Jim Paul's meteoric rise took him from a small town in Northern Kentucky to governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, yet he lost it all -- his fortune, his reputation, and his job -- in one fatal attack of excessive economic hubris. In this honest, frank analysis, Paul and Brendan Moynihan revisit the events that led to Paul's disastrous decision and examine the psychological factors behind bad financial practices in several economic sectors.

This book -- winner of a 2014 Axiom Business Book award gold medal -- begins with the unbroken string of successes that helped Paul achieve a jet-setting lifestyle and land a key spot with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It then describes the circumstances leading up to Paul's $1.6 million loss and the essential lessons he learned from it -- primarily that, although there are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in them, all losses come from the same few sources.

Investors lose money in the markets either because of errors in their analysis or because of psychological barriers preventing the application of analysis. While all analytical methods have some validity and make allowances for instances in which they do not work, psychological factors can keep an investor in a losing position, causing him to abandon one method for another in order to rationalize the decisions already made. Paul and Moynihan's cautionary tale includes strategies for avoiding loss tied to a simple framework for understanding, accepting, and dodging the dangers of investing, trading, and speculating.

On her twenty-second birthday, Shannon Maguire spies a leprechaun in the back yard. Intent on making contact with the leprechaun, she rushes out the back door. As she steps onto the back porch, she falls into the Devil's Tomb. With the help of the leprechaun, they escape and land in the parallel world of Muirnin. In a day filled with surprises and frightening changes, Shannon learns she is the Crown Princess of Muirnin. Arriving at the Palace, a throng of fairies, elves, goblins, dragons, dwarves, and... there are more than she can name, greet her, cheering her escape from the Devil's Tomb and proclaiming her their Princess. Not everyone welcomes the arrival of the Princess. Chief among the dissenters is Prince Olcan, of the Unseelie race, who believes the tradition of having a human Queen is wrong. He seeks the crown for himself and is willing to kill anyone who challenges him. The Wizard Edwulf Magusson explains to Shannon that she may stay in Muirnin for two weeks. She must then return to her home world for at least two weeks in order to maintain the balance of time that exists between the two worlds. He also tells her the Crown of Muirnin disappeared, probably stolen by Olcan. Shannon must find the crown when she returns to Muirnin if she is to become Queen. She learns that the conflict over who should rule threatens to touch off a war could destroy both Muirnin and Earth. Shannon meets the handsome Lieutenant Sean Ceallaigh, a member of the Royal Guard tasked with protecting the Princess. She is fascinated with the young soldier. At the end of the two weeks, there is a Royal Reception, complete with a banquet, the presentation of the Elves' Summons and a ball. The Elves Summons points them to something referred to as "the last place." No one knows where that place might be but clues in the Summons suggest some ideas of places to search. Latter, she dances a waltz with Lieutenant Ceallaigh and becomes even more charmed by the attractive officer. Shannon must put aside her personal issues and her fascination with Lieutenant Ceallaigh to find the crown. Does she have the courage and strength to defeat Olcan and claim the Throne? Can she find the crown using the clues in the Elves Summons? Will a final war destroy both of her worlds? Shannon is not certain but she knows she must try. She is willing to sacrifice her life, if necessary, to save the two worlds. She intends to wear the Crown of Muirnin.

Jim Paul muses on Western philosophy and the medieval mind as he makes his way through a harried weekend in Los Angeles, yielding a "delightful...humorous" book (Bloomsbury Review) whose every "sentence bursts with information, gorgeously put" (New Yorker).