The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life
Metadata
- Title: The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life
- Author: Sahil Bloom
- Book URL: https://amazon.com/dp/B0D38TNQ68?tag=malvaonlin-20
- Open in Kindle: kindle://book/?action=open&asin=B0D38TNQ68
- Last Updated on: Sunday, March 29, 2026
Highlights & Notes
I flew out to California with dreams of a glory-filled career in professional baseball, but when a junior-year shoulder injury derailed those aspirations, I was forced to find my footing in the classroom and plan for an alternative future. The problem was that I had no idea what future I wanted to build.
Mark Twain is often quoted as having said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
The arrival fallacy is the false assumption that reaching some achievement or goal will create durable feelings of satisfaction and contentment in our lives.
How many times has the thing your younger self dreamed of become the thing you complain about once you’ve gotten it?
How many folks, in country and in town, Neglect their principal affair; And let, for want of due repair, A real house fall down, To build a castle in the air?[1]
had prioritized one thing at the expense of everything.
The greatest discoveries in life come not from finding the right answers but from asking the right questions.
But reading, I found, can take you only so far—to understand something deeply human, you need to immerse yourself in the human experience.
Close your eyes and imagine your ideal day at eighty years old (or one hundred, in the case of the ninety-year-old!). Vividly imagine it. What are you doing? Who are you with? Where are you? How do you feel? The exercise forces you to begin with the ideal future end in mind—it establishes a personal definition of a successful life that can be used to reverse-engineer the actions in the present to achieve that desired end.
We all want the same thing—and it has very little to do with money. From the young entrepreneur to the old retiree, from the new mother to the empty nester, from the rich attorney to the middle-class teacher, the ideal future end looks remarkably aligned: Time, people, purpose, health.
Spending time surrounded by loved ones, engaged in activities that create purpose and growth, healthy in mind, body, and spirit. Money was an enabler to these ends, but not an end in and of itself.
The statement implies that the metrics that get measured are the ones we prioritize. In other words, the scoreboard is important because it dictates our actions—how we play the game.
Broken scoreboard, broken actions. If we measure only money, all of our actions will revolve around it. We’ll play the game wrong. If we fix the scoreboard to measure our wealth more comprehensively, our actions will follow. We’ll play the game right. Right scoreboard, right actions.
If we fix the scoreboard to measure our wealth more comprehensively, our actions will follow. We’ll play the game right. Right scoreboard, right actions.
his lips. In that moment, I had a profound sensation: I had arrived, but for the first time in my life, there was nothing more that I wanted. This was enough. Never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough.
In that moment, I had a profound sensation: I had arrived, but for the first time in my life, there was nothing more that I wanted. This was enough. Never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough.
What Advice Would You Give to Your Younger Self?
“Never fear sadness, as it tends to sit right next to love.”
“Never raise your voice, except at a ball game.”
“Find dear friends and celebrate them, for the richness of being human is in feeling loved and loving back.”
“Treat your body like a house you have to live in for another seventy years.” He added, “If something has a minor issue, repair it. Minor issues become major issues over time. This applies equally to love, friendships, health, and home.”
“Tell your partner you love them every night before falling asleep; someday you’ll find the other side of the bed empty and you’ll wish you could tell them.”
“When in doubt, love. The world can always use more love.”
Money isn’t nothing—it simply can’t be the only thing.
Money improves overall happiness at lower levels of income by reducing fundamental burdens and stress. At these lower levels, money can buy happiness. If you have an income above these levels and are unhappy, more money is unlikely to change that. If you have an income above this baseline and are happy, more money is unlikely to drive increasing happiness.
Your wealthy life may be enabled by money, but in the end, it will be defined by everything else.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. —Lao Tzu
The term Pyrrhic victory now refers to the victory won at such a steep cost to the victor that it feels like a defeat. The victory damages the victor beyond repair. He wins the battle but loses the war.
A Pyrrhic victory is what you need to avoid in your own life. And unfortunately, a Pyrrhic victory could be where you’re headed if you don’t change direction.
You’re measuring the wrong thing. Money.
When a measure of performance becomes an explicit, stated goal, humans will prioritize it, regardless of any associated and unintended consequences. You blind yourself to everything else, focusing on the single measure, no matter the costs elsewhere.
The war you wage is about happiness, fulfillment, loving relationships, purpose, growth, and health. If all the battles you’re fighting are exclusively about money, you may win these battles, but you will lose the war.
- Importante
You hit another quarterly profit target but miss another anniversary dinner. You earn a record bonus but fail to make it to a single one of your child’s sports games. You say yes to every single work call but can’t find time to reconnect with an old friend. You stay in a job for the security but allow your higher-order purpose to wither and die. You host five client dinners per week but can’t walk up the stairs without feeling winded. You never leave money on the table but won’t think twice about leaving your peace of mind there.
You stay in a job for the security but allow your higher-order purpose to wither and die.
Your new scoreboard is the five types of wealth: Time Wealth Social Wealth Mental Wealth Physical Wealth Financial Wealth
Time Wealth is the freedom to choose how to spend your time, whom to spend it with, where to spend it, and when to trade it for something else.
Social Wealth is the connection to others in your personal and professional worlds—the depth and breadth of your connection to those around you.
Mental Wealth is the connection to a higher-order purpose and meaning that provides motivation and guides your short- and long-term decision making.
Physical Wealth is your health, fitness, and vitality. Given its grounding in the natural world, it is the most entropic type of wealth, meaning it is more susceptible to natural decay, uncontrollable factors, and blind luck (positive or negative) than other types.
Financial Wealth is typically defined as financial assets minus financial liabilities, a figure often referred to as net worth. On your new scoreboard, there is an added nuance: Your liabilities include your expectations of what you need, your definition of enough.
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears. —Rumi
Your Wealth Score is your performance on the new scoreboard.
In the study of philosophy, the term razor denotes any principle that allows you to quickly remove unlikely explanations or avoid unnecessary steps. It allows you to metaphorically shave away unneeded explanations or actions. Today, the term is broadly applied as a rule of thumb that simplifies decision making.
Occam’s razor, named for fourteenth-century philosopher William of Occam, states that when weighing explanations for something, the one with the fewest necessary assumptions is generally the correct one. The simplest explanation is the best one. Simple is beautiful. Hanlon’s razor, a tongue-in-cheek adage stating that one must never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. It’s best applied to politics, relationships, and general online discourse. Hitchens’s razor, created by and named for the late author Christopher Hitchens, states that anything asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. A useful rule that will save you from wasting time on pointless arguments.
Inevitably, you will encounter opportunities, chaos, challenges, and complexity that will test you: A shiny new job that tempts you to leave the company you love The death of a family member or dear friend A job loss that takes your financial situation from good to bad Health problems that affect those closest to you Relationship struggles with someone who once felt like your rock A critical decision that feels too heavy and difficult to make
This is where the true power lies—in the connection of a single, elegant statement to how your ideal self shows up in the world.
- Importante
“I will never miss a Tuesday dinner” is Marc Randolph’s Life Razor, his single point of focus that allows him to cut through the noise, maintain perspective and balance, make decisions in line with his core identity, and create positive ripple effects throughout his world. Without one, you’re leaving life to chance; like a mountain climber caught in a blizzard, you’ll become blinded by it, lose all points of reference, and wander aimlessly, praying for the storm to subside. With one, you’ll see clearly—the storms won’t be any less turbulent, but you’ll be well equipped to navigate through to the other side.
A powerful Life Razor has three core characteristics. It is: Controllable: It should be within your direct control. Ripple-creating: It should have positive second-order effects in other areas of life. Identity-defining: It should be indicative of the type of person you are, the way your ideal self shows up in the world.
The simple statement “I will coach my son’s sports teams” becomes a dynamic defining rule for life—my Life Razor. It’s time to define your Life Razor.
In each example, the single-statement Life Razor becomes a broad, identity-defining rule for life that covers the entire range of traits and actions. It’s easy to see how the identity the rule shapes can be used to clarify the appropriate, identity-aligned response in a wide variety of life situations.
Your Life Razor can (and will) change across the seasons of your life.
I’ve never met Tom Hanks, but he changed my life. If you identify your Earth in the window—your Life Razor—and keep it top of mind, I’m willing to bet he’ll change yours too.
There is no favorable wind for the sailor who doesn’t know where to go. —Seneca
Life is about direction, not speed.
Your Life Razor establishes your identity—who you are and what you stand for—while your compass defines where you’re going, your vision for the future. You will turn to your Life Razor when challenges or opportunities arise, but your compass will dictate your direction as you build toward your dream life.
Anti-goals are the things we don’t want to happen on our journey to achieve our goals.
“All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.”
Just as they set goals for what they wanted to happen, they needed to set anti-goals: things they wanted to avoid.
To establish anti-goals, look at your goals, but rather than think about this great outcome, invert the problem—flip it on its head: What are the worst possible outcomes that could result from your pursuit of these goals? What could lead to those worst possible outcomes occurring? What would you view as a Pyrrhic victory—winning the battle but losing the war?
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
Systems are the daily actions that create forward progress. Leverage amplifies the output of a single unit of input. Combining the two ideas, high-leverage systems are the daily actions that create amplified, asymmetric forward progress.
“The trick in investing is just to sit there and watch pitch after pitch go by and wait for the one right in your sweet spot.”
Both focus their energy on a few key moments and ignore the rest. When they’re on, they deploy their energy in a concentrated, glorious burst. When they’re off, they wait, conserve, and position themselves slowly and strategically into locations that will be advantageous in future moments. They work smart—not hard.
To establish your high-leverage systems, consider the guides and select the actions that will create meaningful progress toward your envisioned future.
If you have the appropriate goals, anti-goals, and high-leverage systems, your focus on each type of wealth can exist on a dimmer switch rather than an on/off switch. This shift is important. It allows you to prioritize your values and goals for the present season without turning off any one area, something that leads to atrophy that proves painful (and difficult) to reverse.
For both me and my wife, the idea that this was one season among many—that we could prioritize certain things and maintain others—was deeply empowering. Consider the mentality of surfers riding a wave. They fully enjoy this wave, with the wisdom and awareness that there are always more waves coming. They know they don’t have to ride every single wave that comes their way.
Consider the mentality of surfers riding a wave. They fully enjoy this wave, with the wisdom and awareness that there are always more waves coming. They know they don’t have to ride every single wave that comes their way.
There will be seasons of growth and seasons of maintenance for each type of wealth. Enjoy each season for its individual beauty, position yourself for future seasons according to your values and goals, and always place yourself in the water.
At the end of each month, ask yourself three tactical questions: What really matters right now in my life, and are my goals still aligned with this? Assess the quality of your goals and ensure that they still serve as true north. Are my current high-leverage systems aligned with my goals? Assess the quality of your high-leverage systems and whether they create the appropriate momentum. Am I in danger of running afoul of my anti-goals? Assess the quality of your environment and decisions to evaluate any changes that need to be made.
At the end of each quarter, add these four questions to your regular ritual: What is creating energy right now? Review your calendars from the prior quarter. What activities, people, or projects consistently created energy in your life? Did you spend ample time on these energy creators, or did they get neglected? Recalibrate to spend more time on these in the quarter ahead. What is draining energy right now? Review your calendars from the prior quarter. What activities, people, or projects consistently drained energy from your life? Did you allow energy drainers to persist, or did you cut them off in real time? Recalibrate to spend less time on these in the quarter ahead. Who are the boat anchors in my life? Boat anchors are people who hold you back from your potential. They literally create a drag on your life. Boat anchors are people who belittle, put down, or diminish your accomplishments, laugh at your ambition and tell you to be more realistic, harm the quality of your environment through negativity and pessimism, and make you feel bad by consistently showing off what they have. Recalibrate to minimize or eliminate the energy you give them in the quarter ahead. What am I avoiding because of fear? The thing you fear the most is often the thing you most need to do. Fears, when avoided, become limiters on our progress. Recalibrate to get closer to your fears in the quarter ahead.
The answers are within you—you just haven’t found the right questions yet.
Before you continue, sit down and write a letter to your future self—ten years from now, five years from now, three years from now, whatever. Reflect on where you are and where you hope to be when you open the letter. Vividly imagine that desired future. The letter is your true north. This imagined future is yours to create. You have the answers; it’s time to start asking the right questions to turn this imagined future into reality.
How Many Moments Do You Have Remaining with Your Loved Ones? The years go by, as quickly as a wink Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think —Guy Lombardo, “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)”
“Always remember,” she said, “everyone we love, they are on loan to us for a short period of time. They are gone in the blink of an eye.”
Here are six key lessons for life: Family time is finite—cherish it. Children time is precious—be present. Friend time is limited—prioritize the real friends. Partner time is meaningful—never settle. Coworker time is significant—find energy. Alone time is abundant—love yourself.
“Despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life.”
Writer and philosopher Sam Harris once said, “No matter how many times you do something, there will come a day when you do it for the last time.”[3]
“I once saw a challenge that said, ‘It’s your time to shine! You’ve got the stage, ten thousand people are waiting for you to walk out, you get one sentence. What do you say?’ My answer was and still is ‘It’s later than you think.’ ”
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
I’ll tell you a secret. Something they don’t teach you in your temple. The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again. —Achilles, Troy (2004 film)
The Red Queen Effect says that we must run just to stay in place and that we must run even faster if we ever hope to get ahead.
chances are you’re a victim of the Red Queen’s paradox—running faster and faster just to stay in the same place.
Society assures you that it’s okay to feel time-poor as long as it’s a by-product of a chase for more money. Busy has become standard fare, equal parts reality and pseudo-dystopian status symbol. The invisible hand is silently increasing the speed on your treadmill.
In other words, there is a cognitive switching cost to shifting your attention from one task to another. When your attention is shifted, there is a residue of it that remains with the prior task and impairs your cognitive performance on the new task.
You have back-to-back meetings and find yourself still thinking about the prior meeting in the current one. You rush from one kid’s activity to another’s but can’t remember exactly how you got there. An email notification pops up and completely derails your focus on the current task. You check your phone under your desk during a lecture and find yourself unable to refocus on the professor’s words. You’re having a conversation with a friend or partner, but your mind is on the work email you just received, not on what the other person is saying.
People who are time poor are less happy, less productive, and more stressed out. They exercise less, eat fattier food, and have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease.”
You have more time than your ancestors but less control over how you spend it. You have more time, but somehow you have less time for the things that truly matter to you. It takes all the running we can do to keep in the same place. You’re running faster and for longer, but you’re not getting anywhere—at least not anywhere worth going.
The ancient Greeks had two different words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to sequential, quantitative time—the natural sequence and flow of equal parts of time. Kairos refers to a more fluctuating, qualitative time—the idea that certain moments are weightier than others, that not all time is the same.
Awareness: An understanding of the finite, impermanent nature of time Attention: The ability to direct your attention and focus on the things that matter (and ignore the rest) Control: The freedom to own your time and choose exactly how to spend it
The three pillars of Time Wealth—awareness, attention, and control—are individually important, but are best thought of as a progression: awareness first, attention next, control last.
Awareness is characterized by the understanding and appreciation of the impermanent, precious nature of time—of its tangible value and importance as an asset.
That all sounds great, and yet I’m willing to bet that very few of you would agree to trade lives with him. Why not? Warren Buffett is, at the time of this writing, ninety-four years old. It doesn’t matter how much money, fame, or access he has—you probably wouldn’t agree to trade your remaining time for his. On the flip side, as Graham Duncan pointed out, there is a decent chance that Buffett would trade all of his billions of dollars to have your time.
In his On the Shortness of Life, Seneca wrote, “We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.” You know how important your time is, yet you ignore its passage and engage in low-value activities that pull you away from the things that really matter. The goal is to bring to the surface the awareness of the precious nature of the time you do have. Without this awareness, you will never value time enough until suddenly, at the very end, it will become all that you value.
his On the Shortness of Life, Seneca wrote, “We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.” You know how important your time is, yet you ignore its passage and engage in low-value activities that pull you away from the things that really matter.
The goal is to bring to the surface the awareness of the precious nature of the time you do have. Without this awareness, you will never value time enough until suddenly, at the very end, it will become all that you value.
Attention is defined as the state or act of applying the mind to something. This application of mental energy is how we create progress. Your choice of how and when to deploy your limited attention determines the quality of your outcomes.
Focused, concentrated attention is significantly more powerful than scattered, unconcentrated attention.
In the context of your life, concentrated attention is the dedicated, deep focus on the high-leverage projects, opportunities, people, and moments that truly matter.
It requires appropriate project selection and rejection—saying yes to a few high-leverage things and no to everything else.
Attention needs to be directed, managed, and harnessed.
With this fundamental shift, time morphs from a fixed asset that you must take to a dynamic asset that you can make. Time enters the realm of your control.
The freedom to allocate time according to your preferences—to choose how you spend it, where you spend it, and whom you spend it with—is the ultimate goal. This is the desired end state of true control over your time.
Here are twelve proven systems for building Time Wealth. 1. The Time Wealth Hard Reset | Awareness 2. The Energy Calendar | Awareness and Attention 3. The Two-List Exercise | Awareness and Attention 4. The Eisenhower Matrix | Awareness and Attention 5. The Index Card To-Do System | Attention 6. Parkinson’s Law | Attention 7. The Anti-Procrastination System | Attention 8. The Flow State Boot-Up Sequence | Attention 9. Effective Delegation | Attention and Control 10. The Art of No | Control 11. The Four Types of Professional Time | Control 12. The Energy Creators | Control
Start by writing down the name of a friend or family member you love deeply but don’t see enough. Approximate the number of times per year that you see that person. Write that number down. Next, write down your age and the other person’s age. Subtract the older person’s age from eighty.[*] This is the approximate number of years you have remaining with this person. Now, do some basic math: Multiply the number of times you see that person per year by the number of years you have remaining with that person. With some terrifyingly simple math, you’ve determined the number of times you will see your loved one before the end.
For one week, at the end of every weekday, go through your calendar and color-code each event from the day that just finished: Green: Energy-creating—these activities left you feeling energized. Yellow: Neutral—these activities left you feeling neutral. Red: Energy-draining—these activities left you feeling drained.
At the end of the week, zoom out, look at your calendar, and ask yourself a few questions: What are your common energy-creating (green) activities? What are your common neutral (yellow) activities? What are your common energy-draining (red) activities?
Based on the answers, you can formulate an action plan for your time: Energy-creating activities should be prioritized and amplified. How can you spend more time on these activities in future? Neutral activities should be maintained or delegated. How can you slowly work to outsource or delegate some of these neutral activities to free up your time for more energy-creating activities? Energy-draining activities should be delegated, deleted, or adjusted. How can you slowly work to outsource, delegate, or delete some of these energy-draining activities? Are there ways to make subtle adjustments to these energy-draining activities that would move them up to neutral (for example, shifting from an energy-draining video call to a neutral walking call)?
The point: The most important items had been highlighted; everything else was simply a distraction threatening to derail Flint’s progress.
Make a list: Create a comprehensive list of your top professional priorities. Repeat this for your top personal priorities. Narrow the list: Go through the professional priority list and circle the top three to five items. These should be the absolute top priorities in your professional life, the items that will have the greatest impact on your trajectory—the long-term value drivers. These are the items that truly matter. Repeat this process for your personal priority list. Split the lists: On a fresh sheet of paper, write down the circled three to five priorities on the left side and all the remaining priorities on the right side. Label the left side of the sheet Priorities and the right side of the sheet Avoid at All Costs. Repeat this process for your personal list.
delete. Consider this your first line of defense: When new opportunities arise, refer to your two-list exercise and make a quick assessment of whether it falls into the category of one of your priorities or if it should be avoided at all costs.
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”
Urgent: A task that requires prompt attention Important: A task that advances your long-term values or goals
The Eisenhower Matrix creates a visual awareness of the types of tasks on which you are spending your time. This awareness allows you to adjust course as necessary in order to spend most of your time on the important, long-term projects and opportunities.
The fanciest productivity systems often require a lot of thinking and maintenance. If you’re spending time thinking about your productivity system, you’re focusing on movement over progress. The simple index card strategy harnesses the core principles of focus and momentum to allow you to get more of what matters done. Always remember: Simple is beautiful.
Open time frames lead to a lot of movement and very little progress—the rocking-horse phenomenon of busywork culture. We tend to be more efficient and productive when constraints come into play. We also tend to focus on the important when pressed for time.
Establish time blocks that are shorter than you’re comfortable with for low-importance but necessary tasks. Use this artificial pressure to avoid procrastination and free up time for important, high-value tasks.
Shorten standard meetings to twenty-five minutes. The tighter window makes participants more efficient (avoids “How about the weather” small talk) and gives you a five-minute break to reset in between meetings.
The forced constraint of time-bound blocks generates an intensity that meaningfully improves my output quantity and quality.
The better way, to paraphrase entrepreneur Naval Ravikant, is to work like a lion: Sprint, rest, repeat.
better way, to paraphrase entrepreneur Naval Ravikant, is to work like a lion: Sprint, rest, repeat.
You procrastinate when it’s easier to delegate a task to your future self.
The anti-procrastination system involves three core steps: Deconstruction Plan and stake creation Action
To the procrastinator, large, long-term projects are a big, scary black box. Your imagination fills that box with endless complexity and horrors. The whole is too intimidating, so you push it out to your future self. Deconstruct the big and scary project into small and individually manageable tasks.
Public declaration: State your process intentions publicly. Put it on social media, post it on LinkedIn, tell a bunch of friends at a dinner. No one wants to break their word. Social pressure: Make a plan to meet a friend somewhere to do the initial work. Schedule a time and place to meet and decide exactly what work you’re going to be tackling while you are there. Reward: Plan a reward if you do what you’re supposed to. Allow yourself to have a nice walk, a coffee break, or dinner with friends. Penalty: Plan a penalty if you don’t do what you’re supposed to. Use stakes to gamify big projects. It can be very effective.
Plan a sync session: Similar to the social-pressure stake above, meet a friend for the initial movement. Reward initial movement: Attach a small reward to completing the initial movement (for example, a walk outside). Use the lion technique: Commit to a single short (thirty-minute) sprint followed by luxurious rest.
Deconstruction: Deconstruct the big, scary project into small, manageable tasks. Plan and stake creation: Create a project document with specific, time-bound tasks. Create stakes to gamify their completion. Action: A body in motion tends to stay in motion. Create systems that spark initial movement. Engineer small wins (they become big wins over time).
You’ll build your focus muscle progressively: Start with thirty minutes, once per day. Work your way up to one hour two to three times per day by the end of the first month. From there, extend the periods to two hours (my personal maximum) or four hours (an ambitious target) as your focus muscle strengthens.
The sequence can be built around the five core senses: Touch: What movement/body action you engaged in prior to start Taste: What you’re drinking, chewing, or snacking on Sight: What you see in your environment Sound: What you hear in your environment Smell: What you smell in your environment
For personal commitments, use the Right Now test: When deciding whether to take something on, ask yourself, Would I do this right now? Functionally, you can think of right now as today or tomorrow. The aim is to eliminate the future time distortions observed by psychologists; by pulling the event into the present, you make a more clear, rational decision. If the answer to Would I do this right now? is no, say no. If the answer is yes, take it on.
Rather than manage your life through a to-do list, you manage your life through your calendar. Time-blocking leverages the well-established psychological principle that setting an intention for your time is critical for driving progress.
The Four Types of Professional Time There are four types of professional time: Management Creation Consumption Ideation
To paraphrase Atomic Habits author James Clear, everything you create is downstream from something you consume.[12] Consumption Time focuses on quality upstream to ensure quality downstream.
Leverage Parkinson’s law and work toward a batched schedule: Create discrete blocks of time each day when you will handle major Management Time activities. Have one to three email-processing blocks per day. Have one to three call and meeting blocks per day.
The key question then becomes this: What should you do with this newly created time? What activities should you take on? What pursuits are calling you? Whom should you spend more time with? This is the power of taking control over your time: You have the freedom to choose exactly how to spend it.
Review your calendar from the previous year. What were the Energy Creators in your personal and professional life? What activities outside of work felt life-giving and joyful? Who made you feel energized? What new learning or mental pursuits sparked your interest to go deeper? What rituals created more peace, calm, and mental clarity? What physical pursuits did you enjoy? What professional or financial pursuits felt effortless (or even fun)?
The only thing that matters at all is the quality of the relationships with the people we love.”
“We all have obligations in life that need our attention, and those things pull us away from contemplating love with one hundred percent of our awareness. But we must remember what’s behind our desire to do those things in the first place; we must remember our center. And it’s not the money.”
What are you doing to cherish the people who hold those special seats in your world? How are you letting those people know what they mean to you? Are you prioritizing time with them or letting it float by and disappear?
Technological innovation has increased your connectedness to the world around you. You have more connectedness, but you feel less connected.
Conventional wisdom says one should focus on the journey, not the destination. I disagree. Focus on the people.
Focus on the company—the people you want to travel with—and the journey will reveal itself in due time. Nothing bad has ever come from surrounding oneself with inspiring, genuine, kind, positive-sum individuals. Find your Front-Row People. Cherish them. Be one to someone else.
The human desire and need for connection, love, cooperation, and support is what allowed our species to survive and thrive.
Dr. Vaillant put it bluntly. “The key to healthy aging is relationships, relationships, relationships.”
The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age fifty were the healthiest at age eighty.”
The single greatest predictor of physical health at age eighty was relationship satisfaction at age fifty.
Teenagers and young adults are spending 70 percent less time with their friends in person than they did two decades ago.
When you fail to measure and value your Social Wealth, you fail to consider it in your decisions.
What’s the point of all that financial optimization if you’re alone? How many people have sold their homes and moved to areas with lower taxes to save money only to realize that without their families and friends, they don’t feel at home? How many people have jetted around the world and seen incredible sights only to realize that seeing them alone isn’t quite as meaningful? How many people have taken high-paying jobs in new locations only to find themselves deeply unhappy without their support networks, friends, and family?
Proximity to people you love is worth more than any job will ever pay you.
You may need food, water, and shelter to survive, but it is human connection that allows you to thrive.
By the time your children are eighteen, you’ve already used up the vast majority of the time you’ll have with them.
“20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids.”
Being present and spending time with those you love is the most important thing in the end. Having the people you love see you work hard on things you care about is a principle they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.
The goal is to have the clarity to choose—to define your balance and live by design rather than by default.
Involving your loved ones in your journey this way is a beautiful thing. They will understand why you’re working hard, the value it creates for them and you, and feel connected to your growth and achievement. An absence due to work becomes better understood and more appreciated with the benefit of context.
An absence due to work becomes better understood and more appreciated with the benefit of context.
Always remember: The days are long, but the years are short.
Apple founder Steve Jobs put it well: “Almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.”
An old Buddhist parable echoes this sentiment. The Buddha asks his student, “If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?” The student nods yes. The Buddha asks, “If a person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?” The student again nods yes. The Buddha then explains, “In life, we cannot always control the first arrow—the bad thing that happens. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the bad thing, and that second arrow is optional.” The first arrow is the negative event that hits you—the chaos, pain, challenges, and complexity that threaten to derail you, to take you out of the game. It hits and it hurts. But the second arrow is your response to the first, and as the parable teaches us, you can avoid being struck by the second arrow; it is entirely within your control.
Life is so very fragile, but no matter how fragile it is, each day we have a choice of how to live it. Each day is a fresh start, a fresh choice to make.
Who will you choose to join you on this wild, crazy journey? Who will you choose to gift your energy, love, and respect to? Who will you choose to spend your terrifyingly finite time with?
Your Social Wealth is built across three core pillars: Depth: Connection to a small circle of people with deep, meaningful bonds Breadth: Connection to a larger circle of people for support and belonging beyond the self, either through individual relationships or through community, religious, spiritual, or cultural infrastructure Earned status: The lasting respect, admiration, and trust of your peers that you receive on the basis of earned, not acquired, status symbols
Depth is built through three primary actions, behaviors, and attitudes: Honesty: Sharing your inner truth and weakness, listening to theirs Support: Sitting in the darkness during their struggle Shared experience: Encountering positive and negative experiences together
Breadth is built through behaviors that expose you to new people and environments: Join a local club or community around an area of interest. It could be a book club if you love reading, an art club if you love creating, or a gym if you love fitness. Be a child again, participating in new activities to meet friends. Attend a weekly spiritual gathering if you are a faith-driven individual. Participate in digital meetups for causes that you care about. Coordinate regular walks or hikes with others in your area. Go to the networking event you’ve been shying away from.
Breadth requires you to try new things, to open yourself up to the world around you.
As author Morgan Housel noted in his bestselling book The Psychology of Money, “When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, ‘Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.’ Instead, you think, ‘Wow, if I had that car people would think I’m cool.’ ”
Entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant once said, “A fit body, a calm mind, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought—they must be earned.”
Bought status is the improved social positioning garnered through acquired status symbols: The club membership that makes you a part of the scene The expensive car, watch, handbag, or jewelry acquired for the sole purpose of showing others your financial wealth The private-plane flight or boat trip taken more for the Instagram photo than for the utility
Earned status, however, is the real respect, admiration, and trust received through hard-won treasures: The freedom to choose how to spend your time (and whom to spend it with) The healthy, loving family relationships made possible by years of present energy The purpose-imbued work and mastery within a domain, built through years of effort The sought-after wisdom accumulated through decades of lived experience The adaptable mind capable of navigating stressful encounters shaped through a steady mindfulness practice and thoughtful introspection The strong, fit physique built through hours of movement and disciplined eating The professional promotion or company sale achieved after an extended period of hard work in the dark
Earned status is lasting. It will elicit the durable respect, admiration, and trust that you seek from the people who matter to you, those whose opinions you value and cherish. To live a life of abundant Social Wealth, focus on what must be earned, not what can be bought.
I have a core set of deep, loving, supportive relationships. I am consistently able to be the partner, parent, family member, and friend that I would want to have. I have a network of loose relationships I can learn from and build on. I have a deep feeling of connection to a community (local, regional, national, spiritual, and so on) or to something bigger than myself. I do not attempt to achieve status, respect, or admiration through material purchases. A few common Social Wealth anti-goals to avoid on your journey: Allowing my pursuit of financial success to hurt my deepest relationships Losing my connection to my local networks and community Chasing status symbols to improve my social position
Happy people love people, use things, and worship the divine; unhappy people use people, love things, and worship themselves. It’s a bad trade to be special rather than happy. That’s what people are doing when they choose the fourteenth hour of work before the first hour with their children.
Tell your partner one thing you appreciate about them every single day.
Stop trying to be interesting and focus on being interested.
Being interested is how you become interesting.
Adam Grant wrote in a New York Times opinion piece on the topic, “The most toxic relationships aren’t the purely negative ones. They’re the ones that are a mix of positive and negative.”
Falling in love is easy. Growing in love is hard. Falling is what you see on social media. Growing is what you don’t see. Growing in love is about developing and deepening a bond through discomfort, painful periods, darkness, hard conversations, and challenges.
I consider these the places where your relationship will go to die: Criticism: While articulating a complaint is fair game and necessary for a healthy relationship, Dr. Gottman defined criticism as an ad hominem attack on the other person. Defensiveness: In response to criticism, most people will try to protect themselves through defensive strategies with excuses. When we are defensive, we fail to be accountable for our failures and actions. Contempt: Treating the partner with disrespect, attacking the person’s character and core. Dr. Gottman’s research revealed contempt to be the single greatest predictor of divorce. Stonewalling: In response to contempt, one or both partners may simply shut down, preferring to entirely evade engagement on the issue.
Criticism antidote (the gentle start-up): Focus on a complaint without blame by avoiding the word you and focusing on the word I. This reframe avoids blame and focuses instead on what you feel or need from your partner. Defensiveness antidote (take responsibility): Acknowledge and accept your partner’s perspective and offer an apology for actions or behaviors that created the perspective. Contempt antidote (build a culture of appreciation): Create a regular reminder of your partner’s positive traits, actions, or behaviors and ground yourself in gratitude for those features. Stonewalling antidote (physiological self-soothing): Pause and take a break. Spend that time engaged in a soothing, distracting, or relaxing activity, like walking, breathing mindfully, or sitting with your eyes closed.
A few specifics for conducting your Life Dinner ritual: Set a recurring monthly date. Pick a favorite spot, explore a new place, or cook a meal at home. If you don’t have time for a full meal, do it over a coffee or a drink. The point is to make it a sacred monthly ritual. Three areas to cover in the discussion: Personal Professional Relationship
When someone you love comes to you with a problem, ask, “Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged?” Helped: Deconstruct the problem and identify potential solutions. The fix-it mentality can come out to play. Heard: Listen intently and allow the other person to express (and vent) as needed. Hugged: Provide comforting physical touch. Touch is a powerful love language for many (including my wife). Sometimes people just want to feel your presence with them.
Rather than showing up for loved ones in the way that was convenient and natural for me, I was forced to meet others in the way that was best suited for them
The skilled conversationalist can take many different forms: Extrovert or introvert Theatrical storyteller or prudent fact deliverer Giver or taker
Most questions are like stop signs: They invite an answer that naturally ends the conversation. Doorknobs are questions or statements that invite the other person to open them and walk through. They invite the other person to start telling a story.
The stop-sign version likely leads to a conversational stop when the person responds with a location. The doorknob version likely leads to a story.
I like situational eye contact: Deep and connected while the other person speaks Organic while you speak. It’s okay to gaze off while you think, but use eye contact to emphasize key points and moments in a story.
You get somewhere by building genuine relationships: Giving with no intention of receiving in return Acting in the service of others Creating value for those around you
Note: Always avoid “What do you do?” as a question. It’s generic and generally gets you a cookie-cutter, automated response or an uncomfortable one if people don’t feel proud of their work. “What are you most excited about right now?” leads to more personal, interesting replies and increased conversational momentum. If you’re socially anxious, much of your nervousness in these situations arises from a self-induced pressure to be “interesting” to other people. Flip it around—focus on being interested. Ask engaging questions. It’s much easier (and more effective).
[first name] @ [company] . com [first initial] [last name] @ [company] . com [first name] . [last name] @ [company] . com [last name] @ [company] . com Email address data shows those syntax structures cover over 80 percent of emails. A little bit of hustle goes a long way!
Your brain trust is a group of five to ten individuals. A few key features of the group: Unbiased (ideally not family) Diverse experiences, perspectives, lenses Willing to provide candid, raw feedback Vested interest in your success (that is, they want to see you win)
The best public speakers don’t deliver a speech—they tell a story. They take the audience on a journey.
Build Lego blocks by practicing the key moments, such as the opening, transitions, and punch lines. Perfect these Lego blocks. Practice the speech in segments rather than sequentially. This may seem counterintuitive, but it will make you more dynamic if things don’t go perfectly according to plan.
Pay attention to the following: How are they structuring their talks? What is the pacing of their words? When are they pausing and when are they accelerating? When are they raising their voices? When are they lowering them? Note their movements on the stage. How are they gesturing? How are they engaging with the audience?
Seneca famously wrote, “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
Envision the public-speaking character that you would like to embody: What traits do they possess? How do they interact with their surroundings? How do they physically appear to others? What is their mentality?
If you feel your nerves rising before the event, try it: Inhale through your nose twice, once slowly, then once quickly. Long exhale through your mouth. Repeat two to three times. Immediate positive impact.
Lesson: Find a simple way to cut the tension early and get people on your side.
These nine strategies will work wonders for your public speaking: Study the Best: Use YouTube to study speakers you admire. Create Clear Structure: Be deliberate about the storytelling arc. Build Your Lego Blocks: Relentlessly practice the opening, transitions, and key lines, but avoid rote memorization. Address the Spotlight: Ask “So what?” about your worst fears and stop suffering in your imagination. Get into Character: Turn your ideal character on prior to the start. Eliminate Stress: Use the physiological sigh to eliminate stress. Cut the Tension: Find a way to cut the tension early with a joke or self-deprecating remark to get the audience on your side. Play the Lava Game: Use big, confident gestures and avoid touching your pockets or torso. Move Purposefully: Take slow, methodical, purposeful steps.
The Bought-Status Test Would I buy this thing if I could not show it to anyone or tell anyone about it?
The Earned-Status Test Could the richest person in the world acquire the thing I want by tomorrow?
Curiosity is the foundation of a life of Mental Wealth.
Curiosity is how you learn about the world and how you stay alive.
Fortune favors the curious.
The legendary centenarians of Okinawa, Japan, refer to ikigai—a combination of the Japanese word iki, meaning “life,” and gai, meaning “effect” or “worth.” Together, they connote “a reason for life”—a driver of their daily vigor. Ikigai can be visualized as four overlapping circles: (1) what you love, (2) what you are good at, (3) what the world needs, and (4) what you can be paid for. The area where the four circles overlap represents your ikigai.
Only you can be the hero of your story—it’s time you start acting like it.
“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself—and that is what it is when it dies—the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment…. If living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.”
You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it.”
The recent graduate who pursues a creative path instead of the obvious one that his classmates defaulted
The fight against normalcy is the most important fight of your life. To maintain your uniqueness, to live on your terms in a world that pulls you to blend in, is the only way to realize your full potential and live a fulfilled, texture-rich existence. Ultimately, this is what it means to build a life of Mental Wealth: to live according to your own purpose, to believe in your own ability to grow, change, learn, and develop, and to find your definition of peace, calm, and solitude in a fast-moving world.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary…. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Purpose: The clarity of defining your unique vision and focus that creates meaning and aligns short- and long-term decision making; the unwillingness to live someone else’s life Growth: The hunger to progress and change, driven by an understanding of the dynamic potential of your intelligence, ability, and character Space: The creation of stillness and solitude to think, reset, wrestle with questions, and recharge; the ability and willingness to listen to your inner voice
This purpose provides daily meaning. It creates an identity, an understanding of who you are, what you stand for, and where you’re going. It defines how you connect with the world around you.
Remember the lesson from the Bhagavad Gita: “One’s own dharma performed imperfectly is better than another’s dharma well performed.” Your purpose doesn’t have to be grand or important to anyone else—it must simply be yours.
Growth is how you stay ahead of the forces of nature that conspire against you. The pursuit of improvement is a courageous act in a world where most people avoid friction at all costs.
Why do any of that? Because you are capable of so much more than you realize—and chasing that full potential, while difficult, is a worthy lifelong pursuit that keeps you sharp and proves you can change, develop, and adapt.
The children who were praised for their intelligence after completing the first puzzle were less likely to choose a challenging puzzle for the next test than their peers who were praised for their effort.
The fixed mindset, which assumes ability, intelligence, and character are static The growth mindset, which assumes ability, intelligence, and character are dynamic
In a world of beautiful imperfection where perfect is reserved for fairy tales, those who believe in their ability to change, who focus on inputs, process, and daily improvement, will always find a way to thrive.
As Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Space exists between stimulus and response. Stimulus and response are loud—they involve inputs, action, and outputs. Space is quiet—it is devoid of external inputs and does not require any outputs. It is stillness, solitude. You can create space literally by going to a physical location to be alone and disconnected or metaphorically by going to that location in your mind. The important part is that you go (and regularly). Space is not lazy—on the contrary, space is rocket fuel for the mind.
Space is personal and can take many different forms: Fifteen-minute technology-free walk in the morning Daily prayer practice or reading from a favored religious text Free-flow journaling in the evening before bed Five-minute breaks between meetings to move around Daily cold plunge or sauna to focus on breathing and the internal voice Workouts, runs, or bike rides with light music Active or passive meditation rituals A spiritual gathering
I regularly embrace a childlike curiosity. I have a clear purpose that provides daily meaning and aligns short- and long-term decision making. I pursue growth and consistently chase my full potential. I have a fundamental belief that I am able to continuously change, develop, and adapt. I have regular rituals that allow me to create space to think, reset, wrestle with questions, and recharge.
Failing to connect with a purpose bigger than myself Giving up on all learning that does not provide direct financial utility Losing all the space in my life as I pursue new activities and growth
When you’re trying to learn something new, attempt to teach it to a friend or family member. See what questions they ask and how those questions expose the gaps in your knowledge. Study more to fill in those gaps. The act of teaching is the most powerful form of learning.
Creativity has the power to look pain in the eye and turn it into something else.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. —Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
I focus on energy, not interests or passions. Follow your energy, because it is the truly scarce resource. When you have energy for something, you go deep on it, you push to grow, you gain life from it. It fuels you.
To assess the likelihood of a pursuit becoming energy-creating as your competency improves, ask yourself, “Do I love the good version of this?” In other words, if you imagine yourself at a modest or improved competency level at the pursuit, does it give you energy?
Most of your time is spent on pursuits in your Zone of Genius. Your remaining time is spent on pursuits in your Zone of Hobby. Minimize the time spent on pursuits in your Zone of Danger. Eliminate the time spent on pursuits in the dead zone (with the exception of those that survive the test in the prior note).
The Feynman technique is a learning model that leverages teaching and prioritizes simplicity to help you develop a deep understanding of any topic. It involves four key steps: Set the stage. Teach. Assess and study. Organize, convey, and review.
The losing groups thought in linear, logical terms and achieved a linear, logical outcome. The winning group thought differently.
Socratic questioning (or the Socratic method) is a process of asking and answering questions that stimulate critical thinking to expose and vet underlying assumptions and logic. To put it into action, follow this general structure: Start with open-ended questions. Propose ideas based on these questions. Probe these ideas with progressive questioning. Repeat until the best ideas are developed.
Socratic questioning takes time. It shouldn’t be used on low-cost, easily reversible decisions. But when you encounter a high-stakes decision with the potential for asymmetric rewards in your business, career, or life, it’s worth engaging in the exercise. It will empower you to think differently and uncover the path most likely to generate the asymmetric, risk-adjusted returns.
Eight thinking prompts I have found particularly useful: If I repeated my current typical day for one hundred days, would my life be better or worse? If people observed my actions for a week, what would they say my priorities are? If I were the main character in a movie of my life, what would the audience be screaming at me to do right now? Am I hunting antelope (big important problems) or field mice (small urgent problems)? How can I do less but better? What are my strongest beliefs? What would it take for me to change my mind on them? What are a few things I know now that I wish I’d known five years ago? What actions did I engage in five years ago that I cringe at today? What actions am I engaged in today that I might cringe at in five years?
In a speed-obsessed world, the benefits of slowing down are extensive. It allows you to: Restore energy Notice things you missed Be more deliberate with actions Focus on the highest-leverage opportunities Move slow to move fast
One win from the day One point of tension, anxiety, or stress One point of gratitude
The 1-1-1 method works because of its simplicity: One win allows you to appreciate your progress. One point of tension allows you to get the topic off your mind and onto the paper. It’s therapeutic. One point of gratitude allows you to reflect on the most important things in your life.
The disciplined pursuit of a life of Physical Wealth is a catalyst for growth: It initiates a mindset shift—it reminds you that you are in control, that you have the power. That mindset shift creates ripples that extend well beyond the core to every area of life.
imagining the desired future reinforces the need for specific actions in the present to create that end.
That visualization of your future should provide clarity on the present: If you continue your current daily actions, will you be dancing or sitting? What actions do you need to add or adjust in the present to more closely align your future with your ideal vision for it? What would your eighty-year-old self want you to do today?
Your eighty-year-old self would remind you that you get only one body, and the way you treat it today is reflected and amplified in the way it will treat you years in the future.
“Treat your body like a house you have to live in for another seventy years.” Your body is, quite literally, the house that you’re going to live in for the rest of your life. And yet a lot of people treat that house like trash—they drink and eat too much, don’t sleep enough, rarely move, and avoid the basic investments and repairs necessary to keep it maintained.
Put simply, the 80/20 rule says that a small number of inputs drive most of the outputs.
Most of the results are driven by a few simple inputs—completing basic daily movement, consuming whole, unprocessed foods, and prioritizing sleep and recovery.
They are the three controllable pillars of Physical Wealth: Movement: Daily body movement through a combination of cardiovascular exercise and resistance training; activities to promote stability and flexibility Nutrition: Consumption of primarily whole, unprocessed foods to meet major nutrient needs, supplementing as necessary to meet any micronutrient needs Recovery: High-quality, consistent sleep performance and other recovery-promoting activities
In other words, a little bit of exercise goes a long way and a lot of exercise goes a longer way.
Aerobic: Low intensity; relies on the oxygen you breathe to sustain activity Anaerobic: High intensity; relies on the breakdown of sugars to sustain activity
The development and preservation of muscle, power, and strength is critical for a healthy, enjoyable life.
“Resistance exercise and strength training is the number one way to combat neuromuscular aging.”
Level 1: Move your body for at least thirty minutes per day. Level 2: Move your body for at least thirty minutes per day; engage in two to three specific cardiovascular training sessions per week and one to two resistance-training sessions per week. Level 3: Move your body for at least thirty minutes per day; engage in three or more cardiovascular training sessions per week (for a total of at least 120 minutes of aerobic training and 20 minutes of anaerobic training) and at least three resistance-training sessions per week incorporating stability and flexibility training.
Building a movement routine today will allow you to live a better present and prepare for a better future.
The present and future you imagine are within reach—but only if you take action now.
A surplus of calories (consuming more than you use) leads to weight gain; a deficit (consuming less than you use) leads to weight loss; a balance (consuming exactly what you use) leads to weight stability.
Proteins: The building blocks necessary for muscle growth, tissue repair, and more Carbohydrates: A primary source of energy for our bodies Fats: A source of energy that supports cell growth, organ health, and more
Amount: Seven to eight hours per night, with a consistent schedule for sleep and wake times. Environment: The sleep setting should be dark, quiet, and cool. Routine: Winding down with a relaxing routine in the evenings promotes the release of chemical signals that it is time to sleep. Viewing morning sunlight for just five to ten minutes on a clear day or fifteen to twenty minutes on an overcast day and low-angle afternoon sunlight have both been shown to regulate the release of cortisol and the circadian rhythm (our natural chemical internal clock).
Level 1: Seven to eight hours of sleep Level 2: Seven to eight hours of sleep in an optimized sleep environment (a dark, cool, quiet room) Level 3: Seven to eight hours of sleep in an optimized sleep environment; a fixed sleeping time window with morning and afternoon sunlight exposure to regulate circadian rhythm and improve sleep quality; additional recovery methods
feel strong, healthy, and vital for my age. I move my body regularly through a structured routine and have an active lifestyle. I eat primarily whole, unprocessed foods. I sleep seven or more hours per night on a regular basis and feel rested and recovered. I have a clear plan in place to allow me to physically thrive into my later years.
- Quiz
Choose a challenge level from the three options to follow. Bronze is a good place to start if you are new to these practices, while Gold is more appropriate if you consider yourself advanced. Use a simple spreadsheet or template to track your daily execution. You can find a tracking template at the5typesofwealth.com/tracker. Create accountability by finding a partner (or partners) to take on the challenge with you. Make a group message or system for communicating your performance on the daily challenge. Message Done upon completion of each item on the list. Once you’ve completed one level of the challenge, you can consider taking on the next level in the following month.
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. —Marcus Aurelius
My application: I use my 5-5-5-30 routine: five push-ups, five squats, five lunges, and a thirty-second plank. You can do this while your coffee is brewing or immediately after you wake up. It will give you an instant boost of energy and get your blood flowing.
If your goal is to create, you must work like a lion. Sprint when inspired. Rest. Repeat.
Wake up: Establish a fixed waking schedule for weekdays and weekends. Hydrate: Drink sixteen ounces of water (with superchargers as desired). Move: Choose a few simple strength, mobility, or flexibility movements to get your body moving and the blood flowing. Get outside: Fifteen minutes of movement outside sets the tone for the day. Focus: Set a block of time to work on the most important tasks for the day.
The composition of a training week is as follows: Day 1: Full-body strength plus optional aerobic cardio Day 2: Aerobic cardio (sixty minutes) Day 3: Full-body strength plus optional aerobic cardio Day 4: Aerobic cardio (sixty minutes) Day 5: Full-body strength plus optional aerobic cardio Day 6: Anaerobic cardio (twenty minutes) Day 7: Light recovery and rest
you can find a recommended full-body routine at the5typesofwealth.com/movementplan
when it comes to performance in important moments, too little stress is just as bad as too much stress
Low stress: This is a state of low arousal. This state is necessary for recovery. Optimal stress: This is the optimal state of arousal. It’s the Goldilocks level—not too hot, not too cold, just right. When you’re in this state, you are well positioned to perform important tasks. High stress: This is a state of high arousal, the overstressed position we so often find ourselves in. It may lead to a complete shutdown from system overload.
The 4-7-8 Method A particularly effective method for triggering the calm state necessary to fall asleep, the 4-7-8 method is one that I use almost daily.[15] How it works: Breathe in through your nose for four seconds. Hold your breath for seven seconds. Exhale for eight seconds. Repeat two to three times.
How it works: Inhale through your nose twice, first slowly, then quickly. Long exhale through your mouth to a natural stop without forcing the breath. Repeat two to three times.
Use a spreadsheet or template to track your daily execution. You can find a tracking template at the5typesofwealth.com/tracker. Find a partner (or partners) to take on the challenge with you. Create a group message or system for communicating your performance on the daily challenge. Message Done upon completion of each item on the list.
“I’ve got something he can never have…the knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
That thing you once longed for becomes the thing you can’t wait to upgrade.
at the time of this writing, the ten richest people in the world have a combined twelve divorces among them.
You define the rules of your game.
Lagom is a Swedish term that translates to “just the right amount.”
You will never have true Financial Wealth if you allow your expectations—your definition of enough—to grow faster than your assets. There is no perfect antidote. Hedonic adaptation means our chase for more is genetically hardwired, but forcing the definition of enough out of the subconscious mind and into the conscious mind is a start.
What does your Enough Life look like? Where do you live? What do you have? What are you and your loved ones doing? What are you focusing on? How much financial cushion do you have?
Your aim then becomes building Financial Wealth—through income generation, expense management, and long-term investment—up to the point where it enables that Enough Life that you have defined.
“A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.”
Kublai Khan’s invention represented a giant leap forward—the first instance where a piece of paper, cheaply mass-produced and with little to no inherent value, was deemed valuable and guaranteed by the force and authority of the government. Paper money slowly spread around the world because it enabled faster, more efficient commerce and growth.
The modern money game is played in a digital world, where money exists merely as numbers on a screen (in fact, the total amount of money in the world is multiple orders of magnitude higher than the total amount of coins and notes). A transaction between two parties used to involve a physical exchange, but it is now as simple as pressing a button and watching the numbers go down on one screen and up on the other. When you consider the amount of money in your account, it may feel tangible, but it is no more than a number on a lit-up screen. Your trust that you will wake up tomorrow and the number on that screen will be correct—and that it is worth something—keeps the system flowing.
In a financial universe that tempts your imagination, focus on what is real.
To succeed, all you need to do is stick to the basics and play your game long enough.
Financial Wealth is built on three pillars: Income generation: Create stable, growing income through primary employment, secondary employment, and passive streams Expense management: Manage expenses so that they are reliably below your income level and grow at a slower rate Long-term investment: Invest the difference between your income and expenses in long-term, efficient, low-cost assets that compound effectively This simple model is universally effective because it converts short-term net cash flow into long-term wealth.
The gap between your income and your expenses is the most important tool in your financial independence tool kit—and it’s a tool that you get to create.
Building a robust income engine composed of strong, stable, growing income streams should be the primary focus on your journey to generate this gap. The reason is simple: You can cut your expenses only so much, but you can increase your income forever.
A basic model to establish a robust income engine: Build skills: Marketable skills (sales, design, copywriting, software engineering, and so on) are assets that you can create and compound. Every new skill is built on top of existing skills to create a unique portfolio. Leverage skills: Strategically deploy the marketable skills to convert them into income. The means of deployment exists on a risk spectrum from stable, lower-risk, time-for-money primary employment to volatile, higher-risk self-employment and entrepreneurship.
As you build that engine, manage expenses to live well within your means. This does not mean that you should give up on everything fun and live a spartan lifestyle, but you should implement the basic tenets of expense management: Create (and stick to) a budget: Plan your monthly expenses and track your performance against them. Automate the savings and ensure you have a rainy-day fund that will cover about six months of expenses to cushion against any unexpected turbulence. Manage expectations: The greatest risk on your journey to financial independence is expectation inflation, often referred to as lifestyle creep. Never allow your expectations to grow faster than your income.
The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily. —Charlie Munger
“Money makes money. And the money that money makes, makes money.”
Time, not average annual returns, is the most important factor. Morgan Housel, the bestselling author of The Psychology of Money and Same as Ever, adds clarity to this point: “All compounding is, is returns to the power of time, but time is the exponent. So that’s to me what you want to maximize.”[9]
If a twenty-two-year-old invested 10,000 in the S&P 500 index in January 1980, she would have a retirement nest egg of well over 1 million today (assuming reinvestment of dividends along the way). If that same person invested just 2 million today. If she ratcheted up her monthly investment to 10 million today.
Get out of the way and let the magic of compounding work on your behalf.
There are five clear and distinct levels to the Financial Wealth journey: Level 1: Baseline needs are met, including food and shelter. Level 2: All baseline needs are exceeded, and modest pleasures become accessible. This includes meals at restaurants, simple vacations, and spending on education. Level 3: Baseline needs are no longer top of mind, and the focus is on saving, investing, and compounding wealth. More significant pleasures, such as multiple vacations, are readily available. More aggressive asset compounding generally begins at this level. Level 4: Most reasonable pleasures are readily available. Asset accumulation accelerates, and assets begin to generate passive income to cover some lifestyle expenses. This is the level of moderate financial independence, as you can reduce your active income and continue to live the same lifestyle. Level 5: All pleasures are available. Asset accumulation reaches escape velocity, and assets generate passive income in excess of all lifestyle expenses. This is the level of complete financial independence, as you can remove all active income and continue to live the same lifestyle.
Money solves money problems, but it will not, in a vacuum, solve anything else. The point is this: Financial Wealth does not solve your problems; it simply changes the types of problems you face. The most important and fundamental questions about your life will remain, irrespective of the level you achieve. It is entirely up to you to determine how you can leverage the Financial Wealth you have built to create and increase other types of wealth—Time, Social, Mental, and Physical—as you seek to build a comprehensively wealthy life.
I have a clear definition of what it means to have enough financially. I have income that is steadily growing alongside my skills and expertise. I manage my monthly expenses so that they are reliably below my income. I have a clear process for investing excess monthly income for long-term compounding. I use my financial wealth as a tool to build other types of wealth.
Here are the prompts I used to define my Enough Life: Where do you live? Are you living in a house, apartment, or something else? What specific characteristics do you love about the place where you live? Do you spend all your time in one place or live in different places? Whom do you live with? Are you close to family or far away? What are you doing on an average Tuesday? What are you spending your time on? What are you working on? What are you thinking about? What material things do you have? What are the objects or possessions that truly bring joy to your life? What do you have the flexibility to spend money on freely? What does your financial profile look like? What amount of money enables that life? How much cushion do you have in your finances? What are you earning, saving, and investing each month? How much of a safety net do you have?
What is the gap from your present reality to that future reality? What are the key steps and actions necessary to bridge that gap?
Ask 3 questions. We’re obsessed with tiny financial decisions that make no real difference in our lives. They keep us busy and small. The amount you spend on coffee will not change your life, but focusing on 30,000 questions will make a difference in the long run. Always have six to twelve months of emergency funds in cash.
My rule is to save 10 percent and invest 20 percent, but you can start at 5 percent and 10 percent (or whatever figure you see fit).
The way you feel about money is uncorrelated with the amount in your bank account.
No amount will change the way you feel about money. To feel good about money, you need to (a) know your numbers and (b) improve your money psychology by spending unapologetically on things you care about (and paying as little as possible for things you don’t).
The best advice, then, provides the general principles, ideas, and frameworks that you can take, mold, and leverage in your own way.
Financial success is a by-product of the amount of value you create for those around you. The richest people in the world have billions of dollars, but they have each created tens or hundreds of billions of dollars of value and simply captured a small portion of that value they created. If you want to make a lot of money, stop focusing on your investments, stop focusing on your plan, stop focusing on your strategy, and start focusing on how you can create immense value for everyone around you. If you do that, the money will follow.
Hard now, smart later. Earn your leverage.
They are exceptional at aggregating data and communicating it simply and effectively. Data in, story out. If you can build that storytelling skill, you’ll always be valuable.
Data in, story out. If you can build that storytelling skill, you’ll always be valuable.
There’s nothing more valuable than someone who can just figure it out. Ask the key questions, do some work, get it done. If you do that, people will fight over you.
Meta-skills are the foundational marketable skills upon which other skills can be developed.
If you build a solid foundation of meta-skills, you will create the conditions for a high-income future.
“return on hassle”—the idea that the time and energy associated with an investment need to be considered as part of the return equation.
He told me to make it a rule to never think twice about investments in yourself: Books, courses, and education Fitness Networking events Quality food Mental health Personal development Sleep These may look like expenses, but they can all be considered investments that pay dividends in your life for a long time.
The bias is to underestimate the value that these investments have. The financial cost is easily quantifiable, so we focus on it and ignore the benefits in other areas of our lives. But if you evaluate the benefits through the lens of the other types of wealth—Time, Social, Mental, and Physical—you will more appropriately account for them and make a better long-term decision.
Never think twice about making investments in yourself. Think twice about material purchases instead.
“Do you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?”
I found my people—and I intend to cherish them until my last breath.
Time Wealth Social Wealth Mental Wealth Physical Wealth Financial Wealth