What Gives Life Meaning After the First Million?

Profile on: Rob LaMorte, owner of investment consulting company Behavioral Economics, Inc.

Becoming a millionaire by age 35 and then retiring pretty much sums up the American dream for many young entrepreneurs. However, what do you do for a second act? And what gives your life meaning once the quest for financial security and personal fulfillment has been attained?

Those are exactly the questions that began to gnaw at Rob LaMorte after he hit the jackpot with his investment consulting company Behavioral Economics, Inc. Thus began a quest for spiritual fulfillment that eventually led him back to the faith of his childhood.

What do I really want to do?

Like many young people, Rob still did not really know what he wanted to do once he graduated from college in 1965. Armed with nothing more than an undergraduate degree in mathematics, he took the advice of a mentor and pursued a job on Wall Street in the corporate sector of Chase Manhattan Bank. With no business background, Rob’s learning curve was steep, but he was quick to catch on. And what he didn’t learn on the job, he sought out at New York University’s graduate school of business.

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One of Rob’s core tasks was research. Data was pouring into the bank constantly, and Rob’s job was to sift through it and figure out what was relevant and what was not. It was during this process that Rob began to formulate a number of methodologies that were helpful in identifying market trends.

“I put together a package of indicators together, that when you looked at them as a composite, they would tell you whether the market was likely to go up or down,” says Rob.

This tool became the core upon which his career would be built.

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Initially, Rob thought his system was something the bank could use to sell to large corporations so they could achieve better returns in their pension funds. But when he presented his system to the head of Chase Manhattan’s investment department, suggesting that he be allowed to market it, the chief investment officer said he liked the product but felt Rob was too aggressive to take charge of sales. Realizing he was sitting on a potential gold mine and not willing to turn it over to someone else, Rob did what any self-respecting 27 year-old would do – he quit.

“I didn’t know any better, to be honest. I was so young. I felt I had something very valuable, so I thought that was just the next logical step,” says Rob.

Good decision!

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Rob’s decision to leave turned out to be a wise one. Soon, he went to work for a smaller brokerage firm on Wall Street. Over the next six years, he sold his research to financial institutions all over the world. Even so, convincing people that his system worked was tough, because Rob’s data projected a picture that no one else in the financial industry could see.

“At the time, interest rates were about five percent…the highest since the civil war. I went around the country in 1972 forecasting that inflation and interest rates were going to go into the double digits.”

People were fascinated by Rob’s theories, but they were slow to put their money on the table. However, when the Arab oil embargo hit in 1973, suddenly everyone wanted to know what Rob had to say and business exploded.

Behavioral economics is born

Making yet another bold move, Rob started his own company – Behavioral Economics – with offices in the World Trade Center. The name of his company came from the fact that his system was based on studying people and the decisions they made about how to use their money. Since human nature does not change, economic cycles tend to repeat themselves, reflecting basic behavior patterns. From his research, Rob uncovered a methodology which allowed him to predict how an individual stock, a market sector or the market as a whole would behave. This information helped his clients know when to get in or out of a particular investment.

In the midst of his success, Rob found the time to get married – and divorced. He also fathered a daughter, Robia. But while business was booming, Rob had a keen sense that something was missing from his life.

“By the time I was thirty-five…I was a millionaire…. I could buy anything I wanted and I could do anything I wanted. On the outside, people thought I had it all. But inside, I wasn’t at peace.”

Looking for answers

Rob’s unsettledness prompted him to start looking for spiritual answers, specifically within the New Age movement. “I found it attractive, because it’s all about enhancing the self, and that appealed to me, to make myself better.” At the same time, Rob realized he needed to play a larger role in Robia’s life. So he retired from his business and had Robia come and live with him full time.

Around 1984, Robia’s aspirations to become a dancer led Rob to move to Los Angeles so she could go to school. Rob continued to focus solely on raising Robia. When she left home, he decided it was time to resurrect Behavior Economics. By applying an enhanced version of his earlier methodology, Rob gradually acquired a new client base until he was on the road to success once again.

However, Rob was still plagued by the same empty feeling. So he did something he had never done before – he placed a personal ad in LA Magazine.

“I was in the New Age movement at the time, so I wrote an ad geared toward the New Age movement…. Looking for a partner to share in expansion of consciousness, that sort of thing.”

Fifteen women responded to Rob’s ad. The only one Rob answered came from an advertising executive named Terry. A New Age searcher just like Rob, Terry answered the ad as part of a project she was doing for her graduate degree in applied psychology. Oddly enough, Terry and Rob were not attracted to each other at first. But they continued to see each other over the next six months, during which they became very good friends. Eventually, things shifted more toward the romantic, and three years after they first met, Rob and Terry were married.

As a couple, the LaMortes continued their spiritual search. One of their main mentors at this time was Terry’s chiropractor. In addition to manipulating people’s spines, he also had a strong spiritual component to his work. He claimed he could “channel” God, and he used this ability to help his patients. His practice was highly successful as a result. Terry and Robert found him to be quite helpful both physically and spiritually.

Then one day, Robert and Terry noticed the chiropractor was losing weight and did not look very good. He confessed that the voices he was hearing would not stop, so he went to a Christian couple who prayed for him and discerned the voices he was consulting with to help his clients were not from God. In fact, they were evil spirits. The Christian couple delivered him from these spirits and he vowed that from then on, he would only do straight chiropractic work. He urged Robert and Terry to seek out this couple as well. Perhaps they could provide the answers Terry and Robert were seeking in their spiritual pursuits.

Finding the truth

The LaMortes followed his advice and saw the couple on a few occasions. Because of his Catholic background, Robert had no problem identifying with what they taught, because he already knew who Jesus was. This just took Rob’s knowledge of Jesus to a new level.

“The Lord touched my heart, really, in a way that everything that I was aware of came together at that one time, and I just knew it was the truth.”

Terry experienced a bit more difficulty due to guilt associated with abandoning her Jewish heritage. But eventually, both of them became Christians.

After moving to San Diego, the LaMortes started attending church. That is when things really started to change in their lives. Rob began to see the differences between their new faith and his former New Age beliefs.

“One of the things I realized is that I had been very deceived. There had been just enough truth in the things I had been reading…to draw me in. As I began to learn about the character of God…I began to turn my life over to him and say, ‘It’s not about me anymore. It’s about what You want for me.’ Then the real changes started to happen and I’m not the same person I used to be.”

Life with purpose

As their faith grew, Robert and Terry also got involved in Christian organizations and ministries, such as Campus Crusade for Christ. They continue to work with Campus Crusade today and have even “adopted” the country of Italy as their particular ministry focus. In addition to supporting the Italian Campus Crusade ministry financially and through prayer, Terry and Robert travel to Italy two times per year, bringing their business expertise to the ministry and encouraging the staff.

“For us, the blessings have been amazing. We get to take a vacation with a purpose and we see God moving over there in big ways,” says Terry.

She and Robert are also part of History’s Handful, a ministry that helps raise money for Campus Crusade’s ministry efforts, and Impact XXI, a group of leaders and influencers throughout the world working together to help make a lasting impact on the major issues of the twenty-first century.

Robert and Terry have been Christians for ten years now. Even so, they continue to be amazed at how faithful God has been in transforming their lives.

“I believe God had a plan for my life right from the beginning,” says Rob. “The only difference is, at first I didn’t know it. Now I know that it is really because of His blessing that I have been so successful. He gave me the gifts, the talents to be able to do this.”

Despite his financial and business success, Rob knows the only things that really matter are those that last for eternity.

“Focusing on this life instead of eternity is like being a day-trader versus a long-term investor,” says Rob. “I don’t want to be a day-trader. So even though I am happy about my success, it is certainly nowhere near as important as what is going to happen to me for the rest of eternity.”

Have you ever felt a nagging sense of emptiness at the core of your being? Why not let Jesus show you how to fill it? If you don’t know Jesus, we encourage you to pray the following:

Lord Jesus, I want to know You personally. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of my life. Make me be the person You want me to be.

One Response to “What Gives Life Meaning After the First Million?”

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• uchechukwu okeke says:

  April 11, 2010 at 12:43 pm

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