The Resilient Investor: A Plan for Your Life, Not Just Your Money

by Hal Brill, Michael Kramer, Christopher Peck

If you want to build a better life and a better world—and really be prepared for any possible future in these turbulent times—you need to become a resilient investor! This trailblazing guide will expand your ideas of investing way beyond Wall Street. Your time, your energy, and the things you own are investments too, and you’ll learn to diversify them in ways that move you toward your life goals.

The Resilient Investment Map lays out all your assets—personal and physical as well as financial—and then provides three essential, timely strategies (Close to Home, Sustainable Global Economy, and Evolutionary Investing) that will help you grow each of them. The goal is to become more able to anticipate disturbance, rebuild as necessary, and improve when possible. You’ll discover that the choices making you more resilient also enhance our communities, our economy, and the planet—building real wealth for all.

Genres: Finance, Money, Nonfiction, Business

192 pages, Paperback

Published February 15, 2015

Reviews

[Margot · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Resilient Investor was created as a guidebook for people who consciously think about what they are doing with their lives and their money. As the subtitle says, “A Plan for Your Life, Not Just Your Money.” The authors believe investing is not just about having more. Its about living a happy, fulfilling life. The book begins by reminding us of Aristotle who . . .

“ . . . described the point of a well-lived life, the goal we should be aiming for, as “blessedness.” For Aristotle blessedness meant enjoying family and friends, with a deep feeling of well-being and contentment.”

Our lives are about more than accumulating wealth. Do our investments of money and time reflect the values that are important to us? Do they lead to that state of blessedness?

The Resilient Investor offers an excellent tool to help readers examine our “blessedness.” It’s a nine-zoned chart or map called the Resilient Investor Map. The map is divided into the various aspects of our lives and our investments. On one side of the map is the three types of assets/returns: Financial, Tangible and Personal. Dividing the map across the top are the three core investment strategies: Close to Home, Sustainable Global Economy and Evolutionary. Each zone of the map is thoroughly explained and discussed through out the book.

As you read The Resilient Investor, you’ll want to examine your own life. Good news: the authors do not leave you alone. The book is meant to be interactive and to continue past the last page. A website, Resilient Investor, has been created with that in mind. There you will find a blank copy of the Resilient Investor Map. You can copy it to design and implement your own personal plan. In addition, the website links to the Resilient Investor blog with even more updated information.

As I read and worked my way through The Resilient Investor, I found myself thinking about the future. How prepared am I? Am I resilient in light of the various things that might happen? What strategies will I adopt? Like me, you may find that reading this book will make you change the way you think about investing and the future. And, that can be a very good thing. I highly recommend adding this book to your library.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

These guys do have some good things to say but there's really not a whole lot here that isn't already common sense to anyone that would likely decide to read it. They drop a lot of names like Bill Mollison, Allan Savory, Charles Eisenstein, Richard Branson, William McDonough... basically everyone from Guy McPherson to Buckminster Fuller. They summarize the spectrum between "doomer" and "dreamer", in my opinion giving too much credibility to the more techno-utopian views, telling the reader that the key to resiliency is to be open to anything. While that's sort of true, it can also be kind of irresponsible (I'm definitely not contributing anything to Mars colonization or some other disgusting project just because some idiot with money offers to pay me for design work). I also find it pretty sad that people are so money-minded that we're now resorting to financial metaphors like "assets" and "capital" to describe things like friends and trees. It's definitely important to challenge the common perception of "wealth" though, so the general idea is a good one. I've been telling people for a while that they're better off building a passive solar or rocket stove-heated house surrounded by food forests and a good community than expecting a retirement fund to be there for them. And the authors seem to agree with that. Overall, I think I'd only recommend this to someone who's totally new to these ideas and could use a bunch of random things to google or someone too skeptical to commit to reading a longer book. For everyone else, I'd recommend Charles Eisenstein's book Sacred Economics. So far that's the best one I've found.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite part about this book is it bucks the trend of every other personal finance book and didn’t treat the stock market or becoming a landlord as the only options for investing aka having your money work for you. Granted, regardless of whatever other options are available, most people will probably still (and sadly but realistically probably should) invest in low cost, broad based index funds that track the stock market; but it was refreshing to read a book that treated investing much more holistically than the rest. I think it lacked in examples of alternative investment options, which isn’t necessarily the author’s fault as there really aren’t many other options that have the same quality. My goal is to build a “10 mile portfolio” that does not contain any residential real estate (and preferably little to no real estate), and I’d say this book did an okay job at giving me a sense of my options.

[Brandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hal Brill, Christopher Peck, Michael Kramer, and Jim Cummings's "The Resilient Investor: A Plan for Your Life, Not Just Your Money" is a good book for those considering investing and what it entails. I like how the authors consider the 'whole picture' surrounding investing, not just the monetary issues. As the authors state "Resilient investing looks at more than how we use and invest our money—it also focuses on how we direct our time and attention."

Whereas 'college me' does not really have to worry about investing at this moment, it is probably something 'future me' will have to consider. This book will make an excellent resource when that time comes. Even though I do not have to worry about the monetary aspects of investing at this time in my life, the authors do have some good advice on issues such as time and personal assets that anyone can use.

[Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't be deterred by the word "Investor" in the title. This book is a guide to life rather than investing. There are of course plenty of financial themes throughout the book but a majority of the book is centered around what you can do to invest in yourself, your local community, and your planet.

This is an extremely refreshing read from the world of finance which is normally "maximized profit, highest return, no emotions." The authors write from a place of compassion and understanding. It is a light and easily digestible read. Could not recommend more for anyone who wants to both plan for the future and do their part to add their own unique gift to the progress of our world.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

Read the whole review at: https://greengroundswell.com/the-resi...

[Hugo Damião Dias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Limited interest for the ideas presented by the Resilient Investor Map.
The authors make a a huge push towards green/sustainable investments.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this approach to investing. The starting point is to broaden the definition of "investment" beyond the usual focus on financial investments in real estate, stocks, bonds, etc. This opens up the whole conversation to include many more people. Let's face it most people don't even think about "investment" until they have disposable income above and beyond what they need for daily life.

The 2nd key principle of this book is to consider different scenarios for the future, rather than just assume that the economy (and everything else) will continue more or less as is. Very sensible. This includes environmental, social, economic and other concerns.

Although the authors are based in the US and some of what they say is specific to regulations and things happening there, it serves as a really useful model even for those of us outside the US. The key principles and frameworks are applicable much more broadly. They locate individual consumer choices within the investment framework, as well as choices about where we invest our TIME and energy.

Highly recommend.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book from Goodreads giveaway. I enjoyed the steps illustrated in the book to be a better investor. The most important lesson, was to stay close to home, with ones investments.