The Middle-Class Link to Great Wealth
On the Virtues of Reading and Awareness
The subtitle of my book is A Middle-Class Manifesto for Objective Investing. That was intentional. The Moneyball Method does not apply directly to very high net worth families or investors who are primarily invested in closely held business interests and other illiquid assets. Cash flow is not existential for them, but we all have the same 24 hours each day.
Because of that, Time is the Essence is the title of Chapter Six and contained in its pages are facts and values of the billionaire class that are relevant to anyone who chooses to engage their mind, body and spirit. It is concretized as the Facts and Values Matrix - and Fortune Magazine wrote about the integration with their summary of the 2025 edition of Principal Discussions from JP Morgan Private Bank:
“The currency of life is time,” wrote one anonymous billionaire family leader in the report. “It is not money. You think carefully about how you spend one dollar. You should think just as carefully [about] how you spend one hour.”
Not only do the successful entrepreneurs and investors invest capital with deliberate intent, but they also invest their time with the same focus on rewards. Those can be material, spiritual, entertaining, gratifying or relaxing – and money is a tool to facilitate that – to buy time. But what did the JP Morgan survey discover about the people who have earned great wealth?
Reading is the most commonly cited habit tied to the success of some of the world’s wealthiest families . . . The wealth management firm found that exercise, consistency, and waking up early are also top contributors to long-term success.
So far, the Fortune article’s summary of the JP Morgan Private Bank report dovetails perfectly with The Moneyball Method. Many books are cited in its footnotes and index – and they are not all finance and economics. In fact, it is necessary sometimes to make connections with literature, sports, history, science, philosophy and music to understand why principles are principled and why fallacies are fallacious.
It is also necessary to complement the intellectual and financial gains with physical exercise, doing what you say you’ll do, and making the early hours the most productive.
But whether your intentions are financial, emotional or physical, it is important to know what adaptations you would like to achieve. They can be material goods, uplifting experiences, or aerobic capacity and strength. And for Moneyball investors, the tools are simulation software for integrating money and time, or the heart rate monitor for integrating fitness and time.
In this excerpt from Ayn Rand’s 1957 epic novel Atlas Shrugged, the character of Ellis Wyatt explains it best:
What’s wealth but the means of expanding one’s life? There’s two ways one can do it: either by producing more or by producing it faster. And that’s what I’m doing: manufacturing time. Here, we trade achievements, not failures — values, not needs. We’re free of one another, yet we all grow together.
But what does it mean to be free of one another and grow together? That may be the most difficult, compelling and valuable social concept ever devised. Free of one another means privacy. Privacy is one of America’s founding principles. It is the essence of a truly civilized culture. It is the ethics of individualism - and the enemies of civilization are all forms of collectivism: socialism, progressivism, fascism, communism and the welfare state.
And what does it mean, “yet we all grow together?” A massive and free library of knowledge and wisdom at our fingertips through the internet - if we only make the effort. Standing on the shoulders of giants plus voluntary production and trade for mutual profit. Demanding or expecting nothing that is not earned. And teaching independence by the Middle-Class Manifesto and becoming one of those heroes:
Because a young child is wired to learn, they give us a glimpse into the nature of moral perfection. In fact, it is the unique ability to make transformations of our awareness and strength that is unique to each human life. As with all things human, the cause is free will and the choice is to think. That is the prime mover: To think or not to think.