The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Success

Campbell and Brickman coined the term “hedonic treadmill”

All our actions take place against a backdrop of forces outside our control. There are plenty of things we can invest time and energy into that we can truly affect, so don’t waste resources fighting battles you can’t win.

Acknowledge emotional responses. Don’t deny anger, shame, or fear; they are natural and healthy. But don’t let them determine your actions. Sometimes you’ll need an outlet. Find a healthy one.

on average, we tend to be quicker to credit ourselves for positive outcomes, and blame external forces for negative ones (sometimes called attribution bias).

There’s a lot of career and life advice about setting goals. Goals are fine, even necessary, and measurable targets can be important management tools in business. (Research suggests that the simple act of writing down your goals24 can have a profound effect on outcomes.) But your desire to reach a goal is not going to get you there.

on average, we tend to be quicker to credit ourselves for positive outcomes, and blame external forces for negative ones (sometimes called attribution bias).

It’s difficult to read the label from inside the bottle, and

Acknowledge emotional responses. Don’t deny anger, shame, or fear; they are natural and healthy. But don’t let them determine your actions. Sometimes you’ll need an outlet. Find a healthy one.

Wealth is a means to an end: economic security. Put another way, wealth is the absence of economic anxiety. Freed of the pressure to earn, we can choose how we live.