Author’s Official Edition
Universal Wisdom is an empowering collection of insights from seven extraordinary human beings — including Warren Buffett, Helen Keller and Nelson Mandela — by Brett Kelly, the founder and CEO of Kelly+Partners, the publicly traded global accounting network.
Following his bestselling book Collective Wisdom, Brett had even more questions about the meaning of life: What are you prepared to die for? What are you doing for others? What is love? And where do you get the confidence to recover after setbacks? And while studying personal stories from all over the world, looking for lessons about what gives people the certainty to do what they do, he was drawn to extraordinary people.
The seven lives profiled in Universal Wisdom — told in intensively researched biographies, developed in complementary essays, and featuring their own impactful speeches and quotes — reveal that there are, indeed, certain approaches to life that help in progressing from the ordinary to the extraordinary. And these approaches work across different times, situations, places, and cultures.
This is the second book in Brett’s Wisdom Series. Brett writes a book on wisdom every seven years, reflecting on what he has learned through interviews with prominent experts in their fields:
1998: Collective Wisdom
2005: Universal Wisdom
2012: Business Wisdom
2019: Investment Wisdom
Universal Wisdom is a rewarding read that serves as a reminder to harbor your passion and find the right path. As these seven extraordinary people prove, with the right life approach, we all have the power to change the world.
BRETT KELLY is the founder and CEO of Kelly+Partners, a professional speaker, and a best-selling author.
Brett holds a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Technology Sydney and a master’s degree in taxation from the University of New South Wales. He is a chartered accountant and registered tax agent. With more than twenty-five years of commercial and professional accountancy experience, he specializes in assisting individuals and families who own private businesses.
Brett founded Kelly+Partners Accountants in 2006 and, over nineteen years, has grown the business to become the premier private business specialist accounting network and the seventeenth-largest firm in Australia. Kelly+Partners has grown from two greenfield offices in Sydney, Australia, to forty-one operating businesses across forty locations in Australia, the United States, Hong Kong, Ireland, Philippines and India. The Kelly+Partners team is composed of more than 700 people, including 100+ partners, who service over 25,000 SME clients. The holding company, Kelly Partners Group Holdings Limited, successfully listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on June 21, 2017 (ASX: KPG) and was subsequently made available through the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol KPGHF.
Kelly+Partners’ philosophy is to help clients “Be Better Off.”
Inspirational and insightful, Brett has presented to over one thousand audiences, ranging from the National Press Club in Canberra to youth, business, community, sales, and corporate groups. An excellent keynote speaker, Brett has the ability to captivate a wide range of audiences by making a potentially boring topic interesting, relevant, and practical.
Brett is married to Rebecca, and they have three children: Thomas, Nicholas, and Audrey.
