Table of Contents

Introduction

Yin and Yang of Personal Finance

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. – Dale Carnegie

Imagine for a moment that you are in a large room filled with financial planners. They are not like your Uncle Harry or Cousin Sally, who pride themselves on being financially savvy, periodically giving you hot stock tips and advice on managing your credit cards.  

No, these are professional planners, who devote 40-60 hours a week to clients willing and able to pay for advice on managing wealth and creating financial peace of mind. Many are professionally credentialed financial advisors.   

Walking around the room, casually listening to the chatter, you hope to pick up hot investment tips on the cheap. But you hear nothing of the sort, nothing about stocks poised to double in price, strategies for smart asset allocations, economic forecasts, or the latest rumors on Wall Street.  

To your surprise, these planners are sharing anecdotes that could be story lines for some TV soap opera. These are the real stories from the financial-planning trenches: personal anecdotes about the heart-wrenching issues their clients are facing, vignettes of human drama and frailty.  

As if a light were turned on, you are presented with firsthand confirmation that wealth solves some problems, but not all of them. In fact, it may create problems. At once, the devastating truth of the Midas touch parable becomes clear: a passionate and obsessive quest for gold may get you gold, but it exacts a too-high price – anguish, heartache, family decay, spiritual poverty.  

Welcome to the true workings of financial planning. 

A few years ago, we conducted a study with the support of the Financial Planning Association. ♪ We explored the changing role of financial planners, from one focusing exclusively on financial analytics and money management to one encompassing coaching and life planning.  

We obtained anonymous and confidential data from a sample of 1,384 financial planners. Seventy five percent of the sample were responsible for managing over $20 million of their clients’ financial assets.  The results of this study have been cited in professional journals, summarized at professional conferences, and incorporated into the financial-planning curricula at many colleges and universities.  

What we found supports the time-honored truism that personal wealth may come with unintended consequences. The only problem that money will assuredly and unequivocally solve is that of not having money. As Johnny Cash said, “Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world except money.”

Suicide, depression, addictions, divorce, family turmoil, terminal illness, chronic physical pain, emotional pain, the soul-searching quest for spirituality; this is a list of personal distress you would expect priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, therapists, and professional care givers to wrestle with – not financial planners. Yet our study found financial planners do confront these issues. After all, they are serving human beings who have human problems. 

Today, financial planners are challenged to listen to their clients with empathy before offering advice. And when the time comes to counsel, they must go beyond financial algorithms, computer simulations and economic forecasts. Our research shows that possessing quantitative skills – knowing the lay of the economic land – while necessary for serving clients, is not nearly enough to satisfy their human needs and desires.

Yin of Finance, Yang of Personal Fulfillment

This distinction between necessary and sufficient is the premise of our book. It is the logic underlying the yin-yang title of this introduction. Based on ancient Chinese philosophy, the yin and the yang connote the complementary, harmonious fusion of seemingly opposite forces. For example, consider these opposing yet complementary forces: activity and rest, sunrise and sunset, seasonal cycles, oriental martial arts, and yes, financial wealth coupled with psychological and physical health. 

The give and take between aggression and submission, active and passive, is the essence of the yin and the yang. Natural forces, according to this philosophy, are not in destructive conflict, but rather constructive growth, resulting in a harmonious whole. Our ability to experience peace and fulfillment is tempered by having lived through turmoil and loss. 

Do we need money to survive? Of course, we do. Will financial literacy, understanding the essence of financial management, increase our ability to cope in an increasingly complex world? Yes, it will. But is money all we need to feel fulfilled? Is it sufficient to meet our emotional and psychological needs? That question is answered in the proverb, “Money can’t buy happiness.”  

Financial planning thus requires a yin-yang blending of the necessary and sufficient, of the complementary needs, of the financial and soulful, to create a harmonious whole.    

And so, we have a powerful lens for viewing and reconciling the duality of acquiring financial wealth while seeking personal growth and fulfillment. Dale Carnegie’s penetrating insight, “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get,” is a testament to the quest for balancing the financial-personal fulfillment duality.  

Other writers have stressed the importance of achieving riches without filing for spiritual bankruptcy. They see the Midas touch as a parable that could have been written by Stephen King.  

The message of this book supports those writers, but it adds a distinctive, epiphany-inducing format. Financial wealth and personal fulfillment are not mutually exclusive. The quest for a healthy balance need not result in a zero-sum tragedy. A yin-yang harmony creates your total wealth, and that glorious fusion is not only possible, but required for defining the full richness of your life and for achieving your full potential. Our goal in this book is to help you achieve that potential.

Our Yin-Yang Format

You can acquire wealth without selling your soul. We help you achieve that goal by explaining basic financial concepts – the foundations of financial literacy – while framing those concepts in the context of balance, growth and personal fulfillment. To highlight the duality of financial well-being with psychological and spiritual well-being, we examine financial literacy juxtaposed with reflections on humanity.  

This book creates a bridge between money and fulfillment, one built on the foundation of moving from a false dichotomy of either/or to a fusion of and/also, from zero-sum to sum. In the pages that follow, you will see a complementary duality: the yin – definitions, examples and prescriptions for acquiring financial literacy – immediately followed by the yang – insights and recommendation for achieving personal fulfillment, conceptually linked to that financial literacy.  

Defining and providing examples of some of the yins required cross referencing with other yins.  When you see an underlined term, realize that it has its own dedicated yin.  Financial literacy incorporates multiple interrelated concepts.  Simple cross referencing helps you understand those relationships. We also included a Notes section at the back of the book, not because we are obsessive academics, but because a few of the yins called for an expanded example, or tips for further application.  A note (♪) at the end of a yin signifies additional discussion. You will find them helpful.

How to Read This Book

You have multiple options for reading and using this book.  The financial terms are presented in four chapters, but the sequence in which you read the terms is up to you.  We recommend beginning with the first term (Finance) and reading sequentially until you read the last term (Financial Wealth). We expect many will choose that option. But because the terms may be studied independently, you could scan the Table of Contents and pick and choose terms of greatest interest, terms representing issues that are most pressing or urgent, or even choose terms randomly.  

Regardless how you read this book we are convinced the definitions, examples, lessons, quotes, vignettes, and cross referencing will draw you in.  You will then have a different perspective of Your Total Wealth, regardless of your financial savvy or size of your portfolio. 

Finally, we ask you to open your mind, your heart and your soul to our message. Yes, some of the financial concepts might appear intimidating at first, especially if finance and numbers were never your thing. All of us feel intimidated and insecure when stepping out of our comfort zone. But soon, you will see how financial security and personal fulfillment are within your grasp.  

With your heart, mind, and soul open, you now begin a journey to increase your financial literacy. And because you will overcome intimidation and insecurity, you realize, in the words of Eric Hofer, “The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”

Sample Yin-Yang

Conclusion

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. – Henry David Thoreau

When you die, the final test of how you lived your life will not be the size of your financial portfolio. It will be the legacy you created while you lived – the innumerable decisions resulting in that priceless portfolio.

Your legacy will be the memories your family and friends will have for the rest of their lives, memories about you and your relationship with them.

Life is short, but legacies endure. We wish you wisdom and compassion in creating those memories and that legacy – a legacy that defines you as one who balanced financial wealth with heart and soul.