We’ve pulled out research and wisdom related to our inner wealth pathways below. At the same time, we believe that each of can be seekers. So live, experiment, observe in your own life and discover your own truths.
quiet ego
We believe a quiet ego is connected to inner wealth as a whole. In the chapter, “The Quiet Ego: Concept, Measurement and Wellbeing” (2017), in “The Happy Mind”, Heidi Wayment and Jack Bauer write:
“When a person’s ego is quiet, that person is motivated and able (1) to take others’ perspectives, (2) to identify with others who are not just like oneself, (3) to attend to a situation without defensiveness, and (4) to view a situation as an opportunity for prosocial development….the transcendence of egotism involves the balancing of self-interest with concerns for others as well as the interpreting of one’s immediate situation within a context of development over time.
In contrast, the noisy ego is characterized by excessive self-focus and heightened sense of self-importance, often accompanied by a clamoring for attention, approval, or other such validations of one’s worth. A noisy ego can increase perceptions of threat, exacerbate defensiveness, and create problems for the self and others over time (Wayment & Bauer, 2008).”
“Be” Pathway
On wholeness
“Perfect balance is not what it means to be whole. Being whole is about being open and accommodating of all parts of your personality: the light and dark passengers, the strengths and weaknesses, the successes and failures…. There is a not so hidden prejudice against negative states, and the consequence of avoiding these states is that you inadvertently stunt your growth, maturity, adventure, and meaning and purpose in life.” – Dr Todd Kashdan and Dr Robert Biswas-Diener, The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self–Not Just Your “Good” Self–Drives Success and Fulfillment
On positive emotions
Positive emotions lessen stress, help us see more possibilities, increase growth after a crisis, help us come up with more ideas and be more creative, help us be more resilient, more socially connected, buffer against depressive symptoms. -Dr Barbara Fredrickson, Principal Investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab (PEPLab) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
On materialism
While some level of material wellbeing is important, materialism is different. Professor Tim Kasser, researcher and author of “The High Price of Materialism” said in an interview, “Materially False” with Behavioral Scientist:
“Materialism is a value. It’s something that is reflected in what people care about, what’s important to them, and what they’re striving to accomplish in their lives. There are lots and lots of different values that people can pursue. Materialistic values are those which are primarily focused on trying to make money, trying to have a lot of possessions, [or] trying to attain a particular image. Most of the research we do looks at materialistic strivings within the context of other strivings, so we’re interested in how much a person cares about money relative to other things they might care about.“
While this 5 minute animation on Professor Kasser sharing on materialism specifies the US, many points are not unique to it.
Insecurity drives materialism according to Professor Kasser. And research shows the more people hold materialistic values, the more depressed, anxious and more fear-prone they are; the more conflicted relationships they have and the less they care about the environment or score on empathy.
“…materialistic values are not only bad for people’s own well-being, but they lead people to behave in ways which are bad for other people’s well-being, as well as bad for the well-being of other species and future generations. It’s a pretty damaging set of values at multiple levels according to both our research and the research of others.” – Professor Tim Kasser, researcher and author of “The High Price of Materialism”.
On Technology
While technology is useful it can also lead to decreased attention span, lower self-esteem, increased anxiety, higher rates of depression, more loneliness and less quality sleep according to the Center for Human Technology. Constant social media can also affect relationships. A 2021 study found that increased Instagram use led to lower relationship satisfaction and higher feelings of jealousy and more conflict. (Bouffard, S., Giglio, D., & Zheng, Z. Z)
This three-minute animation below serves as a mirror to many of us. It’s a collaboration between Steve Cutts, whose illustrations and videos are brilliant social commentaries, the musician, Moby, and The Void Pacific Choir. Note: Has potentially triggering content.
“Love” Pathway
On Love being the Ultimate Task and Lesson
The full power of love goes untapped by society. We believe that it is a powerful generator for all kinds of good and an important growth area for a human.
“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. – Rainer Maria Rilke
The ultimate lesson is learning how to love and be loved unconditionally.” – the late psychiatrist Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who worked with the dying
On its power as an emotion
Author of “Love 2.0”, Professor Barbara Fredrickson, Principal Investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab (PEPLab) at the University of North Carolina says:
“Love is our supreme emotion that makes us come most fully alive and feel most fully human. It is perhaps the most essential emotional experience for thriving and health…. ”
On it being more than an emotion
The John Templeton Foundation enables people to create lives of purpose and meaning. In one of its articles, “Without Love, We Perish” by Annelise Jolley:
Dr. Sara Algoe, a social scientist and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies love distinguishes “compassionate” or “enacted” love from romantic love or love of parents to children:
“It’s very different from love as an emotion…And it’s a really important aspect of love and the love experience that we need to disentangle.”
The article mentions that:
“Compassionate love has a ripple effect beyond the interaction of two individuals and directly influences those around them. It has the power to collectively raise up a group. It can lead to more kindness, more pro-sociality, and better working together in a society.”
Dr Algoe and evolutionary anthropologist Anna Machin from Oxford University argue that love is necessary for our very existence, both as individuals and as a species. Machin says love is a human need “as fundamental to us as the food we eat and the air we breathe.”
“Overcoming the biggest challenges society currently faces, such as pandemic diseases, global poverty, and climate change, requires a sense of universal love that includes distant strangers in order for humanity to flourish.” – John Templeton Foundation
Love is a critical for the John Templeton Foundaton’s mission to promote human flourishing. They fund research on this under Character Virtues Development. For example, they fund The Love Consortium, a community of researchers engaged in the advanced scientific study of high-quality social connections at the University of North Carolina.
“Serve” Pathway
In “Mind Magic” by Stanford neurosurgeon and neuroscientist, Dr James Doty writes:
“Sitting in the wreckage of my life in the empty mansion, I realized I had accomplished what I viewed as success, but the manifestation of that success was emptiness, and it causes so much pain to those I loved. I still carried the shame of my childhood trauma that drove me to prove myself, and to show others I was worthy; nothing I did was enough, for me or for them…. only when we believe we are enough in ourselves do we find the ability to contribute to life, but only in contributing to our world do we discovered we are inherently enough.”
Sociologists Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson write in their book, “The Paradox of Generosity“: “Rather than leaving generous people on the short end of an unequal bargain, practices of generosity are actually likely instead to provide generous givers with essential goods in life—happiness, health, and purpose—which money and time themselves simply cannot buy.”
“The view from the edge of life is so much clearer than the view that most of us have, that what seems to be important is much more simple and accessible for everybody, which is who you’ve touched on your way through life, who’s touched you. What you’re leaving behind you in the hearts and minds of other people is far more important than whatever wealth you may have accumulated. – Medical doctor, Dr Rachel Remen
“Grow” Pathway
To grow is the sole purpose of existence on this planet Earth. – The late Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, psychiatrist who worked with thousands of dying patients
We appreciate how Ash Buchanan builds on Dr Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset with “Benefit Mindset” which is very aligned with inner wealth:
…benefit mindset is grounded in the understanding that fulfilling our potential is about more than how smart, driven or growth oriented we are. More completely, it is about how well we are able to transform how we come to understand our place in the world, compassionately attend to our individual and collective shadows, and become partners in the wellbeing of all people and all living beings.” – benefitmindset.com
Image credit: benefitmindset.com
More at Benefit Mindset: The Psychology of Contribution and Everyday Leadership (International Journal of Wellbeing) https://internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/538
Ash Buchanan is now working on a version 2.0 of benefit mindset that is awareness-based and trauma-informed. You can stay in touch with his work by subscribing to his newsletter though benefitmindset.com or his newsletter on Mindset Psychology at Substack.
Wisdom of Death for our Growth
We believe facing death is an important way to grow on what matters most. Here we pull together nuggets of wisdom on death.
“We run after values that, at death, become zero. At the end of your life, nobody asks you how many degrees you have, or how many mansions you built, or how many Rolls Royces you could afford. That’s what dying patients teach you.”
“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive – to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”
– The late psychiatrist, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
This video is an important legacy left by the late Dr Richard Teo, the late Singapore millionaire doctor who awoke to timeless truths on kindness and serving others after being diagnosed with cancer.
Here’s an excerpt from the video:
“…Don’t let society tell you how to live. Don’t let the media tell you what you’re supposed to do. Those things happened to me. And I led this life thinking that these are going to bring me happiness. I hope that you will think about it and decide for yourself how you want to live your own life. Not according to what other people tell you to do, and you have to decide whether you want to serve yourself, whether you are going to make a difference in somebody else’s life. Because true happiness doesn’t come from serving yourself. I thought it was but it didn’t turn out that way.”
We believe learning from the regrets people have as they near the end of life can help us live more wisely.
1. Not being courageous enough to have been true to myself. Lived more for others. – Bronnie Ware, a former palliative nurse who found this and other regrets among her patients
2. Not having stayed in touch with friends. Bronnie Ware says many regretted not spending more time on friendships that deserved such effort. She says: “It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.”
3.Not having let myself be happier. Bronnie Ware says that many on their deathbed had not been aware that happiness is a choice. They had stayed in comfort-zones, afraid of change.
4.Not having had the courage to express feelings. Bronnie Ware says people had suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. This led to them living a mediocre life.
5. Having worked too hard. Bronnie Ware says that this was common in male patients who had missed out on time with their partners and children.
6. Not finding one’s “true work” – Stephen Levine
7. Not having appreciated the preciousness of one’s relationships.” – Stephen Levine
8. Not having lived a meaningful life. – Leider and Shapiro
9.Being a slave to money. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler
10.Not having spent enough time with loved ones. (This would be the top regret in Singapore according to a survey done by the Lien Foundation in 2008/2009.)
Sources: “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying” by Bronnie Ware, “Life lessons” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, “The Wheel of Life” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross; “A Year to Live” by Stephen Levine, “Whistle While You Work” by Richard J. Leider and David A. Shapiro and the Lien Foundation’s “Survey on death attitudes in Singapore”.
Meaning
Inner wealth enables us to live a life of meaning.
Scientists have found two forms of wellbeing – hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic wellbeing (often called “happiness”) is about gaining pleasure and avoiding pain and is transitory while the more long-lasting eudaimonic wellbeing is more focused on meaning, fulfilling your potential and contributing to your community. Dr James Doty explains further in his profound book, “Mind Magic”:
“…meaning (separate from happiness) is not inherently tied to social benchmarks such as comfort and wealth, while happiness (separate from meaning) is….Happiness from feeling good is often associated with self-centred “taking” behaviour, while having a sense of meaning is often associated with selfless “giving” behaviour. Where happiness depends on a sense of comfort, ease, or convenience, meaningful lives often include a surprising amount of challenging experiences and even stress, worry, and anxiety…expressing oneself creatively and caring about personal, cultural, and communal identity were linked to a life of meaning but not of happiness. …
…pleasurable experiences without meaning, whether from alcohol, drugs, casual sex, or pressing “Buy” on an online shopping site, make the body feel like it’s been facing chronic adversity. Today inflammation has been linked to serious health conditions such as heart diseases and many cancers…
…Many people seek our materialistic culture’s image of “happiness” in the form of hedonic well-being or having all of our wants satisfied. In most cases, this pursuits fails to deliver the sense of a good life in the long term. While it is true that we must have our physical needs met before we are able to focus on seeking meaning and purpose, after a certain point, the satisfactions of physical pleasures drop off. Therefore, health, financial financial prosperity and ease in life all ultimately increase hedonic well-being but not meaning…”
Implications for Policy
Policy doesn’t only happen at national levels. We have corporate policy, family policies, personal policies.
What does all this research and wisdom evoke in you?
How can you cultivate inner wealth in your own life with more support?
And how could that then naturally flow into policies at any level you have influence over?
In response to questions from Lion’s Roar magazine, Dr Robert Waldinger, author of The Good Life, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development shared these. On how policies need to change in light of what makes people happy:
We used to think that as long as GDP was going up, we would all be happier. But we found that’s not true. What we know is that if we invest in human capital—in human development and human connectedness—then the payoffs are big and they’re very long-term.