Winter 2019
February 13, 2019
In The Geometry of Wealth: How to Shape a Life of Money and Meaning, author Brian Portnoy begins with a quote from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca, which is a tip-off that this is a different kind of money book. The quote itself, “Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it,” seems particularly timely today with markets gyrating and retirement accounts dwindling. Seneca might have urged us to stay calm and to think about stocks “going on sale” instead of markets plunging.
Portnoy ranges widely. He draws on ancient wisdom, especially Aristotle and the Stoics; modern behavioral economics, including Daniel Kahneman’s great book Thinking Fast and Slow; the giants of modern investing, including Charlie Munger and Jack Bogle; and an incredible range of others, from the Dalai Lama to Hunter S. Thompson. It’s a rollicking ride that’s somehow also deep and even philosophical.
Portnoy hangs his key ideas on a simple framework based on elementary geometric shapes: a circle for finding purpose, a triangle for identifying priorities, and a square for the tactics to employ to reach an ultimate goal. Portnoy calls that goal “funded contentment,” which he connects to Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, or being healthy, happy, and prosperous. It is eudaimonia, not the short-term jolt of pleasure that we might get, for example, from buying a new flat screen TV, that is true happiness.
A key theme in the book is the way Portnoy connects ideas of money management to true happiness. The goal should be to accumulate not riches but wealth, another term for funded contentment. Adequate financial resources, for example, can help us attain Portnoy’s four Cs: Connection, Competence, and Control, all embedded in a broader Context that gives meaning to our lives. Those four Cs are key to eudaimonia.
Even though Portnoy is philosophical at times, he also provides a great deal of down-to-earth advice on money basics, such as compound interest, cognitive biases that lead us to make bad decisions, dollar cost averaging, and lucky versus good decisions. His book is also an easy read—the style is breezy and there are lots of diagrams and tables that break up the text.