The Secret of Shelter Island

As I write, jobless claims are at a 27-year high. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low. Credit is tight. Business investment and personal spending have plunged. Housing is in a death spiral. The U.S. auto industry is on the verge of collapse. And the stock market just experienced its worst year since 1931.

Welcome to The Great Recession.

There’s nothing funny, of course, about losing your job, getting evicted, or watching your net worth plummet. Economic downturns bring pain and suffering. There will be plenty of belt-tightening—and sober reflection—in the months ahead.

But to the extent recessions shake up the status quo and force us to examine our goals and priorities, they also offer enormous opportunities.

This book is meant to aid in that process. The Secret of Shelter Island is partly about money. But it is also about putting it—and the rest of your life—in perspective.

There has rarely been a better time to do so. We are experiencing a financial slump unlike any in modern times. Virtually every investor has seen his net worth get a serious haircut.

How did we get here? There is plenty of blame to go around, starting with reckless lenders, overly ambitious borrowers, unethical CEOs, feckless investors, and shortsighted policy makers.

Too many were chasing the fast buck, took momentary leave of their senses, or abandoned their basic values. This is especially true on Wall Street. Vanguard Founder John Bogle hits the nail on the head in his book Enough:

“Not knowing what enough is subverts our professional values. It makes salespersons of those who should be fiduciaries of the investments entrusted to them. It turns a system that should be built on trust into one with counting as its foundation. Worse, this confusion about enough leads us astray in our larger lives. We chase the false rabbits of success; we too often bow down at the altar of the transitory and finally meaningless and fail to cherish what is beyond calculation, indeed eternal.”

In many ways, enough is a central message of this book. Even during this historic downturn, most Americans have ample material wealth. (Covering our basic needs just doesn’t take that much.) But how about the immaterial?

What is your animating purpose? How are you spending your time? What are you living for?

Many of us—perhaps especially those with a newfound hole in their retirement account, financial plan, or tuition fund—are reap-praising these questions now.

This book may help you see—or consider—things differently. It consists primarily of essays I wrote for Spiritual Wealth, a weekly e-letter that seeks “The Road Map to a Rich Life.” If you’re a new reader, welcome. If you’re a regular reader, welcome back.

The Secret of Shelter Island is arranged around four central themes: A Rich Mind, What Matters Most, Attitudes and Gratitude, and The Search for Meaning. My objective here is to share some insights about “the big questions”—and perhaps provide a bit of inspiration, something we could all use in a world that bombards us with sad and tragic news.

If you’re like me, you’re tired of hearing about wild-eyed terrorists, drug-addled celebrities, ethically challenged businessmen and crooked politicians. The national media delivers a daily dose of heartbreak, misery, and cynicism. Much of what we watch and read each day is depressing, even rattling.

I wrote these essays as an antidote. They consist solely of ideas I’ve found particularly inspiring, elevating, or ennobling.

Over the last thirty years, I’ve spent a great deal of time studying history, philosophy, psychology, science and religion, saving and highlighting virtually everything I read. This project gave me the opportunity to revisit those classic works and cite some of the best minds and ideas of all time.

You’ll notice that these pages lean heavily on quotes and sources from antiquity. Why? When it comes to wisdom about how to live your life, the best ideas are not new. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.”

Second, authoritative historical sources give more heft to anyone’s point of view. I’ve found you don’t get much opposition to ideas attributed to Cicero, Aristotle, or Epictetus. (Who really wants to argue with Marcus Aurelius?)

Judging by my mailbag, there is a great thirst out there for this kind of knowledge. Writers are always hearing from their readers, of course. But even in the glory days of the last bull market—or the depths of the previous bear—I never received an avalanche like this.

Readers told me these essays inspired them, motivated them, caused them to end a bad relationship, start a new career, forgive an old grudge, or spend a moment appreciating their incredible good fortune, whatever their current financial status.

They sent me books, poems, photographs, speaking invitations, and handwritten letters, some several pages long.

I was overwhelmed with the response. Not just emotionally, but physically. My publisher estimates that we received over 10,000 emails from readers in the first few months alone. It was simply not possible to respond to them all. Especially since, except for a copy editor who gives my columns the once-over for grammatical and typographical errors, I had no real staff for this project. My primary occupation is logging several thousand words of investment commentary each week. Spiritual Wealth is just a sideline, one that my publisher likes to remind me has never produced a penny of revenue.

Still, I enjoyed researching and writing these pieces—and learned a lot in the process. Now I’m pleased to share them with you.

And I think the moment is right. Given recent events, this is a particularly opportune time to consider the innate connection between money, values, and the pursuit of the good life.