The Number, Lee Eisenberg
The Number, Lee Eisenberg
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The Number
A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life

Author: Lee Eisenberg

Narrator: Lee Eisenberg

Abridged: 6 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/03/2006


Synopsis

Do you know your Number? What happens if you don't make it to your Number? Do you have a plan? The Number is no ordinary finance book—it offers an intriguing and entertaining tour of weath gurus, life coaches, and financial advisers, and our hopes and fears for the future. The result is a provocative field guide to your psyche and finances and an urgently useful book for anyone over thirty.

The often-avoided, anxiety-riddled discussion about financial planning for a secure and fulfilling future has been given a new starting point in The Number by Lee Eisenberg. The buzz of professionals and financial industry insiders everywhere, the Number represents the amount of money and resources people will need to enjoy the active life they desire, especially post-career. Backed by imaginative reporting and insights, Eisenberg urges people to assume control and responsibility for their standard of living, and take greater aim on their long-term aspirations.

From Wall Street to Main Street USA, the Number means different things to different people. It is constantly fluctuating in people’s minds and bank accounts. To some, the Number symbolizes freedom, validation of career success, the ticket to luxurious indulgences and spiritual exploration; to others, it represents the bewildering and nonsensical nightmare of an impoverished existence creeping up on them in their old age, a seemingly hopeless inevitability that they would rather simply ignore than confront. People are highly private and closed-mouthed when it comes to discussing their Numbers, or lack thereof, for fear they might either reveal too much or display ineptitude.

In The Number, Eisenberg describes this secret anxiety as the “Last Taboo,” a conundrum snared in confusing financial lingo. He sorts through the fancy jargon and translates the Number into commonsense advice that resonates just as easily with the aging gods and goddesses of corporate boardrooms as it does with ordinary people who are beginning to realize that retirement is now just a couple of decades away. Believing that the Number is as much about self-worth as it is net worth, Eisenberg strives to help readers better understand and more efficiently manage all aspects of their life, money, and pursuit of happiness.

About Lee Eisenberg

Lee Eisenberg, most recently the author of Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What (2013). The Number was a New York Times bestseller and was cited by Business Week as one of the best books of the year. Eisenberg is also the former editor in chief of Esquire. Under his stewardship the magazine won National Magazine Awards across a number of writing and design categories. He currently lives in Chicago.


Reviews

Goodreads review by David on November 09, 2013

This book's retirement advice is aimed at people who have retirement funds, or at least make enough extra to put money into them. Like most such books, the advice boils down to "You should really save as much as you can starting early and MAGIC OF COMPOUND INTEREST!" No kidding (though even this bas......more

Goodreads review by Gian on August 27, 2008

Being in the Financial Planning busines, I have always found it curious as to why nobody even thinks about planning for their future. Why do you work aside from paying the bills? One day you won't be working and what if you don't have any money to live on? This book examines the dicotomy of why it i......more

Goodreads review by Nate on January 30, 2018

If you'd like to become terrified by the fact that no one in the world is saving enough money for retirement this is a great place to start. In all seriousness, this book goes well into detail on not only how to calculate your financial number for the rest of your life, but why you should think about......more

Goodreads review by Jared on July 18, 2016

The Number is a book about retirement. It's very accessible, and somewhat informative, but it's also a bit scatterbrained. The subtitle is also almost entirely misleading: while the book does discuss how many retirement calculators don't do a good job of assessing what a person actually needs to ret......more

Goodreads review by Robert on September 11, 2023

This book was a COMPLETE disappointment. At least based on what I expected from it. I thought it was going to be an interesting and thoughtful exploration of how Americans are thinking about retirement with a lot of useful insights. First of all it was written in 2006, and it just generally feels very......more


Quotes

"There are precious few works that deal with the central issues of existence--life, death, and money--with this much elegance and wit. This amusing, essential book succeeds in tapping into the dreams and schemes of an entire generation who learned how to hang out and do very little in the 60s--and would now like to hang out and do very little in its 60s. Back then we were listening to Hendrix. Today we're tuned into Eisenberg."
--Stanley Bing, author of Sun Tzu Was a Sissy: Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War

"Lee Eisenberg has somehow found the sweet spot when it comes to 'financial planning' and, indeed, life. I started to read this book to write an endorsement, and ended up using it as a personal guide to my future. Yikes!"
--Tom Peters, author of Re-Imagine! and In Search of Excellence

"Thinking about retirement is as pleasant as a colonoscopy. Not in Lee Eisenberg's hands, however. He has written a funny and wise book about how to think about your future but also, and more important, how to think about life."
--Ken Auletta, author of Media Man: Ted Turner's Improbable Empire