Thread by Sahil Bloom

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You’ve been told that money is the only type of wealth.

This is a lie.

The 5 types of wealth you MUST understand:
Wealth is about more than money.

There are 5 types of wealth:
• Financial
• Social
• Physical
• Mental
• Time

But if you're not careful, the blind pursuit of financial wealth can rob you of the others.

Let’s walk through each to form a more comprehensive view of wealth:
Financial Wealth

This is the most commonly understood type of wealth.

It's generally what people mean when they say someone is wealthy.

Financial wealth is all about money—the money or financial assets that an individual has accumulated.
Financial wealth is an alluring measuring stick for success.

Why?

You can boil down someone's existence into a single number—their net worth.

Net Worth = Value of All Assets - Value of All Liabilities

For those with a competitive streak, net worth offers a simple scoreboard.
Most people assume that financial wealth creates happiness.

I used to see people with money and assume everything in their life must be amazing.

I was wrong.

Money is scientifically correlated with happiness—but only up to a baseline level of life that's lower than you think.
Once above this baseline, incremental financial wealth does not create incremental happiness.

So if your goal is happiness:

(1) Focus on getting above this baseline
(2) Focus on other drivers of happiness

Which brings us to our other types of wealth...
Social Wealth

Social wealth is about our connection to others in our respective worlds—our relationships.

The combined BREADTH and DEPTH of our connectivity to those around us governs our social wealth.

True social wealth requires depth—a few unbreakable social bonds.
Some people seek to accumulate social wealth via their financial wealth—through acquiring social status.

They buy status via memberships to exclusive clubs or organizations, hosting events, etc.

This is a road to nowhere—because money can buy breadth, but not depth.
Social wealth is built through the cultivation of meaningful relationships.

Spend time building a T-shaped web of connectivity—broad and deep.

Build an army of mentors, friends, and evangelists.

Cultivate deep relationships, but also embrace the power of weak ties.
Physical Wealth

Physical wealth is about your health, fitness, and vitality.

It is perhaps the most critical—and under-appreciated—type of wealth.

Without physical wealth, it is effectively impossible to experience and enjoy the benefits of any of the other types of wealth.
Physical health is built through the long-term compounding of daily actions.

There are 3 broad buckets:

• Exercise—daily movement
• Nutrition—mostly real foods
• Sleep—good sleep habits

It's never too late to start building—or restoring—physical wealth.

Health is wealth.
Mental Wealth

Mental wealth is about mental health, mental fitness, and an ability to wrestle with the tangible and intangible questions in life.

It may include (but isn't limited to):

• Mental Health
• Knowledge / Wisdom
• Mindfulness
• Spirituality / Faith
Mental health is often overlooked—particularly by those in the pursuit of world-changing endeavors—but it is SO important.

Talk to someone, ask others for help, and take actions to improve your mental health on a daily basis.

Never sacrifice mental health for any reason.
Mental wealth also includes the long-term accumulation of knowledge and wisdom.

I think of this as "mental fitness”—the flexing of your brain as a muscle and the continued growth of that muscle over time.

It's the most important muscle to flex daily!

Read, write, talk, learn.
Mental wealth also covers an ability to wrestle with the intangible or unanswerable questions in life.

Generally achieved through:

Mindfulness—an awareness of ones self built through meditation, breathing, or other practice.

Spirituality and faith—formal or informal.
Time Wealth

Time wealth is about the freedom to choose:

• How to spend your time
• Who to spend it with
• Where to spend it
• When to trade it for other types of wealth

Time wealth is also about an appreciation for the precious nature of time—of its value and importance.
When you're young, you are a "time billionaire”—rich with time.

Too many people fail to realize the value of this precious asset until it is gone.

Treat time as your ultimate currency—it’s all you have and you can never get it back.
Time is cruel.

You’ll love it with all of your being, but the reality is that time doesn’t care about you.

It is the ultimate unrequited love.

By accepting our time as finite, we are able to live.
NEVER let the pursuit of financial wealth rob you of your time wealth.

This is a dangerous trap that far too many people fall into.

Learn to use financial wealth as a tool—to increase your freedom to choose.
To summarize, there are 5 types of wealth:

• Financial (money)
• Social (relationships)
• Physical (health)
• Mental (health, spirituality)
• Time (freedom)

The pursuit of financial wealth can rob you of the others.

Don't let that happen.

Follow me @SahilBloom for more!
I’ll write a deep-dive on this topic in an upcoming newsletter.

You should join 100,000+ others to receive it directly in your inbox! www.sahilbloom.com/
And my co-author for today’s piece…

He rated it a 9/10…something about not enough mentions of Milk Wealth.
“This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper…”
“…which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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