Living in Southern California, Gary Carmell has become very familiar with tectonic shifts: cataclysmic changes in the earth's crust that cause earthquakes and tsunamis.

Carmell has also experienced numerous tectonic shifts in the economic landscape in his nearly thirty-year investing career. Correctly anticipating economic trends has allowed his real estate investment and management firm, CWS Capital Partners LLC, to grow from assets of $250 million in the late 1980s to over $3 billion today.

CWS foresaw the collapse of manufactured housing in the late 1990s and anticipated a massive shift from homeownership to renting, prompting them to reposition aggressively for growth in apartment construction and management. Carmell feels special pride in the results his company's delivers for its investors, as a result—long-term average annual returns exceed 13 percent—even during the Great Recession of 2007–2009.

Navigating turbulent economic markets and experiencing his two-year-old son's near-fatal stroke has taught Carmell that real success requires not only financial acumen, but also deep reflection. He credits Shakespeare, Hume, and Schopenhauer as his mentors, with more modern sages like Buffett, Soros, and Munger also guiding his actions. In The Philosophical Investor: From Wisdom to Wealth, he shares the insights he has gained along the way in the hope of inspiring a new cadre of critical thinking investors.