Redefining the Meaning of Wealth

The Los Angeles Times interviewed Eli Broad back in May. For those of you who may not know, Mr. Broad is a well known business person, philanthropist, and art collector who lives in the Los Angeles area. In addition to the broad (no pun intended) range of causes he supports, he is a strong advocate for LA, and he gives a great deal of his money and time to local causes. If you’re interested, you can find out more about his accomplishments and charitable work by doing a Google search on him.

So why do I bring up Eli Broad? I bring him up because I was very impressed at an answer he gave to one of the questions he was asked in the interview I refer to above. He was asked to comment on what our new economic realities would mean, and he replied:

“It’s not any longer simply about how much money you have, what your assets are worth. The happiest people I’ve found are in science. These people have three times the IQ — maybe I’m exaggerating. They have a higher IQ than I do. They love what they’re doing, they have a good family life, they’re satisfied. People are going to take a look at how we define wealth, and not just in financial terms. They’ll ask, what am I accomplishing? What am I going to leave behind? What am I doing with my kids? How am I going to help my community? I’ve not led a balanced life. If I had it to do over again, maybe I might lead a more balanced life. But then, I probably wouldn’t have accomplished the things I have.”

I think Mr. Broad is spot on when he says we are going to have to take a look at how we define wealth. After all, this is what my whole blog is about, so when I hear prominent business leaders talking about looking at wealth in different ways, I get very excited! Whether we are billionaire philanthropists or hourly paid workers, we all intuitively know our economy is in for some major changes and it may never go back to the exact way it was before. I think these changes will actually be very positive in the long run. There will certainly be some big bumps in the road as we adjust to new realities, but we’ll all hopefully carve our more meaningful balanced lives for ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of disproportionately concentrating on the financial aspects of life. Finances are no doubt important, but there are so many other things that are important as well. So what do you think? I would be interested to hear your reactions to Mr. Broad’s comments.