Monkey Money Mind ISBN: 9781946633712 Forbes Books Copyright and written by Chris Zadeh and Angeliyue Schouten.
Subtitled “How to Stop Monkeying Around with Your Money” this book provides brief notes about the authors followed by an Introduction commenting on “Making Sense of How We Use our Cents” followed by nine chapters of suggestions, an Epilogue, The Silverback (gorilla), 179 pertinent bibliographic notes and finally an extensive Bibliography listed alphabetically. The authors explain that the Money Monkey Mind is “a hybrid of two concepts; it’s the psychological influences on our financial decisions blended with the Buddhist concept of the monkey mind, “the presence within us that remains restless and unsettled, criticizing our decisions, creating doubt, and stifling our creativity…. affect even the most brilliant financial giants.” The rational mind may focus on the future but the Monkey Money Mind focuses only on the present seeing only the next tree branch with the next piece of fruit – instant gratification. The concept is based upon the fact that “only a few shreds of DNA separate humans from apes. In fact, we share more than 96 percent of our genetic composition – a percentage ten times smaller than the genetic difference between rats and mice.” In other words, even the most knowledgeable individuals suffer occasionally from the urge for instant gratification, or taking the less demanding route our more rational side dictates. Each chapter examines a different phase of this troubling activity and provides helpful suggestions toward making the correct decision. Simple choices are examined with test proven results that readers may find surprising; e.g. is winning of a physical prize such as a car, expensive piece of jewelry, or other more gratifying than winning money? And why? The results often are offered from studies of unusual sources such as the NFL. Other factors are discussed using equally interesting subjects of brand loyalty, Inattention blindness, gambler’s fallacy, the trouble with easy payments, getting over irrational (and expensive) fear of loss, expert addiction, the importance of making your own decision and more.
Discussion: The authors, both of whom have experienced lean money times from childhood, have produced an interesting discussion and provided most viable suggestions on how to deal with this monster of a subject. Further, they have done so in a simple, readily understood manner, reciting study results of pertinent examples from unusual test groups. The summary suggestions pertinent to each subject discussed also neatly provide ‘take away’ thoughts. This book is well worth a reader’s time.
5* Nicely presented discussion and suggestions of a most important subject.