You will never look at the word investment in the same way after reading The Resilient Investor. Investing is about more than money, it is about your life.
The full title of the book by financial advisors Hal Brill, Michael Kramer, and Christopher Peck is The Resilient Investor: A Plan for Your Life, Not Just Your Money. That should give you a clue this is not your typical investment 101 book and you will not be learning how to get rich by investing in the stock market. What you will gain is a broader perspective about investing and a toolkit to help you create your own resilient investment plan.
I was interested in reading this book for two reasons. First, I was curious. I wondered if it was possible for three money guys to speak about non-financial matters in an understandable and useful way? Second, I wanted to learn more about investing in people, communities, and companies that are taking the long view and working towards keeping Earth habitable now and in the future.
Book Review
“Does the challenge of making informed decisions about your life seem far more complex today than it did even a short time ago? Does the future—your own and that of the world—feel highly uncertain, perhaps even precarious? We can sense you there, nodding in agreement.”
When I read the first few sentences of The Resilient Investor (above), I thought, “Yes that is exactly how I feel.”
Before reading this book, I would have automatically associated money with the word investment but I think the authors’ expanded version is much more useful because it encompasses your whole life and that is what is important.
“…try this on for size: investing is something that we all do by directing our time, attention, energy, or money in ways that move us toward our future dreams, using a diverse range of strategies.”
Readers as you move through the book you will learn about the Resilient Investing Map (RIM), a handy tool for making notes and organizing your thoughts about what you want to keep doing, stop doing, or start doing when it comes to investing in your life. You can work on your own RIM as you read the book, read the whole book and then use the RIM, or skip the RIM entirely and use your own method. I am taking the middle approach. I have read the book and now I am doing my RIM.
You will learn how to recognize your real net worth and about close to home, global, and evolutionary investment strategies (remember it is not just about money). A discussion of possible future scenarios encompasses a full spectrum of outcomes from doom and gloom to a bright new world. These scenarios combined with various investor profiles will help you identify your own worldview, where you stand, and what is important to you.
To help you evaluate your own situation and create a resilient investing plan the authors provide a step-by-step guide and examples from their own lives.
The book wraps up with a review of sustainable and responsible investing (SRI) an approach that screens investments for environmental, social, and governance factors as well as traditional return on investment financial measures.
The Bottom Line
Not surprisingly, tax season is what led me to read The Resilient Investor and write a review about it this April. I do not know about you, but money is usually on my mind when I am collecting and organizing information for our income tax returns. To me, this seems like the ideal time to expand my thinking about investing and to create my own resilient investing plan. I hope you think so, too.
The authors of The Resilient Investor, Hal Brill, Michael Kramer, and Christopher Peck are managing partners of Natural Investments, a B Corporation specializing in sustainable, responsible investments. Jim Cummings is a writer who works with Natural Investments and is the editor of the book.
Admittedly, Brill, Kramer, and Peck are not a diverse trio. They describe themselves as “three college-educated white guys who all co-own a specialty investment company.” However, they do have decades of resilient living and investing experience and a compelling vision for a resilient future.
The book is short (less than 200 pages) making it easy to read and carry around. The writing style is conversational and straightforward. A companion website offers more information and downloadable blank and example RIMs.
“In the end, despite our continued positing that the idea of investing needs to be expanded, there comes a time to drop the distinctions that divide our daily lives into categories. There is only one activity that we are all engaged with all the time: we are simply trying to live our lives the best we can.”
Reader Note: I first learned about The Resilient Investor while reading a newsletter from Natural Investments. Our financial advisor is a member of the Natural Investments team. When I asked him about the book, he offered to give me a copy. I chose to invest my time in writing this review because I think readers may find the book informative and useful.
Featured Image at Top: Purple Flower in a Metal Spring with Loose Petals on a Wood Surface – Photo Credit Shutterstock/Alta Oosthuizen
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