Speaker

Arnold Van Den Berg

Arnold Van Den Berg

Founder and managing director of Century Management (Austin, Texas), which he founded in 1975 and has run for 50 years. A self-taught, self-made investor — no formal financial education; learned markets by surviving a six-year bear market in the early years of his career.

Born 1939 in Amsterdam to a Jewish family, on the same street as Anne Frank. During the German occupation his parents went into hiding; he was smuggled to a Catholic orphanage under a false passport while his parents were eventually sent to Auschwitz. Both parents survived. His Holocaust childhood and his parents’ distilled wisdom — particularly his father’s Auschwitz-derived epistemology (“what you learn through suffering is truth”) — are the foundation of his investment and life philosophy.

William Green devotes the epilogue of Richer, Wiser, Happier to Arnold as the embodiment of a well-lived, genuinely abundant life.

Appearances

Key positions

  • Character as foundation: mental resilience, integrity, and focus precede investment skill; Dostoevsky’s Gulag observation applied to markets — only those of highest character survive prolonged bear markets intact.
  • Subconscious programming: alpha/theta brain states can be reliably induced through self-hypnosis; in theta (4–7 Hz) beliefs literally change; the subconscious executes whatever is impressed upon it. Daily protocol: cold shower, Coué’s autosuggestion, progressive relaxation countdown. See Subconscious Programming.
  • The evolved affirmation: “I am a loving, kind person and I am happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Love added after studying Victor Frankl, James Allen, and the Apostle Paul.
  • Commodity thesis: natural gas (BTU parity implies $10; trades at $3), gold (8% of portfolio), silver, uranium; S&P 500 “25% more overvalued than it has ever been”; central banks buying record gold while selling Treasuries.
  • Happiness = unconditional giving: the neurochemical “helping hormone” is released by genuine, non-transactional giving; money soothes the nerves but does not create happiness.
  • James Allen’s From Poverty to Power: Arnold’s favourite book, which he had typeset and distributed to thousands of clients and friends; its thesis that selfishness is the root of suffering and unconditional love the path out.