Beyond Wealth by Alexander Green - Highly Recommend

Highly recommend Beyond Wealth: The Roadmap to a Rich Life, by Alexander Green, below are just some highlights that I took note of in my own reading, I'll be re-reading over and over again to be sure, incredible pieces with profound and deep insights about living your life and becoming the best version of yourself.

• Green - 25 years as an investment adviser, research analyst, and financial writer
• Believes that everyone should strive for some measure of financial freedom. "If you have money, you have power, in the best sense. Wealth is freedom, security, and peace of mind. It allows you to do and be what you want, to support worthy causes and help those closest to you. It enables you to follow your dreams, to spend your life the way you choose. Money gives you dignity, it gives you choices. That's why every man and woman has the right-perhaps even the obligation-to achieve some level of financial independence."
• True rich vs. "aspirationals."  The true rich/millionaires are wealthy from a total balance sheet perspective (assets and liabilities) - as Thomas Stanley illustrated in Millionaire Next Door, the vast majority live in a house that cost less than $400K, do not own a second home, have never owned a boat, are more likely to wear a Timex over a Rolex, do not collect wine and generally pay less than $15 a bottle, are more likely to drive a Toyota over a Beemer, have never paid more than $400 for a suit, and spend little on prestige/luxury brands. The prestige/luxury/status items are being consumed by the "aspirationals," those that act rich and want to be rich but really aren't rich!
• Passion in career. According to over 40 Gallup studies, 3/4 of us are disengaged from our jobs and the most recent U.S. Job Retention survey found that more than 60% of employees are currently searching for new employment opportunities. Voltaire argued that work exists to save us from 3 great evils: boredom, poverty, and vice. But, as a society, we have since put our believe in two great ideas: romantic love and meaningful work. Passion/work may be difficult to achieve, but work should give your life dignity and meaning. You should view your work as a context, a challenge, and an opportunity as opposed to purely in terms of responsibilities and obligations. Choosing meaningful employment often involves accepting a temporary pay cut. Staying in a current dead-end/meaningless job typically is drive out of fear. References Bill Gates who calls himself an "impatient optimist" - great term.
• Harvard study by Vaillant to try and define "a good life," and what is most important driver to happiness - determined that relationships to other people are paramount, human connections to parents, siblings, children, friends, neighbors, and celebrations. Education/stable marriage/healthy weight, etc., all are things we focus on, but "true success is more about US than ME."
• In managing money and in many other facets of life, success comes down to core principles. As Emerson said "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles." Principles are the wisdom of our species, they tell us what is valuable, they warn us what is not - there will always be arguments about doctrine, but there is little disagreement on core principles: Honesty, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, perseverance, justice, humility, charity, and gratitude. Wallace said that you must revere some timeless set of ethical principles, "Anything else you worship, will almost certainly eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough...worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay...worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out."  Cannot lead a life based on craving, on the worship of self, must cultivate relationships and focus on core principles to guide you.
• The search for happiness as an end in itself is a source of genuine unhappiness!  Happiness is a by-product, it is achieved indirectly by producing something beautiful or useful or by making someone else happy. The Stoics argued that happiness results not from pursing affluence and status but rather virtue and wisdom. Pythagoras argued that everyone should pose three questions to themselves before going to sleep at night: 1) What have I done?; 2) Where have I failed myself; and 3) What responsibility have I not fulfilled?
• In Zen and the Art of Making a Living (1992 - Boldt) writes: "Without self-expression, life lacks spontaneity and joy. Without service to others, it lacks meaning and purposes. Conceiving of ourselves as artists in whatever work we do gives us a metaphor for a life of integrity, service, enjoyment and excellence. I know of no better nutshell statement of the path to find one's true calling in life than the simple formula given by Aristotle: Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation. These two, your talents and the needs of the world, are the great wake-up calls to your true vocation in life. To ignore either is, in some sense, to lose your soul."
• Nielsen Company has showed that as Internet usage has gone up, TV viewing has either held steady or increased! We are a nation addicted to electronic media. BOOKS - including ebooks - require calm, focused, un-distracted concentration that allows ideas to germinate and take hold. Deep reading inspires new associations, insights, and the occasion epiphany. Thoughts expand, language grows, consciousness deepens.
• Keys to personal freedom - obsession with improving your circumstances leading to over-consumption: 1) Recognize that we are wired to feel dissatisfied with our circumstances - it's genetic and nurtured; 2) Understand the psychology of desire. We all tend to "miswant" - want things we don't really need and won't appreciate once we acquire them. Recollect how your last major purchase failed to do it for you and you're less likely to believe that this time will be any different; 3) Stop regarding life as an ongoing competition for social status. Opt out of the game - even if everyone else seems to be playing it - and you can't be controlled or disappointed by the opinions of others. Do  work you enjoy, even if it's lower paying. Spend your time and money collecting great memories rather than more stuff; 4) Instead of focusing on what you want, try appreciating what you already have. Nothing cures craving for the next bauble like the thought of losing your partner, your children, your health, and the things you already own. 
• Irvine in On Desire: Why We Want What We Want writes "a sense that we are lucky to be living whatever life we happen to be living - that despite our circumstances, no key ingredient of happiness is missing. With this sense comes a diminished level of anxiety, we no longer need to obsess over the things - a new car, a bigger house, a firmer abdomen - that we mistakenly believe will bring lasting happiness if only we can obtain them. Most importantly, if we master desire, to the extent possible to do so, we will no longer daydream about living the life someone else is living; instead we will embrace our own life and live it to the fullest."  The prison is self-imposed, the key is to make the conscious choice to turn our backs on the consumptive lifestyle and live simply, happily, and with dignity.
• As a Man Thinketh - recommended read - essential premise is that, even if you're unaware of it, your underlying beliefs shape your character, your health, your circumstances, and ultimately your destiny. Your thoughts create your reality, you literally are what you think! While you cannot always command the situation, you can always command yourself. Indeed, to a great extent, you create your world with your thoughts. Most personal achievements begin with an abiding faith that we can and will accomplish them. However, even realizing your goals will not lead to lasting satisfaction, that's because human wants are insatiable - most of us are trapped on what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill: we work to achieve what we desire, those things satisfy us for a while, but we soon adapt to them and dissatisfaction returns, so next time we set the bar a little higher, and so on. Dissatisfaction is not all bad, of course, desire can motivate us to achieve good things in our lives, but a continual sense of lack creates anxiety and undermines our satisfaction, peace of mind eludes us. One approach to overcoming this process and recapturing the contentment we seek is through negative visualization (developed by the Stoics) - spending time each day imaging that you have lost the things you value most - vividly imaging your job has been terminated, that your house - with all of your possessions - has burned to the ground, that your partner has left you, or that you have lost sight, your hearing or the use of your limbs. By contemplating the impermanence of everything in your world, you can invest all of your activities with more intensity, higher significance, and greater awareness. 
• Try to break out of being "uncurious" - get out of your comfort zone and actively seek to be interested in the world and everything and everyone in it - seek out new friends and novel experiences, pay attention to what's going on around you and why.
• On art - "Art is a quintessentially human activity. It separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Only humans have an aesthetic sense, a need for expression in words, music, painting, or sculpture, although no one really understands why. Artists with extraordinary skill probe the content of life and articulate strong emotions. They create a feeling of recognition and communion with others. It is more than just the sheer wonder of seeing something beautiful or new. A great artist stimulates our imagination. The action takes place in the theater of the human mind. Music is intelligible but untranslatable, the most abstract and sublime of all of the arts. It is the universal language of emotion, bypassing the intellect and tackling the heart directly, making music is one of the fundamental activities of mankind, as characteristically human as language or drawing. 
• Eat like a Zen master -Nhat Nanh, Buddhist Zen Master from Vietnam, argues that we must practice "mindful living and eating." You must turn your meal times into an art by: 1) Honor the food - unplug all of your daily distractions, take a moment to consider everything you are about to consume and be grateful for everything and everyone that contributed to it; 2) Engage all of your senses; 3) Serve modest portions; 4) Savor small bites; 5) Eat slowly; 6) Eat regular meals (2-3 hours; and 7) Eat a plant-based diet.
• If you are too busy/have no free time, what kind of affluence is that? Having money but no money to enjoy it is another form of poverty and lack of freedom.  Lin Yutang noted, "the wise man is not hurried and the hurried man is not wise." Slowing down enhances your sense of gratitude, improves your mental and physical health, allows you to gain control of your life, lets you appreciate beauty, and enables you to reconnect with those around you. Sometimes the best way to spend a day is savoring what you've got before it's gone. Idleness leads to contemplation, creativity, and inventiveness. 
• Tolstoy felt that his life was meaningless. No matter what he achieved, he asked himself, "What is it for? What does it lead to." He came up with another of thoughts on living life - in summary "the more upset you are with other people and circumstances, and the more satisfied you are with yourself, the further you are from wisdom." 
• Has enumerate other examples from people that inspire him and hobbies that have driven to fulfillment (jazz, wine collection, etc.)
• Defining spirituality - such a a broad term, but believes it has several common areas of understanding: 1) You recognize the eternal mystery; 2) You have a genuine sense of awe; 3) You appreciate the sacredness of life; 4) You are profoundly grateful for your life; 5) You have a well-developed ethical sense; 6) You strive for higher consciousness and wisdom; 7) You seek a life of meaning.  Overall, "We may not be able to define it. But we know it when we see it."