This Is Why More Wealth Won't Guarantee Happiness

Editor’s note: This is the first article in a five-part series in which Feroz Ansari is highlighting ideas from his book, The Wisdom and Wealth Solution. Feroz, CFP®, is a portfolio manager at Compak Asset Management and an adjunct professor at the University of California-Irvine. (The Wisdom and Wealth Solution is published by Kiplinger Books and is a national bestseller*.)

What if I told you that many of your most important life choices weren’t entirely your own?

The career you chose. The amount of money you think you need. Your political and religious beliefs. Your definition of success. Even what you believe will make you happy.

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We naturally assume these choices are ours. But what if they have been shaped over decades by forces you never stopped to question?

I call it the “concrete box.”

Until you recognize that you were born inside a concrete box, and that you may still be living inside it, it can remain one of the greatest obstacles to building what I call “total wealth” — a life of meaning, fulfillment, authentic happiness and financial security.

For more than a decade, I have begun every graduate wealth management class that I teach at the University of California, Irvine with the same question:

“Imagine you are 60 years old. Someone offers you one final choice. You can receive $20 million in cash or a Nobel Prize. Which do you choose?”

Year after year, more than 95% of my students choose the money.

When I first began asking the question, their answer surprised me. Today it no longer does.

The question is not really about $20 million or a Nobel Prize. It reveals something much deeper. It forces us to examine the assumptions we carry about success, happiness and what makes a life worth living.

Somewhere along the way, many of us began believing that if we accumulated enough money, happiness, security and meaning would naturally follow.

After more than 25 years helping families build financial security and studying the relationship between wealth and human flourishing, I have come to believe that money is essential. But it is only half the answer.

The other half is much harder to recognize because it exists inside the invisible box through which each of us experiences the world.

The box you never chose

None of us chooses where we are born. We don’t choose our parents, the genetics encoded in our DNA, our first language, our religion, our culture, our early education or the economic circumstances into which we arrive.

Long before we make our own decisions, these forces begin shaping how we think, what we value, what we fear and what we believe success should look like.

Consider a simple thought experiment. If you had been born to different parents in another country, speaking another language and immersed in another culture, would you hold the same beliefs you hold today?

Almost certainly not.

That realization is both humbling and liberating. It reminds us that many of our deepest convictions are not conclusions we arrived at independently. They are inheritances from the box.

Over time, those inheritances become so familiar that we stop recognizing them as influences. We no longer say, “This is how I was taught to think.” Instead, we quietly assume, “This is reality. This is truth. This is simply how the world works.”

Those assumptions, masquerading as unquestioned truths, form the concrete box.

The box is not your enemy. It gives you identity, belonging and community. It provides stability and helps answer many of life’s earliest questions. But it also creates invisible boundaries around your thinking.

Like a fish that never notices the water surrounding it, most of us never realize that we are viewing life through walls we did not build.

Comfortable prisons rarely look like prisons.

Why it matters more than your portfolio

Traditional financial planning asks important questions. How much should I save? How should I invest? Will I have enough for retirement?

Those are essential questions. But over the years, I have become convinced that an even more important question comes first.

Who is making those decisions — and why?

Financial decisions are rarely driven by mathematics alone. They are deeply personal.

Two investors can own exactly the same portfolio. One watches the market every hour, convinced that disaster is always around the corner. The other pays little attention to daily headlines because experience has taught them that discipline, patience and time matter more than today’s market commentary.

Although both investors own the same assets and experience the same market, they live in completely different emotional worlds.

Or consider buying a home. For one family it represents security. For another it symbolizes success — the large house with the pool and white picket fence becomes proof that they have finally “made it.”

The transaction may look identical. The motivation rarely is.

That motivation often resides deep inside the concrete box.

We’ve been measuring wealth with only half the equation

Early in my career, I believed my primary responsibility was to help clients and students become wealthier. I still believe disciplined saving, intelligent investing and thoughtful planning are essential. It is difficult to experience peace of mind when financial stress dominates your thinking, and it is difficult to cultivate deep relationships when you are constantly worried about paying next month’s bills.

Yet after working with families whose wealth ranged from almost nothing to many millions of dollars, I noticed something I could no longer ignore. Some of the happiest people I knew were not the wealthiest. Some of the wealthiest were not particularly happy.

That observation forced me to rethink what wealth really means.

Total wealth has two dimensions:

Total wealth = wisdom wealth + financial wealth

Financial wealth provides freedom and opportunity. “Wisdom wealth” provides perspective and direction.

Money can buy choices.

It cannot tell us which choices are worth making.

Building windows

The good news is that you do not have to destroy your concrete box. You cannot. Your history, your culture and your life experiences will always remain part of who you are.

What you can do is begin creating windows.

Every meaningful conversation with someone who sees the world differently allows more light into the room.

Every great book challenges an assumption you once accepted without question.

Every country you visit broadens your perspective.

Every difficult question you ask yourself weakens the concrete just a little more.

One window may not change your life. But enough windows eventually become a door. For the first time, you begin choosing your beliefs instead of simply inheriting them. You stop asking, “What does everyone expect from me?” and begin asking, “What kind of life is truly worth living?”

The most important investment you’ll ever make

We devote enormous energy to improving our portfolios. We rebalance our investments, search for higher returns and look for tax efficiencies. Yet we rarely devote the same effort to improving the perspective of the person making those decisions.

A better investment strategy can improve your returns.

A better perspective can improve your life.

Before you adjust your asset allocation, examine the assumptions that shape your financial decisions

Before you purchase another investment property, ask yourself what you are truly chasing

Before you devote more energy to increasing your financial net worth, make sure you are also building a life anchored by purpose, gratitude and meaningful relationships.

Your portfolio will influence how much wealth you accumulate.

Your concrete box will influence what that wealth ultimately means.

So let me leave you with one final question.

Which decision you made this year was truly yours, and which one did your concrete box quietly make for you?

The moment you begin to recognize the walls surrounding your thinking, they become less permanent. You begin to question assumptions that once felt unquestionable. You become curious instead of certain. That curiosity creates windows. Those windows eventually become a door.