When Edward de Bono, the renowned philosopher and pioneer of “lateral thinking,” unveiled his final will and testament, it left many puzzled. Given his esteemed reputation, one might assume he’d amassed a sizable fortune. Yet, as Vanessa Thorpe of The Guardian notes, the revelation that his estate amounted to a mere £11,900 is quite surprising:

De Bono, who was always assumed to have been a very wealthy man due to the success of his self-help empire and international network of courses, in fact appears to have died with much less money than expected — only a few thousand pounds — at his disposal. Despite regularly being referred to as a one-man global industry and having institutions and foundations set up under his name, the philosopher’s personal fortune appears to have been a myth.

The author of 68 books had also taken time to ask his lawyers to make sure that his former co-author Daniela Bartoli, a philosophy student and for a decade the chief executive of his foundation, would not benefit in any way from his estate. De Bono added a clause to his will “expressly excluding” Bartoli from benefiting from his estate “in any manner whatsoever.”

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