Whole Wealth Partners exists to help our clients flourish. Hence, “A Good Life” is the title of our blog because we want to share content that we hope will help unpack and expand upon this and related notions, and provide some useful background, insights, ideas and tools in the process. After all, financial wellbeing, important though it is, represents only one part of a whole flourishing life.

What does “A Good Life” mean to you?

Naming our blog “A Good Life” rather than “The Good Life”, also serves to emphasise the subjectivity of this multi-layered, multi-faceted topic.

An Ancient Greek historical context

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates never wrote anything down. His student Plato reported his speeches in published dialogues that demonstrate the Socratic method. Key to Socrates’ definition of the good life was that “the unexamined life is not worth living”.

Socrates argued that a person who lives a routine, mundane life of going to work and enjoying their leisure without reflecting on their values or life purpose had a life that wasn’t worth living.

However, he also argued that mere philosophical reflection was not sufficient for a good life. For Socrates, the good life requires self-mastery of our animal passions to ensure inner peace and the stability of the wider community.

For Plato’s student Aristotle, the acquisition of both intellectual and character virtues created the highest good, which he identified with the Greek word eudaimonia, often translated as happiness, although a closer interpretation would be flourishing.

Aristotle believed a person achieves eudaimonia when they possess all the virtues; however, acquiring them requires more than studying or training. External conditions are needed that are beyond the control of individuals, especially a form of state governance that permits people to live well.

It was Aristotle’s opinion that state legislators (part of Greek governance) should create laws that aim to improve individual character, which develops along a spectrum from vicious to virtuous. To cultivate virtue, reason is required to discern the difference between good and bad behaviour.

A longer article on this topic, which includes additional resource links, can be found here: https://positivepsychology.com/good-life/

A Modern Context

We see “whole wealth strategy” as a way for our clients to see their wealth more broadly in terms of what “a good life” means to them, and to help them realise the life they want, while also contributing to their wider positive aims beyond themselves.  

Typically, executive and life coaches, strategists and performance consultants also tend to view “wealth” in a broader context beyond just the monetary element. For example, this may include:

• Physical Health / Energy
• Mental & Emotional Health, having a sense of meaning;
• Relationships – Personal/Intimate, Family, Friends, Community, etc.
• Time – freedom to invest your time in desired activities/experiences;
• Work / Career / Mission – this encompasses a wide spectrum, from seeing one’s work as a “job”, to seeing it as a “calling” or “mission”. For example, the Japanese concept of “Ikigai” refers to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for being. It is often represented at the intersection of four areas: “What you love”, “What you are good at”, “What the world needs”, and “What you can be paid for”.
• Money & Finances
• Personal Growth & Learning
• Contribution – to something larger than self, and being able to appreciate being appreciated.

Such multi-faceted approaches to life and wealth can also be seen by exploring “multi-capital” frameworks, beyond purely economic activity measures such as GDP, that include for example Social Capital, Environmental or Natural Capital, Human Capital, Manufactured Capital (including technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, digital communications, the Internet of information and “things”, or “everything” as some frame it), in addition to Financial Capital, which of course includes “money”, and is, in effect, a subset of Manufactured Capital because human beings invented this concept and societal tool that we call “money”.

Hence, having a suitable strategy for living your “Good Life” is about achieving a dynamic balance of multiple aspects of life – together enabling, supporting and advancing the life you want.

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