Fame & Fortune: Author Stephen Pollan
His motto: Live rich, die broke and
stiff the undertaker
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In an age when life coaches are springing up like
dandelions, Stephen Pollan is the sturdy oak tree with the tire
swing that anchors the front yard. He's seen it all, advised those
who've done it all, and arrived at a personal and professional state
of grace from which he dispenses wisdom to those who suspect the
ladder to success may only lead to the empty treehouse of disappointment.
There was a time when Pollan was
bullish on the money-go-round. As a senior vice president for National
Westminster Bank and CEO of a closed-end investment company, Pollan's
commonsensical approach to making money grow made him one of America's
most trusted financial advisers.
Then fate reshuffled his deck.
At 48, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and grounded for a year
and a half. The period of dread and introspection that followed
led to an epiphany that would usher in his second act as the contrary
voice of reason in the sea of financial blather. The secret to life,
he discovered, was not to amass wealth and pass it on to the kids,
but to spend it, every dime of it, and bounce the check to the undertaker.
His 1997 best-selling manifesto, "Die Broke,"
and its companion piece, "Live Rich," knocked traditional
financial planning on its collective ear with its radical four-part
approach to making and enjoying money ("quit today, pay cash,
don't retire and die broke").
At 76, Pollan is an in-demand motivational speaker
and life coach whose recent books "Fire Your Boss" and
"It's All in Your Head: Thinking Your Way to Happiness"
expand his sage advice into Dr. Phil territory. He and his wife,
Corky, have four children, including actress Tracy Pollan (Mrs.
Michael J. Fox) and author Michael Pollan ("The Botany of Desire,"
"The Omnivore's Dilemma"), and 11 grandchildren.
Bankrate spoke with the original "Die Broker"
from his law office at Warshaw Burstein Cohen Schlesinger &
Kuh in New York City just as he was vacating his longtime legal
practice to pursue a college degree in coaching.
Bankrate: You recently
discovered the key to happiness?
Pollan: (Laughs) Well,
the secret of happiness is that it's an inside job. I differentiate
between pleasure and happiness. The baby boomers, the must-have
generation, thought that if they had all these things, they'd be
happy, and they've discovered that they're not happy. Immediate
gratification wasn't fast enough.
Bankrate: Did you start
life with money knowledge?
Pollan: I am the sum of
my life's experiences, no more or less. I learned garbage in college
and law school. I only got my college degree about 10 or 12 years
ago. In olden times, two years of college was enough to go to law
school, and I wanted to zip through. My father wanted me to be a
lawyer, so I did the college thing (at City College of New York)
as quickly as I could, then went to law school, where I was in the
bottom third of my class. Then after law school I began to get successful.
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