We don't invest in financial literacy in a meaningful way. We should be teaching elementary school children how to balance a checkbook, how to do basic accounting, why it's important to pay your bills on time. First, education. Begin the learning process as early as possible, in elementary school. Second, encourage and support entrepreneurism. Third, policy. I know it's a priority of the US Treasury to augment financial inclusion and increase financial literacy.

Albert Murray's The Omni-Americans is the most valuable non-business book because it discusses how you have to draw upon everyone's creativity. America is a mash-up of cultures and traditions, and great businesses know how to tap the strengths of all their employees, whatever their background may be.

It's a Wonderful Life. This film illustrates that if you treat your customers with respect, they will recognize you and even help when you're most in need.

The oldest and most important currency is debt.

Money is really like blood. You need it to live but it isn't the point of life.

I don't think money can be understood through a lens limited to economics. And most books about money tell you the history of money, the instrument. But money is also an idea, one that we exchange to survive.

In some cultures, when you give someone a gift, it's expected that they will pass it on. This seems like a peculiar practice in the West, but in many other societies, a gift has a spirit. If you try to possess the gift, you remove its spirit as a gift.