This book is all about the long-term, positive consequences that can result from setting aside old habits and beliefs. Specifically, this book deals with our habits when it comes to the most frequent of all human activities, the act of spending. It also deals with our habit of thinking when it comes to wealth. Rather than viewing wealth in mere financial terms, readers of this book will be able to realize the significance of wealths beyond money. When we set aside those habits long enough, we will discover the enormous, lasting benefits that result.

Our impulsive habits and biases about spending are in the news nearly every day. The recent cryprocurrency fiasco is a case in point. Many spent millions on an idea that felt good without stopping to consider its intrinsic or long-term value. They experienced a range of all-too-human impulses, from the fear of missing out to over-reliance on gut feelings or the opinions of supposed experts. Even when the sad realities of cryptocurrency exchanges became apparent, many held on or continued to spend, succumbing to the infamous “sunk cost” fallacy.

The concepts in this book will not be new to many readers. However, familiarity doesn’t guarantee that we’ll automatically put them into practice. This is especially true when it comes to how we deal with our spending practices and habits. The examples used in each chapter, and the practical exercises at the end, are all designed to help make Socrates’s principle a reality in your life.

This book is about us, normal human beings. It is about our human spending behavior. Specifically, it’s about our reasons and motivations for doing the things we do, normally, and the positive or negative consequences to our personal wealth.

With this book we hope to expand your understanding of the cause-and-effect relationship between spending and wealths beyond money. This will equip you with the tools and the motivation to adjust your spending behavior in ways that enhance your quality of life.

To understand this, here are some basic definitions:

Wealth is not limited to money. It is defined as an abundance of something of value. We can have many “wealths” (plural) in addition to, or even instead of, monetary wealth. For example, a person could have a wealth of integrity, of friendships, of great memories, and scores of other valuable things. Because wealth is both financial and non-financial, with so many positive forms, it is correct to conclude that the pursuit of wealths is a noble one. Achieving multiple wealths is a worthy human endeavor.

Spending, the other key aspect of this book, is defined as the exchange of one thing of perceived value for another thing of equal or greater perceived value. This requires an ability to consider whether our perception of value results from having a need or a want, and how that influences our motivation to spend. In other words, what motivates us to spend our time, our energy, our knowledge, or our financial assets—money—to meet that need or want?

Normal is a recurring theme throughout the book. It is quite simply a description of our common human condition, the way we think and act in every day life—sometimes with thoughtful deliberation but more often on a kind of “auto pilot” that all humans possess.

This book draws heavily on decades of scientific research in the areas of brain function and the psychology of thinking—or metacognition. The science-based findings of Princeton psychology professor and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman are cited throughout the book as examples of common biases and “shortcuts” we naturally take, and how some people are able—and motivated—to achieve greater decision-making skills, with better results than those achieved by most normal people.

When applied to the topics of spending and wealths beyond money, Kahneman’s principles will prove invaluable. “Behavioral finance” is a term widely accepted among professional economists and financial professionals but less understood by ordinary people. The aim of this book is to demystify these principles and to equip mere mortals like us to become normal PLUS. As we do so, we will be better able to make the practical spending decisions necessary to realize multiple wealths that will increase in value over the long term.

Author’s Note

When I first wrote this book, my original purpose was to broaden people’s understanding of how our personal, “normal” behavior affects how we spend—and how that spending ultimately affects our many forms of wealth. That is still true. Our spending and investing behavior plays a significant role in determining the outcome—the consequences—of our decisions and actions. But as the book has reached more people, its purpose has evolved.

This book now aims to spark a more personal realization: every decision to spend—whether it involves money, time, energy, attention, or emotion—is a unique moment of investment. Every such moment, however small, helps shape not only our financial future, but the quality of our lives, our relationships, our health and peace of mind, and perhaps most importantly, our legacy.

This expanded view asks something more of us: to look at life’s choices not simply as events or transactions, but as transformations. It requires a deeper look at not only who we are, but also why we are. What led us to become ourselves. What motivated us in the past, and what motivates us today to be who we hope to become. What new knowledge and revised motivations will keep us focused on becoming our better selves?

Pause long enough to recall the words from the popular Broadway musical, South Pacific…

“we’ve got to be taught before it’s too late; before we are six or seven or eight: to hate all the people our relatives hate, we’ve got to be carefully taught.”

Remember also the famous quote from Mark Twain.

“It isn’t what we don’t know that gets us in trouble; it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”

And as Einstein is quoted as having said, “we won’t solve today’s problems with the same brain that created them.”

Socrates himself would have us put aside all the things we think we know for sure, and embark on a journey to discover new, better, and wiser things about ourselves. Our personal watermark will be the multiple wealths we create for ourselves and others. For indeed, there are many wealths beyond money.