Every market has its ebbs and flows, bull and bear markets. Our last bear market was in 2008-2009. We have not had a downturn in the market for seven years. We are well overdue. Winter is coming and when it does, and it will happen, don’t panic. Don’t go with the masses and focus on the short term losses. Every bear market turns around, the corrections are either big or small, it happens in 50 days or maybe 200 days but it will turn and rise again. Summer always prevails over winter. The book is to prepare you to be unshakable during this period.

A section of the book is particularly geared to a US audience, specifically speaking about who to invest your money with and where to invest your money. In a nutshell, don’t invest with stock brokers, they will send you broke. Invest your monies in a low transaction-cost index funds. They have a slow and steady approach to building wealth and the index funds will cost you less in fees.

It’s not what you earn, but what you keep that counts. It’s not what your gross earnings are per annum but what your net earnings are that matter. Let’s say you generate 10 million in gross revenue and your overheads are 9.99 million you don’t have much left to invest let alone live off. Create goals around your gross earns and net profit. Let me add to that it isn’t what you keep but what you do with what you keep that counts.

The world is uncertain; you don’t know what is going to happen around the corner. Your role is to find certainty in an uncertain world no matter what cards you are dealt. This very important to Tony which is birthed from the void of having very little certainty as a child growing up.

Can you imagine that everything you have ever owned is taken away from you? Your clothes removed, every hair on your body is shaved and your name is stripped to just a number? Nothing personal remains beyond the inner sanction of your mind. The guards may have take away all Frankl’s possessions but they could never take away his ability to think. The same goes for you and your life. Your outer world need not dictate your inner world.

Even in the challenging of circumstances and at the darkest hour, like Frankl and many others in the concentration camps, there are still strategies that will help you. Frankl’s strategy was to shave (his beard), stand smartly and walk upright. This gave the impression that he was fit. Those who were fit were asked to work. Those who were not, were sent to the gas chambers. Just goes to show, no matter what you are going through, there is a plan that will help you. You just have to think it through and then take action upon it.

Inside the concentration camp, willpower was especially important. A piece of bread in your pocket may need to last all day. You may take a crumb from it only to hold out to eat the rest in the afternoon. That’s inner strength right there.

Apathy or the blunting of emotions were the symptoms arising that lead to insensitivity to the daily or hourly beatings. A strategy necessary to create a layer of protection from the harsh conditions.

Even while living in a concentration camp, it is important to master the art of living or to “find freedom from suffering in any circumstance” as Schopenhauer stated. As there was no way of physical freedom it was to be found in different forms. This was done through the inner life of the prisoner, to find refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of existence. Strategies included: thinking of the past, remembering the events with such detail could move one to tears or like one day when a man runs inside to the sleeping quarters and yells at everyone “come, come quickly…….there is the most beautiful sunset.” Just goes to show; we can all find joy and appreciation in the small moments.

In spite of the enforced physical and mental primitiveness, you can deepen your spiritual life, create an inner life of richness and spiritual freedom. Frankl had the freedom to think about his wife, who he didn’t know was dead at the time. They had conversations, she gave him frank and encouraging looks while he worked hard in the snow digging trenches. This happens in traumatic experiences where fantasies are created in the mind to counterbalance the nightmares of reality.

He talked about love and the salvation of man is through love and in love. Love is the ultimate and the highest goal which a man can aspire.

Spinoza is quoted as saying “Emotions, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering when we make a clear and precise picture of it.” Find the benefits and meaning in the experience.

This story left an impression on me and I wanted to share it with you verbatim; It is Victor Frankl talking to a patient of his in the hospital at the Concentration Camp.