If you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a day trader, someone with a 401k, someone who thinks everyone on Wall Street is a crook, or just doesn’t care about the economy, you need to read Transforming Wall Street because there are so many things that You may not know about capitalism in America today, and there is reason for hope. Yes, there are some shady deals, but author Kim Ann Curtin believes that there is also much to celebrate, many good people working in the financial world, and a better future for all of us that can be achieved when we reevaluate capitalism and begin to live. consciously.
Known as “The Coach of Wall Street,” Curtin set out to write this book after a diverse career that included being an operations manager for a bookstore, working as an executive assistant to the CEO of a banking association, being a personal assistant to a hedge fund manager, and finally becoming a personal and executive coach. Early in her coaching career, convinced that capitalism needed a dose of conscious living, Curtin decided to provide free training to people on Wall Street, and so, she tells us, “On October 7, 2008, I went to take my training to those I hoped could use it. Within a couple of hours of sitting on my cement bench at the corner of Broad & Wall Street, there was some static in the air. I could feel the tension. I asked a passerby what was going on. and he said, ‘The market is in free fall.’ Then people started coming up to me, the kind of executives I wasn’t expecting.”
When the stock market crashed and the Great Recession began, the seeds were planted for Curtin to train capitalists on conscious living, and from there came the idea to write this book. She understood how disgusted many people were with Wall Street when so much unethical behavior and dealings were revealed in the months that followed, but Curtin had also always been a firm believer in capitalism, and believes that rather than the two opposing concepts , one can make money and still do good in the world. Beyond that, she believes that capitalism remains the best economic answer; she asserts, “Balancing capitalism with mindful living is what can and will transform our economy, Wall Street, and the world.”
A great and noble belief, but perhaps easier said than done. Still, Curtin doesn’t kid himself or trust fantasy theories. In Transforming Wall Street, he begins with the basics of capitalism, its foundations, and separates the facts from the myths, shedding new light, or rather revealing what was always there but often overlooked, on Adam’s theories. Smith and Ayn Rand on how capitalism should work and why those beliefs are still valid and feasible today. He includes discussions with professors who are experts in the theory of capitalism and points out what capitalism really is versus how it is often misunderstood and distorted.
Then, convinced that she could find ethical people on Wall Street as role models, Curtin set out to interview the group of people she calls “The Wall Street 50,” though in the end she found more than fifty. These are ethical people who work in the financial sector; Some refused to be unethical and left corrupt companies on Wall Street, some set up their own ethically driven companies, and some are trying to change the world using capitalism as fuel. Non-profit organizations. Curtin spent hundreds of hours interviewing The Wall Street 50, and excerpts from those interviews are included in the book. Interviewees include John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group, Bill Ackman, founder of Persing Square Capital Management, and Jim Rogers, founder of Beeland Interests. She also interviewed more than a dozen people she refers to as “Masters of Consciousness” to gather her thoughts on ethical living and how capitalism can be compatible with it. These teachers include Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God, Rasanath Das, a former investment banker turned Buddhist monk, and Patricia Aburdene, author of Conscious Money.
The interview sections take up most of the book and are organized by topics of discussion, including what Curtin calls the Five Practices for Becoming More Awakened: Self-Responsibility, Empathy with Self/Others, Emotional Nonresistance/Awareness of the Present Moment, the Inner and Outer Journey, and Self-Awareness/Mindfulness. He also discusses with Wall Street 50 how they balance being capitalists with living consciously, what to do when put to the test morally, what advice they would have for those entering Wall Street, and what they would do to change Wall Street if they had magic wands. .
The result of all this research and interviews is a diversity of views about what Wall Street is and what it can become. Not all the interviewees agree with the others, but that allows for a lot of food for thought and many paths to choose from that can lead us in the right direction. Curtin’s purpose is not to offer a “solution” for Wall Street, but rather to open the conversation, to encourage people to rethink the definition of capitalism and how it works, to put aside jaded sentiments and instead see the possibilities. hope that capitalism offers. . If we all start thinking and living mindfully when it comes to our own money and how it is used, I don’t think we can underestimate the positive change that can happen. I welcome how Curtin has pulled back the “curtain” on Wall Street deals to reveal not just the bad but all the hope there is. Transforming Wall Street is a ray of hope shining through the window of a dusty room, allowing us to rediscover the possibilities of capitalism that were always there.
