A Wealth of Well-Being: A Holistic Approach to Behavioral Finance

An excellent read to broaden one's perspective on what Well-Being actually is. There are many books on Financial Well-Being. Meir's work is not so much about financial well-being; it's about LIFE Well-Being and the facets that make Life Well-Being meaningful.Just as there are many aspects to financial well-being, Life well-being is also made up of a surprising intersection of many different aspects too. And like financial well-being, the more areas you are satisfied in, the more well-being you experience.Meir explains how life well-being is enhanced by four kinds of capital: financial, social, cultural and personal.Chapters on Saving and Investing intersect for balanced well-being. In the Chapters he discusses Dating and Marriage, Widowhood and Divorce, Parents and Children, Elderly Parents, Grandparents, Siblings and Pets, Friendship, Health, Work, Education, Religion and Society. Some of these apply to all, while some don't. You can see well-being encompasses all aspects of our lives.But wait, life changes as we age, so the future may later bring in those areas that don't apply today. Thus Meir's work is not a one time read; rather a work to refer to each time life does change.Each category is supported by lots of research (100 pages of citations included) to demonstrate the evidence for each key point he's making.A fascinating read to see a lot of things we may be subtly aware of, or not, about how our behaviors in each of life's categories affect our well-being.The work's Conclusion discusses how "well-being medicines" work from one category to another.I've broken bread at many meals with Meir ever since hearing him speak and meeting him personally in the very early 2000's. If you know Meir's background, this work is classic Meir at his best, intersecting along with his other many books and research on how our behaviors intersect with all aspects of our lives.Our own understanding, even in small amounts, goes a long way towards our life's well-being.Review by Larry R Frank Sr., MBA CFP®

You will not find any other book like this. I'd say it marks a step forward in the field, in the sense of bridging the gap between economics and the other sciences related to the human condition. But it's much more than that. It's also an useful guide to a better life. I'm an analyst, so I appreciate that that this book is cram-packed with research and well-cited nuggets (for example, research shows that more money without more respect does not bring satisfaction). It's got advice about money, relationships, health, work, and more.It's not written in a rah-rah self-help style. I'm not against those books (i've read plenty) but it's simply not that genre.It's truly a holistic foray into the science of well-being, and the sort of study the world needs more of.

If you think this book is just about finance, you are wrong. There is a wealth of information and insight about life and society drawn from a wide range of studies, interviews, surveys, and academic papers. Topics range from marriage and divorce to education and immigration and beyond. This book organizes insights from hundreds of citations (not exaggerating) yet it is a fun and engaging read, woven with anecdotes and quotes that resonate. Yes, financial professionals will like it, but so will anyone who has interest in enhancing their well-being.

It is a wonderful primer/manual to analyze, or a mirror against which to calibrate, your own journey along the dimensions of utilitarian and expressive & emotional well being. Read it and profit from it to achieve Life Wellbeing

In A Wealth of Well-Being, Meir Statman, the Glenn Kilmek Professor of Finance at Santa Clara University and a prominent thought leader in behavioral finance, explores how financial well-being can lead to life well-being through the third generation of behavioral finance. The first generation describes people as “irrational,” while the second generation, which describes them as “normal.” Statman likewise describes people as “normal” but broadens the lens of finance to see them as whole persons and show them in life well-being domains, including dating/marriage, family, friends, health, work, education, religion, and society.Financial well-being is a critical element (domain) of life well-being, but it is life well-being that people ultimately want. The book combines scientific findings by scholars in various fields, such as finance, economics, medicine, psychology, and sociology, with practical stories that provide insights into those findings. This is an important book that informs financial advisers, financial planners, financial academics, and investors about the third generation of behavioral finance’s focus on well-being as people’s primary want and ensures that finances are integrated into lifestyle to achieve both financial and life well-being.According to Statman, having more money (greater financial well-being) is correlated with higher levels of life well-being but money alone is not everything, and money is not sufficient when we assess people. Social status, for example, matters for life well-being. The main idea motivating the book is helping readers reflect on what goes into their life well-being, including what makes life worth living, as well as insights on how managing financial well-being can optimize the portfolio of life choices.I found Statman’s conclusions on education, health, and work to be most insightful and relevant for myself. Although education costs money in tuition and living expenses, it enhances well-being by the utilitarian benefits of better employment and higher income, and by the expressive and emotional benefits of increased knowledge, lifelong friendships, and high social status. People experiencing high life well-being enjoy high perceived health, low self-reported pain, and low medical risks, with mental illness being the best single predictor of low evaluative well-being.According to Statman, we derive utilitarian benefits from our work in the form of earnings, but we also derive expressive and emotional benefits from our work through identity, meaning, community, dignity, and pride. Work enhances well-being and well-being enhances work prospects and income. People who work longer live longer, and high employee well-being leads to high employee productivity, high customer loyalty, low employee turnover, and ultimately benefits to employers in increased profitability. Unfortunately, few people are fortunate enough to enjoy well-being in all of the many domains.One way wealth advisors can benefit from this book is through Statman’s suggestion that they evolve into well-being advisers if they are to compete for today’s clients and future ones because many of the traditional services of financial advisers are now generic. Financial advisers provide portfolio asset allocation and rebalance portfolios, but so do robo-advisers at a lower cost. However, robo-advisers cannot serve as well-being advisers, allowing financial advisers to obtain this competitive advantage. Financial advisers would benefit by creating a friendship with their clients that can facilitate obtaining an understanding of what is going on in the lives of their families and children.In summary, A Wealth of Well-Being is a thoughtful and practical book with research backing much of Statman’s advice. Finance practitioners can benefit from his challenge to make finance an "after-thought" so that we can spend more time thinking about our life well-being. The domain of finances is only one of the many domains of life well-being, yet it has a uniquely important place in it because it underlies all other domains, since money is needed to pay for food, shelter, education, and religious contributions and to maintain our health.