

Money determines the kind of house you live in, the neighborhood your kids grow up in. If you’re sick, it can mean the difference between a good doctor and an amazing doctor. If you need an attorney, it’s the difference between using an ambulance chaser and getting the best legal representation money can buy.

Wealth is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman, black or white, young or old, tall or short, handsome or homely, educated or not. If you have money, you have power—in the best sense.

Wealth is freedom, security, and peace of mind. It allows you to do and be what you want, to support worthy causes and help those closest to you. It enables you to follow your dreams, to spend your life the way you choose.

Money gives you dignity. It gives you choices. That’s why every man and woman has the right—perhaps even the obligation—to achieve some level of financial independence.

If the most pressing concern in your life right now is money (or the lack of it), let me direct you to my first book, The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio. A New York Times best seller, it reveals one of the shortest, simplest, most direct routes to financial freedom.

However, this book is not about success, but rather, significance. In these pages, I don’t talk about earning and saving more or generating a higher return on your investments. Nor do I have any brilliant ideas about how you should spend what you’ve got. (You have your own ideas on that subject, I’m sure.) Rather, this collection of essays is about something else: living a richer life.

You might reasonably wonder how I could tell you anything about that. After all, I probably don’t know you personally. Your passion may be NBA basketball or interior decorating or rebuilding vintage automobiles. You’ll find nothing here on those subjects. And even if I were to hit one or two of your interests, who am I to define the good life?

The answer is that human beings have had a few thousand years to ruminate on the subject. And the best ideas are not new. That doesn’t mean, however, that most of us are familiar with them.

In school, you will learn plenty about differential equations, the life of a cell, or how to find France on a map. But as to what constitutes the best life, you’re pretty much on your own.

That generally means learning things the hard way. Too many of us wind up chasing the false rabbits of success—money, fame, status, and possessions—and then feel curiously empty when we achieve them, if we do.

Too often, the world is governed by false values. Rather than following our own path, we look around and start doing pretty much what everyone else is doing. You can easily get the impression that you should strive to know important people, gain power over others, acquire expensive things, or be highly thought of by your neighbors. But these are just the tinsel of life, glittering but worthless.

Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Yet many of us never really stop to consider what matters most, what it is we are really living for. This subject is so personal, in fact, that it can be a bit awkward to talk about, even with those we know best. Yet the subject can’t help but captivate us.

These essays are some of my thoughts about what constitutes a rich life. And while my personal biases are on full display, many of the best ideas here I am merely passing along. However, I did consult some of the greatest minds of all time, including Aristotle, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Jesus, Buddha, Thomas Jefferson, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Einstein, even Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking.

We are all ignorant of many things. The world is too big and complicated for it to be otherwise. But none of us should be ignorant of how to live. It makes sense to understand something about what the wisest men and women down through history have thought about love, work, honor, trust, freedom, death, fear, truth, beauty, and other important subjects.

I touch on all of these—and many more—in the pages ahead, as well as a few personal interests, including wine, jazz, travel, chocolate, literature, art, and . . . um . . . hummingbirds.

More than anything else, my goal is to convey the sheer delight of discovering things, of seeing, listening, reading, and experiencing great ideas.

Perhaps the book of Proverbs says it best: With all thy getting, get understanding. That’s an excellent first step to a richer life.

PART ONE

DOLLARS AND SENSE

In the early spring of 2009, Jay, a good friend and art dealer, called and said he needed to meet with me privately and immediately. His tone was serious.

He asked if we could talk over dinner at a local steakhouse that evening. I agreed.

I couldn’t imagine what was troubling him or how it involved me. When I walked into the restaurant a few hours later, he was already at the bar and waved me over.

We made the usual small talk, but he was edgy and stiff, not his usual relaxed self. I asked what was wrong, but he insisted that we wait and discuss it over dinner. When we finally settled down and ordered our meal, he took a long pull on his vodka tonic, leaned forward, and said he needed my advice.

His financial fortunes had recently taken a dramatic turn for the worse. With the economy in a deep recession, his art business was on life support. He had essentially no income. To make matters worse, he had seen his investment portfolio decimated by the recent financial crisis. As he was hoping to retire soon, this really troubled him.

Jay had been a good friend for over a decade. I knew he was a conservative guy who invested exclusively in diversified stock and bond funds. But even tried-and-true approaches provided little protection in the meltdown of 2008. And 2009 wasn’t kicking off any better.

“Alex,” he said, looking pale, “I’ve worked hard, saved, and compounded my investments all my life. Now everything is circling the drain. I’m 65 years old and for the last 25, I’ve considered myself financially independent. I’ve always invested smart and added to my portfolio regularly. I’ve never touched principal, not a dime. Now I’m afraid I don’t have enough to retire. Never in a million years did I imagine I’d be in this position.”

I nodded.

“I’m not asking for investment advice,” he said. “Because even if you told me this was a great time to buy stocks, I wouldn’t move a penny into the market now. I can’t afford the risk of buying anything. But I’m not going to sell everything near the bottom either. I don’t know what to do.”

He tipped back his vodka tonic again. He looked pretty desperate.

“I brought my statements with me,” he added. “I just want you to take a look at what I own and tell me what you think.”

I agreed and he reached down and pulled them out from under the table. Looking over his holdings, I saw a lot of solid, blue-chip names. He was right. He hadn’t invested unwisely. He had just gotten caught up in the financial maelstrom like millions of other investors.

As I leafed through the pages, Jay kept shaking his head and muttering that he didn’t know what he was going to do.

I asked him a few questions about his investment income, his monthly overhead, and how much he thought he needed to live comfortably when he retired. Then I asked him what he thought—conservatively—his portfolio would earn over the next 10 years.

I thought his answer was too conservative, but I didn’t object. “And how long do you think you’ll live?” I asked.

“I’m in good health,” he said. “I might live another 30 years.”

I pulled out a financial calculator and showed him how much he could draw down his portfolio every month for the next 30 years, even if it never recovered and he earned only the modest return he projected. I pointed out that he would gradually spend the capital itself—something he had never done—but that his portfolio would last 30 years, as long as he withdrew only “this much” every month. (Incidentally, this is called a systematic withdrawal calculation, something everyone approaching retirement should do.)

The numbers amazed him. Like many lifelong savers, he is a frugal guy. He wasn’t currently spending as much as he could withdraw every month. And he expected to spend even less in the years ahead (a good thing since inflation steadily erodes your purchasing power).

He brightened up immediately. The financial meltdown had stung him, but he realized it wasn’t the end of the world. He wouldn’t have to spend his golden years counting nickels or living in a Sub-Zero carton. The change in his demeanor was instantaneous. His whole disposition did a one-eighty. He even grabbed the check with a flourish.

Over the next week, Jay called me three times to thank me. He hadn’t been sleeping well before and had been snappish with his wife. He had felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. Now it was lifted.

“Thanks to you, old buddy,” he kept saying. “Thanks to you.”

This outpouring of gratitude confounded me. After all, what had I done? I didn’t take over the management of his portfolio. I hadn’t suggested he make changes. In fact, I didn’t recommend he take action of any kind.

Then it dawned on me. He was grateful for something else. I had helped him change his perspective—and that made all the difference.

What does this have to do with these essays? Everything, really. My goal here is to subtly shift your perspective by sharing ideas that helped me change my own. It might be a new finding of science or the rediscovery of an ancient philosophy. It might be a conversation with a historian or a money manager or an experience with a stranger that altered my point of view. In each case, the subject is something that, however slightly, altered my own worldview.

This may seem unusual coming from an investment analyst who writes a financial letter. After all, I make my living showing readers how to invest, how to reach their financial goals. But I have spent a lot of years reading and thinking about things that can’t be measured in dollars and cents. Here are a few of them.

Are the Rich Smarter than You?

Growing up, when I got into an argument with my mother, she would sometimes resort to the nuclear option, her tried-and-true conversation stopper.

Putting her hands on her hips and using the worst faux Southern accent imaginable, she’d say, “Well if you’re so damn smart, why aren’t you rich?”

I never knew how to respond to this. Of course, I was twelve at the time, and the deadbeats on my paper route kept margins low. Still, it ingrained in me the notion that the rich must have a little something extra going on upstairs; otherwise, we’d all be rolling in it. Right?

There is, in fact, some evidence to support this. According to a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau, there is a strong positive correlation between education and income. Over an adult’s working life, high school graduates should expect, on average, to earn $1.2 million; those with a bachelor’s degree, $2.1 million; those with a master’s degree, $2.5 million; those with doctoral degrees, $3.4 million; and those with professional degrees, $4.4 million.