Sahil Bloom: The 5 Types of Wealth That Create a Truly Rich Life

You'll achieve much more by being consistently reliable than by being occasionally extraordinary. If you can show up and just do what you say you're going to do day in, day out, over and over and over again, you will find your way into something extraordinary.

I did not graduate high school, and I remember the one thing that I understood is that I know that I can show up though. Sahil, welcome to the Earn Your Happy podcast. I'm so excited to finally connect.

I'm so happy to be here. I've been an admirer of all of your content and work from afar, so I'm thrilled to make it happen.

Oh, stop, go on. Okay, well, whenever I get to talk to somebody who has just gone through the journey of a book, I'm always really excited because not only did you start this book, you know, thinking that you have these things that you want to talk about, which is the 5 types of wealth, which is right up my alley. I can't wait to chat about it, but it brings you on like a frickin' soul journey. So I think the first thing that I'd love to hear is what have been 3 of the most like profound learnings or things that have happened while you've been writing this book?

Oof. So I would say the first one is that You don't understand how hard it is to work on something when you don't have a dopamine feedback loop around it until you write a book. That is good. You know, you're like, you're— we're used to like content creators, right? Like you create content, you get an immediate feedback loop, like, you know, people responding to it, engaging with it. Even my newsletter, right? Like I write it on Monday, it goes out on Wednesday. There's maybe a day or two. With the book, it's been 3 years, right? I've been working on this in the dark for 3 years and now I just like plop it out into the world and I hope that, you know, people really love it. And take it and run with it, but you really don't have the daily feedback loop that encourages you to keep working on it. And so that's very difficult mentally to work on something when you don't have that sort of natural pull towards it chemically. Mm-hmm. So that's one. Two, I would just say I was blown away by how much the book changed during the course of the writing process. The journey that it took me on, particularly with the human stories that I tell in the book and the people that came to me during the process that I learned from and spent time with, really dramatically changed the book in terms of the structure and how the ideas flowed. And it became much more of a really human experience book versus a framework nonfiction book. And I was caught off guard by that, but very glad that I had a team that gave me the freedom to run with it on that path. And then the last thing I would say is sort of a meta point on the actual book itself, which is you already have the answers within you. You just haven't asked the right questions yet. About a week before I was supposed to turn in the final draft of this book, I had this letter that I had written myself 10 years prior that I had basically, when I graduated college, written a letter to my future self and said, "Open this in 10 years." And I'd forgotten about it. It was in a safe in my house. And when I, uh, after my son was born and we did like our will and different documents, I found it because I was putting those into the safe. And so I opened that letter about a week before I was supposed to turn in the final draft. And it was all about my hopes for the future from 10 years prior. And what that letter showed, and it's in the book now, was all of these things that it took me 10 years to kind of come to and learn about myself. Those answers were actually already inside me from 10 years earlier. I just hadn't asked the right questions yet to unveil them in my life. And that is a really powerful idea to me because what it tells you is that you just need to sit with the questions. You just need to start focusing on the questions in your life and the answers will reveal themselves in time.

I'm so curious, what were some of the things in your letter?

So the letter, I framed it as all about my hopes for the future, um, things that I, that I hoped and The ones that really came to the surface for me, number one was, I hope you married Elizabeth. At the time, she was my girlfriend, and I basically said, I hope you didn't fuck that up because she's the best. She's, she's the best thing that ever happened to you. Fortunately, she is my wife. We've been happily married for 8 years now, and we have a beautiful son. I said, I hope that you spend more time with your parents because they aren't going to be around. Forever. I said, I hope that you have grown closer to your sister. That was a relationship that for many years was very strained and competitive and sort of remedying that was something. And I said, I hope that you are doing something you find meaningful. And I didn't really know what that meant at the time, but what I said in there was that I hope you enjoy an average Tuesday. And that's kind of a fun way to think about life is like this average Tuesday idea. Like if you enjoy an average Tuesday in your life, you're doing pretty well. Because, you know, Tuesday's kind of a shitty day of the week. And so if you can enjoy an average Tuesday, you are very much winning in my book.

I love that so much. That was like, literally everybody's doing their New Year goals and I'm like, no, I just want to enjoy my week. Like, I just, I am doing everything I possibly can in my life to enjoy my weekdays. Like, just, I just want to enjoy my everyday. And what does that look like? I know that so much of your, of your book is about that because you go into all of the different aspects of life that really make up a good life. The 5 types of wealth you have: time, social, mental, physical, financial. I know a bit of your background. You've been an athlete, baseball player, correct?

Yeah. I played baseball at Stanford, uh, during my college years.

And was that something like, was, was fitness kind of like one of the main foundations for you? Did that kind of crack you open spiritually? Like kind of tell me the journey of just discovering yourself?

Yeah, I pursued baseball and really leaned into it in my early years, partially out of an insecurity, which was I have an older sister who is extremely high performing academically, and my family academic achievement was like what success looked like. My dad's a professor at Harvard. My mom has a master's from Princeton. My mom is Indian, so like Indian culture, very academically oriented. And my sister was really achieving everything that our family valued. And I started to convince myself that I wasn't smart. I wasn't going to be able to do those things that she did. And so I needed to find my own thing that I could really be great at. And so I pursued baseball head on because it was a way for me to get the external affirmations and the pats on the back that I thought would kind of fill my cup, if you will. I sort of felt like it was an external solution to an internal problem at the time. And it turned out I was pretty good at it and I was able to go to college to play. And you know, the real sort of insight for me from the athletic career was those type of physical pursuits are a reminder that you are capable of taking an action and creating an outcome. And that is the ultimate power in life. And it's why I believe, by the way, that physical pursuits are such an incredible catalyst for your life, because that idea, when you remind yourself that you are capable of doing that. You have power over your life. You can go and do anything. And so it's the reason, like, when, uh, someone is lost and they come to me looking for advice, the first thing I say is, for the next 30 days, wake up at 5:00 AM and go work out. That has nothing to do with, like, making money, doing anything else, finding your purpose, any of that. It has everything to do with doing something hard that convinces yourself, that rewires your brain to remind yourself that you're a winner. And if you can do that for 30 days, at the end of 30 days, you will feel like a different human being. You will engage with the world completely differently. And so in my own life, that has always been my catalyst for change. Like, when I have ever felt down in my life, I've tried to turn to physical pursuits as a way to kind of get myself out of those ruts. Hmm.

I relate to that so much. There's been— whenever I'm mentally stuck somewhere, a lot of times I'll kickstart it with like, okay, what do you need? You know what? I'm just going to book those 3 classes a week for the next month, and I'm going to get that back, like, into my life. I have a big, um, just fitness and wellness background, and it's always been the thing that mentally starts getting, getting you moving. And I know, of course, you know, in, in life, I do believe we're so connected to— as long as we're in this physical body, we are connected to this physical body. And if we want to get those ideas started or remember who we are or what we want to do in this world, it's like a lot of times you can kickstart it with your body, with those daily habits. And, you know, I was of course scrolling, um, your Instagram for a while, and you were talking about a quote from your grandpa that just like resonated so deeply. I loved it so much. Do you know which one I'm talking about?

I do. Okay. Uh, yeah, my, my grandfather, my grandfather once told me, you'll achieve much more by being consistently reliable than by being occasionally extraordinary. And that has stuck with me my entire life because it's a reminder that you can never bet against the person who just keeps showing up. That if you can show up and just do what you say you're going to do day in, day out, over and over and over again, you will find your way into something extraordinary. You don't need to worry about the, like, elegant, perfect shot, the, like, perfect thing, whatever it is. You just need to show up and do what you say you're going to do.

I've been in situations where I have needed a new employee, a new help in my business immediately. And the last thing that you wanna do is waste time on people who don't actually understand what you do. I want somebody who can come in and understand the workflow. They can contribute right away. They can help us move forward. They can help us scale. And that's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. When you need the right person, not just another CV, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. When workplace chaos hits and you need the right hire, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. Indeed Sponsored Jobs gets you quality candidates when you need them most. Stop struggling to get your job post even seen on other sites. Match with quality candidates with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Get matched with and hire quality candidates who can drive the results that you need right now. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, do it the right way with Indeed.

It rings in my ears all the time. Not that exact quote, cause obviously it was your grandpa, but that idea. Because, you know, I, I think growing up, pending on what everybody's background is who's listening, we compare ourselves. You know, you compared yourself to your sister or, or this idea of whatever. And I'm sure once you became an athlete, you compared yourself to other athletes. And it's like a lot of times we can't compare ourselves to these people who have these insane, extraordinary talents that we do not have. But when you show up consistently, it is absolutely insane what you're able to actually accomplish. And then sometimes you do wake up extraordinary after all of the consistency. But you know, I did not graduate high school and I remember the one thing that I understood is that I know that I can show up though. So how can I use that and kind of outwork all of these other people? Of course, that got me into a whole bunch of other stuff that can throw you down a frenzy. But it's that idea that your grandpa was talking about, that consistency. When we look at these people who were like, oh my God, how did, how did Sahil get, you know, he has this book coming out, he looks like like he exploded on the scene, whatever this is. It's like, well, you were probably so insanely consistent with certain things in your life. So what were some of the things that you would say if somebody asked you right now, what are some of the most underrated things that you have done in your life to get you to this point where you're about to launch a book right now?

I am a big believer that it's much easier to do something simple every single day than it is to do something complicated a few times a week. So every single time I am trying to do anything in my life, I think about what is the version of this that I can do every single day? I find it much easier to write for 30 minutes every single day than it is to write in, you know, 3, 3-hour blocks during the week. I just, I really struggle with that. And it's the same as like working out. I think it's much easier for most people to say they're going to run 2 miles every single day than to say they're going to run like 6 twice a week. There is something to that in all of your areas of life. And so for me, my own pursuits, it's always been about I'm not going to take a single day off. And that's not me being like a tough guy or a hardo and saying like, I don't take any days off. I literally think it's just easier. And so I say to people like, I haven't taken a day off in 10 years and I genuinely haven't. Like I, for the last 4 years that I've been on the current pursuit that I'm on with writing and with content, I've written every single day. I have posted something every single day. My newsletter now reaches close to a million people twice a week. The only hack, the only cheat code to that is I have sent 2 newsletters a week every single week since May of 2021. I have not missed a single day. That means I sent on Christmas, I sent on Thanksgiving, I sent on my birthday, I sent on New Year's. There wasn't a time when I took off. Part of that is that I love what I get to do. I really enjoy it. It would have been hard to do that for 3 or 4 years if I didn't like it, if I didn't find some intrinsic joy in the act. But I was going to show up every single day and just keep doing it. And so, like, you know, people always ask, people want the hacks. A lot of people will call you lucky on the back end. And I've said this before, you are one year of focus away from people calling you lucky. You are going to have people that from the outside looking in, you go and accomplish the big thing and they're going to be like, oh, you know, Lori got lucky. Lori did that thing. And you're going to be the one that knows all the stuff that went in in the dark that contributed to you getting quote unquote lucky on the back end of it. But that's the reality of life is that daily investments, those small things become the big things.

So tell me about the journey of writing, because to have a newsletter like that, that's a huge feat. Obviously, that's everyone's marketing dream to have a list like that. So tell me about what that feels like to write every day and what, what do you think the key ingredient to getting like to acquiring all of those people was, but like, how does it actually feel? Do you feel like those were— were they all masterpieces? Like, what does that actually feel like when you're sending them out?

No, they weren't all masterpieces, but I would have read all of them. That was— and that's always been my bar is like, would I read this and get some amount of value from it? And that has been sort of like I put myself in the reader's shoes. Does that mean that every single one is an A-plus? Absolutely not. But does it mean that every single one met a level of quality that I believe is important? Yes. So deconstruct consistency a little bit. I think this is important. Everyone tells you to be consistent. No one really tells you how to be consistent with some of these things. Writing in particular, I can give you the answer to that. When people think about writing or when people think about any creative pursuit, whether it's videos or writing or whatever it might be, Consistency is not about the act of creation. The act of actually writing, the act of actual creation is one piece of a bigger pie about creating content. The other things— consumption is a big part of it. What are you reading? What are you listening to? What conversations are you having? Every single thing that you create is downstream from something you consume. I heard that quote once, I don't remember where, and it's really good. It's really important what you actually consume. Consume is going to be what incepts the ideas that you are going to start to create. The second piece is actual ideation. You need to have time and space in your life to actually think about the things that you're consuming, to think about what you are going to create so that when you sit down, you've actually done a whole bunch of work prior to that. So the consistency to just say like, oh, I'm gonna be consistent, well, that's partially the writing process, but even more so it's having systems around the consumption and the ideation that lead into that.

Oh my God, that's so important to hear because I think when people are starting like new goals, I know, let's just take for example, so many people want to get better at content. They want to get better at newsletter writing. They want to get better at creating social media. They don't plan for what it actually takes to be able to sit in the chair and get the ideas. It's like, okay, on Tuesday I'm going to sit down for 2 hours and I'm going to come up with all my content and that's going to be the day I have all my content. Not even close. It like, you actually have to plan, like you said, for— it's like takes all of this pre-planning to know what actually goes in to being able to be consistent. And that's something that this year has been a huge change for me. So for everybody listening, like one of the biggest changes is to make sure I know the system that goes before what I'm trying to plan and like figuring that system out for yourself. Tell me about that, because I do think that that's one of the hardest things for people to grasp is is not everyone's system is going to work for them. How do you find what works for you in your schedule? How do you set that up for yourself? Because you are very consistent with what you're doing, with writing a book, with having your newsletter. Tell me about how you get that set up.

I'm a big believer in creating structure, and it's exactly as you said. I think that ultimately your outputs are a result of the structure of your inputs. And your ability to create a clear structure around your inputs is how you create outputs over long periods of time. And in order to do something for 10+ years, you have to have clear pathways to do that. I try to tune into my energy. And so what I would encourage everyone to do is over the course of a day or over the course of a week, think about the type of energy that you feel during different windows of the day. What I mean by that is you are going to have a window of time during the course of the day when you feel most creative, when you feel like you could sit down and actually create things, when you feel that spark of creative energy, map what time of day that is. You are going to have a time period during the day when you feel like you are able to sort of absorb things, when you feel like you can connect with either conversations or you can listen, you can read, like a time of day when you really feel like you're kind of ready to absorb new ideas. Map that, mark that down. And then you're going to have a time of day when you feel most reflective, when you feel like you can actually think, when you can be clear, when you can, um, Um, sort of be thoughtful and wrestling with ideas. Map that. Now what you want to do ideally is map the actual activity you are doing to what your natural energy is during the day. So for me, I am most creative from about 4:30 in the morning until about 7:30 in the morning. After that, I am really not particularly creative. I don't feel creative in the afternoon. I feel creative first thing in the morning. And so as a result, I write first thing in the morning every single day. I wake up at 4, I'm up, I have my coffee, I do my cold plunge, and I am writing. I'm at my desk. And this book got written largely between 4:30 and 7:30 AM over the course of 3 years. That was my writing block. Later in the day, I feel much more reflective. I feel much more open to consume. And so what I do is that, uh, in the afternoon I go for a walk and that's when I do a lot of my best thinking. I don't have my phone, I'm not listening to podcasts. I'm just thinking about things. I have a little notebook if I need to write something down and I go for a walk. In the evening is when I consume. I either go sit in the sauna or I sit in my office in my couch and I will read things, I'll consume, I'll listen to things, I'll think about things, have, you know, have conversations around things. But what I try to do in the Meta Insight there is to just map your activity to the energy that you are experiencing so that you can sort of optimize those flows. Because if you take your creative window during the day and you go like work out during you've sort of wasted that creative energy that you feel on a physical pursuit rather than trying to map the two together.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. So tell me how this correlates to prioritizing. You talk about prioritizing energy-creating tasks. Does that kind of run parallel to how you set your day up?

Yeah. The idea here is that if you lean into things that create energy in your life, you will create the best outputs. When you lean into tasks that create energy and when you lean into relationships that create energy, the best results follow. And on the flip side, if you are working on things that are draining your energy and if you are leaning into relationships that drain your energy, you are going to feel really bad and you are going to have bad outcomes. Mapping and figuring out the types of activities and the types of people who are creating energy in your life is a really important exercise. So one of the exercises in the Time Wealth section of the book book is what I call my energy calendar. And all you do, and anyone can do this right now, at the start of your week, so at the, during the, during a Monday, color code your calendar after each activity according to whether it created energy, meaning you felt uplifted by it, you felt good during or after, mark it green. If it was neutral, mark it yellow. And if it was draining, if you felt drained physically and mentally, from it or after it, mark it red. Now do that for a full week. At the end of the week, you are going to have a very clear visual perspective on the types of activities, the trends on the types of activities and the types of people who created energy versus drained energy in your life. Now, what you want to do is say, over a long period of time, I want to slowly make that calendar look more green than red. You're probably never going to eliminate all of the red because we all have things in our life that we have to do that are energy draining. But you can slowly work towards a world where the ratio of green to red is a bit better. And when that improves, your entire life will change. You will have better outputs. You'll feel much better at the end of the week. And we'll get to the holy grail of what you were talking about, which is I just want to enjoy my weekdays. I want to feel uplifted by those weekdays. So the energy calendar is an activity you can do that will really start to work you towards that world.

Let's talk about relationships. Friendships, your network, all of those things, because this is huge for people. Like, I know it was huge for me in my life. I think it's one of the biggest challenges of people that I get to talk to is these relationships in our life that really drain us or that we feel like we can't necessarily get rid of. A lot of times it's our family who can really drain us, who can exhaust us, or we struggle with, or whatever that looks like. Tell me first about how you start handling, um, when we're looking at it from the perspective of what you've written in your book about how we start handling the relationships that are the most challenging relationships in our lives that really drain us.

Yeah. Taylor Swift once said, the worst people in the world are the ones who make you feel bad for being excited about something. Mm-hmm. And I think about that as like the perfect summary of this exact point. It's the people that make you feel bad when you're excited about something, when you're thinking about transforming, when you're thinking about changing, about growth, and they're making you feel bad for that. They're pulling you back. They're telling you to be realistic. And we've all experienced that. And frankly, it does come from family a lot of the time. And so I'd say a few things here. Number one, just because you have to spend time with someone does not mean you have to open up your energy to them. There is a big difference between time and energy. I may have to be around someone. Consistently, time-wise, because they're part of my family and I can't cut them off physically. It's very, very difficult to cut them off, but I do not have to open my energy up to them. I do not have to allow them in to the point where their comments, the little things they say, are going to hurt me. I can shut off my energy to someone. And so that is the first line of defense with a lot of these people. It is just to realize, yes, I'm going to have to be around this person, But no, they are not going to be allowed into my energy space to actually impact me in that way. The second line is the hard conversation, which is the very direct hard conversation about how that other person's comments or their behavior is actually impacting you. The reason the hard conversation is important, particularly with family, is because I have found in my own experience, oftentimes that person does not know the way that their behavior is impacting you. Oftentimes, especially with parents, they are coming from a place of love and protection, and it is manifesting as something very negative in your life. Parents, when they see you going down a different path, a non-traditional path, leaving the confines of the safety, they see a child that they want to protect from the challenges of carving their own path. And so sometimes when they make comments, when they say, what are you doing? When they say, Hey, that's crazy. You're throwing it all away. When they make those little comments, that is a negative in your life, but it is coming from a place of love. And that's actually something that is solvable because once they understand the way that that's making you feel, the way it's impacting you, they will actually change tune a lot of the time. And I've had to experience this with a number of family members over my life on this journey that I've been on. Um, and it's important to recognize that you can have that hard conversation. And create a desired income there. I, I've always said, um, when you avoid a hard conversation, you're taking on a debt, and that debt has to be repaid with interest at some date in the future. Time does not heal anything when it comes to relationships. It just makes things worse. So you have to make the minor repairs now to avoid the major repairs later.

I've started so many different businesses, and I have to tell you that every single time I've started one, I have been terrified. It didn't get easier because each business was so different. You're always wondering, is anyone going Are these events gonna fill? Is anybody even gonna like this product? And now I know that it was absolutely the right thing to believe in myself and launch my businesses, launch my podcast, despite all of the fears and hesitations that I had. It also helps when you have a partner like Shopify on your side, like I did. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US from household names like like Glossier to brands just getting started. Get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates. Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store and matches your brand style. Accelerate your efficiency whether you're uploading new products or trying to improve existing ones. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com/happy. Go to shopify.com/happy. That's shopify.com/happy.

That willingness to engage in the hard conversation is important. And it, I think it gets lost in a lot of these narratives about like, oh, just cut them off. Just cut them out. You know, the blanket statements that like get a bunch of likes on social media miss that nuance of Sometimes it does come from a place of love. If you've done those things and the person remains obstinate, they're not there. They're continuing to drain your energy. You need to cut them off. And it's like the idea of, you know, you give everyone a second chance, but never a third. Once they've proven exactly who they are, you have to listen to that.

To paraphrase Maya Angelou, when we are letting go of our family, that's some of the hardest thing. Or when we're letting go of those people who are really draining us. It can take such an emotional hit on us and you can feel really bad and guilty. How do you deal though? How do you deal with some of that guilt even though you know it's somebody who really drains you?

Yeah, I mean, that's, I think that's the most difficult part of these transformation journeys that we're on. I often think that we're not able to change until we forgive ourselves for who we once were. The true like transformation that you experience, part of that is a grief for your old self. It is literally grieving the person that you once were and giving yourself the permission to move on from that version of you. I think about so much how much energy we give to regret for who we used to be. You could have changed and transformed enormously, but you are still attached to that old version of you, still give so much energy to the person that you once were. And we need to separate from that on that path. And it's the reason that personal transformation is a very lonely journey. I mean, you have long periods, seasons of loneliness on your personal transformation journey because you are changing and the environment you once occupied isn't. And so you almost start speaking an entirely different language from a lot of the people that occupied that prior space. You no longer can relate. You don't have shared values anymore, and yet you have not attracted the new people to your journey that you're going to find in in that new space. So you— it manifests as this period of loneliness. Giving yourself permission to exist in that season of loneliness and that it's okay and that it is the cost of entry for living the life that you want to live on the other side is very, very liberating.

Preach. That was put so eloquently. I've exactly— like, you, you worded that exactly to a T the entire journey. So let's talk about that space where you are now You're aware you're lonely, you're moving into another arena. Your reality is not yet reflecting back these people to you. Tell me about building those deeper bonds and building a powerful network, because this is, to me, having deep connections in life and creating a network, I think, is to me, it's the most important thing that we can do. So tell me about how that's worked for you in your life. What does that look like?

Yeah. I mean, there is scientific evidence that the people you surround yourself with determine your outcomes. The Pygmalion— yeah, the Pygmalion effect is this behavioral phenomenon where we actually rise to the level of expectations that others have for us. So if you surround yourself with people who believe in you, who want you to think bigger, you will actually rise to the level of those expectations that they have for you. So what better reason to be very selective, to choose wisely about about the people you are surrounding yourself with, the people you are opening your energy to. The way that we find those people is by being that to others. What you put out into the world is what you will receive in return. Call it karma, call it energy, call it whatever you want, but it is true that when you put good out into the world, when you create value for others, you will receive value in return. As you are trying to build that network, I think that the single best way to do that is to get into what I call in the book value-aligned rooms. What that means is you have certain values and interests, things that you hold very closely, that you strongly believe in. You need to place yourself into rooms where it has been self-selected for other people that have those same values and interests, that believe very strongly in those same things. So if you are a deep believer in the power of delayed gratification, like I am, place yourself into environments where you are going to find a lot of other people who deeply believe in delayed gratification. Fitness gyms are a great example of a place like that. If you are a huge believer in health as a catalyst for life, farmers markets are a great place where you are gonna find a lot of other people like that. But the point is you can actually take an action to make it more likely that you run into those people that are the sort of lucky encounters. That are going to create and spark these, you know, incredible journeys in your life. You need to place yourself in new environments where you're going to find those people because you're not in school anymore. You're an adult. You no longer have these like natural, you know, forcing functions that allow you to make friends. You actually have to take actions as an adult to place yourself into situations where you're more likely to meet your people, to meet those new people for the life that you were trying to build.

Okay. So it's awkward though. So tell me, tell me what you do.

I think it is awkward. And look, I think that part of, part of becoming a high-functioning adult is learning to embrace your weirdness and awkwardness as a human being and just like reminding yourself that like all of those feelings of cringe you had about your parents when you were a kid, that's you now. And you, you know, the younger version of you would really be embarrassed by the things that you do. No, I mean, look, I think that Uh, becoming a good conversationalist is a massive skill for life. I actually have in the book this entire like guide to becoming a great conversationalist. And I think a big part of that is learning to ask what I call, uh, doorknob questions rather than stop sign questions. So stop sign questions are a question that just has an answer and the other person answers it and that's the end of the conversation that leads to very awkward encounters because I ask you a question like, where did you get married? And you just answer the question. You say Napa. The conversation's over. It's a stop sign versus me saying, how did you choose your wedding venue? Now you answer it by opening the doorknob and walking through. You tell a story that leads to a natural flow and movement in a conversation that makes it much easier to sort of build rapport with new people that you're trying to engage with. It makes it much easier to have that initial momentum in a conversation. That leads to these great, strong, thriving relationships. The other thing I'll say is there's this whole narrative that's out there in the world of social media that you should never put out energy that you don't feel like is being reciprocated. You shouldn't sort of like lean into people who aren't willing to lean in back to you. I sort of have a counter take to this, which is I am never afraid to send the double text. And what I mean by that is is if I want to get to know someone, if I admire something about someone, I have no issues sending a double text. I have no issues sending a message. And then when they don't reply, giving them a little gentle nudge, because a lot of times people get busy and they just happen to miss that first message. And if I stand on ceremony, if I am prideful and I say, oh no, I'm not going to message them again because they're not leaning into this the same way I am, I would miss out on so many amazing relationships that have been built. And so sometimes in life, you just need to lean into things that you feel pulled towards, and you need to lean into those people and those relationships. And look, if they get annoyed and if they don't feel that same way, then it probably wasn't someone that you wanted to be friends with anyway. And so lean in. Sometimes you need to not be afraid to send the double text. Mhm.

I think there's a lot of people listening who, you know, they're, they're, they're trying to go to the next level. They're trying to get these friends, you know, who are are reflecting back where they want to go in the deeper conversations, and they're potentially struggling with how to get that started. I know you talked about getting in the rooms with people and what that looks like, but can you share, like, even tactically, like, maybe somebody's listening right now, and should they be looking at certain events, and should they be going in with a certain type of intention? Like, tell me how that unfolded for you when you started to realize that maybe after a year or two of doing certain things, you're like, like, oh, this works.

This is how I show up.

These are the rooms that I go to.

I really think that the biggest thing is just putting yourself out there as an adult. There's a tendency as you get older to more and more Netflix and chill, right? Like, you're tired. You don't have as much energy as you had when you were in your 20s. I certainly don't. I'm 34 now. Like, I definitely don't have the energy I had in my early 20s. And so I have to force it a little bit. I have to get uncomfortable. But we know this, the best things in life come from embracing a bit of discomfort. Go to the gallery opening, go to the book club in your local community, go to that museum, go to the farmer's market, go to the, you know, Groupon thing, cooking class. Like, go put yourself out into those things because that is where you meet the people that end up sparking incredible things in your life. It is just a reality that you cannot get lucky sitting on the couch at home. You can get lucky if you put yourself out there, if you create motion, if you create collision. So, so much of getting lucky in life, meeting these people that spark these incredible journeys, is just being willing to embrace the discomfort enough to put yourself out there into the world.

It's so true. I, I mean, I look through the years of how I've networked with people or built my network, and so much of it was just like, get yourself to workout classes and have conversations when you're there. There's plenty of people who do what we're talking about, but they are on their phone. They sit and, you know, wait for the class to start and they keep their head down on their phone, or they they don't spark up a conversation, or they're going to the places but they haven't, you know, thought about or read your book yet and gotten our doorknob questions. Like, it really is twofold. It's putting yourself out there but being up for it. Like, you gotta be up for connecting. Like, when I go on a dog walk, a lot of times I won't keep my headset in, or I'll put it in one ear, and so that I'm super open that if when I'm passing people and smiling Like if there's something that, something that they're wearing on their shirt, like I'll mention it or ask about it, or absolutely I'm going to talk about their dog or whatever. And I can't tell you the amount of people my husband and I now have, like couples friends and dinner dates, all because on dog walks we were up for it. Like we were open. We weren't like, oh, we're going to keep our head down and not chat with people. Like, it's insane how when you just put your head up, take your headphones out and start getting interested, And people give you social cues. We have a friend who always says people wear what they want to talk about, and we— it's the best thing ever. Like, just mention a hat, like mention their t-shirt, and everything opens up for you.

So are you that person who follows every travel page on Instagram, Pinterest, and you're the one who's always planning the girls trips, the family trips, the friends trips, and you love it down to every every single detail. Imagine if your love of planning vacations could actually become a source of income. With Fora, you get the training, tools, and insider access to turn your passion into real earnings as a travel advisor, so you can build a thriving business on your terms, all alongside your job, family responsibilities, and other passions. Fora is a modern travel agency built for people who love to plan travel and help others travel as well. Well, their tech platform, training, and community give you everything you need to turn a passion for travel planning into a flexible, meaningful stream of income. Every hotel, cruise, or activity you book as a Fora advisor earns you money in the form of a commission or a percentage of the booking cost. Getting started can be easy as booking trips for people you already know. Now that's time to finally turn your passion for travel into a fulfilling business with Fora. Become a Fora advisor today at foratravel.com/happy. That's foratravel.com/happy. And make sure you tell them we sent you. foratravel.com/happy.

Yeah, I completely agree with that. I love the phrasing of being up for it too. I, I do think that like so many of these behaviors are going to make you appear weird in modern society. Because the most normal thing you can do is have your headphones in and have your head down looking at your phone, right? You're on a walk. How many people do you see on those walks that are just walking their dog and they're like just going like this, just looking at their phone the entire time? And like, that's the way that they are engaging with the entire world. Their face is down in their, in their phones. You're completely missing all of these things that are happening in the world. And I think about it now, like with a young son, right? I have 2 and a half half-year-old little boy. And how different would his life be if every time we were interacting, I just had my face in my phone sending emails, texts, whatever the thing was? And so now I'm so hyperaware of trying to not ever have my phone between me and him. Like, if I'm gonna be on my phone, I'm gonna be in another room. And then when I try to come out to him, I need to just not have it with me so that it never comes between me and him. Because otherwise you do You're not up for it, as you say, uh, you are literally looking down.

Let's talk about the wealthy part of this because number one, I, I just, I mean, the, the whole book when I first saw it, I was like, okay, well, I'm always up for wealth, but tell me about all of it. Um, but where did the idea come from when you really, like, when did you start to grasp this is true wealth? Like, tell me what true wealth is to you, but then I do wanna dive into the finance portion of it.

Yeah, really what this is about is the idea that you will never feel successful unless you create your own definition of success. If you just blindly accept what everyone else tells you success looks like, you will never feel successful. You need to define and carve your own path and then measure yourself against the things that you actually care about. And so the whole idea with the The Five Types of Wealth, and what this idea is to create a scoreboard that is based on the more comprehensive view of your life. Traditionally, we've only been able to measure money, so it's been the only thing that we focus on when we think about wealth. We need to measure all of the things that contribute to a really truly wealthy life. We need to measure our freedom, our time. We need to measure the strength of our relationships and our connection to other people. We need to measure our our purpose, our growth, our ability to create space. We need to measure our physical health as a portion of being healthy and wealthy. And we need to think about money because money is not nothing. It simply can't be the only thing. And so when I think about financial wealth, I actually think it's a really important part of this entire book. I'm not by any means saying that money doesn't matter. I'm not telling anyone that they need to go and live off in the Himalayas, you know, meditating for 12 hours a day and give up all their worldly possessions. If you want to do that, by all means, do your thing. I just won't be joining you. I like having money. Don't get me wrong. I'm not like the biggest money guy in the world, but I like having nice things. I like being able to do nice things. What I'm saying is that money isn't nothing. It simply can't be the only thing. And when it comes to financial wealth building, the single most important realization, which I try to get across in the book, is that your expectations are your single greatest financial liability. If your expectations rise faster than your assets, you will never feel wealthy because you'll just be chasing some more that is always off in the distance that you're never able to get to. It's a mirage. It'll just disappear. And so the whole key here is that you need to define what enough looks like to you. You need to have a clear sense of what that life of enough enough looks like to you. And so I walk through that in the book, a visualization of trying to understand what does enough look like to you so that when you are there, you are able to actually experience gratitude for it. You are able to recognize it so that any pursuit of more purpose or more relationships or more other things comes from a place of wanting those, not of just wanting more money for the sake of it.

Well, how do you balance that desire? It's so interesting because the more that I've it's like the more that I grow and grow my network and hang around these people who are like insanely successful, sometimes it's like not even the pursuit of the next thing or material object, but it's almost like, oh, is that possible? But that can also be an expectation, you know what I mean? I'm sure you, I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about. How do you balance that like desire for more while also remaining content.

So a big separation here for people to internalize is the desire for more money versus money as a byproduct of the desire for more purpose and more, more growth. So most of the people that I know that have generated extraordinary wealth, but also live great lives, it's because the money has been a byproduct of their pursuit of something they really care about.

About.

They are actually pursuing more purpose. They're pursuing more growth, more learning, more development, and money has been a natural byproduct of that. They are not chasing more money. They're chasing their purpose and they're pushing in their purpose. That is an extraordinary pursuit and one that I would argue you should do until the day you die. I think that's an incredible pursuit. What leads you off the cliff of misery is the pursuit of money as a me, as, an end in and of itself. It's a pursuit of just getting more money because you think that the money is going to lead to the freedom or the happiness or the other things that you want in life, when in reality it's just a treadmill that you find yourself on. So the, the, the pursuit of money as an exclusive end is what leads you to the rich yet miserable existence that none of us want. The pursuit of money as a byproduct of purpose is actually a very healthy pursuit.

How do you address plateaus in these areas. Like, let's talk about— have you ever hit a financial plateau where you're like, what is going on?

Yeah, I call this the valley of stagnation. Um, in any of these areas of life, I often think that we endure these long periods of stagnation where you are taking action every single day and you don't see any progress. You're like, I don't see anything. I have no inclination that this is working or that this is going to work. During those periods, you have to A, remind yourself that periods of stagnation are a natural part of the process for getting to where you want to be. And B, you need to create natural pullback points to evaluate whether your inputs need to change. So we in society celebrate people who pounded their head into a wall for years and years and then achieved success like MrBeast. Everyone always says about MrBeast, well, he made 10,000 videos before he got a million views. That's not really the full story. Yes, he made 10,000 videos, but he didn't make the same video 10,000 times every single day. He was maniacally focused on how to improve 0.01% with each one of those videos. And so then when he achieves the success, everyone says he pounded his head into a wall, but it wasn't just pounding his head into a wall. He was getting smarter with every single pound. He was improving the inputs ever so slightly so that the outputs would change. And this is the reality of life is like, you may focus on your inputs, but the world is gonna judge you for your outputs. So if over a long time horizon, your inputs are not leading to the change that you wanna see, you need to evaluate and scrutinize your inputs. So during those valleys of stagnation that you experience, if you experience one and you feel you were in it for a month or 2 months or 3 months, and it's been an extended period of time, zoom out. And look at your inputs and whether they need to be tweaked or changed in any way to create better outcomes. Mm-hmm.

So good. Okay, so tell me, what are people going to get from this book that we haven't talked about?

You are going to get a whole lot of questions that you are going to want to sit with and discuss and really think on that will help you figure out the path that you want to carve in your own life. I say at the very beginning of this book, it will not give you the answers for your life, which is a scary thing to say at the start of a self-help or self-improvement book, but it's true. And the reason I say that is a very, it's a very important one, which is that you already have the answers within you. Uh, you just haven't asked the right questions yet to reveal them. You just haven't sat with the questions long enough to express those answers in your own life. And I cannot give you the answers for your life, because your life is different than mine. Every single person, whether you're a 22-year-old reading this book or a 90-year-old reading this book, you are going to have your own unique frameworks and lenses that you are going to look at this through, that you are going to come to your own answers in the different seasons of life. But the questions are universal. And so really sit and focus on the questions, really think about them, discuss them with the people you care about, and I guarantee you will get immense value on the other side. Hmm.

What has been— now that you're like, you know, you take all this time to write the book, which is a totally different experience than when you're done with the book and now you start marketing the book— what has been, um, something that's come out of you starting your interview process with everyone? The more that you talk about it, like, what's been something surprising that's happened so far?

It's a great question. I would just say the different ways that people have connected with with the book has been fascinating to me. It's a book that is about a whole bunch of different areas of life. And one of the interesting things about that is that I can have a discussion with like a gym rat bodybuilding bro, uh, just as much as I can with like a young woman who, uh, is starting to build her life in her early 20s and have a very productive conversation about what you really want in life and in this season of life and how to prioritize around it. And The things that those two people connect with in the book and where they see themselves are very, very different. Uh, and so that has just been interesting to me to see, like, what do people attach to and what do they take and run with, uh, in their own life?

I love that you've put all the thoughtful questions in here and helping us become better conversationalists, which I think is like one of the most— connection and conversation, it's like one of the most important skills you can ever hone in on because it gets You all of it gets you all of those answers that you also need. So I'm so grateful for you coming on the show. It was so great to finally get to sit down and chat. And where can we get your book?

You can get the book anywhere books are sold, uh, and you could find more information at the5typesofwealth.com.

All right, you guys, we're so grateful for you tuning in and listening. I have linked up everything for you, uh, for Sahil in the show notes. And you can also go follow him. We'll put his Instagram down there because you've got a really great Instagram that's fun to follow, great advice. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye everyone.