The Soul of Wealth: Daniel Crosby on Money, Meaning, and the Art of Living Well

What does it mean to be truly wealthy? Is wealth just about what’s in your bank account—or does it have more to do with the relationships, purpose, and meaning we cultivate along the way? In this episode of Family Book Club, hosts Alex Kirby and Emily Blue sit down with behavioral finance expert and bestselling author Daniel Crosby for a heartfelt conversation about his latest work, The Soul of Wealth: 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning.

Together, they explore the surprising ways our money habits shape not only our financial lives but also our families, friendships, and personal fulfillment. From navigating the classic tension of spending for today vs. saving for tomorrow, to learning how small moments of gratitude can shift your entire outlook, this episode is full of insights to help you think differently—and more intentionally—about the role of money in your life.

Whether you’re seeking ways to foster healthier conversations about money at home, looking to align your financial life with your values, or simply curious about how small mindset shifts can lead to big life changes, this episode offers both inspiration and practical takeaways.

Episode 4 Highlights: The Soul of Wealth

"Money meets meaning." (3:40)
Daniel explains the core message of his book: how our abundant material wealth today must be paired with purpose and connection to truly satisfy.

"We swim in our own water." (9:45)
The group discusses how family upbringing shapes our money mindset—and how understanding those invisible influences can heal generational conflict around spending vs. saving.

"The ‘I’ll be happy when’ trap." (11:10)
Emily shares how this powerful reflection in Daniel’s book resonated with her experience coaching clients and navigating personal goals.

"Five minutes of gratitude is a game-changer." (14:45)
Daniel reveals research showing that a simple daily gratitude practice can boost happiness as much as common medications—with zero side effects.

"Believing, belonging, and becoming." (29:05)
A preview of Daniel’s next project, outlining a framework for finding life purpose through values, relationships, and growth.

For more insights from Daniel Crosby, visit his Standard Deviations Podcast or follow him on LinkedIn at Daniel Crosby, PhD.

Thank you for listening!

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• Check out the Playful Humans Podcast to rediscover the power of play as an adult!

Transcript

Hello families, welcome to Family Book Club, the podcast that connects families through the love of reading. I'm your host, Alex Kirby, joined as always by the belle of Barnes & Noble herself, Emily Blue. We're excited to welcome Daniel Crosby, author of Soul of Wealth. This book dives into the emotional and spiritual sides of wealth and offers a fresh perspective on how money shapes our lives and relationships. Daniel, welcome to Family Book Club. Alex and Emily, great to be with you. Yeah, thanks. Emily, you've known Daniel for a while. What makes him special? Because you were really excited about having him on. Oh, we have had the opportunity to collaborate a few times and he just does such an amazing job at intersecting the mind and the markets. And this book is hands down one of my favorites. And I tell clients of ours, I tell advisors, I tell families that are working with advisors that this is a book that everybody across generations should just read. And it's I mean, Alex, you read it. It's something that can connect and resonate with all ages, you know, that. high EQ, the high IQ, the mix. And so it's one of my favorites. I'm just so excited to spend some time with you, Daniel, and unpacking this. Daniel, we also saw when you were doing like some book signings that you brought your, one of your kids, you brought your son along with you. I did. I did a real highlight for me. So I was doing an event in Detroit, a book signing event and a speaking event. And my son is a big time gear head, which he did not get from me. But he has a gift for engineering that he got from his mother. And he wanted to go to Detroit and see all the American muscle cars. And so getting to be there, signing a couple hundred books with him as my little helper, having him greet the people in line, hand me books, pretty, pretty special moment for me. So pretty, pretty fantastic. That's amazing. Yeah, that's, that's really, really cool. That, that picture, uh, picture was awesome. And, um, he probably thought you probably went up the cool scale. A little bit, right? You do want to take your kids to places where you're a little bit of a rock star. And this specific place in Detroit where I was speaking is typically a music venue. And so it's much cooler than your typical sort of hotel conference room. Sure. double-decker and all the cool stage lighting in a green room. You got to take your kids and let them know that mom and dad are a little cooler than maybe they realize. Good for that as well. Yeah. Or as my wife and I say, we were cool before we had you. You're making us uncool. Well, I'm still desperately clinging, Alex. I'm still desperately, pathetically clinging to cool. Well, we do this show through segments and the first segment is welcome, Matt. So if we picture ourselves in the driveway of the family house, we're about to walk in. I will say that Emily's husband is a true gentleman. And when I had dinner with them, He waited for her and opened the passenger door. So here's to the gentleman out there because I just loved it. So here's to him. But what we're looking for here is and this is kind of probably hard for this type of book. But if you were to sum up this book in a few words that you could fit on a welcome mat or a doormat, what would you say to the people out there? So the welcome mat is going to say money meets meaning. to say money meets meaning and it's going to be an alliterative welcome mat so for me um for me it's you're right it is a little bit hard because there's fifty essays in the book so it's hard to get your arms around what but that is sort of the golden thread that runs through the whole thing uh you know alex I know you're a big victor frankel fan as am I and he has this great saying that I think is so emblematic of where we find ourselves as a society which is ever more today people have the means to live but no meaning to live for And that was the whole genesis of the book, which is this is the wealthiest moment in human history. It is also the saddest, most disconnected, loneliest moment in human history. Those things shouldn't coexist. How can we use the abundance we have to give ourselves spiritual, psychological, existential abundance likewise? I love that. I love that. And I think that's where that the meeting and the money, when you intersect those, it allows you to kind of transcend out of focusing on, you know, the numerical, you know, the spreadsheet and into, you know, the happiness, the connectedness, the community. So I, I love, I love that welcome mat. Mine was living, uh, purposely. Hmm. And so when you find your purpose and you find what drives you, that creates that connection to meaning. I like both of them. The the money meets meeting. I mean, we you said it really well, Daniel, but like we've done the good life on Family Book Club and Stolen Focus. And, you know, a lot of the things that you talk about here, I think are are super, super relevant. Mine was this is water. And I would, it's a quote from David Foster Wallace. It's a, you know, a little anecdote he tells about two fish swimming along. It's from, uh, it's first told in infinite jest. And, um, Another way of thinking about that is like the default setting, which David Foster Wallace also describes as just kind of like the things we take for granted. And to me, this book forces you to switch some of those things off in a really cool way. So what do you think? Should I have this as water or default setting? Which one would be more confusing to the people coming into my house? This is water, more confusing. And a cool way to decide if you want to be better friends, if they get the reference and if they know Infinite Jest, you know you've got a preening hipster like you and me, Alex, on your hands and you're going to be friends with them. I mean, if anyone has read Infinite Jest, it's like it's like a thousand pages with six hundred pages of very elaborate footnotes. I read it with one of my buddies and we like talked about, you know, like every few hundred because it's so there's so much there. So I'll go with this is water. Let's head into the family room where Emily's kids have turned the couch into some type of fortress. Daniel, you have a son. Do you have other kids? I have two daughters as well. I have fifteen, fifteen, eleven and eight. OK, so were you you're probably past the fort building, but were you good at very much, very much still in the fort building with the eight. OK, OK. The eleven year old might circle the fort pretending to be too cool for it, but then play in it intermittently. We know it's watching. Fifteen's got headphones on, not interested in the fort. Yeah. Yeah. But looking over at it like. That is, I never thought of doing it that way. Maybe I'd come check it out. Yeah. Like that. Why is this, uh, in the family room, we talk about why this book is relevant to families. So, so why do you think it's relevant to families out there? Yeah. Well, I mean, this is a book that's all about relationships when you, you know, when you go, there's, there's, there's a few findings that just, even though there's fifty chapters, fifty short essays, there's a few themes that come up again and again and again. And one would be the enduring nature of relationships and how spending money to deepen, to further, to strengthen relationships is, if not the most meaningful use of money, it's right there. So that's just one of the ideas that's going to come up again and again is that family is what it's all about. And yet we all know that family is enormously complicated, too. I did research. few years ago where I interviewed four hundred and twenty five married couples and asked them what they fight about when they fight about money. And that was like one of the highlights of my career. And it kicked off this really cool tool we developed. But, you know, back to the this is water conversation. The number one thing that we found that families fought about when they fought about money was whether money is best used to enjoy today or to secure tomorrow. And They're both important. They're both important. Nobody's right. That's the thing that was so crazy about this. Nobody's right. They're both high priority. They're both critical things to get right if you're going to have a meaningful financial life. And yet people grow up typically in one camp or the other You know, their family of origin was much better at either sort of seizing the day or preparing for tomorrow. And they're kind of militant about how they grew up because that's all they know. And however you grow up is your water. That's the water that you're swimming in. That's how you conceptualize of the world. And other people who do it aren't just different, they're wrong. And a lot of times there's sort of a value judgment around it that we found. which is the people who were let's say you're in the seize the day camp. You see the people in the save for tomorrow camp as sticks in the mud and lame and fun haters. And if you're if you're in the other camp, you see the seize the day people as irresponsible and unserious. And so Getting families to understand the water that they're swimming in is so important. We're gonna have all kinds of quotes today. Carl Jung has this great quote that until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. And that's what this book is about with respect to families, helping us understand different perspectives in this prism of this thing called money We're all in this together as a family, but it's only as we understand the water that we're all swimming in that we can start to swim together. Love that. I love that. I think that when you look at the book, there's fifty reflections. All of them resonate at different points or times. I think the one that clicks with me the most, and I think It is a common thread across all three of us is that all three of us work with advisors, wealth management firms for our profession. And when we think about what we hear advisors say is we hear them say, well, I'll be happy when. You know, I'll be happy when, you know, I grow the firm to this or when I hire the next gen advisor, when I bring on, you know, the support. There's a whole chapter, Daniel, about I'll be happy when is a trap. And personally, and I know that I see that every single day that knowing, you know, an advisor having some, you know, arbitrary, you know, whether it's a win, whether it's team growth, whatever that goal is. you know, their happiness doesn't, you know, suddenly like peak when they hit that goal. And when I was training for a marathon, I remember training thinking when I just crossed that finish line, I'm going to be so happy. But what no one prepared me for during the training of my first marathon was once I finished, I was kind of sad. Like the anticipation of crossing the finish line and having that as the grounding kind of focal point during training was more gratifying. than actually physically crossing the finish line. And then right after that is that wave of like, well, what's next? I hit that. And so I just found that chapter so incredibly insightful. And it's one of the common threads across all three of us professionally in terms of who we work with and come in contact with on a day to day basis as advisors who help families. And I think they grapple with that the same chapter daily. I love Daniel just talking about the relationships, you know, Jay Hughes and the five forms of family capital and thinking about social capital. You know, it's cool that the data backs up that you should invest in your relationships. And, you know, I think some of the families out there that once they see that parrot, like once they start to look at it through that lens, you know, this family vacation does cost money, but it's a memory you're creating together. You're building bonds, you know, going to dinner and picking up the tab when you're, kids get older and these types of things, if you look at it slightly differently in that investing in the relationship camp, I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who says that's not a great use of money. And I love that as just kind of practical advice for people, because sometimes they'll say things like, I wish my relationships were better with my kids or whatever. And if you go one step further to say, what are you doing to invest in those? Um, it's kind of a different paradigm shift, but, but mine for families was the, there's a couple parts about gratitude, um, that I just really liked. We do, uh, at my family, we do happiest part of the day. Um, now. My kids are right now four and two. So it's like kind of, it's pretty crazy exercise usually in terms of the answers that we get. But I loved the gratitude train after World War II, had never even heard of that. So just like awesome for uncovering something like that. Cause I literally had never heard of it, but the gratitude exercise, everyone's like, ah, I'm grateful. It's like, if you actually sit down and start to think about the things that you have in your life that you're taking for granted, whether it just be your kids being healthy, or that you are able to get a good night's sleep, or that you're in a country that isn't at war, or that it can be a million different things. It only takes a little bit of that to shift your perspective from like the, oh, everything's going wrong perspective. So I love the gratitude focus. So life, I, people are wild. Life is so incredible because the gratitude thing, taking five minutes a day to write down something you're grateful for, to count your blessings has the same uptick in mood as taking psychiatric medication. And I'm not like, before I get letters, I'm not saying you shouldn't, you know, I'm not saying you should not saying no. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm not saying that people shouldn't take medication. I know that's part of a balanced breakfast as well. But, you know, I think that when we think about this, so much in life is so simple and we just failed to do it. You know, Emily will know. I mean, Emily and I have been friends long enough that I started tracking my nutrition last year in April. I lost sixty pounds when I just started being cognizant of what I was putting in my body, like changing nothing else, but just raising my awareness of what I was eating every day, this very simple thing. I was already exercising. I was already doing these other things. This one very simple thing. spending five minutes per day to write down what you're grateful for is a ten percent boost in happiness if there was a pill that would give you a ten percent boost in happiness it would be ozempic I mean people would be beating down the doors to get this pill and you can have that pill for the low low cost of five minutes of your time and yet we you know we've we failed to do it And I think, you know, your your example is very impactful because if you look around the world. I mean, people in the U.S. are just incredibly blessed on the whole in terms of the freedoms and the abundance we enjoy. But then even if you just look at yourself, you know, my my mother in law was here a little while ago and she goes, I remember when you and my daughter got married and all you wanted in the world was to be able to afford an iPhone. And she's like, you were so you that was the one thing you wanted in the world was to be able to afford an iPhone. And that I didn't eat. I mean, she's right. I remembered it after she brought it up. But that seems like such a distant memory to me. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, there was a time when all I wanted was this dumb phone that I take for granted. a hundred times a day and that's all I wanted in the world. And so we forget so quickly. So gratitude is so powerful. How do you practice it? I was just thinking about it for me personally. I'll get into a habit of it and then I break it and then I'll fall off the wagon and then I'll get back on it. So my issue is like the consistency of it, you know? Oh, I'm terrible. No one should ask me how I practice. I'm not good at it. I'm the problem I'm trying to fix. No, I try. Another piece of the book that I really liked, and I have been doing this this year. I'm still not good about the five minutes thing, but writing a letter to someone who did something big for you. and went unrecognized was good for a one month boost in happiness. And I love the idea of that. I've gotten, I've gotten in the habit of telling someone that, Hey, you know, when you did this thing that felt small to you at the time, that was huge. That meant that meant the world to me. And thank you very much. You probably didn't understand what a big deal that was. Thank you so much. That's an incredible thing to be able to give that gift to someone. I actually, if we may have an awkward moment on the show, I actually wrote a letter. I transferred schools when I was in sixth grade. I transferred schools when I was in sixth grade and I went from having all these friends and just being really well integrated, like big dog, you know, in sixth grade to just knowing no one and just being the biggest nerd and just, you know, a total outcast at my school. And I went to this first dance at that school and I knew no one and I didn't know any girls. And this girl, Holly Puckett, asked me to dance and we danced one dance and she didn't I mean she wasn't and she was strictly just being nice and it changed my night and my year and I wrote her on linkedin and I'm like you don't remember me we have not spoken in whatever it is, thirty years. But thank you so much for one dance in a cafeteria in Huntsville, Alabama, thirty years ago. You changed my middle school. And she was so grateful. And I mean, it's just... It's these moments. We're all the beneficiaries of that. And hopefully we all create that for other people too. So I think that is something that I'm trying to get better about doing. And thank you, Holly Puckett. Shout out, Holly. I feel like we all have different versions of that story. On the gratitude five-minute thing, as someone who, I usually do it when I'm being a gigantic baby. And I'm just being grumpy and I'm like, and I'm like, you know what I need? I need to just, and if you start small with like some things that you are a hundred percent taking for granted in your life, whether it be your spouse being healthy, the fact that you just enjoyed your dinner last night, the fact that it didn't rain today, like it's only a matter of time before you get going. And then on those gratitude letters, Daniel, like I've probably written maybe six or seven in my life. I've never given them to the person like you did. I have them saved. But if you think about those people in your life who don't know what an impact they've made on you, whether it be work mentor, new neighbor, someone who welcomed you in a time when you weren't feeling welcome, it could be any of those things. I think it's who knows what Holly said. but you got something out of writing it just like the energy from the gratitude probably went there. And, um, And yeah, so really, really cool. Did she respond? And did you tell your wife that you were trying to reconnect with her? Yeah, yeah. No threat. Both happily married. Both doing great. But yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I told my wife and my kids, all good. But yeah, it was not that kind of story. But yeah, it was great. I got a... I got a package about two years ago from a kid I taught Sunday school when he was sixteen. And he sent me a vinyl record signed by an artist I really like. And he was like, you'll never know what it meant to me. I know I was a snotty kid and I couldn't I didn't have the capacity to tell you thank you at the time. But now I do. Thank you so much. You changed my life. I mean, that little record is like one of my most prized possessions. And I mean, And he was a snotty kid at the time. I definitely did not know that anything was sinking in. And I think we've all been on both sides of that. And it's just such a cool practice. I think there's real magic. I've seen some firms apply that gratitude practice internally within a culture perspective with firms. It's one thing to practice it individually. And I think that's so important. But so many firms miss the opportunity to pause and celebrate the win and thank the people that were instrumental in all those achievements before jumping to the next milestone or goal that you know, they're focusing on. It's kind of typically a firm will have a milestone, they'll achieve it, and then they'll roll out the next new leveled up milestone. So this gratitude practice that you're talking about, Daniel, I think really applies to leaders as well and making sure internally within their firm culture, they think about Really good stuff. So let's go to the kitchen table where we talk about questions that maybe families want to contemplate since we're in the kitchen. I was just wondering to both of you, if you on the double dip rules, if you dip a chicken tender, one side bite it and then flip the tender around and dip it in the sauce on the other side, is that double dip in your, in your houses or not? Definitely doubled it. It's still a double dip. Yes. Daniel? Yeah. I mean, Alex, I'm touching the bitten part at all. No, I'm deeply, I'm deeply neurotic. No one, no one becomes a psychologist because they're well-adjusted. That is a double. I'm grossed out. Okay. Yeah. Me too. Me too. Super great. Yeah. Super great. Yeah. Definitely don't do that in our house at all. Okay. Daniel, what is the big question you think families should be talking about around this book or a question that is worth them discussing around this book? The whole book, as we learned from the doormat, is about money meets meaning. But there are a couple of specific chapters where I talk about honing that why, talking about that why. And it usually goes unarticulated. The why, the purpose usually goes unarticulated. And this is another one. When you look at the research around articulating that why, It is almost like science fiction how it changes financial behavior. Accounts with a stated purpose have fifteen percent higher higher levels on average than those who don't. People in another study who looked at a picture of their children before they made a financial decision saved like two and a half times as much as those in a in a control condition. During the great financial crisis, one study found that purpose-driven accounts were ten times less likely to go to cash in a scary market than those that had no purpose ascribed to them. And sort of on and on. There's just all of these stats on how the simple fact of naming those dollars, ascribing a purpose to them, putting a why to them, it makes the journey more enjoyable. There's more family cohesion. and there's just better behavior. And this is even, it's a little bit of a soapbox of mine, but even from an ESG SRI perspective, I think one of the biggest values of value-based investing is not the actual change that it elicits in the world, but the way that it changes the behavior of the participants and just makes money less like a video game and more like... show its real impact and the lives that it's touching. So finding that why as a family, I think is so, so critical. I couldn't agree more. I think that most families only look at it from the number, you know, the number perspective, the question I had, and I think you've said it best in the book, you said, you know, what's, what's your purpose beyond, you know, superficial numbers. And when we see families, whether they're, a college student, you know, getting ready to go off to college. You know, it's not the job that they get that creates, you know, their worth, but what is their purpose? What do they want to achieve? Other in the spectrum, you see, you know, family members that are approaching retirement with great fear of the transition. And when they've solely defined themselves by their role or the, you know, wealth accumulation they've brought in, that's a big cliff. And so it's really, it's probably a constant exercise. I'd be curious how families should think about redefining their individual purpose as life evolves and changes and how to help family members. I don't think there's any cookie cutter approach to this, but you're exactly right that it will need to be re-evaluated situationally. I don't think there's any hard and fast expiration date, but definitely as the circumstances on the ground change, the purpose needs to be re-evaluated. What I liked about what you said about purpose, because I think, you know, we purpose for us is a part of vision. So when we do vision purposes is part of it. And purpose is the most conceptual component of vision. And I think it's the hardest part for people to wrap their brain around. If you're just like, why are you here on this earth? It's like a pretty tough question to sort of answer. But if you think about it through, specifically to your example, through the purpose of a bank account, you can put a purpose behind a bank account. You know, and you can put a purpose behind a role that you play in life, whether it be a parent. That's, as you're saying, Emily, going to evolve, whether you have a purpose at work, whether you have you can kind of like trim away at purpose a little bit and not try to look at it as like, you know, the biggest existential question that we all have to answer. I think that's pretty intimidating for people, but you can break it down. And I loved the example of the of the bank account. It was really cool. Yeah. so alex I've been I've been doing some work around this question and I'm already writing my next book because I'm crazy and I'm just a glutton for punishment but you know this next book is going to be all about living a life of meaning and purpose there's no financial anything in it and you know when when I set out to write the book and I told people sheepishly they're like what's your next book going to be about and it's like finding the meaning of your life people are like what You know, it just it feels too big to even get your arms around. But there actually is a really good literature around this. And there's three things that comprise this. And I call it the three B's. It's believing, belonging and becoming. So believing is how do you make sense of the world? Right. What is what are the rules by which you live your life? It could be your religion, spirituality, philosophy, life, you know, life outlook, whatever it is. But we need a guidebook for living and making sense of life. So what do you believe? Like, what is truth, right? belonging. Who do you love and who are you trying to be good to? Who do you want to matter to? And families can have that conversation. Who are we? Who do we want to be good to? And the becoming is this vision of a future self, growth. Where do I want to be headed? And all of those questions have a financial component to them, right? What is truth? Who do you love? Who do you want to be? the meaning of life is not that difficult. It's not that, you know, it's not so grand that you can't get your arms around it when you conceptualize it that way. That's really good. I love that. I can't wait. Yeah, how long do we have to wait for that book? Well, at least a little bit. We're trying not to cannibalize soul of wealth sales. Sure, sure, sure. Fair, fair, fair. Okay. Mine was, I knew we were kindred spirits when I'm like already counting our references and then you got to Christmas Carol because I wanted to do a special holiday episode. Emily did not think it was a good idea. It's fine. I'm going to pitch it every single year until she does it. But I think that the exercise that I love from it is like, You know, this book was written one hundred and eighty some odd years ago. And and the questions are worth contemplating every holiday season. You know, if I'm getting visited by these ghosts, I think we all watch Christmas Carol or like, oh, it's like, you know, or whether it's Scrooge or whatever adaptation of that story. Taking a second to think about what your ghosts of past, present and future would really look like, uh, I think, you know, just like purpose is, is something that you can do over and over again. Maybe you don't do it every single year. Um, but there's a reason that that story has been around and, and is, will continue to be around probably for another, you know, a hundred and eighty years or so. So I, I, that's my, uh, my kitchen table question. And I would love if we ever do it, if Emily won't do this podcast, I'd love to just, we'll just cut her out. We can't get Dick, we can't get Dickens anymore. Cut her out. That's Scrooge behavior, Emily. That's Scrooge behavior. I will get a Mankind Was My Business tattoo on the show to help your ratings. Thank you. And Michael Caine in Muppets Christmas Carol absolutely ate. That man had no business playing that role that straight, that serious. I love all permutations of that story. And Emily, you are a Scrooge. Sold. Sold. I'll do it now. All right. Heart of the Home is our next segment, MVP of the book. Daniel, who do you think deserves the MVP of this book? There's a lot of references, a lot of ideas. You can take this in any direction you want for Heart of the Home. I mean, my my philosophical and intellectual MVPs are always going to be Viktor Frankl and Soren Kierkegaard. They're the ones that kind of made me fall in love with meaning. And just again, like it, if you get that right, it elevates every other part of life. You know, there's a chapter in the book about meaning, meaning at work. And it's like, man, people people just don't bring we still treat work so transactionally and if we can do what emily was talking about earlier and just take a minute to pause and say thank you and treat people like real people with real dreams and lives outside of work Um, we can, you can, you can have your cake and eat it too. You can be a great humanitarian and a great capitalist. And I think we treat those things as if they're mutually exclusive. So forever shout outs to my, my guys, uh, Frankel and Kierkegaard and the way that they have taught me about meaning and how it elevates, it lifts all boats. Well, I always love the story behind the book. And we didn't talk about that. And I think I'd love if you're comfortable, Daniel, right before you wrote the book, what happened and what inspired you to write the book? Because truly, I think for me, when I think about the MVP, I don't ever do this, but I think that's why you get the MVP for this book. It's what led you to write the book and then how you transformed your life. you know, to make the necessary changes to be healthier. Well, I wanted to name myself MVP, but it felt ghost. So thank you. Um, so real quick, uh, thank you. Um, for real quick, I, uh, A couple of years ago, before I started writing the book, I started having some scary health fallout. I was having sensitivity to light and just like sort of an electric buzzing in my head and migraines and just a lot of pain. And I went to WebMD and, you know, you Google it. It's a nightmare. The list of things you get back is just like a horror show of possibilities. And the least the the least horrible of them was a tooth problem. So I said, look, I'll start there. So I go to my dentist. Dentist does every test and is like, you know, we have never had a cavity. You're fine. You know, you don't have any problems with your teeth. And so then the pain, all the symptoms are persisting. And so then, you know, psychiatrists, neurologists, you know, CAT scans, MRIs, and just months and months are going by, nothing is working. And now I'm kind of running down the WebMD list and it's like, it's one of these bigger things and they just can't find it. And so one night the pain was so intense And my wife is driving me to the hospital and I'm crying my eyes out in the front. And I mean, and I, Alex, I love money so much. But I told her I was like, I was like, I would give every dollar we have to to figure this out and to make it go away and to just know that I was going to be OK. And I mean, I work in finance. I save as aggressively as anyone you'll ever meet. I really like money. And at that moment, it just simply did not matter to me. A couple of weeks later, I'm at lunch with my boss and my tooth just splits in half. It had been my tooth for months, the whole time. And as soon as they pull this tooth, it's fine. And I'm completely a hundred percent, you know, they, I had a cracked tooth that the dentist missed and it was just torturing me. And because I had had it ruled out, I just assumed that it wasn't that. And so I, it was this pivotal moment for me though, where I was like, look, I spend so much of my energy trying to optimize for, for greater wealth, for greater money, not even wealth, like just being richer. You know, I, I spend so much of my life optimized for, for, for being rich, but like, what is true wealth look like? And that, you know, catalyzed a broader health journey, catalyzed the book. So that toothache had a hell of a payoff, but yeah, It was just this moment where we all know that health is wealth. We all know a lot of these things that I write about in the book, but there's knowing with your head and knowing with your heart. And when I'm sobbing in my wife's car, I know with my heart in a way that I didn't before. And so that was what kind of gave rise to all of this. What a transformational journey, though. And it corresponds, if you think about where you started really noticing the results of your efforts, the results of your tracking, the results of your, you know, the working out and the regimen you were following, correspond so perfectly where it was like peak results were coming to fruition right as the book was coming into readers' hands. Yeah. And so I think that is just such a cool thing cool journey that you were able to personally go on as you're helping families and advisors and just everyone deepen their understanding of what it means to have meaning behind wealth. Thank you. It would also be crazy if your dentist was like a philosopher and like did it on purpose. He was like, I need Daniel to see the truth about how he's Did you tell him thank you? It sounds like the dentist is the MVP. The dentist has been replaced, sir. Okay. That's going to kind of be my second question. The dentist has been replaced by someone far superior. Shout out to the doc who did my implants. Uh, that, that is a really, really cool story. And I, I, my, my MVP was like really tough because I like so many of the, of the reflections, but I think I'm going to go with just the format of the book, you know, as a super readable kind of it probably gave you so much creative license in terms of like, I don't know how many reflections you wrote to get down to the the fifty. You know, they all hit home, but tie to get like they're all different, but they tie together and in in really nice ways. So I was just curious, like, is that are you going back to that format? uh again or or what do you think I'm a so I I'm glad you liked it because my next book is in a similar format and I'm obsessed with that format I yeah so I I actually wrote I knew I want I knew I wanted to write a book on money and meaning I wrote about eighty pages in a in a more traditional format that was consistent with my previous books you know like twenty to twenty whatever ten or twelve chapters twenty-ish pages a piece And it just sucked. Like, it just wasn't good. And it pained me to throw eighty pages of work away. But it is so much better. And it forces you to be concise. It forces you to be impactful and choose your words. Whereas, you know, I mean, I am a I'm an academic by training. So, so much of academic writing is just bloated nonsense to try and hit a page count. It forces you to get to the point. And I, I don't think I'll ever write a book another way ever again. Yeah. Also, and I don't think that like none of them jumped out to me as like I didn't want to make it all the way to the end of the reflection. But as someone who reads a lot, it's like we've all been in that book where it's like one hundred and fifty pages of like, do I keep going? Like I'm I'm losing momentum here. And so even if for whatever reason, the Viktor Frankl story didn't you know you didn't love it or whatever it's like you're on to something new a new story a new perspective um and so just like I feel like how people's attention spans are going to it it's a it's a format that you can probably continue to lean on so so really cool uh really cool there so next segment quotation quilts It's cold mostly everywhere in the United States right now. So it's a great time to think about the quotation quote, which warms us up. Emily, do you wanna start with your favorite quote? Because sometimes our authors, we found Daniel, struggle to quote themselves. So maybe Emily and I will go first here and then you can follow our lead if that's all right. The whole book is your quote. Just look on us. Freedom is a fundamental human desire. This is one of my absolute favorite quotes from the book. It's something that Daniel is as we as I launched, you know, Hugh partners and had several conversations. This was something you would regularly bring up is freedom is, you know, you know, the fundamental human desire and how to think about that and how to build, you know, something that's centered around that, that freedom and that entrepreneurialism and that creativity. So that just so resonates with me. And I think it resonates with a lot of people. It's not wealth that people are always seeking. It's just the ability to have that freedom. Well, congratulations. Yeah. Congratulations on killing it at Hugh partners too, by the way. Yeah. Autonomy. You know, if you look at any, you know, any sort of model of motivation or drive or human thriving autonomy, freedom are always central, central to that. Yeah. I'm glad you like that. It's a big one for me too. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I, Emily and I are both like, probably are now terrified of having a boss again. It's like one of my biggest fears. So like, you know, when you start a business, they're like, Oh, are you going to sell? And it's like, the thought of, you know, having to do something like that again, after being in corporate America for fifteen years, like the autonomy and the freedom that also resonated with me. And I'm going to go from an entrepreneurial angle for my quote to talking about Herb Brooks, the coach of the nineteen eighty US team. He says pretty lofty goal, Herb, you know, because Herb Brooks says, I want to win a gold medal. Pretty lofty goal herd. And he just says, well, that's why I want to pursue it. And I think, you know, anytime you're doing something, you talk about risk in this book. Anytime you're doing something like that, people have a way of like downplaying what you're trying to do. without totally smashing it. He's not saying that's a bad goal, Herb. He's just like, oh, pretty lofty. It's like, oh, you want to start your own investment bank, Emily? And I think that to me, as I grew up a hockey player, I love everything about that story. I don't care if it's America propaganda. It doesn't really bother me. I just love it. And I love the idea of shooting really high and putting the system and structure in place to do that. So I'm going to go with the Herb Brooks quote. So if I may, this will kind of tie in both of yours. I've been thinking a lot about why when we dream big, You both likely had this experience when you announced to the world that you were going to do your entrepreneurial thing. Inevitably, some people are supportive of you, but you get a lot of sort of like well-meaning, you know, quote unquote, well-meaning criticism. And, you know, like I know Emily, I know Emily better than you. Right. So I'll use her story because I'm familiar with it. Cute Partners is an audacious undertaking, right? For someone as, you know, for someone as young as, for anyone, maybe for someone as young as Emily in particular. And so I'm sure, Emily, you got a lot of people are like, well, have you thought about this? And like, I don't know, like, have you tried to do this? And one of the things that I've come to realize is that when we dream big and we go for it, It's an indictment. We don't mean it this way. It's an indictment of other people's complacency and inactivity. And they see Emily killing it and they go, oh, like I'm living a life of quiet desperation over here. And the fact that she's killing it. sort of highlights all the things I could be doing, the risks I could be taking, the heights I could be reaching if I had the bravery and the work ethic to do it. So I think a lot of times people's like crab in the bucket thing has everything to do with them and very little to do with us. This is true, Daniel, like of when you make those like diet changes where you're saying you're like, oh, I'm not, you know, I stopped drinking or whatever. Like people see the reflection of themselves on that. And you're not like you're not like, yeah, I changed my diet to make all my friends feel like crap, you know, like obviously not. But but people do feel that like in the work thing, it's the complacency or they're thinking about their own journey or should I have done this or on the life changes or whatever? Why is that? And like, what do you. because obviously it's not intentional, right? Like Emily didn't start Hue Partners and then be like, see, you're just stuck in your dead end job. No, she didn't mean to, but that's the effect, right? That's the effect that it has because we have all these righteous reasons for being stuck, right? We can't tell ourselves, oh, I'm not going to go start the next Hue Partners. I'm not going to go start a business because I'm lazy or because I am scared, we have to tell ourselves, well, I'm just being responsible. And I have three kids. And I have bills to pay. And I can't go be a musician. I've got bills to pay and that sort of thing. So we always frame our own inactivity or complacency or laziness in righteous terms. And then they see someone like you guys that's out there living it, out there doing it, and they go, oh, it sort of bursts the bubble of that righteous illusion. So, you know, it's one of these things that I've learned that we have to be really careful about who we solicit advice from and the reasons for giving the advice that they do. Because to be clear, too, they're not cognizant that they're doing it. But I mean, it's just completely beneath awareness, but it's there. What has surprised me the most, and Daniel, you and I have kind of talked about this a little bit, but what has surprised me the most in launching you is even this happened just last week. We've had clients, a competitive process, say, you know, the reason why we engaged you versus XYZ other investment bank was when we see you and Ryan, my business partner, we see our younger selves. And when they're contemplating the most significant once in a lifetime transaction, At most often that towards the end of their career journey, they kind of zoom out and reflect full circle. And so being able to work with their, you know, how they view their younger selves, their energized selves is something that's super exciting to them. So that I think has been the thing that has surprised me the most in my entrepreneurial journey. Because without a doubt, I have seen all shapes and sizes of support, support masks with, you know, a nice little stab and jab. I've seen it all, right? As Daniel said, but I've also been really surprised where that has actually been used as a tremendous strength. And it's something, you know, you and I've talked about, you know, when you think about the differentiator with you is maintaining what makes you unique, don't change it. You know, the worst thing I could do is go and bring on somebody that has, you know, the traditional, you know, profile and bring that into the mix of huge, you know, energetic dynamics. That's what makes us unique. And so, you know, in terms of gratitude and thank you notes, that has been something that I have clung to and stuck with in terms of, you know, words of wisdom that you have gifted onto me. Well, thank you. You are killing it. You know, this is why this is what you know, the most unique thing about your business is you. And then I think I think a lot of times entrepreneurs and especially young entrepreneurs try and run from their number one differentiator and they, you know, Emily could have named her company Globocom Worldwide or something and tried to make it look like- That's what Ryan wanted to name it. Tried to make it look like there were a thousand middle-aged dudes in gray suits working behind the scenes and you miss out on the benefit. And look, I'm certain there are people that have passed on you for the same reason, but there's more people who have hired you. for youthful ambition and, you know, remembering what it was like before you were dead inside. It's so interesting you say that, like probably by the time this runs, we're doing some fundraising right now. This will all be over. I can't tell you how many people are just like, yeah, I'm just betting on you. Yeah. You know, and like, I do think you want to run from that sometimes because you're like, no, we're, know all these other things and it's like not just me but I think in the early days and a lot of what resonates with people is like that level of authenticity uh too um so I think that what I heard on some of these quotes just before we go to home reservations or home renovations is like be careful on who you're taking the advice from and just acknowledge some of these different perspectives that people have. Some of the most supportive people in my journey have been other entrepreneurs that really were in the seat and said some really nice things or encouraging things or whatever. And some of the kind of maybe more wet blanket advice I heard was from maybe someone who was in corporate America for multiple decades or whatever. And so not saying it was bad advice or that they won't be right or anything like that. But I think acknowledging some of those like unconscious biases that you referenced are important. All right, home renovations. Daniel, are you a handyman around the house? Oh, I'm an ideas guy, my friend. I can't even hammer a nail straight. Yeah, just purely an ideas guy. Yep. Okay, great. Great. Same. I actually don't even really have ideas. My wife is really the idea person. Home renovations is when we talk about what families might want to do differently. after reading this book or even it could be something that we did differently after reading this book um emily why don't you start again for these last two segments tell us what you think is uh like you're gonna do differently for me it when I look at my day it's a pie I can't I can't buy more time in my day and so when you think about it through the lens of you know time is your most expensive asset. This book really makes the reader want to rethink wealth, rethink time. And really ground around being present and building relationships. And that is going to be the key to, you know, what a successful great day looks like versus, you know, a non-successful great day. So that is really the biggest thing for me is just looking at time is my most expensive asset, especially as an entrepreneur, a mother, you know, all, you know, that's really important to me. And so I just am so grateful for, you know, Daniel's chapter on kind of thinking about time. you made a couple investments related to that right like we were talking we were talking about that it's not easy but like maybe this book helped you do it yeah yeah um mine you know I'm gonna you referenced uh stephen stephen covey quote you have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage pleasantly smilingly unapologetically to say no to other things And I think one of the most common things we hear from families is how busy they are. And then they start listing things, whether it be like kids soccer or this event or this volunteer thing or this birthday party. And they're just like going on and on and on and on. And I think saying no. to some stuff is a really good place to start. You have to know what your priorities are to do that. So like one of the things we try to talk about a lot of times are priorities, but then being able to say the no on the other side of that. And it doesn't have to be like rude or, You're not a jerk if you say no, but giving people a chance to say no to some stuff so you can really focus on the stuff that matters to you. Because if you have like twelve different roles in your life, And saying yes to all these other things that maybe aren't super important to you could be hindering your ability to be a great dad or mom or entrepreneur or whatever it is. So I just love that quote. And I think it would be really helpful to a lot of our families to say no to more stuff. Yeah, I'm with you on both of those. The one I'll talk about from a personal renovation standpoint is just, I hope that people will learn to question their own sort of righteousness, that one of the things that a lot of the behavioral biases, most behavioral biases optimize for us thinking we're good people or to kind of keep us stuck. If you look at basically every behavioral bias, it's to kind of keep you lazy or to keep you feeling good about yourself. And I hope that there's something in the soul of wealth that in the nicest way possible, you will read and you will go, I've been lying to myself or I haven't been great at that or wow, like I I sort of didn't get that. And now I do. And there's no going back from that. So that to me is one of the most exciting things is when I can call myself on my own BS. That is like well-meaning BS. But I can go, oh, wow. yep, wasn't doing that right. So, you know, there's a million different things it could be. But I hope that folks who watch this show and listen or listen to or read the book will have the experience of getting exposed and finding out more about who they are and how they're acting. I love it. Daniel, if they want to learn more about any of the stuff that you're doing, where is the easiest spot to, you know, read your books or just follow you or find you? Yeah. Whoa, look at that graphic. Yeah. So go grab the soul of wealth. I'd love it if you do that. I'm on LinkedIn, Daniel Crosby, PhD, and I have my own podcast called Standard Deviations. Daniel, thank you so much for joining us. Families, that is all we have for you today. Don't forget to subscribe to Family Book Club, share with your friends and family. And until next time, read more, scroll less, and stay connected.