If you think more money will make you happier, Shark tank Star Barbara Corcoran has some bad news for you. Although her real estate company, The Corcoran Group, was sold for $66 million in 2001, she claims she is no happier now than when she was “very poor.”
“I’m not going to use that cliché and say, ‘Money can’t buy happiness,’ but it’s true,” Corcoran said. CNBC Make It.
“I know because I’ve been poor. And I’ve been rich. And I’ve been in the middle. So I can talk to both.”
The greed fallacy
The problem Corcoran has with being rich is that you can always get richer: unlike happiness, there is no limit to how much someone can earn, whereas emotions are much more subtle than that.
“You start looking for the next thing money will buy,” she says, adding that it leads to the fallacy of greed. “The fallacy of greed is that there are as many miserable rich as there are miserable poor. Money has nothing to do with being the happiest. It really doesn’t.”
We all need enough money to cover our basic needs, but then, Corcoran insists, she has the same concerns in life today, as she did before her windfall.
“I am no happier today than when I was poor. Do you think something would have changed? No, I’m still insecure about the same things. I’m still nervous about the same things.”
In fact, perhaps the opposite is true: She says her relationships are actually worse off now because she’s (by most people’s standards) well off.
More money, more problems
With the cost of living soaring and inflation at a record level, it’s easy to look with envy at those with a seemingly never-ending supply of wealth.
Asking for some financial help could be a simple dip into the wealth of a wealthy friend.
But, as Corcoran suggests, it puts those with more money in an awkward position.
“Money complicates relationships,” says Corcoran. “Everybody has a $10,000 problem. They always come to you. It complicates things. Your kids will. It only complicates things.”
And between that and the “fallacy of greed,” I’ve come to the conclusion that the happiest people are those in the middle class. “They’re always happiest because they’re not always chasing after the next thing.”
She’s not entirely wrong. Research echoes a happiness plateau after earning a certain amount—but there is little consensus on what that threshold is.