About Actualize This

For a long time, we had a blueprint for life.

Work hard. Prosper. Buy a home. Raise a family. Retire comfortably.

Life satisfaction and happiness would follow as a matter of course.

Today, many people feel that the old formula is failing. Career paths are less predictable. Home ownership feels increasingly out of reach. Mid-life career changes are commonplace. Many people are questioning whether traditional ideas of success still lead to lives that feel fulfilling.

Yet money remains one of the most important influences on the decisions we make.

Actualize This explores the relationship between money, happiness, wellbeing and human flourishing. Drawing on ideas from psychology, philosophy, behavioral science and personal finance, it asks a simple question:

How should we think about money if the goal is not merely to accumulate wealth, but to live a happy, satisfying and flourishing life?

Why I Started Writing

I originally began exploring these ideas while thinking about my children and how they would develop their relationship with money.

What started as a search for practical financial guidance quickly expanded into a much broader question about life itself. The deeper I looked, the more I realised that the real question was not about money. It was about how we balance our relationship with money and our pursuit of happiness.

That journey led me into psychology, philosophy, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the study of human flourishing. It eventually became the foundation for both a book project and this publication.

Behind Actualize This

My professional background is in finance. I spent over a decade working for investment banks in London and Hong Kong in roles focused on analytical modelling, thought leadership and helping clients solve complex problems. I hold a Ph.D. in Finance.

In recent years, I found myself increasingly drawn to a different question. Not how to make better financial decisions in isolation, but how money relates to living a happy, satisfying and flourishing life.

What began as an attempt to think more deeply about how my own children would develop their relationship with money led me into psychology, philosophy, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the study of human flourishing.

Actualize This is where I explore those ideas and a question that has increasingly occupied me in recent years:

How do we use money as a tool to build happy, satisfying and flourishing lives?