Meet co-host of the Mindful Wealth Podcast, Jonathan K. DeYoe.

Founder and CEO of the California-based financial planning firm mindful.money, Jonathan has a background like no other finance man I’ve ever met. After a stint as a grad student in comparative religion, Jonathan left academia to pursue a career in finance. Fast-forward some ten years, five of which were spent on Wall Street, and Jonathan says: “I love the client work, but I hate the industry.”

His pet peeve: the financializing of everything to the exclusion of what he calls: “True Wealth; the things that money can’t buy and death can’t take away.”

I came to know Jonathan through reading his book, Mindful Money. I was so inspired – by the mixture of Buddhist mindset and how-to financial advice – that I decided to write my own mindful investing book called Mindful Landlord .

Still, up until one year ago, I had only admired Jonathan’s work from afar.

Then COVID happened. The world went virtual, and from the (dis)comfort of home quarantine, I finally had an excuse to reach out to him. We booked a Facebook Live interview and I finally got to ask him all the questions his book left in my mind. 

That interview turned into a few off-air conversations, which turned into an idea for a show. And now, almost a year later, please enjoy some of the high-points of Episode 2 of The Mindful Wealth Podcast, where I interview Jonathan DeYoe about his vision of wealth and his motivation for starting the show.

What is Wealth?

“We have a common understanding of wealth,” says Jonathan. “It involves external conditions, economics. It’s levels of assets and levels of income. That leads to levels of influence and control or power.”

That is not, however, “True wealth”, according to him.

“We all know someone who makes money and wealth and power their ultimate goal, and they’re miserable. If we get the thing that is the common definition [of wealth], we’re not as happy as if [we attain] true wealth.”

What is true wealth?

“All the things money can’t buy and things death can’t take away: health, close family, deep friendships, accountability, generosity, optimism, those kinds of things…”

According to Jonathan, we run into trouble as a society when we define wealth or success too narrowly as financial resources. We should instead see wealth as a question of external conditions: financial resources, money, power, influence – that
can’t be divorced from internal conditions like family, friendships, values, and health.

Stop Financializing Everything!

Jonathan sees equating the quest for success with financial wealth as a big problem.

“I want to get to this idea about why we financialize everything.”

This is Jonathan’s motivation for starting the show: to understand and explore alternative value structures that encompass more than just a narrow, financialized definition of wealth.

Says Jonathan about conflating material wealth with success: “No one is happy about it. We are at levels of stress, levels of suicide, levels of anxiety, people are taking pills to survive… I just wonder if some of this isn’t because we’ve financialized everything. We’ve determined that success is money. That has killed us. We have to get back to what success really is. Money is important, because it enables and supports. But it’s not the end.”

And that is the goal of the Mindful Wealth Podcast in Jonathan’s words: “to get to a place where we can agree on what is the real end.”

Necessary But Not Sufficient

When questioned about how he sees the intersection of success, ambition, wealth and happiness, Jonathan says:
“I don’t think you can set wealth or happiness as a target. A life in search of wealth ends up poor. A life in search of financial wealth ends up with real poverty; no friends, no [emotional connections]. And a life in search of happiness ends up as spinning in circles.”

The true aim should be towards “the good life”.

“You can’t make choices that lead to wealth or choices that lead to happiness. You can make choices that lead to a good life and maybe – once you’ve made those choices – you can also have wealth and you can also have happiness. These things ensue from living the good life.”

Living a good life is a necessary but not sufficient condition for wealth and happiness.

Jonathan cautions: “But it’s not a guarantee. [Aiming for the good life] provides the highest probability of reaching those two – and – in the instance of failure, you’ve still lead a good life.”

Want to learn more?
You’ll have to listen to the interview here. 

Please enjoy the rest of the conversation with Jonathan DeYoe.