In financial advising, we spend a lot of time talking about numbers — returns, portfolio design, tax strategies, retirement planning. All of it matters. It’s the foundation of what we do. But if I’m being honest about why this work is meaningful to me, it’s not really about the numbers at all. It’s about what the numbers make possible. At its core, the goal of advising is simple: help people live happier, more secure lives.
That raises an obvious follow-up question: What do we actually know about happiness?
Lately, I’ve been spending some time thinking about positive psychology — the scientific study of what makes human beings thrive. It’s a relatively young field, pioneered by researchers like Martin Seligman, and it has produced some genuinely surprising findings. I want to share a few that have stayed with me.
Happiness Isn’t Something That Happens to You
One of the more interesting insights in this field is that happiness isn’t as tied to our circumstances as we tend to think it is. Numerous studies have suggested that after major life changes — like winning the lottery — people tend to return to roughly the same baseline level of happiness within a couple of years. Researchers call this “hedonic adaptation.”
What that really means is that the next milestone rarely delivers the lasting satisfaction we expect it to. The bigger house or the account balance that finally crosses a certain threshold are important life events that feel like they hold genuine significance, and sometimes they truly do. But they don’t move the needle on happiness the way we imagine they will.
What Actually Moves the Needle
Positive psychology points to a handful of factors that consistently predict well-being across cultures and circumstances.
Relationships are at the top of every list. Not just having them, but investing in them — showing up, being present, creating shared experiences. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies on human happiness, found that the quality of our close relationships is the single strongest predictor of a flourishing life.
Meaning and purpose matter too. People who feel connected to something bigger than themselves — a cause, a community, a calling — tend to report significantly higher levels of well-being than those who don’t.
And then there’s engagement — the feeling of being fully absorbed in what you’re doing. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called this “flow.” It’s that sweet spot where your skills meet a real challenge. When you’re in it, you’re not thinking about whether you’re happy — you just are.
What This Means for How We Think About Wealth
None of this is an argument against financial security. If anything, it’s the opposite. Having that sense of financial security removes the anxiety that can crowd out everything else and can create the conditions for happiness to grow.
The research is consistent: Beyond a certain threshold, more money doesn’t lead to more happiness. What moves the needle is how we use what we have. The relationships we deepen. The purposes we fund. The experiences we create.
That is why I find myself returning to questions that go beyond the portfolio. Not just “Are you on track?” but “On track toward what?”
The science of happiness has a lot to say to financial advisors. And the message is one I find genuinely hopeful: The things that matter most are often closer than we think.
About VALUABLES
Many financial advisors focus on communicating with clients to provide complex analysis of the investment markets and economies. However, we have learned that most clients are not particularly interested in this complex analysis. Most clients hire an advisor for their knowledge of the markets, not for their ability to explain that knowledge. Most want to know what time it is, not how to build a watch.
Experience has taught us that wealthy families care most about using their wealth as a means to a desirable end, which is to achieve a more satisfying, fulfilled and impactful life, and to fulfill their most important Life Values.
VALUABLES is a periodic article series focused on the concepts, systems, and habits which we have observed among families who have been successful in this quest to use their wealth as a tool to live a life of significance. The most successful families share a set of habits, systems, and insights which enable them to use their wealth as a tool to fulfill their Values and what is most important to them.
We named this article series VALUABLES, because it provides an exploration of those habits, systems, and insights. We hope it will help you to consider your assets and possessions which are most valuable to you, and how you can use your financial wealth to enhance and cultivate your true “Valuables”.
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