REUTERS/Tim ShafferJohn "Jack" Bogle.John "Jack" Bogle founded Vanguard Group in 1974 on the idea that low-cost index funds, which reflect the performance of the entire stock market, would outperform actively managed funds.
He turned out to be right. Index funds consistently outperform most high-fee mutual funds; investing gurus like Warren Buffett fervently endorse them; and Bogle's company, Vanguard, is now one of the world's largest financial institutions, with nearly $3 trillion assets under management.
For his new book "Money: Master The Game," Tony Robbins asked the investing legend what money means to him. The famously thrifty Bogle, who is 85 and still works every day, had the perfect response.
"I look at money not as an end but as a means to an end," Bogle said.
To underscore his point, Bogle told a great story about the writers Kurt Vonnegut and Joe Heller.
"They meet at a party on Shelter Island," he said. "Kurt looks at Joe and says, 'That guy, our host over there, he made a billion dollars today. He's made more money in one day than you made on every single copy of 'Catch-22,' [Heller's novel].'"
"And Heller looks at Vonnegut and says, 'That's OK, because I have something he, our host, will never have. Enough."
The investor knows something that many of us forget: Striving for more will never be as satisfying as having enough.