#31 Sahil Bloom - The 5 Types of Wealth Everyone Needs to Have | Sahil Bloom

There is no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5 AM and works out. And I say that over and over again, and it's a hill I will die on. It has nothing to do with waking up early and it has nothing to do with working out. It has a whole lot to do with convincing yourself that you can do hard things. Mario Quintana said, "Don't go chasing butterflies. Mend your garden and the butterflies will come." The single most important decision you will ever make is who you partner with. That person will determine all of your happiness and misery that you experience, and it is a massive force amplifier when you find the right person. Person to confront life's ups and downs with. Are you, uh, are you married? Do you have kids, bro?

You've, uh, you've just asked me the— at the right time. Okay, uh, this should be— the podcast will definitely be live, bro. Bro, no, this is— this is some start. Okay, so I got married a couple— a couple months ago. I've been with my now wife for 6 years, if not more, just over. We are about to announce that we're having our first child.

Let's go!

You're the first to know. Oh, dude, I'm—

well, I'm honored. First off, I'm honored. Uh, second off, I'm so excited for you. That's the best. What, uh, incredible news, bro.

You got in there before some family.

Like, I know, I'm saying, dude, I, uh, I picked my timing well, clearly, with this. That's, uh, that's fantastic. Oh man, how exciting.

We're, we're super happy, and I'm excited for like this, this next challenge, really, you know, of doing everything I do now while also trying to be, you know, an amazing dad, so I'm super pumped. And what about yourself?

Yeah, we have one, uh, 2-and-a-half-year-old little guy, uh, and I'm sure we'll talk about it when we get into the conversation, but, uh, I think it's going to be, uh, an incredible season of both of your lives. There's, um, I think with, with, um, with dads in particular, and with dads that, um, have the mentality that you have on life, the way that you've approached everything that you've done, um, there is a certain focus that comes with becoming a father and a deep purpose and meaning that I think is impossible to replicate elsewhere. And I predict that you're going to experience both the greatest wealth in terms of your love and your relationship with both your wife and your child, but also incredible growth in the things that you do professionally as a result of that purpose and that focus that's going to come. So I'm super excited for you.

My God, that is just— that has pumped me up for this evening, man. Thank you so much. And that there's beautiful words as well. So, less about me, more about you. Sahil Bloom, give the people your elevator pitch.

My elevator pitch. So, I spent most of my life as an athlete. I grew up the younger brother to a very high-achieving academic older sister. And as a result, I don't know if anyone has siblings, older siblings in particular who are very high-achieving, But it created this sort of feeling in me that I wasn't particularly smart and I needed to carve my own way, something that wasn't going to be, you know, kind of challenging or competitive in that way with her. And so I really got attracted to sports and baseball was the sport that I played. I found out at a pretty young age that I was pretty good at it. I could throw a ball harder than most people when I was young. And so I really worked at it and ended up getting a scholarship to play in college, played baseball, thought I was going to play professionally, unfortunately injured my shoulder. At the end of my college career at Stanford and had to kind of find a different way. Like a lot of young people, I was pretty insecure, and it's taken me a long time to come to terms with that, probably about 30 years of my life to come to terms with the fact that I was making so many decisions grounded in insecurity. And one of those decisions was I took a job and took a path that I thought would make me feel successful. that I thought other people would look at and say like, wow, he's really killing it, uh, he's making money, he's doing all these things, even though I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn't my path. And I marched down that and played the game of, uh, making money in the hopes that one day I would wake up and feel good internally, you know, chasing the external affirmation that you feel like one day you're going to get enough external affirmation that you eventually feel good about yourself, that you feel good internally. And what I found, unfortunately, that happened was as those years wore on, everything from the outside looking in was great. I was winning the game, making more money, getting promoted, all those things. But on the inside, everything was falling apart. My relationship with my wife was really struggling. We were struggling to conceive at the time. We were living 3,000 miles away from my parents, never seeing them. My relationship with my sister had completely fallen off a cliff. My health physically was really bad. I was drinking 6, 7 nights a week. Mental health was off. All of these other areas of my life were suffering while on the outside looking in, I was winning the game. And I just came to this point in this recognition that if this was what winning the game felt like, I must be playing the wrong game. And that realization and the change that it sparked has been the journey that's led led me to write this book and led to this entire kind of path of redefining what a wealthy life looks like.

Bro, I think me and you are the same person. Literally just replace baseball with rugby and that is me. But I didn't make it as far as the finance world. So I was very similar, like deep insecurity for sure. And in school, I was always led to believe that I was a failure. Like, I was the class clown. My results academically were at the bottom of the year. Teachers were always pretty much telling me I'd go nowhere, telling me I wouldn't get into college, which I eventually did. Ended up dropping out and it's super lost. And just that feeling of no direction. And again, what you said particularly, it was— how did you say it? It was like what you think that you're led to believe to do. I was like, I have to go to college. And I gotta go to business college. I just, I just thought I had to do that.

And yeah, I mean, the way that I, the way that I phrase it in the book is there are all of these things that are sort of the default. Uh, and we assume, and we're, we're indoctrinated into this culture where, uh, we blindly follow the default path. So whether that's going to college or like, for me, I come from, my mom is Indian, medical school, that's like, You know, for an Indian kid, like, medical school is the default. You're going to go to medical school, you're going to become a doctor. And, you know, frankly, like, to this day, my mom still asks me if I'm sure I don't want to go to medical school. I'm like, Mom, I'm 33 years old. It's a little late for that, you know? But look, there's all of these default things in the world and we don't take the time to question them. And one of those biggest ones is that money is what is going to make you feel successful and happy. And that is really what I'm trying to get at with this book. It's not to say that money doesn't matter. Because we know that that's not true. Money is a thing. Like, if, if you wanna go live in the Himalayas and give up all your worldly possessions and like meditate for 12 hours a day, by all means, go do it. I won't be joining you. I like money. I like having a house. I like certain things. The point is that it can't be the only thing. Money's not nothing. It just can't be the only thing. And in a world where the only way that people measure their life, the only way that people define their success is around money, something is off because there's so many other things that are more important. And that is really what the book is forcing you to contend with and to confront is what are those priorities to you in this season of life? What are you going to focus on and how are you going to balance those different priorities as you navigate that? Yeah.

So the 5 types of wealth, uh, run us through it and also run us through each and every one of them and what is the mission with this book?

Yeah. So the 5 types of wealth, Uh, time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, physical wealth, and then financial wealth. You know about financial wealth, money. We all talk about that. The important point and the nuance as I get into financial wealth is, uh, a real focus on this idea of the word enough. What does enough look like to you financially? Because we know what happens in the absence of that understanding of enough is that you end up on this constant chase for more. And one of the things I say in the book is you can never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough. And the story that brought that to mind for me was a personal one. Right after my son was born, I was out on a walk with him right in our neighborhood here, and it was early, early in the morning, and I was on the sidewalk, and this old man kind of like hobbled over to me and he said, uh, I remember standing here with my newborn daughter. She's 45 years old now. It goes by fast. Cherish it. And I went back home and it had hit me so hard. My wife was still asleep and I brought my son into bed with us and he kind of had this little smile on his face. The sun was coming in through the windows and I just had this moment, like the first moment of my life where I felt like I had arrived, but I didn't want anything more. Like in that moment, I had this sensation that I had enough. And if this was all I ever got, was this moment, that I didn't need anything more. And that feeling is the essence of all of this. It's that feeling that you don't need more, that feeling that you have enough. And so financially, really defining that, understanding that expectations are your greatest financial liability, is the core focus of that financial wealth section of the book. Moving to the other types of wealth. Time Wealth is the opening section. This is all about your freedom, your freedom to choose how you spend your time, who you spend it with, where you spend it, when you want to trade it for other things. And it's about unlocking your time, really creating time. So learning how to deploy your energy into the things that are going to create those 10, 100, 1,000x outcomes so that you're not just constantly on that treadmill, on that hamster wheel. Of feeling busy all the time, which is a state that I feel like a lot of us end up in.

Yeah. And so going back to the first point of that feeling that you arrived, I find that super interesting. How long did it last?

I'm still in that, man. I—

Okay, nice. You've completed the game.

Yeah. No, I mean, I— here's the thing. Financial wealth, if that is the way that you measure your entire life, money, which is the standard that most people do, you will never feel like you've arrived because you will constantly be placing that feeling of arrival at some number. You'll say, "Oh, yeah, I'll feel it when I get my next bonus or get my next promotion or get my next title or get the fancy car," whatever the thing is. And what happens is you get that thing, you feel the momentary happiness from it, and then you immediately reset to the next thing. You're attaching all of your value as a human being to the achievement of some milestone, some thing. And the reality is that's not how happiness in life works. You need to find it on the journey. And I actually think that people that are very into fitness and their physical wealth really understand this naturally because you have to enjoy the process. You have to be willing to show up thousands of days in a row. To do the work because you know that you're not making enormous progress in the gym today. You're making enormous progress over huge, huge time spans, but you can't see it on a daily basis. So you find the love in the hunt, right? Like, it is, it is in the becoming, not in the having, is another way to say it. And so the thing with this idea of the 5 types of wealth and why I feel so strongly about it is because I've lived it. I've seen the fact that if you live in this, you know, kind of beautiful combination of these different areas of life. If you find a way to build wealth across all of them, you can feel like you've arrived every single day. It doesn't need to be some end state that you're hoping for in the future. That's just a mirage.

Yeah, I love what you said about the gym because I don't think I've made progress in years. I think I hit my noob gains and now I go 5 to 6 days a week. Just because I love the whole act of going to the gym. I love making my pre-workout. I love driving there, like choosing my outfit, you know, listen to songs in the car and meeting everyone there. I just love the whole act, what it does to my mind, everything. And that is one thing I've definitely— I've arrived at. That's one thing that I do not mind doing day in, day out.

Yeah, it's the ritual, right? Like you love the act, you love being there, you love the whole experience. And frankly, you love the social side, right? Like you just said, the people. It's another thing that like it ties to the second type of wealth, social wealth, right? It's your connection to the people around you, the depth of connection to the people very close to you, and then those wider communities, the people, the friends at the gym, the friends within your fitness community, all of those things that connect you to something bigger than yourself. And that one is so important because there is clear scientific evidence that the strength of your relationships impacts your long-term health. The Harvard Study of Adult Development was this study done at Harvard over the course of 80 years. They tracked 1,300 lives, and they found that the single greatest predictor of your physical health at age 80 was your relationship satisfaction at age 50. So more impactful than your cholesterol, your blood pressure, your smoking, drinking habits, any of those things. Was how you felt about your relationships. And yet we live in a world where people are neglecting those. We're not investing in our social health in the same way as we are in our financial things, right? Like, you, you talk constantly about what are you investing in financially, but not how you're investing in your relationships. And those things compound in terms of your happiness and your health much more significantly than anything else in our lives. Yeah.

Have you seen, um, there's a Netflix documentary, it's like Blue Zones or something, something like that. And they looked at the Japanese, the Mediterranean and everything, and they're like, these diets are the complete opposite. What's the common denominator? And it's community. And even here in Spain, like when me and Linda, my wife, and we walk around, we observe everything, and there's like old people drinking cervezas at 11:00 AM, smoking cigarettes, and they are like, they got to be pushing over 100. Yeah, and they're still going, but they're all together. They're always out having a laugh. And Spain is actually, I'm pretty sure it's the healthiest country in the world. And moving here has really made me see that, just the way the Spanish people operate and just go about their day. Like, the kids are out playing till sunset, you know. Old people are always walking around everywhere. There's just a real sense of community. Like, even after work, everyone will, you know, go to the pueblo, go to the local town, and they'll gather, they'll have a laugh, they'll have a few beers, they'll have some bread and oil. And you can just tell everyone looks very vibrant and youthful, and there's very little overweight or obese people. Then when I go to somewhere like New York, no offense, Texas, my step count got to be near 2K a day when I'm in Texas. You go to one of these huge cities in America and it's just a bit of a rat race. The moment it hits 5:00 PM, people are just shoved back into their cars, back in traffic, and it's just a very, very different lifestyle.

Yeah. I mean, look, it's, it's terrifying too in this day and age because we know these things, right? Like, you see these people, you know what's making them happy and healthy into their later years of life, the relationships, the connection, the feeling of community. And yet we live in a world where we're like this all day. Staring at our phones, right? Like, you walk down the street in New York City, if you say hi to someone on the street in New York City, they might call the cops on you. I mean, I'm dead-ass serious, right? Like, it's crazy. People think you're weird if you wave or smile and say hello. I saw something recently that, you know, when you get on a train and you don't want anyone to sit next to you, people like put their bag on the seat to try to make it so no one sits. And someone commented that Uh, that's actually a bad way to do it. What you should do is smile at people and rub the seat, uh, because they'll think you're freaking crazy and they won't want to sit next to you because it's so weird to be welcoming and friendly.

Um, right way to deter people.

Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, it's like, um, I saw this stat recently that teenagers in the United States are spending 70% less time with their friends in person than they were two decades ago. So what do we think is going to happen?

Right?

Like, you suck all of the in-person, real human texture and connection out of our lives because of technology. Uh, you know, you get into a world where people are taking now a pill or a shot rather than going to the gym and cleaning up their diet, uh, to lose weight. Um, you know, you're pulling all of the friction out of our lives. Like, everything is about reducing friction, making things easier. You no longer have to go up to a girl at a bar to talk to her.

Oh, dating.

You don't have to Hey, you don't have to put yourself out there. You just swipe on a screen, right? So you can just opt in. And what do you think happens when you suck all the friction out of life, right? It turns out that the friction was where a lot of meaning came from. Uh, and I think we're finding that out and we're experiencing the pain of that in real time, uh, on a daily basis today. Yeah.

So there's a huge loneliness epidemic going on at the moment. And just before we go on to the, the next, the next point, I want to just go in on that a little bit. So What would your advice be to some young guys specifically? Is it going to be a lot of dudes watching this who want to meet a high-quality partner or even get, get themselves in a high-quality friend circle? As it's very easy for me and you to sit here with our, you know, amazing wives or relationships and all our entrepreneurial friends. What would your advice be to some guys that, you know, want to meet a girl and then also want to meet some, some good like-minded people?

You know, look, the best advice I have is to find value-aligned rooms. And what do I mean by that? Um, there are certain values that you, uh, hold as a human that are very like on, on the highest order of importance to you. For me, delayed gratification, uh, is probably my number one core value. Everything that I believe in, it's like when I'm trying to meet someone, uh, or determine if we're going to be close, I try to figure out, does this person, uh, embrace the value of delayed gratification? Do they understand that they need to do the hard things now to have the great things later? Uh, because I think that that's a razor that cuts through the noise of everything in life. Because it applies to relationships, it applies to your health, it applies to the way you focus on money. Anything that you're doing, it matters. What I look for is how can I find rooms where you're self-selecting into that value by being there? So the gym is a great example. I've met some of my best friends in my entire life in the gym. It's because those people— and by the way, like best friends, mentors, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has been a mentor. On the back cover of this book. I met him at the gym at 4:45 in the morning.

Damn, Tim Cook, he badass.

CEO of the largest company in the world, uh, showing up literally for 6 straight months. I worked out with him every morning not knowing who he was, but he was the, you know, like, look, for the CEO to be showing up at 4:45 and working out every day before his long day and everything that he had going on, he embraces, he understands those values. And so if you can find your way into those environments that self-select for the values you care about, you're like, you know, you're going to the part of the pond that has a lot of fish in it already. So rather than just like hoping you run into the person, you're self-selecting into it. Example would be like, you know, if you care about fitness, gyms, if you care about health, go to a farmer's market like every weekend, go to the farmer's market, talk to people, whatever it might be. If you really love dogs, go to a dog park. Outside. Um, whatever that thing might be that you really care about, figure out where other people that care about that value are going to be. Uh, and you're going to make things much easier on yourself to find those people.

In other words, uh, fellas, don't go to clubs and don't go to Dubai. Just, just stay away from that.

If you want to do that for fun, by all means. Like, look, I had plenty of fun in my 20s. Uh, and like, do it, live it up, do your thing. But don't think that that is going to be where you're necessarily going to find the high-value person that you want to partner with in life. And look, there's a lot of rhetoric out there that I think is very dangerous towards young men about what they should do in life and about not getting married or not having children or, you know, hustle till you drop, whatever, all those things. I'm all for hustling in your 20s and early 30s, like go build a financial foundation, hustle your ass off, work super hard. I did that. And it makes a difference. But the single most important decision you will ever make is who you partner with, who you choose to partner with in life. That person will determine all of your happiness and misery that you experience, and it is a massive force amplifier when you find the right person to confront life's up and downs with.

Yeah. I remember in my 20s, just as you're talking about grinding and everything, I'd like to think that I struck a nice balance. Like, if someone asked me, would you take back all the nights out and all the crazy times? I would actually say no. I would leave them in there. But I still did. I started my fitness business and YouTube and everything when I was about 22. So between 18 and 22, had a laugh, got everything out of my system. And then since 22, I'm 32 now. Just the last 10 years, I've just been very much focused on my goals. And fellas, this is my biggest tip for meeting high-quality people, girls, guys, whatever, is the work starts within. And so instead of chasing— that chasing is unattractive because it's beggy. You're like running around with your hands out like, beg, oh, please partner up with me. Please be my friend. It's unattractive. Start the work within. Become a very accomplished individual. And then all of a sudden, like magic, all these amazing individuals, you're going to attract them into your life. So instead of chasing, you attract. Even just see, those words just sound a lot better.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is exactly that. It's Mario Quintana said, don't go chasing butterflies, mend your garden and the butterflies will come.

There he is. Shout out Mario. Nice. And so the third point we have— so we have time, we have social.

Yeah, mental wealth is the next one. We talked about financial already. Mental wealth is the next one. This is all about finding purpose, finding growth, and then creating space to allow yourself to reset, to wrestle with the big questions in life, to, uh, to actually choose your response to things. Um, and this is really important, uh, because when you think about what I'm saying related to financial wealth in particular, I am not saying to stop your ambition. I'm not saying that it's a negative to want to go and build something huge, but it needs to come from a place of purpose and meaning and growth, not from a place of chasing money. The people that make the most money tend to be the people who are actually doing it because it's a byproduct of their purpose. And their growth, right? They're not just like trying to make an extra dollar. They're going after something bigger than that, something grounded in something more sincere than that. And so identifying that, finding your way towards the things that are creating energy in your life, which tend to be the things where you're going to dive in deeper, where you're going to create the most value, that is a really, really healthy and productive pursuit.

Nice. And so what are some things that you do to protect your mindset and protect your mental wealth Is there anything in particular that you do to keep things sharp upstairs?

Yeah, I mean, I am— for the longest time, I wanted to be like a journaler. I always like knew that like writing in a journal would help me mentally. I struggled a lot, but I could never get myself to do it. And the biggest reason was because I hyped up in my mind what that meant. Like I thought I had to sit down for 30 minutes with a pen, like light some candles, make it all romantic, have a glass of whiskey. Like that was what journaling was to me in my mind. So I never did that, right? Like January 1st would come, I'd say, oh, New Year's resolution, I'm going to journal this year. I would do it for like, you know, 4 days and then I would miss a day. And so then I would lose it as a habit. So I created something that I call the 1-1-1 method, which literally takes like 2 to 3 minutes, and it has completely changed the game for me and my mental health. The idea is right before bed, you write down one win from the day. That's something that you feel good about, some win that you had. One point of stress, tension, or anxiety. That's something that's been bugging you, something that's on your head. You get it off your head onto the paper. And then one point of gratitude, some tiny thing from the day that you felt great, felt grateful for. If you do that, you take 2 to 3 minutes to just do that every single evening, I guarantee you will feel extraordinary. It'll help you sleep better at night because you'll get the tension and the anxiety off your brain. And it creates this consistent gratitude practice that is scientifically proven to improve your mental health.

Well, I love that. So I'm big in journaling. I've been journaling, I would say, every day for probably the last 10 years. Okay. But if you were to look at my notepad, you'd be like, this guy has zero brain cells. I literally just write down one word. I used to think that as well. I used to think I have to write some Shakespearean shit every evening in my journal. And I'm like, I literally just like that. I jot down stuff I'm grateful for, stuff I need to do. Sometimes I don't even think and I'll just be there like jotting words down. And your hand, it's like your hand and writing is trying to get the thoughts out of your brain. So when you're writing, you're just articulating your thoughts. So sometimes they're going to come out a little bit messy. So with journaling, the main thing is I find just doing it, it's got to be pen and paper. Notes app, you just spend more time on your phone. And it helps me so much, like you said, to calm down, articulate your thoughts, ease anxiety. And also I have a little— I'm going to get into you about productivity hacks, but I have a little productivity hack. This is what I've done for the last number of years. It's gotten me this far anyways. So it's kind of like it's the never-ending to-do list is what I call it. So I'll write down in order 10 things that I need to get done, either do it before I go to sleep, so it's for the following day, or do it first thing when I wake up. And so number 1 is like, no matter what, that's fucking getting done. Like, that is the most important thing. 2, 3, 4, they're probably getting done as well. They're high priority. And then I'll have like 5, 6, 7, 8, whatever. If I don't get them done that day, that's cool. And then they roll on to the next day and 5, 6, 7, 8 will become number 1. So eventually, you just end up getting absolutely everything done, but it's kind of a rolling process where the to-do list never ends. But that's good. Life is one big to-do list.

Yeah, I love that. I, um, so my slightly nuanced take on that is I have this little— I'm going to show it on the video. I have this little like 3x5 note card and I have a whole stack of them here sitting on my desk. And every night I have a ritual where I take 15 minutes right before going to bed. So I do a sauna every evening. I do my reading in the sauna. That's like where I have clear my head sort of in the evening. After I get out of there, I write on this note card the 3 to 5 things that are the highest priority for the next day. I max it out at 5. So for me, it's like generally 3, maximum is 5. And those are the like, if I get those 3 things done tomorrow, it was a win. It doesn't matter. Like It doesn't matter if I get nothing else done, as long as I get those 3 done, it was a huge win of a day. Um, and I put it up and when I sit down at my desk in the morning, I'm an early riser. So I get to my desk by 5:00 AM. That's the first thing I start on is whatever the first item is on that list. And it reduces all the friction because then I don't have to think. So the morning comes, I don't have to think about what I'm going to work on or what I'm going to do. It's right there. So as you said, huge value from that, you just make it easy to just start up in the morning. And I know if I get those couple things done, it's a win, and I don't have to worry about the million other things that are on my to-do list. For sure.

So you call— I've had a good, good read-through of your book as well, you know, as much as I could cover in the last couple of days. And you call curiosity the fountain of youth. So what's your secret to staying curious and keeping that hunger to always be learning?

Yeah, you have to remind yourself that curiosity is your natural— that's your natural state. That's your default setting. You're going to find this, by the way, with your kid because you see it on a daily basis, right? This episode, I don't think will come out until after you formally announced it. So I think we're safe to talk about it.

It'll be like walking he or she.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Hopefully not that long. No. But look, you see it in your kid every day, like how they learn about the world is their curiosity. They're going up to things. And by the way, they get hurt a lot because of that curiosity. But it's how they learn, it's how they grow. We're no different. That curiosity is just something that gets hammered out of you by school because when you're in school, they don't want you to be curious. They want you to study the thing they're telling you to study. And it's an unfortunate reality of the, like, industrial complex that got created around traditional schooling that it's built to stifle creativity and curiosity. It's built to make you into the cookie cutter. And so when you get out of school and you're in your 20s and you're getting into your 30s, You need to rekindle that. You need to re-find it. And I just find that the best practice for it is giving yourself a little bit of space in your calendar to just pursue those things, to just pursue a little bit of that learning. So rather than jumping from thing to thing every single day or having like, you know, in the evenings for me, the sauna, like I might read the most random thing. I might read like a comic book in the sauna, just like whatever it is that's grabbing my attention or energy. It doesn't have to be, you know, that you're on a run listening to an audiobook, nonfiction on 2x speed to get smarter. I like— most of my reading is science fiction because I find that that sparks me to think differently about the world. And I love that because it makes me think bigger.

Do you believe in aliens?

Yeah.

Oh, bro, I actually have never said this on another podcast. I'm obsessed with aliens. Like, I literally— I watch so much like Stephen Greer and, you know, all the—

Do you think that aliens are among us?

I think I think they're definitely among us. I think they're in the sea. I think they visit us. I think it's us in the future. And I think they're just super evolved. Yeah.

Wait, wait, wait. Pause. Pause. So you think that there are people from the future living among us too?

Yes, I think that. I think that the saucers and all the shit that we see is just like extremely advanced technology. And it's either like the US government or whatever, and they're not telling us, or it's us in the future. And they're trying to come back and warn us and guide us so we can, we can get to the next level.

I don't believe in government conspiracies simply on the principle that I don't think government is capable of doing shit. And so, like, it breaks my mind to think that they're capable of, like, pulling off these grand conspiracies. And so, like, I tend to just think that, like, whatever the thing, there might be another reason for it, but I never think that it's government because I just don't think government's capable.

Yeah, Hank, like, who's working in the Pentagon, isn't going to tell his son who's going to tell everyone in school.

Like, it's totally— it's like how I feel about any government conspiracy. I'm like, I actually think the single greatest beneficiary of government conspiracies is the government because it makes normal people think that the government is competent and powerful.

Yeah, they're literally like normal people and super nuts.

Like, I mean, go to a US airport, like, go try to, you know, get through the TSA. And, or go to the DMV and try to get your license renewed and tell me that the government is capable of pulling off, you know, like cloud, you know, plane dripping stuff into the sky conspiracies or whatever those things are called. It's nuts. Like, it's unless there's just a totally different, you know, unless you believe in like the deep state hypothesis and there's like an entirely different government that we don't see, which, okay, if that's the case, then, you know, maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, but I'm like, are those guys even having wife and kids? Like, do they have any friends? I just If there's like in Area 51, if there's like 500 staff, how do you keep 500 people from like telling their mates like, we have got a little green thing running around with a probe in a hangar? I just don't— I'm not sure about that. Bob Lazar, also love that one. I think he's got an incredible story. Would love to get him on the pod, but I'm glad we got to get some UFO lore in on this. I just had to jump in there.

I was like, aliens are the sixth type of wealth.

True, true. All right. Okay, so the actual next type of wealth, we got physical wealth, right? Okay. Oh man, talk to me. Finally, my time to shine.

This is perfect. So look, my opinion on physical wealth, and I'm actually curious to hear your thoughts here. I think of physical wealth like a video game. So a lot of what you see on the internet and social media is people operating on level 100 of that video game. Think like Bryan Johnson, all of his like crazy longevity things that he's doing. Incredible in drawing and attracting new interest to taking care of yourself and your body, but not particularly practical for most people to actually action on those things because he's just doing everything on this extraordinarily high level. For most people, what you really just need to focus on to start is level 1. And to me, level 1 comes down to these 3 pillars of movement, nutrition, and recovery. And the level 1 base within those, in my opinion, on movement, just move your body for 30 minutes a day. Like, I don't care if you're walking, jogging, dancing, sprinting, running, like whatever it is, just move around 30 minutes a day. Nutrition, just eat whole unprocessed foods at like 80% of your meals, and you probably get 80% of the benefit from a health standpoint. And then on recovery, just sleep 7 hours a night. Like, you don't, you don't need the red light therapy, you know, cold plunge sauna every single day. That's level 10, or that's level 5, whatever it is. Um, but if you just focus on those super simple boring basics and do that most of the time, you'll get a lot of the benefit. Uh, and the problem is Talking about that, like, that doesn't go viral, right? Like, what goes viral is me talking about injecting myself with peptides in my penis. Yeah, right. Like, that goes viral. Yeah. Yeah. Like, by the way, I don't inject my penis with anything, just for the record, clearly.

Yeah.

You know, like, it's— we just live in a world in the social media era. And by the way, I love Bryan. I think he's done an incredible thing in attracting attracting people to, um, uh, to their interest in the physical wealth and in the space. Uh, but the nature of social media is that extremes are what draw the most attention. And so, um, in that world, it's not sexy and it's not cool to just talk about the basics. I can't sell you an ebook that says, here's the movement plan, move for 30 minutes a day. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's not something that's going to work. And so You know, I'm not a fitness influencer. Like, I don't, you know, I'm not selling an ebook on this. I am selling a book, I suppose, where this is a part of it, but I'm trying to just give people what I think for most people, you know, 80% of the population is like the boring basics that just plain work.

I literally, so it's an eye-opening moment of becoming a coach. And so you start out, you and all your buddies, you're gym obsessed. Walk in the park for you. It's like you're 21 years old, you don't have any responsibilities, you're in college, and it's easy to go online and be like, do— track every single macro to a tee, sleep 8 hours, right? Take all these supplements. And then like you coach some people and you coach them and they're like fathers or mothers, they're obese, they've never lifted a weight in their life. And you can't just put people into the deep end and just be like, legs push-pull 6 days a week, high volume Ronnie Coleman split, track every single weigh-out, every single thing you eat, and just doing pretty much living like a bodybuilder. So, that's always an eye-opening moment when you start coaching the general population really. And then, so there is like, I agree so much with the points you hit is just nailing the basics first and then working your way up to the advanced stuff. So, by default, by just eating 80% whole nutritious nutrient-dense foods, you're going to sort your diet out in most cases. And if you want to take it to the next level, maybe track. So, one of the most eye-opening things ever, okay, people and it's kind of evil to say this, it's kind of cruel, like people, there's some people and it's so eye-opening when you get them to keep a food diary for the first time, they're eating like 4,000 calories, 5,000, and then they track for the first time and like they thought they were eating 2,000 calories. And it's just very eye-opening for a lot of people and it's very overwhelming. But you want to pretty much, you know, slowly edge people out to kind of, you know, be a bit more advanced like that. But, uh, what you said was so perfect. Just nail the basics at first and then slowly, you know, lead up, lead up to the big advanced movements. And so what is your day-to-day fitness routine look like? You know, even, even run us through day in life, work and everything.

Yeah. So I am, I'm up at 4:15 in the morning. I mentioned I'm an early riser. I go to bed super early, so I'll get to that. But I'm up at 4:15. I get straight into my cold plunge. If any of these people that are listening follow me on Instagram, I post a video from my cold plunge every morning at about 4:30 in the morning. I'm in New York, so it's sitting outside on this like freezing cold deck. It, it sucks, man. Like people think it gets easier. It does not get easier. The going outside when it's freezing cold when you just got out of a warm bed. So, I do that every morning. I have no idea if there's any physical benefits to a cold plunge, but it makes me feel like a badass to start the day. And, that has a whole host of benefits.

There's actually not that much. I have a cold plunge as well, a proper, a big setup. Shout out to E11 Recovery, Irish company, shipped it out here to Marbella. They're amazing. And, this is the proper one with an engine. Like ice cold. And so there are people overhype, like for example, some people say there's fat loss benefits. Absolutely not.

Like, you're not in there long enough, man. Like, come on.

Exactly. Well, the benefits, like you said, a lot of mental benefits, releases adrenaline, impossible to not feel awake, impossible to not wake up. So there may not be like some direct, like so many physical benefits, but there are a lot of mental benefits and it simply wakes you up, makes you feel like a badass.

Yeah.

So we got—

I mean, yeah, I mean, if there— by the way, like, if there's anyone out there listening to this that feels like they want to level up their life, the one thing I always say is there is no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5 a.m. and works out. And I say that over and over again, and it's a hill I will die on because it has nothing to do with waking up early and it has nothing to do with working out. It has a whole lot to do with convincing yourself that you can do hard things, that you are someone that is capable, that you are a winner. And when you wake up early and work out, you are rewiring your brain. You're recognizing that you are a savage and that you can get up, you can do hard things, and that carries over. That has ripple effects into every other area of your life. No one Netflixes and chills at 5 in the morning. So if you get up, you're doing something productive, you're working on yourself, progressing yourself. So if you want to change your life for 30 straight days, wake up at 5:00 AM and go work out. And I guarantee at the end of that 30 days, you're going to be a completely different human.

That is my favorite thing that you've said so far. And how have I never said that? Like, I'm stealing that. I have to steal that. It's literally impossible to not level up by doing that. It's like the knock-on effect that would have on the rest of your day. I absolutely love that. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, it rewires your brain, man. Like, you look like after a few days, if you're feeling like a loser, that's what— that's like when you're not achieving things in life, you start having this negative self-talk, this negative pattern. You're telling yourself negative stories, and you can literally change that by just doing this one hard thing for a few days. And it's not going to be easy. You're not going to want to get out of bed at 5. You probably are not going to have gotten enough sleep. You're not going to have done the thing. But if you do it for a few straight days, you're going to look at yourself in the mirror differently. And that has enormous effects for how you engage with the world and how you engage with your work and how you engage with anything else. So it has nothing to do with the workout or the waking up early. It's rewiring your brain to be a badass.

I love that. So we got wake up early, hit the ice bath, and then what are you moving on to?

So I, um, now, uh, go straight to my desk. I get to my desk at 5 o'clock. Uh, the reason is I am most creative in the morning. I used to do the early workout right after it, but what I found was that I'm not creative later in the day. So I like to harness the creative energy when I have it. Uh, so from about 5 to 8, I have a focus work block where I'm at my desk, locked in, uh, generally speaking, working on whatever it is my biggest creative project is. For the last 3 years, that's been working on the book. Uh, it could be my newsletter, it could be whatever the thing is. At 8, I come into the kitchen and my wife, my son, and I have breakfast together. I make breakfast, we hang out, we play. My son's up, he's got all sorts of energy at that point, so we hang out.

What's for breakfast?

I eat basically the exact same thing every single day. I have 4 eggs, cottage cheese, raw honey, and either some oatmeal or some rice.

Very nice. We got to get you and your son some fuel cakes.

Oh, hell yeah. I'm in, dude. Whatever. Whatever. What's Fuel Cakes? That's your protein pancakes?

Yeah, my protein pancake company.

Send me some. I love that kind of stuff.

Yes, I'll send you all the flavors. We got chocolate hazelnut, salted caramel, and of course, buttermilk.

Oh, dude, I would love that because the carb source is the thing that I rotate because I find that I like— I sort of just get tired of whatever the carb source is. So I'm always looking for a new, like, carb source for that breakfast.

Yeah. And it's still all gluten-free oat flour, you know, no shit added in. Really good macros. I just wanted to figure out how I could eat pancakes every day and get shredded.

Pancakes are my favorite food in the world, by the way. If you were going to kill me and you had to give me my last meal, it would be my mom's blueberry pancakes. No joke. So, I'm all in on this.

There we go. We get you on as an investor.

That's the 7th type of wealth. The 6th is aliens. The 7th is protein pancakes. Yeah, so after that is when I do my training. So this summer, I was like heavy, heavy into kind of like hybrid training as it's become called where I was running a marathon, training for a marathon, and then lifting. I was trying to not look like a bitch while I was running a marathon basically, which is rather difficult. There are some guys out there that make it look kind of easy like Nick Bare, who's a friend and who is an absolute monster. I'm not built quite like that. I get skinny or skinny fat very easily if I'm not super dialed on my nutrition and training. So I was, you know, I was running 70, 80 miles a week and then I was lifting 5, 6 days a week this whole summer. Now I'm scaled back in the running because I'm not training for a race. I'm focused much more on, on the training and building some size this offseason. But I ran a 2:53 marathon, you know, felt really good. So I hit the training hard this summer. That was fun. So that's from about, let's say, 9 to 11. I come home, do a lunch with my wife and son. Usually lunch is like rice and a pound of meat or something like that. I'm heavy on hitting my protein every single day. Like, I don't think I've eaten under 200 grams of protein in a day in like 10 years.

Same person, dude.

Yeah, we're going to have to hang out. We're going to have to hang out. We're going to— we're just going to— we're going to eat protein pancakes. We're going to talk aliens and we're going to just train. Yeah, I'm going to come visit Marbella. I'm looking forward to this.

Yeah, they actually do a direct flight, Marbella to New York, but only in the summer. June, July, August. They just started last summer.

You know, don't tempt me with a good time, man. I will. I'll make that happen in the summer. Seriously, I will. We should do— we could do— we could do like an event in Marbella or something like that. We could do like a small little like health and business summit or something.

Bro, I do one. I've done 3 so far since I've moved to Marbella. I do one every year the first week of June and it is my favorite.

Are you doing it in 2025?

Yes, of course.

Send me the dates, dude. I'd love to try to come out.

Yeah, first weekend of June, man. Please. We've got like some insanely good speakers. I usually get So one thing that I've always been doing, like, of course, I've always been in the fitness industry, online coach, but I've put on at least one, maybe two events, in-person events, bar COVID, for the last number of years of my life. And every time I do one of them, they're one of the most fulfilling things a person could do. It feels like your birthday because you're pulling all these strings. You're getting the speakers, you're choosing the venue, you're marketing and selling the tickets, you're getting asses on seats. You're getting the food, you're getting the audio and the visuals, the stage and screen. And then it's like, it's super stressful. And then you're pulling all these strings and then on the day it all comes together, everyone's having a good time and it's just the best feeling in the world. So I try to do one big— and it always just revolves around fitness and business. I try to do one big event every single year. So, mate, you would be the guest of honor.

I know I would. I would love to do that. Seriously, send me the info because I would— that'd be a blast. I like— there's nothing I enjoy more. I mean, it relates to all this stuff that we're talking about with the book, but like in-person connection is everything to me and there's nothing I enjoy more than building new relationships in that way for sure.

So right, we're around the evening time, 3 p.m. Yeah.

So afternoon after that lunch, I have another focus work block from about, let's say, 12 to 3 or 4, depending on the day that's dialed in on business stuff. So I've got a venture fund that I raised in 2022 that I invest out of, a $10 million fund. I invest in early-stage technology. And then I've got this holding company of a bunch of businesses that I own. I don't operate. I have CEOs at all of them, but I'm involved in strategy or in different areas. And so I'm spending time on those things in the afternoon or managing things related to my media business. So I've got a whole team built out around the media stuff now. But, you know, I still need to coordinate and touch base, do one-on-ones, etc. So that's in the afternoon, a sort of business time. And then I really try to have my evenings carved out for family time. So, from about 4:00 to 6:00, that's family time. I cook dinner for the family. We all have dinner together, playtime, bath with my son. And then, my wind-down routine is I do a sauna, which I mentioned, 20 minutes on about 210°F, 215°F. I bring reading in there. So, I print stuff out, whatever I'm excited about reading. I bring a notepad, which gets soaked with my sweat, but I just am jotting things down during that. And then, after that, I come sit down, do my little note card thing that I mentioned. I do my 1-1-1 journaling and then I go get into bed. So, I'm in bed by, I don't know, man, 7:30 on a normal night when I'm at home. And, I'm not one of these no screens before bed people. My wife and I like watching show. That's kind of part of our connection ritual. Yeah, I like, you know, like there's certain things where I'm like, ah, fuck it. Like I'm just, I'm gonna live my life. And so for my wife and I, it's a big part of like our connection is like we watch a show and then we talk about it. And, uh, so whatever show we're watching, we'll watch an episode and then go to bed. Uh, and I'm probably asleep by, uh, you know, 8:15, 8:30 most nights so that I can get my 8-ish hours, uh, to wake up at 8:15.

Goddamn, it's still bright. Like the sun is literally still It gets dark in the winter here.

It gets dark at like 3 PM. So, but it's crazy, like in the summer, to your point, in the summer I'm going to bed when it's light out, like 100% of the time it's light outside. Yeah, sure.

We're meant to, like humans, we're meant to just rise with the sunrise and go to sleep with the sunset. Like that's what when we're kind of meant to go to sleep. So, you know, if you can go to bed when it's still bright, that's impressive. But your day today there—

Blackout shades help.

True. Your day today, that's pretty much most men's dream.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's maybe at least in theory their dream. I would guess that most people would find they got bored pretty quickly. I am just someone who believes in the power of the boredom of routine. Like, I just know that Dramatic progress and transformation is on the other side of a boring routine that you don't want to do. And like, you know, when you go look at the most successful people in the world, you think they have these like flashy, incredible, sexy lives. And the reality is what underlies that is this like crazy, boring daily basics that they've just executed for years and years and years. And I love that. I find that I just I thrive on routine. When I travel, I do everything to try to like keep the non-negotiables of that routine intact. Like, I'm going to be in London all next week for different things going on, and I do everything that I can. I book a hotel that's close to an equinox. I have the Global Equinox Pass so that I can get my training in. Uh, with my diet, I'm gonna make sure that I get my 200 grams of protein every single day. I'm gonna make sure that I'm getting 7 hours of sleep. I'm not gonna drink because I don't want to throw that off. Like, you know, there's, there's certain things where Yes, your routine is perfect when you're at home and you can be dialed in, and then you need to figure out and understand what are the non-negotiables, like the simple version of that, that you can take with you anywhere you go so that you're not getting thrown off and derailed whenever the chaos does come. Yeah.

So weekends, that's a point where a lot of people get derailed, they lose focus, especially Irish people. They love hitting the pub. Some of my Irish clients, like, I'm like, you'd be killing it if you just didn't have such heavy weekends. So how do you stay focused on the weekend? What do your weekends look like? Or like, do you even, do you even have weekends?

Yeah, dude, my, um, same. My like average weekend is pretty similar to my average weekday. Like when I'm at home, um, my days look all the same. Because I do, like, to be honest, I have not taken a day off of work in 10 years. And that, that's not because I'm a bit like a hardo or that I'm like trying to flex to you. It's just that I love my daily routine. Like I I love work. I'm getting to work on things that I care about. 3, 4 years ago, that was not true. 3, 4 years ago, I was working on things that I didn't care about, uh, and I was pretty miserable. And a lot of things about my life were unhealthy and I didn't feel good. My relationships weren't good. My wife and I were struggling. Like, there was all these things that were bad. I am so grateful for where I'm at in life now that if you tell me, like, all I have to do is do this every day and, and I can have the life that I want and build this this dream life, like, fuck yeah, I'll do this every single day. There's absolutely no question. I should be so grateful to have the opportunity to share this with other people, to bring my family along for this, to provide for my family in this way, and hopefully to inspire other people to build a life like this. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at in life. And look, like, I go out to dinner, I just do my dinners at 5:30. I still have drinks now and then. Like, I'm not a zero alcohol guy. Hopefully it's come across. I'm not like dogmatic about anything. Like, I don't, you know, I'm not no screens before bed. I'm not like, oh, this has to be what, you know, I have a drink, I have a couple drinks a month probably. And it's only when I'm with someone I love and I feel like it's, you know, it's fun and it's connection. Yeah, it's worth it. Yeah, I'm not drinking by myself, you know, sitting here in my office. It's, it's, it's connection. It's something. And so that's life, dude. I'm like, I'm trying to live a great, wealthy life. That's what this book is about. It's like, define the things that matter to you and then build your life around them.

Yeah. And so with my drinking, I like, I go through periods where I just, I just cut it out when I really need to focus. But I like to kind of view it as drink tokens. So is this situation worth spending a drink token on? Sometimes it is, you know, if it's like you're in Ibiza and the sun is setting and you're on a yacht with your best friends. Bro, have a fucking drink. But if you're just sitting in the same pub, the same bar that you've been in the last couple of years with the same DJ, the same people, this is pointless. You've done it. So I'm glad you said that. And I'm the same. I just choose those moments wisely. And so going back to also this thing, the whoop, anytime I have a great man, it just tells me I'm a terrible human. So that's made me cut it down a lot. So I think it was about like before we started broing out on ice baths and aliens and lifting, you mentioned like 10— I like, I was like, what, $10 million capital funds? Like all this crazy stuff. Okay. Like big figures. What, what, like what careers have you worked?

So I spent the first 7 years of my career in private equity.

Okay.

And so what is that?

Because that sounds like a buzzword for me.

Yeah, it is. So private equity basically is you raise a fund, so you get money from really rich people, generally speaking, like, you know, sovereign wealth funds. Like you go to Abu Dhabi or Qatar, Middle East or Saudi, or you go to like big college institutions or pension funds and they need to invest their money. So a private equity fund will take their money and they will invest it by buying and selling companies. So what we did was we had $1 billion that we had raised from people, or that the partners of the fund had raised, and we would go and buy a business in the US primarily, but sometimes internationally. And you buy it with some of that money and then some debt, and then you try to grow it over a few years, and then you try to go sell it for more than you bought it for. And when you do that, you make a bunch of money. And you send most of that back to the people who gave you the money, and then you keep some of it for yourself. Uh, and that's basically how private equity works, and it's how people get really, really rich, um, that are able to raise a lot of money. Because if you have a billion-dollar, um, uh, private equity fund and you manage to, uh, double that, let's say, so like you turn a billion dollars into $2 billion, generally speaking, the way the economic model works is You have to send— of that billion dollars of profit you created, you have to send $800 million to the people that gave you the money, and you get to keep $200 million. And that $200 million gets split among whoever the partners are of the firm. So the reason there's so many billionaires that have been in the private equity world is because they've raised, you know, tons and tons of these multibillion-dollar funds They've invested them very well and they've captured a portion of the profits they were generating over and over and over again.

And so, like, can I just go start a private equity fund like tomorrow? Like, you must, you must need like a load of cash to begin with. You need cash.

The bigger thing that you need is you need the relationships with the people that have a lot of money and you need a track record to prove that you can invest their money well. Because say you're extraordinarily rich and you have $100 million And I come to you and I'm like, hey, I'll invest that for you. And you were like, oh, well, what investments have you done? And I say, none. You're not going to give me that money. I have to come to you and I have to say, here's this enormous body of work, all of these other investments that I've made over my career working for other people, working my way up, running deals, doing things, whatever. I have to show proof that you're giving your money to someone smart that can do this well, that they have a strategy that's going to work. And, um, very few people have that. And so raising a private equity fund is very difficult. It's much easier to raise a venture fund, which is basically the same thing as private equity, except instead of buying companies, you're just investing a small amount of money into them. So like, you know, I could make a venture investment in your protein pancake business. I wouldn't own the business. I would be a 1% owner of it or a 2% owner of it. Um, and that's much easier because then when I go to raise money for a venture fund, it's much more about selling the story of, of what I'm going to do than it is about like my track record and all sorts of incredible things that I've done.

Yeah. So if you're kind of like a motivational charismatic person, that can go far in venture capital.

Oh, very far. And there's been people that have built enormous fortunes off of just being very good talkers. And look, it's, it's not dissimilar to like Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried and these people that have ended up in jail by raising money for their startups. You know, they lied and they made things up and then they went to jail. There's less talk of that in the venture world, but there's people like that.

Sam Bankman-Fried, that was, that was a story that I followed along. Are you into crypto yourself?

Yeah, I'm into crypto and I passed on investing in FTX way back in the day out of my venture fund, which I'm pretty proud of. I, um, I actually have a text, uh, which I can probably send you a screenshot of because it's pretty funny, where like maybe 6 months before the entire thing blew up at FTX, I sent a text to a friend saying this thing has to be a fraud, uh, with this rationale around why I thought it was a fraud. Uh, and then, yeah, and then 6 months later, I, uh, the whole thing blew up, he was going to jail, and I was sending out texts to all my friends being like I'm just checking receipts here because I definitely called this one. So I kept the screenshot.

Okay, nice. Nice. Yeah, Bitcoin just hit all-time high like an hour ago.

I saw that. That's exciting.

Yeah, I've been— I just— I just— I've done the meme coin casino. Don't recommend it. Yeah, I just said dollar cost average into Bitcoin. Been doing that for a good few couple of years. So I've only sold like twice ever, like once, like '69, last bull run, or '67 of them, being honest. And then took some profits about a month or two ago. But yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that's it.

I'm not like a day trader. I had a crazy teammate at Stanford in 2011 who convinced a bunch of us to buy Bitcoin, and I did. And then I sold it at like— sold some of it at like $10 for like a 10x, by the way.

Like, nice.

Made like— and I thought I was the man. I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. And now I'm like, shit, man, if I hadn't done that, I'd be like, I certainly wouldn't be on a podcast right now. I'd probably be on a yacht somewhere.

You would be the private equity fund.

Totally. And then, and then I sold a little bit, I think for like $45K when I bought this house. Actually, I bought the house with Bitcoin proceeds, which is great. And don't get me wrong, I love it. Turns out the house was much more expensive than I thought it was because now Bitcoin's worth $100K. So real Bitcoin aficionados probably think I'm an idiot, but I still believe in just converting things into real human dollars if you want to use them on things.

Yeah, for sure. I did when I like sold the first time I bought this place, this villa here in Marbella. And yeah, and then when I renovated it, like I did a heavy renovation, did the whole series on YouTube and it's gone up like tremendously. So yeah, property and crypto, I guess I'm a professional investor now, guys. Course dropping soon. And so now, Investor Circle, sign up for more, like and subscribe. Exactly, yeah. And so what made you leave this whole— the, the fund life, the private equity fund? Like, what made you just put it in the past and start doing what you're doing now?

I mean, it was that realization that I mentioned earlier. Like, I, um, everything else in my life was really suffering. Um, I was making more and more money Things were going well financially, but I was losing a lot and the cost of that was way too high. My stress levels, I, you know, fundamentally what it was about is like, a lot of people will tell you that being on a bad path is the worst thing in the world. And I disagree. I actually think that being on a good path that isn't yours is much worse. And the reason is fairly simple. Uh, when you're on a bad path, everything in your life screams at you that you need to make a change. It's obvious, like everything around you is telling you there's a bad path, you have to make a change, you have to do something. When you're on a good path that isn't yours, there's a lot of reasons to stay. There's a lot of social pressures, there's a lot of responsibilities, there's all these things outside of you that are telling you to just stick around, just stick to the plan, just keep doing the thing. And it's very, very hard to jump off that good path that isn't yours. And for me, it took a very challenging realization to have that happen. I was out for a drink with an old friend and I was talking to him about how it had gotten tough being so far away from my family. My parents were 3,000 miles away. I was really close with my parents, with my dad in particular, and I wasn't seeing them ever. My friend asked me, "How old are they?" And I said, "Mid-60s." And he said, "How often do you see them?" And I said, "About once a year." And he just looked at me and said, "Okay. So, you're going to see them 15 more times before they die." And I remember just feeling like I had been punched in the gut. I mean, the idea that the amount of time you have left with the people that you love most is so finite. And so countable that you can literally put it on a few hands just shook me to the core. And it was that next day that I woke up and I told my wife that I thought we needed to make a change. And God bless her, she was up for it. And within 45 days, I had left my job. We had sold our house in California and we had moved back to the East Coast to be closer to our families. And the most beautiful part of it was For about a year and a half, we had been struggling to conceive, had had a lot of tough times. It was a burden that she was carrying that we didn't talk about much. And within 2 weeks of getting home, making that change, my wife got pregnant with our son. And it was, it was just one of those examples. Yeah, it was like, you know, it's like God winking at you. All right, like this example of like when, when life comes into alignment, when energy comes into alignment. Everything falls into place as it should. Um, and so that's a reminder to everyone out there, like, your time is your most precious asset. If you're listening to this, my guess is you're a young guy, uh, and you think you're immortal. You think that your life is infinite, and it is not. Your time is everything, and how you choose to spend your time, who you choose to spend it with, is the only thing that matters. You think that it's about money, But Warren Buffett is worth $130 billion. I guarantee he would trade every single one of those to be in your shoes today and have no money because he's 95 years old. He would guaranteed trade that $130 billion to have the amount of time that you have left. So you know that your time is your most precious asset. It's the only thing that counts, the only thing that matters, and you have to treat it that way. You have to act accordingly.

Goddamn, it's powerful, bro. Shit, I could tell that that is something that struck a chord with you right there. And so, Jesus Christ, that's insane. And so good to see you just living out, like, just even when you took me through your day today, like, I could just tell you're aligned, you're doing what you want to do. And now I want you to drop some knowledge on, for any guys out there who are looking to find their thing, find their purpose, how do they go about it? And it's kind of— then I have another question I want to ask, but it's kind of like very similar because one leads to the other. It will be advice on budding entrepreneurs who want to start a business. I think that the two go hand in hand. But first off, for guys lacking purpose and they want to find their thing, what advice would you give them?

I think that follow your passion is some of the worst advice that anyone can give. Uh, I was always told like, oh, follow your passion. I don't know what I'm passionate about. I have no clue, especially not at the start. And so what I always tell people is don't follow your passion, follow your energy. You know what energizes you, you know what makes you feel lifted up, you know what you feel the pull towards. Chase those things, go after those things that you're feeling excited about and that you're feeling pulled towards. If you do that, you're gonna build something. Uh, because at the end of the day, and this relates to your second question, if you want to make a lot of money, the only way to make a lot of money is to create a lot of value. The only way to make a lot of money is to create a lot of value. The only people that have ever become rich was because they created an enormous amount of value for other people and they captured a small portion of that. So all you need to think about if you're trying to make a lot of money is what problems can you solve for other people that are around you, devise a solution, and then scale that solution. If you can do that, you'll make a shitload of money, I guarantee it. But people get so wound up in overthinking, oh, pick the perfect path, pick the perfect thing, while like an insecure, uh, way less intelligent person is building the life that you want simply because all they focused on was just figuring out problems they could solve and they were scaling those solutions while you were overthinking every single thing that was coming your way. So intelligent people are the worst culprits because they just think they need to come up with the perfect answer. You don't. You just need to solve one problem and then scale that solution.

Boom. I love that. And a phrase I love as well: Neanderthal-ing your way through life. I think that's the best way to do it. Like, the most successful people are not these kind of like these nerdy overthinkers. They're just the dudes that go out there. They just Chad scale. They just chat smash their way through everything and they don't overthink it and they just get started. Like, I coach some people that want to get started in the fitness industry and I'm like, have you made a sale yet? And they're like, no. And they're trying to get their YouTube banner and get all the right camera equipment and download the right software. And I'm like, bro, just close a client. Just go make a sale. See how you feel afterwards. See how you did that. See what works, see what doesn't. So go out, go out and try some shit.

Salesmanship is more valuable than intelligence, point blank. It's like, you know, people think that you need to be super smart or gifted or talented to build the life that you want, to make a lot of money. My richest friends are not the ones with the highest IQ. They are the ones that know how to sell. They know how to sell themselves, their ideas, their vision, their products, whatever it is. They're not afraid of being told no. They just keep refining until they get to a yes. So stop worrying about being intelligent or having the perfect solution. Just learn how to sell.

And what are some examples when— have you ever like sold a massive company or a certain deal? Like what is an example in your life where you've just like sold something amazing, like something of a big transaction?

I mean, when I raised my venture fund, when I raised that $10 million venture fund, That was selling because I had never raised my own fund. I had done investing in my private equity days, but I had never done it solo. And so going out to these people and convincing them to send me a lot of money to someone totally unproven, that was selling myself, right? That was selling what I am capable of and what I'm doing. Look, now I'm in the midst of that in a big way with this book. Like, I'm, you know, trying to convince people around the world to go and buy, you know, go spend their money to buy a book that I am convinced will change their lives if if they read it. But that's selling, right? You're selling yourself. You have to put yourself out there and you have to desensitize yourself to the word no because it hurts the most the first time you hear it. Then it hurts a little bit less, a little bit less, a little bit less. And if you're willing to endure that early pain, that's sort of the cost of entry for the life that you want on the other side.

Yeah, a lot of people, they get a little bit too emotional in sales and they take things to heart. And it stops them. Like, I'm actually not great at sales. I have a sales team that do all the dirty work for me in a way. But sometimes I get a bit like shy or awkward or kind of like, you know, and that's my advice to myself would be to be less emotional about it and just don't roll with the punches. Who cares if somebody says no? And so your trip to London, is this book related?

Book related. Yeah, I'm doing a whole bunch of podcasts and events around it.

Very nice. I used to live in London. It was the last place I lived before moving to Marbella. I just lived there for a year, just kind of like see what it was like. And I love it. I wouldn't live there permanently. It's very New York-ish, very big city, but there is some cool spots. I'm going to recommend some gyms, some good restaurants. Equinox, that's where I trained in Kensington. So that's a good spot. And yeah, I'll give you some good recommendations.

Awesome. Yeah, please do send them along.

Yeah, for sure. So just a few more questions before I let you get on with your day. First one is I want you to give me the best advice you have for me as a father.

The best advice is actually going to have nothing to do with being a dad. It's going to be everything to do with being a husband after your kid is born. Tell your wife one thing you appreciate about her every single day. That was an absolute game changer for our relationship because what happens after a kid is born is that both of you are entirely focused on the child because they're so fragile, especially in those early months. It's like, it's terrifying. They're so small, they're so fragile, and you forget about each other. And for a woman in particular, there's a lot of changes that happen after they have a child. They don't feel quite as sexy or beautiful. They have hormones, all of these different things that are changing about them. And if you lose sight of the two of you and your connection and your relationship, a lot of negatives happen. Uh, there's a stat that 80% of married couples say that their marriage got worse in the year after a child was born, which is a really sad thing because it's the most beautiful thing in the world. And we can be part of that 20%. But it requires saying one thing that you appreciate about the person every day. It can be small, it can be big, whatever it is, just tell them, vocalize it. Because lack of appreciation is where relationships go to die.

That, that, that's amazing advice. And it kind of just— what you said about the percentage, I didn't know that percentage. I'm big into percentages. So for example, 50% of marriages end in divorce. Over 70% of people are overweight and obese. That's like, you know, a huge statistic. Don't be part of that percentage. And it's easy to say like, hey, just don't be it, but you just have to do everything you can be to literally don't fall in that 50% of divorces, you know, don't fall in that 80% that after the year they let the relationship go to shit. Don't fall in that 30%, that 70% that are overweight and obese. You just got to be so conscious. I'm wary of these things.

Yeah. And the thing is, we know what leads to those things, right? Like, it's one thing if it's like a total mystery and you're like, oh, well, I have no idea what makes you obese, so how do I avoid it? Like, I fucking know. And excuse my language, like, I know what makes people obese, right? Like, I know, like, if you eat like shit and you don't move and you don't sleep, you will become obese. I guarantee it. 100% certain that you will become obese. So don't do those things. Like, and it's the same for relationships. Like, I know what leads to divorce. Don't appreciate the person. Don't tell them you love them. Show contempt for their actions. Don't communicate. Avoid hard conversations. Those are all things that will lead to divorce. I can guarantee it. And so don't do those things, right? It's like Charlie Munger said, all I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I never go there. And it's the exact same principle for life. Like, you can, you know, read all the books about the things you should do. But sometimes it's just as helpful to like know what you need to avoid and just avoid it.

Bang on. And so tell the people where they can grab a copy of The Five Types of Wealth. Time to get those selling skills. Sell us the book.

Yeah, go. You know, you can get a copy now anywhere books are sold. And for more information, thefivetypesofwealth.com. You know, and look, what I'll say is this book is not about giving you the answers for how to live your life. Which sounds crazy because the entire self-help, self-improvement space is all about shoving an answer down your throat. That's not what this book is. This book is about helping you ask the right questions so that you can come to the answers for yourself because everyone's answers are going to be different. You are going to have different seasons of your life when you experience these questions differently, and that's what matters. So, wrestle with the questions, sit with the questions. This book is filled with tactics and things that you can do, and it's going to be a create-your-own-adventure, and it's the adventure of a lifetime. So enjoy it. Nice.

And last question, what was— what's your favorite part of the book personally? What's your favorite part?

The time wealth section. In the, in the early part, there are a series of charts on who we spend our time with over the course of our lives that I created that are incredibly emotional and create this gut punch that really centers you around what matters in life.

Awesome. Sahil, I enjoyed this conversation so, so much.

Much.

I just feel like, I just feel like we were having bro time. I feel like I relate to you, I relate to you in a lot of ways, and I'm looking forward to having you out here in Marbella in the first week of June and getting some fuel cakes in that breakfast table.

I'm pumped. I'm hoping you can make me more jacked, uh, while we're together. So I'm looking, I'm looking forward to it, man. Um, this was a, this was a blast, for real. Thank you.