Robert Rosenkranz is a self-made billionaire. His key to success: stoic philosophy.
In his new ebook, “The Stoic Capitalist: Advice for the Exceptionally Ambitious,” Rosenkranz shares how historic knowledge from the likes of Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius formed his personal success — and might encourage yours, too.
“This whole book in a way goes against the grain of a lot of contemporary culture,” Rosenkranz informed The Put up. “It’s talking about self-reliance. It’s talking about taking full responsibility for your own life. It’s talking about not considering yourself a victim. It’s talking about quitting worrying about things that you can’t change.”
The ebook, out Could sixth, is a memoir with historic knowledge sprinkled generously all through. Rosenkranz, 82, is a self-made billionaire and a significant business chief in personal fairness, multi-strategy hedge funds, and the insurance coverage business.
He retired as CEO of Delphi Monetary Group in 2018, the place he grew the corporate’s price 100-fold.
“This is a book for anybody who aspires to live a life that gets them the distance from where they were as a child,” Rosenkranz, who grew up in a one bed room floor flooring condominium in Manhattan along with his dad and mom, mentioned. “These are ideas you can use to realize your childhood dreams.”
He was impressed to write down the ebook as a result of his nieces and nephews wished to document interviews with him about his life, however Rosenkranz, 82, insists this ebook isn’t an train in self-aggrandizing.
“This project wasn’t just celebrating myself,” he mentioned. “I was really trying to do something useful to give people some ideas that they could use to thrive in their own lives, which is why I framed it all in terms of cognitive theory and stoic philosophy.”
The ebook is spliced up into quick chapters that comply with his life from childhood to the current day, and embody subjects like getting wealthy slowly, methods to get indignant, and dying and taxes.
“You could read any chapter, and they more or less stand on their own,” he mentioned. “I just don’t feel like the Stoic principles come alive unless you see how they can be applied to someone’s life.”
Michael Bloomberg dubbed the ebook “an inspiring story of a life well lived.”
“I think of myself as a natural born stoic,” Rosenkranz writes. “The habits often that helped me cope as a child, and helped me succeed as an adult, echo in the philosophical insights of the Stoics.”
He says historic Greek philosophers taught him the mastery of his personal feelings.
“Stoics use reason to regulate emotions,” Rosenkranz mentioned. “We all react emotionally. We’re not trying to deny that or suppress emotions, but it’s your responsibility to decide whether acting on emotion will serve your interests or not.”
Rosenkranz, who’s Jewish, was a summa cum laude graduate of Yale’s class of 1962. He says he skilled antisemitism on campus and was informed he may solely work for Jewish corporations upon commencement. Nonetheless, in true stoic trend, he entitled a chapter “You Face Prejudice: So What?.”
“There were very truncated opportunities for Jewish kids when I was growing up,” he mentioned. “I just thought this is the way the world works, and I’ve got to figure out how to adapt to it, and I think that’s just simply a much more constructive approach than sitting around criticizing the way the world works.”
In his ebook, Rosenkranz additionally shares a lot of his insights from a long time within the enterprise world, from methods to nail an interview, to methods to construct wealth, to methods to negotiate.
“Negotiation is a problem for two people to solve, it’s not a game for one person to win,” he defined. “It’s a creative process where you’re both trying to come up with a solution that will leave you each feeling better off.”
However he’s certain to persistently litter Stoic insights all through, like accepting impermanence as a truth of life and studying the worth of time.
“Time is our most valuable resource, but it’s so easy to fritter away your time if you’re not being mindful of it,” he mentioned. “You can make more money, but you can’t make more time.”
Anybody who understands that perception, Rosenkranz argues, is liberated to stay a life nicely lived.
“The Stoic concept of freedom is not license to do whatever you like, but self-possession of learning how to value and experience the fullness of time,” he writes. “Being busy is the enemy of being thoughtful.”
