Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life

"Enough" takes only a few hours to read, but the lessons will stick with you. It is chock-full of no-nonsense business nuggets, many of which I have passed on to my business students. I highly recommend this book. If you are an entrepreneur running your own small business or if you work in a large corporation, this book should be on your reading list." (The Asheville Citizen-Times)

“I highly recommend the book "Enough" by Vanguard's founder, Jack Bogle, who eloquently outlines many of the frustrations investors have.” (USA Today)

“This small book is another home run. In it, Bogle ruminates on greed, excess and other moral failings that led to the current economic crisis. He calls for a return to "18th-century values" that somehow seem cutting edge. Among them: stewardship, integrity, leadership and character.”(Liz Pulliam Weston, MSN Money)

“While Enough turns one man’s amazing story of financial and personal success into a guidebook to a more satisfying life, it offers more than a memoir about a life well lived. “Enough” also presents a clear understanding of the fields of finance, money management and leadership that is tempered by wit and wisdom from across the ages that puts it all into perspective while leading the way forward for anyone willing to take Bogle’s enlightened idealism to heart. “
(SmartBusiness)

Vanguard Group founder Bogle expounds on the hidden costs of our current financial system (primarily driven by speculation and complexity) and suggests that a deeper understanding of what is truly “enough” will help foster more sustainable investing and better living. (Library Journal Best of 2008 Selection)

“Why don’t people publish pamphlets any more. I’m not talking about the slim-jims handed out at trade shows, but rabble-rousing, world-changing works like Common Sense and The Communist Manifesto. John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, follows in the footsteps of the great pamphleteers…‘Central to the effective functioning of capitalism,’ he writes, ‘was the fundamental principle of trusting and being trusted’—and that is disappearing. The problem now: No one is satisfied with having ‘enough’ money or enough success. … If pamphlets were still the rage, 48 pages distilled from the contents of this book could be something as powerful to our age as anything written by Thomas Paine or Marx and Engels. In our more bookish time, though, Bogle has fleshed his ideas out to an interesting, 266-page overview of his life and his views.” (Barron’s)

“’What have I created?’ [Bogle] asks in mock horror in his new book…his cry reflects a deeper personal dilemma, one that jags like a scar through this thoughtful meditation on the excess and greed that created the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. … I applaud his enthusiasm and don’t doubt his wisdom and sincerity. ‘Enough’ – with the period – is a worthy addition to the canon, a variation of his familiar sermon on thrift, simplicity, and the superiority of low-cost index funds.” (James Pressley, Bloomberg News)

“Jack Bogle’s passionate cry of Enough. contains a thought-provoking litany of life lessons regarding our individual roles in commerce and society. Employing a seamless mix of personal anecdotes, hard evidence, and all-too-often-underrated subjective admonitions, Bogle challenges each of us to aspire to become better members of our families, our professions, and our communities. Rarely do so few pages provoke so much thought. Read this book.”
(David F. Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University)

"We live in a time that values achievement over character. When the two collide, character often takes a back seat and relationships of all kinds are shattered. Bogle observes that while the financial represents the worst of it, what we see today is not just a financial sector problem, but a societal problem. There is really just too much greed everywhere. … Enough is really about discovering what is really important in our lives. " (Michael McKinney, LeadingBlog)

"Bogle is a rarity - a true captain of industry who speaks about complex economic issues in a language comprehensible to the layperson." (Michael Smerconish, The Philadelphia Enquirer)

"Enough shines a light on Bogle's sense of despair over the state of the financial industry, and perhaps industry in general. … From CEOs who implode their companies and float away on golden parachutes, to financial companies who create instruments so complex they themselves have trouble understanding them, to mutual fund companies that market rosy returns while sugarcoating their fees, Bogle sees a lack of integrity and a willingness to play fast and loose with ethical rules in order to make a buck. (Or, maybe more accurate, 150 billion bucks.)" (Justin McHenry, BlogCritics Magazine)

"It's hard to imagine a better time to publish a book that advocates moderation, balance and integrity in the business world. In this wise meditation, Bogle, the folk-hero creator of the first index mutual fund and founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund Group, deplores ‘our worship of wealth and the growing corruption of our professional ethics but ultimately the subversion of our character and values.’ Directly in his sights: CEOs and hedge-fund managers who draw ‘obscene’ compensation. At this time of plunging portfolios, it is a relief to be told that ‘enough’ is within reach." (TIME Magazine)

"I will simply say that it is one of the best business books ('life' books?) I have ever read, an easy All-time Top 10. And its timing is, well, read it yourself ..."
(Tom Peters)

“This is an impressive message from a distinguished businessman. It will challenge all decision makers to consider the sufficiency and direction of their lives and work. What do we mean by Enough? Enough of what? Enough for what purpose? Feast here and reflect.”
( Robert F. Bruner, Dean and Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration, Darden Graduate School of Business)

“From one ‘battler’ to another: Thank you for putting in one little book the premise for an active, long life. A primer for those who will abjure complacency and just wanting more, who’d rather focus on the joy of trying to move some ball downfield.” (Ira Millstein, Senior Partner, Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP)

“The balances one must create in investing, in running a business, and in life more generally are simply and clearly stated in Jack’s most recent book, Enough. Unfortunately there are not enough Jack Bogles around in today’s world of instant gratification. Enough. should be must reading for business students and corporate board members.”
(David L. Sokol, Chairman, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company)

"Although Enough. is presented in a small volume, John Bogle's wisdom is writ large and profound. The messages are particularly meaningful as we all reel from the moral, economic and financial meltdown that confronts us today. (William H. Donaldson, Former Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)

“[an] engaging, highly readable new book on what went wrong in financial markets in recent years. In the growing canon of "what went wrong" books, Bogle's offering holds a unique place. . . readers will value the common sense packed in these pages.” (Jared Bernstein, Philadelphia Inquirer)

"Bogle. . . shows prescience in describing the housing bubble and other problems that sank the economy, in a book written mostly before Lehman Brothers failed in 2008, igniting a financial rout." (News & World Report)

"’A Manifesto on success and excess. . . ‘Enough’ is just enough mixture of analysis of our financial system and common sense to help you become a better person and a better investor." (Washington Post)

"The book is extremely well thought out and is organized into three sections: "Money", "Business" and "Life". With endorsements from a "who's who" of the financial industry, this book is something we could all learn from. In the first section, Money, Bogle shares his concerns about "Too Much Speculation, Not Enough Investment". In the following section, Business, he tell us that business today has "Too Much Salesmanship, Not Enough Stewardship", Finally, in Life, he suggests there is "Too Much Focus on Things, Not Enough Focus on Commitment". Bogle's long career in investment management and his natural intellectual curiosity have instilled in him a highly valuable perspective. His main theme in this new book is that several decades of strong economic performance and substantial growth of the financial sector have resulted in new values and processes, which have undermined traditional values such as character and trust. He suggests that today many of the problems we face are the result of the recent shift in values, and he outlines his "dreams" for how to put things right."
(Brian Johnson. "On Investing: Kaizen, or constantly improve." The Valley News Today Online. 10 Oct. 2009)

"John Bogle starts his latest book, Enough , with a great story. Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were at a party hosted by a hedge fund manager. Mr. Vonnegut muses that their host makes more money in a day than Mr. Heller earned from his wildly successful novel Catch 22 . As the story goes, Mr. Heller responded, "Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough."

Mr. Bogle, who is the conscience of the wealth management industry, covers a broad range of topics in the book. Early on he exposes the excesses and wrong-thinking of the investment industry – high fees, too much turnover and complicated products. His antidote to these ills is low-cost indexing, which is to be expected from the founding father of indexing and the trillion-dollar mutual fund company, Vanguard, that made it mainstream."
— Tom Bradley, President and Founder, Steadyhand Investments

"I may have found the book thought provoking because I read it just after my other half was downsized out of a job, wrenching our family's finances. Or maybe I connected with the book because I read it while my mother was recovering from major heart surgery.

It was a time when "what is enough?" was an immediate and profound question for me, a question crossing the minds of countless people during a recession that continues to sap the U.S. economy (particularly in the Midwest).

And maybe Bogle's advice about wealth and the pursuit of it reminded me of what my late father often told me: "Remember son, it's only money.""
— Mark Wert, Cincinnati.Com

strategy+business Best Business Book of 2009

"Bogle could be the poster boy for Mintzberg’s effective manager and leader. The tenacity of his message and his business model of long-term investing, especially in an era when the so-called smart money ran in the opposite direction, makes him a real hero . . . Unsurprisingly, trust is also high on Bogle’s list of leadership and organizational attributes. The final section of the book, labeled "Life," calls for a return to 18th-century values. . . Let’s remember that the 18th century was the age of reason . . . of Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, and Benjamin Franklin, whom Bogle calls the "paradigm of the eighteenth-century man." It is Franklin the entrepreneur whom Bogle holds up as a contrast to those in our own century — a man motivated not by a desire for personal profit but by the joy of creating and of exercising his ingenuity and energy. According to Bogle, the leaders of the 18th century were able to "implant in society a reliance on reason, a passion for social reform, and the belief that moral authority is integral to the successful functioning of education and religion as well as to commerce and finance." He would like to see more such leaders today." (strategy+business)