Review By: Myra Salzer
Fables of Fortune – What Rich People Have That You Don’t Want is a book that peeks into the secret lives of the uber-wealthy. I am as impressed with Richard Watts as I am with this book. He’s an attorney who represents not only the extremely wealthy, but many who have the double whammy of being both rich AND famous. At least if you’re only rich, it’s possible to navigate through life anonymously. Not so with those who have the ill fortune of fame.
I appreciate Watts’ tale, not just for the stories about his clients and others he’s surrounded himself with over the years, but also because he has never allowed himself to get seduced by their lifestyles. It appears he has a nicely balanced personal life, and his family is very important to him. While he is apparently in a financial position where he will never need to worry about where his next meal is coming from, his values are more about treasuring experiences than assets or things. He seems like a fine individual, the kind of guy you want to go out to lunch with.
Watts defines “superrich” as those never have to ask themselves, “Can I afford this?” He has an interesting perspective on entitlement:
While being “poor” is having nothing and knowing it, and being “rich” is having everything and knowing it, being “entitled” is having everything and NOT knowing it. He brings it all home with the following: “The richest person is not who has the most… but the one who needs the least.”
By the time I finished the book, I felt a sense of ease and satisfaction, and I am grateful for not having the burdens of being under society’s microscope, and/or having to monitor more assets than I can enjoy. And, I am profoundly grateful for my relationships, failures, experiences, and anonymity. 🙂
I enjoyed this book enough to look up whether Richard Watts had written any others and found that he had – quite recently in fact. It’s called Entitlemania. I downloaded it immediately and put it high in my reading queue.