What this book is about
Summary, synopsis, and bribery
It's a book about how to use the power of money for good in your life, be it spending, saving, investing, owning, thinking, or being with it.
Money Blind is all the lessons I – a long-time student of philosophy and former financial psychologist to the always rich and sometimes famous – have learned about what works, and what doesn’t, when it comes to living one’s unique version of a good, flourishing, flowing, life.
What leads some to fulfil their potential, while others get sucked into a Hellish abyss? What role does money play along the way? Why do we so easily succumb to our brain’s wiring, and society’s set-up to (to paraphrase Fitzgerald) phantom chases after our own dreams shadows?
Why do platitudinal memes about there being more to life than money vastly outnumber humans that act as if they believe them? And why are those in the best position to help us do something about this so strongly incentivised to get us to shield our eyes from the monsters and double-down on the dumbness?
From my privileged position of being inside the heads of the few that have what the many think they want, and drawing on the work of the wisest folk from the last few thousand years of eastern and western philosophy, clinical and behavioural psychology, neuroscience, economics, and classic literature, I know there’s a better way to think about it. And there’s no need to splash out on an expensive guide dog when you have the confidence to safely take your hands off your eyes.
- Having a better relationship with money.
- Getting your financial life sorted, sustainably, and with effortless effort.
- Ensuring money is a source of comfort and confidence, not anxiety.
- Freeing up time spent thinking about, and managing, money – how to manage your money (even if it's millions) in minutes per year.
- Spending in a way that makes life better, not just more expensive.
- Access to an insider's-eye-view deconstruction of those using money to live well and those in danger of doing the total opposite.
- Reaping the rewards of investing without needing to learn anything complicated.
- Telling is-good advice from looks-good advice.
- Understanding why even those that say the right things still do the wrong ones and how they encourage you to blindly follow suit.
- Divining the relevant investment knowledge for you, without being deceived by the veil of complexity designed to keep you scared, confused, and in the dark.
- Knowing how to see if you're being ripped off by investment managers (spoiler alert: you probably are)...
- ...and what to do about it (potentially giving you back more money each and every year than you spend, without needing to magic up additional investment returns).
- Knowing how to begin investing like a non-idiot.Synopsis
Money Blind isn’t all that like anything else out there. If it were, I wouldn’t have bothered writing it.
That’s not to say the philosophy, or the neuroscience, or any of the other underlying lessons are thrillingly novel. The quantity (and in many cases ancient nature) of the references point to that. But to the world’s detriment, the bridge between these disciplines and their practical application to how each of our lives is shaped (usually calamitously) by money has never been properly built. For the traditionally sales-focused world of financial advice had no idea either how to build it, or to deal with the consequences for their careers.
For investment advice to be any good, it needs to begin in the brain, not the bank. It needs Socrates, not sales scripts. And wisdom, not wishful thinking.
An overview of how we’re prone to not making the most of money in our lives (including how when we think it’s helping us it’s actually harming us).
A framework for seeing more clearly, thinking more easily, avoiding distortions, and overcoming self-deceptions, that draws on neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, economics, a dash of spirituality, and practical financial-advisory experience.
What other investment books get wrong.
Why living a Good Life is interwoven with having a better relationship with money, and why that relies on a sound philosophical grounding, an appreciation of the four types of knowing, and an application of them in a practically wise way.
Why the only way lasting changes can be made is to rewire your brain (and how to do that most effectively).
How the way your brain is wired and society is set-up create are at the root of all money problems, and how those in the best position to help are incentivised to keep it that way.
Why your money problems are not money problems, but mindset problems, and therefore why the solution to those problems is philosophy, not more money.
How getting unstuck with financial matters, and ultimately living well and fulfilling our potential lies in taking control of your cash, rather than letting it take control of you, and aligning the story our money tells about us with the story our soul most wants to be heard.
Why this has nothing to do with numbers.
How the investment world works.
How to see past the distorting veil the industry casts over itself in order to sell you shit and keep you scared enough to trust them to sell you more.
How to tell if an investment is the right one for you.
How to get help that’s actually helpful.
Why (almost) all investment advisers are crooks or idiots, and how this has been allowed to endure so easily.
The sort of advice you really want, and how to find it (or do it yourself if you can’t).
What the future of financial advice (should) look like.
Becoming a financial philosopher (and why you’d want to, and why it’s not as hard as it sounds).