How to cure the wealth virus

Tess Vigeland Sep 7, 2012
HTML EMBED:
COPY
Actor Hill Harper. Scott Olson

How to cure the wealth virus

Tess Vigeland Sep 7, 2012
Actor Hill Harper. Scott Olson
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Here’s a decision for you, imagine you’re a Hollywood star, and presumably rather well compensated. With your downtime, you could take a fancy vacation, maybe work on a film or a play. Hill Harper takes a different path. He’s a star of the TV crime show “CSI New York.” But in his off-hours, he’s written four books, including one on personal finance called “The Wealth Cure.”

Hill Harper’s book goes through the ways he reexamined his life after he got a diagnosis for thyroid cancer. He takes a cross-country Amtrak trip (L.A. to Chicago) to clear his mind and re-access what is most important in his life. His book is structured using a medical analogy (Part 1: Diagnosis, 2: Treatment Options, 3: Sticking with a Treatment Plan, 4: Maintaining your health and wealth 5: Masterminding Thrive and Survive), comparing those different stages to dealing with money (the “Wealth Cure”).

“Money occupies this huge space in many of our lives, most of our lives,” Hill Harper said. “Yet many of us have an unhealthy relationship to money, and I really wanted to explore that — and I include myself in that. t’s not that I’m the expert. What I am is the explorer, hopefully with the reader, exploring this unhealthy relationship to money and wealth.”

Hill Harper discusses what money really is, what saving really means and what smart and dumb dollars are. Take a listen to an extended interview with Hill Harper above.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.