Taking Stock Book Review by a Mental Health Therapist
This is a book review of: Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor's Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life by Jordan Grumet, reviewed by a Mental Health Therapist, Nicole Nina.
I have beena long time listener of Doc G’s Earn and Invest Podcast where he interviews guests about topics such as FIRE (Financial Independedence Retire Early), the importance of living a fufilling life, and the trade off between indgulging now or later.
When Doc G announced his book launch - I was delighted to listen to his book on Audible, narrated by himself! This book meant so much to me I felt it deserved a review here on my blog about Anxiety, even though it’s only tangentialy related.
How does this book help Anxiety?
Anxiety is feuled by worry. And there’s nothing people worry about more than death, dying, finances and the fear of missing out.
We tend to worry a lot about missing out on things and what steps we need to take now - and it can feel impossible to sort all of this out alone, which is why many people see me for therapy. {such smart people!}
Diving into these topics reduces the anxiety we tend to feel around them can reduce symptoms of anxiety. Doc G sprinkles conventional investing and financial advice throughout the book, but the more sailient point of the book is to live in alignment with your goals and dreams, and learn to accept the juxaposition between YOLO (You Only Live Once - ie. spend now!) and investing for the future.
YOLO versus Delayed Gratifaction
As highlighted above, we can’t do everything all at once. If we save for tomorrow - we may be missing out on something today. And this idea plays out in many of the conversations I have with clients and manifest in some of these ways:
Should I continue working in this job I hate to gain more expeirence or leave for something that makes me happier now?
Should I stay with my partner who I have invested a lot of time with and seek counseling, or leave now because I think it’s over?
Should I have kids now while I’m young or wait until I am older, wiser and more ready but potentially less fertile?
Life is full of these decisions about how long we should wait, and when we should act now.
Taking the perspective of looking at your life from a lens of: I could die tomorrow., tends to give people perspective that is not often considered. After all, we’ll do practically anything to avoid dying, and therefore thinking about dying.
But as Doc G also highlights, “sometimes, in order to pursue things we really want, we have to suffer for a time.” We can’t live thinking that tomorrow is the end - because the climb is life. The climb is organized society! Purusuing the path to becoming a doctor, or even my own as a mental health therapist is certainly not one I would have undertaken if I thought I truly was going to die tomorrow. But the opportunity cost for many is worth it.
So how do you know what’s worth YOLOing for and giving room for dealyed gratification?
Conduct a Life Audit
Doc G proproses several times in the book to take space and think about your life from a birds eye view. He suggests jounralling about an array of existential questions to help answer questions about money, career and life goals. This same advice has made its way into my individual sessions with my clients to answer some of these questions:
What is that you still need to do before you die?
What is it that brings you the most joy in life that you want to build on?
Who is it that you want to spend the most time with?
What sacrifices are worth it right now?
What help might you need to accomplish these things?
Working with me, or reading this book will not unlock the secrets of life, but it will give you some time and space to examine some topics that may be causing some underlying stress or anxiety.
Conducting a life audit of sorts is helpful to anyone at anytime in my clinical opinion, and is essentially a huge component of what happens in the therapy room.
My overall opinion: Read it!
Truthfully, this book had such a big impact on me, that it really birthed this blog. When you sit and really think about your own mortality and what you have left to do in life, I realized that my long term dream of writing more had been taking too much of a backseat. While raising multiple children gives me incredible fufillment - it also takes up a huge chunk of my time. I had to take an audit to see that this particular hobby deserved more space!
Reading this book gave me a sobering reality that no one really wants to face: we don’t live forever.
And while this fact is true that we are “dying from the day we are born” it is also true that we are "living from the day we are born”. Thus, this book gave me the opportunity to reflect deeply that I needed more space to cultivate more of things I want to do.
I will close with one of my favorite quotes of the book:
“What If I Die Before I Give Myself the Chance to Try?”
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below and let me know if you chose to give it a read!
The information and resources contained on this website are for informational purposes only and are not intended to assess, diagnose, or treat any medical and/or mental health disease or condition. The use of this website does not imply nor establish any type of therapist-client relationship. Furthermore, the information obtained from this site should not be considered a substitute for a thorough medical and/or mental health evaluation by an appropriately credentialed and licensed professional.
