RWH061: HOW TO THRIVE NO MATTER WHAT

W/ ARNOLD VAN DEN BERG

RWH061: HOW TO THRIVE NO MATTER WHAT W/ ARNOLD VAN DEN BERG

04 October 2025

In this episode, William Green chats with Arnold Van Den Berg, a revered investor whom he spotlighted in his book, Richer, Wiser, Happier. Against all odds, Arnold has run a highly successful investment firm for 50 years. Here, he discusses what he’s learned about how to succeed in markets & life; shares practical tools that he’s found transformative; & explains how he’s positioned to survive & thrive in the most overvalued US stock market he’s ever seen.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • How extreme focus saved the life of Arnold Van Den Berg’s father.
  • How to develop one-pointed focus & get into a flow state.
  • What Dostoevsky taught Arnold about avoiding lies & discerning truth. 
  • How Arnold overcame a terrible self-image & “reprogrammed” himself.
  • How he taught himself to be a successful investor. 
  • What habits he practices every day, including his favorite affirmations.
  • How he remains optimistic amid adversity.
  • Why he’s betting big on gold, silver, uranium, oil & natural gas.
  • Why he thinks the S&P 500 “is one of the worst things you could buy.”
  • Why he warns against long-term Treasury bonds & “anything with leverage.”
  • How he & his firm are harnessing Artificial Intelligence.
  • What brings him the greatest happiness. 
  • What you’ll learn from his favorite book about the “real secret to life.”

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

[00:00:03] William Green: Hi folks. It’s a great pleasure to be back with you on the Richer Wiser Happier podcast. My guest today is the great Arnold Van Den Berg, who as many of you know is a really central figure. In the final chapter, the epilogue of Richer Wiser Happier. And as I mentioned there for me, he’s really in many ways the embodiment of what a successful, happy, truly abundant life looks like.

[00:00:27] William Green: And there’s nobody really in the investment world I admire more than Arnold. And hopefully in today’s episode you’ll see why he is a really wonderful human being. A very successful, very smart, self-taught investor who’s had a great record over 50 years at his firm Century Management. But at the same time, he’s also done an extraordinary job of building great relationships with his family, with friends, being a great philanthropist, helping countless other people.

[00:00:54] William Green: And he’s done all of this despite incredible odds against him as somebody who grew up on the same street as Anne Frank in Amsterdam as a Jewish kid in 1939 at the start of World War II, and spent the first couple of years of his life in hiding and then was smuggled into an orphanage while his parents were in Auschwitz.

[00:01:13] William Green: So it’s an extraordinary story. I had Arnold on the podcast a couple of times in the past and I’m thrilled to have him on again today. This wasn’t an episode that we had planned to do and then we changed course because, he had been a guest speaking to my Richer Wiser Happier Masterclass and had been such an extraordinary guest and had talked about some things that I think are so important that he had realized over the last year or so that I really wanted to bring these insights to you today on the podcast.

[00:01:42] William Green: So I hope you’ll find this as helpful and inspiring and thought provoking as I found it. Speaking of the Richer Wiser Happier Masterclass, I wanted just to tell you very quickly about this venture that I’ve got planned that’s coming up, which is, as many of you know, last year I had my first cohort of the Richer Wiser Happier Masterclass, which was a one year course, and it was such a beautiful experience for me, and I hope for the people in the group that I’m launching my second ever Richer Wiser Happier Masterclass, which starts in November, and this is for a group of between 10 and 20 people, so it’s a very small group, and it’s an opportunity to study directly with me over the course of a year, and they’re extraordinary people.

[00:02:29] William Green: They were very extraordinary people last year and this year, just judging from the first people who have applied and been exceptional in the group, they’re equally remarkable.

[00:02:39] William Green: They tend to be fund managers or asset allocators, wealth advisors, CEOs, so these are very highly accomplished people, but at the same time. They’re soulful and they’re thoughtful, and they’re looking to figure out how to build lives that are truly richer, wiser, and happier. And so what we do is we go through one chapter of the book per month in a Zoom call over two hours, typically, where I talk about the themes in the book and really how to apply them, how to apply these insights to these lessons in your own life.

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