My truth about wealth and well-being

Years before the launch of AegleWealth, I stumbled on a book entitled “WELLBEING: The Five Essential Elements,”co-authored by Tom Rath and Jim Harter and originally released in 2010. They explore concepts that have contributed to the development of Gallup’s Wellbeing Finder. If you order the book, you can access a code that allows you to take their assessment.

Why did well-being matter to me? Like many people, I spent the first several decades out of college focusing on career and financial performance. I assumed that career progression and earning more would automatically enhance my well-being. Who else picked up this message from their parents? After decades on that track, I landed where my career and financial well-being appeared to be firing on all cylinders, yet something felt off. I had achieved success by many metrics, but it didn’t feel sustainable or healthy.

I began to understand that well-being is about more than money, and it was time to deep-dive and figure out why. I was told by a successful financier that “it’s about making money,” so I knew that the industry, over time, cultivated and ingrained this view; it’s a culture within finance.

I began questioning the limitations in how I was working, the industry within which I was working and with whom I was working. I intuited that my values weren’t aligned with the people around me and this misalignment created tension that couldn’t be resolved. Haven’t we all experienced the futility of expecting change from people who don’t want to?

Equally significant, I felt a personal and professional mission emerging that could not be pursued or realized in my environment at that time. As you make more and more money, it can be easy to a) brush off when you identify values misalignment and b) make compromises for financial security (rationalize why it’s got to be this way). It’s reasonable to debate if I experienced a midlife crisis or a midlife awakening.

Professionally, I saw that adding zeroes to your balance sheet and investment accounts never ensures happiness or well-being. There was evidence that second homes, planes, yachts, owning companies and “winning” in life aren’t always aligned with physical health, happy marriages, great relationships and a sense of contentment. The financial industry, for good reason, becomes overly focused on financial metrics and tactics; the harder job is assessing the qualitative facets that impact finances and well-being.

Additionally, as I held various leadership roles, I saw there was more work to be done related to corporate leaders fostering well-being in the workplace. It’s easy to say the company believes in “culture,” but creating policies and practices that actively support well-being and foster that healthy, vibrant culture is much harder.

Why did I feel it was important to start exploring this other realm outside the fundamentals of finance? My undergraduate studies were centered on anthropology and pre-med, yet somehow, I landed a career in business and finance. I’m wired to look at concepts across disciplines, at intersections and consider interdependent relationships. This thinking was why I started AegleWealth, to secure the freedom to explore the interdependent facets of wealth and well-being personally, professionally and by extension with my family, my clients, my friends and my community.

Roth and Harter state the five critical facets of well-being include: career well-being, social well-being, financial well-being, physical well-being and community well-being. Achieving high performance in a few of these areas but experiencing a deficiency in others can hurt your overall well-being. Ex., you can hold an executive role and make a lot of money but at the detriment of your health and relationships. Or, you can struggle financially and experience stress which hurts your health and affects the people dependent on you.

This is about more than “finding balance”. It’s a complex process that includes many trade-offs, decision-points and opportunities to shift areas of focus and re-assess priorities. When we think about managing our money and making investment decisions, “it depends” is a frustrating answer for anyone seeking fast solutions. It may take many decades of life experience to realize that fast solutions aren’t always optimal or lasting. It’s what make my work so interesting, dynamic, ever-changing.

I haven’t said a lot of about this book, but don’t despair. I have more to say about it in future blogs. If you’re a person who loves asking questions and is willing to entertain the idea that performance is about more than making money, please join my newsletter/blog. If we learn to do this well, we will power our well-being and wealth-building in a long-term, sustainable way.