The Five Powers That Helped Build My Life
In July 2019 the Australian National University was kind enough to bestow on me the
What is so exciting about being alive in this era is the potential we all have to thrive.
The steady improvements in technology, affluence and personal freedom during the past 100 year, provide us the chance to lead authentic lives. To discover who we truly our and to make life’s important decisions according to this.
When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
My interest, and much of the work that I do in my commercial, personal and philanthropic life, is to bring this research to life. To help my clients, readers, the disadvantaged people I work with and last, but not least, my kids, understand it and apply it in their own lives.
Because from experience I believe that the benefits of doing so are significant and potentially life transforming. There are four key ideas that much of the material in this website relates to.
This website complements my book How Much is Enough, which my co-author Andrew Ford and I spent 5 years researching and writing. It has since had a second edition, an American edition, two Chinese editions and most recently a South African edition highlighting the universal aspiration to a life where we free ourselves to thrive.
It shares ideas and material, from the profound and academic to the amusing and insightful, but with a link to the theme of wellbeing. The financial commentary is not aimed at adding to the white noise that befuddles money markets, but at providing insight to help people to develop sensible, disciplined financial plans that improve their longer term wellbeing.
In a world that seems out of control, bedevilled by the prospect of climate change, economic stagnation, punctuated by crises and few great leaders, I gain a lot of comfort from the knowledge that much of my sense of wellbeing is in my own hands. And that there is a great pool of knowledge that can be tapped to help me in mastering my own mind and behaviour.
There is nothing prescriptive in my ideas or philosophy. There are many paths to wellbeing. My aim is, in the words of my friend, the Barefoot Investor, Scott Pape, to help you: Tread your own path.
And as a result, I hope, to live a thriving life, sharing some of your experiences and the wisdom that you gain with the community that follows this website.
In July 2019 the Australian National University was kind enough to bestow on me the
‘Counting and Cracking’ is a great play, which premiered at the 2019 Sydney Festival, with
My last conversation with my father was when he rang on a Sunday afternoon recently,
It takes less than 60 minutes to fly from Miami to go back to a world of 60 years
How well would Ed Sheeran go if he was playing in a city like Omaha,