“The second best predictor of the feelings of a day is whether a person did or did not have contact with friends or relatives. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that happiness is the experience of spending time with people you love and who love you.”
– Daniel Kahneman
Did you know dentistry is one of the world’s oldest professions and, by extension, dentophobia one of the world’s oldest fears? One study found evidence of teeth being drilled about 7,500 years ago. Another discovered a 14,000-year-old skull and found that “one rotten tooth in the jaw had been deliberately scoured and scraped with a tool.”
This email is made possible by Masterworks, an app that lets you invest in artwork like Picasso and Monet for a return that regularly outclocks real estate and the stock market.
– Mike & Alec
Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?
First question for $100: How many divorces have the ten richest men in the world gone through combined?
- 3
- 7
- 9
- 12
“D” stands for Dodo Bird.
It’s also the correct answer.
As Ben Carlson points out in his article, Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?, “Elon Musk has been divorced three times. Jeff Bezos is divorced. So in Bernard Arnault. And Bill Gates. And Sergey Brin. Warren Buffett split from his wife in an unusual arrangement where she left him and he took on a new partner. Larry Ellison has been divorced four times. The 10 richest men in the world have a combined 12 divorces between them.”
That divorce rate is notably higher than among average folk.
Maybe being mega-wealthy, despite our obsession with net worth, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Carlson writes, “Even billions of dollars can’t buy you more stable relationships. In fact, the opposite is probably true. More money and success likely make it harder to have healthy relationships because there is always more work to do and wealth to build.”
Steve Jobs — although certainly not free of flaws — once explained the differences he saw in those who became ultra-wealthy through Apple…
I watched people at Apple who made a lot of money and felt they had to live differently. Some of them bought a Rolls-Royce and various houses, each with a house manager and then someone to manage the house managers. Their wives got plastic surgery and turned into these bizarre people. This was not how I wanted to live. It’s crazy. I made a promise to myself that I’m not going to let this money ruin my life.
And yet, the downsides of wealth — as well as, just as importantly, the upsides of HAVING ENOUGH — seem to have been lost on the vast majority of us.
60% of Americans say they would like to be billionaires someday and a whopping 40% said they believe they have the tools to do so.
What we forget is that wealth itself has a cost.
Most importantly, our time and our focus.
The ultra-wealthy don’t just become ultra-wealthy (usually), they work for it at a pace which normal people reasonably don’t want to sustain.
In response to people’s obsession with him and other billionaires, Elon Musk has famously said, “I’m not sure how many people would actually like to be me. They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same thing as actually being me. The amount that I torture myself is next level, frankly.”
Grant Cardone once said, “Most people work 9-to-5. I work 95 hours [per week]. If you ever want to be a millionaire, you need to stop doing the 9-to-5 and start doing 95.”
That’s 14 hours per day.
Of course, some people do find immense meaning and happiness working all the time — but only because they’re working on something meaningful to them.
That’s the key, isn’t it?
Work for work’s sake, beyond a certain point, won’t satisfy.
Consider, for instance, that 90% of people are willing to earn less money if they can do more meaningful work.
This begs the question…
If true wealth isn’t represented by the number of commas in a person’s bank account, what is it really?
Carlson sums it up:
True wealth is about having healthy relationships.
True wealth means not chasing status just to impress other people.
True wealth is about finding some balance in your life between work and family.
True wealth means not obsessing over money all the time.
True wealth is about having more time to do what you want with your life, not doing stuff you feel like you have to do.
True wealth means knowing how much is enough for you.
Wi-Fi + 7 Minutes + a Pulse = Profit?
Beeeeeep! What’s that sound? It’s your portfolio flatlining from an imploding stock market, crypto meltdown, and the worst inflation since Saturday Night Fever. How can you shock it back to life? (Note: This has nothing to do with bell bottoms.)
Try an asset that the ultra-wealthy have used to boost their gains for centuries: blue-chip art, which has outpaced the S&P by a whopping 164% over the last 25 years.
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Nope, you just need Masterworks – the 575,00+ user investment platform where you can invest in shares of multi-million dollar art. Since launching, they’ve delivered a groovy 29% average net realized return. Results like those will make you want to start singing “Stayin’ Alive.”
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Image of The Week
This Week’s Riddle
Here’s this week’s riddle — the answer is at the bottom of the email!
A container without hinges, lock or a key, yet a golden treasure lies inside me. What am I?
This Week’s Journaling Prompt
Take some time to think through the following journaling prompt.
When is enough enough? How can you strike a balance between striving for more and being content with what you have?
This Week’s Challenge
Spend money to do something fun this week. Not every dollar needs to be spent on assets. We should also use our money to do things we enjoy. Make some memories and go out to a nice dinner with someone you love, book a skydiving trip, take some sailing lessons, or something else that sounds fun.
Riddle Answer: An egg.