Earlier this week I met with the editorial and publicity team over at Portfolio (the publisher of 168 Hours). We have been working for a while at coming up with a title for the money book. I have been relieved to learn that a book can be mostly written without a title, but it is still generally nice to have one. It gives you a touch point to keep mentioning in different chapters, and to tie everything back together.
Anyway, with large volumes of people packed into one office, we came up with this:
All The Money In The World:
What the happiest people know about getting and spending
Before we proceed, let me say that, yes, I know there was a book that came out in 2007 about the Forbes 400 with the same main title. I can also assure you that absolutely none of the Forbes 400 currently appears in this book. It is more about us mere mortals and our relationship with money.
So what do I mean by “all the money in the world” then? Well, the happiest people behave as though they have enough (or can get enough if they try) to live the lives they want. In other words, they have or have a plan for getting all the money in the world that they particularly want. They see every dollar as a choice and allocate it toward what matters to them. They know what the burgeoning field of happiness research tells us is associated with happiness, and live accordingly.
I’m feeling reasonably good about it (and relieved to have something to call this manuscript). And the book is coming together. So I want to make an offer to regular readers of this blog. I’m looking for a few beta-testers for the book. That is, people who will read the manuscript and give me feedback on what they hate, what they love, points that don’t make sense, obvious data points I have completely overlooked, spots where one’s attention starts to drift, etc. If you’d be interested, and would be willing to keep the manuscript completely confidential, please email me at [email protected] and I will be in touch over the next few weeks. Thanks!
