Image courtesy of Zetong Li
Rethinking Success in a Changing World
Welcome to Actualize This!
In recent years, I have become preoccupied with a question about money that I couldn’t seem to answer.
The fact that I could not answer it made no sense to me. My background is in finance, and I spent much of my career working in banking and financial markets, helping clients think through important decisions and complicated problems. As a parent, I assumed that if there was one area of life where I ought to have something useful to teach my children, it would be money.
But when I started asking the question what I wanted them to understand about money, how they should build their own relationship with money, I ran into an unexpected problem. The more I reflected on the subject, the less convinced I became myself that money was really the thing I was trying to understand.
Of course, money matters. It affects where we live, what opportunities are available to us, how secure we feel, and many of the choices we can make throughout our lives. Yet when I looked back on my own life, and when I looked around at the lives of others, I noticed something that didn’t quite fit with the conventional wisdom.
Some people seemed to have very little money and yet lived deeply satisfying lives.
Others appeared to have achieved financial success and still felt uncertain, unfulfilled, or money became the cause of their downfall.
That observation sent me down a path of personal discovery that I had not anticipated.
What began as a question about personal finance gradually expanded into an exploration of happiness, well-being, purpose, human flourishing, and ultimately the question of what it means to live a successful life. Over the last few years, that journey led me through psychology, philosophy, behavioral science, well-being research. I’ve been down more rabbit holes that I care to remember and have dived headfirst into a multitude of books and academic papers. The journey and what I learned along the way eventually gave me the foundation of a book project that I am currently working on.
This publication is a place to share that journey, explore those ideas, and continue searching for better answers.
The Question That Started It All
Many of us inherited a relatively clear blueprint for life.
Study hard.
Get a good job.
Build a career.
Buy a home.
Raise a family.
Save for retirement.
If we followed the plan and worked hard at our daily grind, prosperity, happiness, and life satisfaction were supposed to follow.
For a long time, that blueprint worked reasonably well for the many.
Today, however, things feel rather different.
Housing has become less affordable. Careers paths less predictable. Student debt burdens are larger. Retirement feels less certain and even for some an attainable goal. Family and relationship structures are changing. Many of us feel anxious not only about our financial futures, but also about what we should be aiming for in our lives.
At the same time, people who are financially comfortable are questioning whether the old blueprint is delivering the life satisfaction they expected. Others are struggling simply to stay afloat and wondering whether they will ever get the opportunity to build the life they want.
These groups may seem quite different, but they often end up facing the same questions.
What does success in life actually mean?
What should I prioritize?
What makes a life satisfying?
How important is money?
And if money is important, where does it fit among everything else that matters?
These are the questions that inspired Actualize This!.
Redefining the Blueprint
At its heart, this publication explores a simple question:
How do we make the most of our lives in a world where the old definitions of success no longer feel relevant?
To investigate that question, we’ll draw on ideas from:
Psychology
Philosophy
Behavioral science
Well-being research
Personal finance
Economics
History
Personal experience
As the name implies, this publication has been inspired by Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, ideas about human flourishing stretching back to Aristotle, and modern psychological research into well-being. Together, they offer fascinating perspectives on what makes a life go well and where money fits into the picture.
One of the ideas I keep returning to is that we struggle to identify how to separate money from happiness.
Money clearly matters. A lack of economic resources can create stress, insecurity, discomfort, and genuine hardship. Financial stability improves our lives in profound ways. But the more I explored ideas surrounding well-being, the more convinced I became that money plays different roles in different aspects of a good life.
Money can certainly buy comfort.
Money can buy experiences.
Money can buy convenience.
Money can often buy pleasure.
What it cannot reliably buy is a flourishing life.
The distinction between those two ideas is one of the central themes that I hope to explore here.
Who This Conversation Is For
This publication is for anyone trying to make sense of how to live well.
Some readers may be financially comfortable and wondering why success feels less satisfying than they expected.
Others may be dealing with rising living costs, career uncertainty, debt, family pressures, or simply trying to get ahead.
Some may be at the beginning of their careers.
Others may be considering a career change, preparing for retirement, raising children, or rebuilding after a setback.
The common thread is curiosity, not wealth, age, profession, or circumstance.
A curiosity to consider more deeply questions such as:
What is a good life?
How should we define success?
What should we optimize for?
How should we think about money?
What role do relationships, learning, health, purpose, and meaning play?
What investments in ourselves are likely to pay the greatest dividends over a lifetime?
I am particularly interested explore the idea that flourishing is not only available to those who are financially stable.
The ability to learn, develop skills, cultivate relationships, pursue meaningful goals, help others, exercise creativity, and grow as a person is not reserved for those at the top of the wealth distribution.
Economic resources matter, but human flourishing appears to have deeper foundations than wealth alone.
That is a hopeful idea. It suggests that while financial success can enhance our lives, it does not monopolize the paths to living well.
What You’ll Find Here
Initially, I’ll be publishing essays that explore ideas from the book and the research behind it.
Topics will include:
Money and happiness
The psychology of well-being
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Flourishing and eudaimonia
Work, purpose, and meaning
Career decisions and life transitions
Raising children and developing life skills
Personal finance and life satisfaction
Practical ways to think about better life decisions
My aim is to publish one or two posts each week.
Free subscribers will receive:
Regular posts
Book development updates
Selected excerpts from the manuscript
Reflections on new research and ideas
I don’t have a plan to produce future paid subscriber benefits, but it that turns out to be the case then you can expect:
Early access to book chapters
Extended essays and research notes
Subscriber discussions and Q&A sessions
So, if you have got this far into the post, please subscribe!
A Different Kind of Investment
We spend a large amount of our lives thinking about money.
We worry about earning it, saving it, investing it, passing it down to our heirs, and making sure we have enough of it. Those concerns are entirely rational. Money affects almost every aspect of our lives.
Yet there is another question that receives far less attention.
Once our basic needs are reasonably met, what should we do with the lives that money helps us create?
That question ultimately led me away from a narrow interest in money and towards psychology, philosophy, well-being, and the study of what it means to flourish as a human being.
It also led me to start writing a book.
And now it has led me here.
I hope you’ll join me as we explore the question together.
Welcome to Actualize This!