Dying to Be Rich: The Cost of Chasing Money & 5 Types of Wealth w/ Sahil Bloom

What if the real definition of wealth had nothing to do with money? What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm sitting down with Sahil Bloom, New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, and the voice behind The Curiosity Chronicle, where millions of people turn for ideas that change the way they live and work. In this conversation, Sahil opens up about the gut punch moment that made him realize he might only see his parents 15 more times before they die, the uncomfortable process of letting go of a very successful identity that was slowly killing him, and the framework he built for the 5 types of wealth that actually matter. We talk about why later is the most dangerous word in the dictionary, the hidden debt theory of relationships and why falling in love is easy but growing in love is what makes it last, how to measure success when money is no longer the scoreboard, and the choices that will either buy you freedom or lock you in a prison of your own making. If you've ever felt like you were winning on paper but losing in real life, this episode will change the way you think about wealth, time, and success.

So let's dive in.

Welcome, Sahil Bloom to the show. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shit happen. Alright, welcome to the show, Sahil. I'm so excited that you're here. We were just talking about the lengthy amount of reschedules that we had to go through to get here, so it feels amazing that we're finally here having this conversation. I've so been looking forward to chat with you for the past couple of months. I've been digging into your book and your content, and the more that I read about your stories and everything that you're sharing, especially inside of this book, I'm like, cannot wait to have this conversation on the podcast because I know there's going to be so many people tuning in that are just going to eat this up, especially inside of my audience. So it's a dream to have you on the show. I'm so excited that you're here. Welcome to Makeshift Happen.

Oh, the feeling is mutual. I'm thrilled to be here.

Thank you. Yay. Okay, so I wanted to open this conversation by sharing the most highlighted quote from your New York Times bestseller, The Five Types of Wealth, because I found this super fascinating. So the quote is, "Your wealthy life may be enabled by money, but in the end it will be defined by everything else." And I love this quote, and it speaks to a lot of your values, especially of what you've kind of been through in your life and what prompted you to write this book. But I'd love to hear your perspective on what that means to you.

So that quote came about from a pretty interesting exercise that I went through, uh, one year for my birthday. Uh, I kind of had this practice of like trying to do some sort of meaningful, um, exercise or reflection every single year on my birthday. I started doing it in kind of my early 20s and, uh, just after my 30th birthday, I decided that for that year, my plan was going to be that I was going to go speak to as many 80-year-old, 90-year-old, 100-year-olds that I could find and ask them a simple piece of, a simple piece of advice, which was basically, what advice would you give to your 30-year-old self? You know, what do you know now that you wish you knew back then? And I ended up talking to people who had amassed, you know, well over 1,000 years of wisdom across their lives. And it was so fascinating because this list of insights that I share in the book and that I've shared on social media as well, was sort of wide-ranging in terms of what it spoke to. It spoke to relationships. People talked about, uh, never fear sadness as it tends to sit right next to love. Uh, they talked about their health, you know, treat your body like a house you're going to have to live in for the next 70 years. They talked about purpose and growth and time and the precious years you have with the people in your life, but no one talked about money. And it was so interesting to me because you think this thing that occupies so much of your time, headspace, and life as a 30-year-old is not even remotely on the list of someone later in life. And so that was what brought that insight to the fore for me, was to say that money isn't nothing. It simply can't be the only thing. Your wealthy life may be enabled by money, But in the end, it will be defined by all of these other things, by the time, your free time that you have, by your relationships, by your purpose, by your health. And money can be an enabler to those. It can be a tool, if you will, but it is very rarely going to be productive for it to be the goal in and of itself.

Hmm. So good. That hits so hard. I'm really curious where you found all these 100-year-olds, 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds. How did this come about? Like, can you tell me about that process?

Yeah, I, well, first off, I'm resourceful and I'm, and I'm, I am a big fan of the shameless ask. So the first thing that I did was I thought about everyone that I knew that was that age. I was pretty fortunate to have a few people directly in my life, both my grandmother, my granduncle, and then a dear, dear set of friends who I actually ended up writing about in the book named Hank and Phyllis, who Hank was 99 at the time. Now he's over 100. So I had a few in my, like, immediate circle. Then I went and just started texting friends. And asking how old their grandparents were and whether they'd be willing to chat with me. And ended up that pretty easily you can surface a whole bunch of interesting people. Not everyone was willing to chat and not everyone had sort of poignant or striking insights in the things that they said. Although there were, you know, some like just funny sort of pithy remarks from people. Someone said, "Never raise your voice except for at a ballgame." I really liked that one. That was good. But it was such an interesting process. I mean, I do think that there's so much wisdom that comes from the end. I sort of think of it as you sort of have this light that develops from seeing the other side. You talk about it when it comes to near-death experiences. It's very common that people say that they saw a light and then they come back to life and that light informs how they wanna live. We can kind of get our own version of that without the near-death experience by talking to people who have experienced a whole lot more life than we have. By talking to our elders. That's always been something that humans have tried to do, but very rarely are we able to keep that awareness top of mind enough to act on it on a daily basis. Because the truth about awareness is awareness in a moment is much less important than awareness in the moment. Awareness is no good unless you have it at the testing point, like when you are actually under pressure with an important decision. Is that awareness of the importance of these real things sitting right there in front of you for you to act upon it? Because if not, you might know, oh yeah, my family is important, my health is important. But if that's not top of mind when you're making this big career decision to like go leave your whole family and go take a job in some cold place where you're not going to be able to be outside, you're not going to think about how important those things are. And so my whole intention with this and sharing it The book, any of the ideas I share is to try to force this awareness into the top of everyone's mind so that it can sit right in front of you when you are facing those testing points in your own journey.

Yeah, that's such a good point because we all know these things, but it's like the challenge of how do we actually live them? How do we live by that knowing? How do we follow through with those values? We all care about our family. We all want to be the healthiest that we can, but we continue to make sacrifices against those things and in favor of maybe career or making money because it feels like that's what's, you know, more important in the immediate present, and that that is maybe gonna facilitate the health and the family and those priorities coming— being more in the forefront later on. But I think that's also this kind of myth that we hold of like, well, once I hit this milestone, or once I get here, once I make more money, then I'll be able to kind of rearrange my life and set up these priorities to where my health and my family or other things, you know, besides money do come first. And so I'm curious from your perspective, obviously you've lived this, right? So what was your wake-up call that was enough for you to realize that there was more to wealth than just money and made you actually want to shift your priorities and change the way that you were living your life?

There's this story or parable of a boiling frog that I often think about, of like this idea that if you drop a frog into boiling water, It'll immediately jump out from the shock. But if you put a frog into lukewarm water and slowly bring it to a boil, it'll stay in there until it dies because these subtle, tiny, slow, steady changes are not noticeable enough to spark that reaction. I was kind of that boiling frog in my own life. Like, I took a job straight outta school that was the job that was gonna make me sound the most impressive. It was the job that was going to pay the most and give me the like status flex and the LinkedIn post and the, you know, sounding impressive to the people around me, making the money, the bonuses, the promotions, all of those things. And slowly and steadily over the course of 7 years, the water started to boil. Other areas of my life slowly started to suffer while I was doing so well at this one game of just making money and the career progress and status success in this one domain. And if not for COVID, I think I probably would have continued down this path of the water boiling until I was dead. And dead in this case means that you lose a whole lot of the things that actually matter to you along the way. You know, for me, that would have been my relationships. I was living 3,000 miles away from my parents who were my best friends, wasn't seeing them often. My relationship with my sister had ground to a halt. My wife and I were unfortunately struggling to conceive at the time. It was creating real strain in our relationship for the first time. I was drinking 6, 7 nights a week. My mental and physical health were in disarray. All at this time in my life where from the outside looking in, it looked like I was winning the game, right? I was doing the things that you're supposed to want to do. But 2020, 2021 came around and I started to have this sensation that if that was what winning felt like, I had to be playing the wrong game. And it all came to a head for me with one single conversation. I went out for a drink with this old friend and he asked how I was doing. And I told him that it had started to get difficult living so far away from my parents, 3,000 miles away. They were living on the East Coast. I was in California. And he asked how old they were. And I said mid-sixties. And he asked how often I saw them. And I admitted that it was down to about once a year. And he just looked at me and said, okay. So you're going to see your parents 15 more times before they die. And I just remember feeling like I had been punched in the gut. The idea that the amount of time you have left with the people you care about most in the world is that finite and countable, that you can place it onto a few hands. That just shook me to the core. And in that moment, I realized that my entire definition of success, of what it meant to build a wealthy life had been incomplete, that I was focusing on this one thing at the expense of everything else, and that if we didn't make a change, we were going to end up somewhere where we didn't want to be. And in the aftermath of that conversation, the next day, my wife and I had a very candid conversation about what our center really was, what we wanted to anchor our life around. And within 45 days, we had taken a pretty dramatic action. I had left my job. We had sold our house in California and we had moved 3,000 miles across the country to live closer to both of our sets of parents. And the last thing I'll say on that is that one decision was everything as a catalyst in our life, because in that one decision was a very important realization, which is that you are in much more control of your time than you think. We had taken an action and fundamentally created time. That number, 15 more times before my parents are gone, it's now in the hundreds. I see my parents multiple times a month. They're a huge part of my son, their grandson's life. We had taken an action and reassumed agency over our own life. We had recognized that we were capable of taking actions to build our life around the things that we truly cared about, to build our life around our true priorities. And that was the spark that changed everything.

Mm. It's so powerful because I think about that too, being someone who has for a large majority of my adult life lived far from my parents, who are also two of my best friends. I love them. I think they're some of the greatest people. And, you know, my fiancé is from Spain, so we lived there for 6 years. Now we're back in the US and so we're a little bit closer. But it does kind of feel like you know, when I'm making a choice to be closer to my family, it means he's making a choice to be farther from his. And that's probably going to be a reality that we juggle and balance with as a couple for the rest of our lives and the time that our parents are here on the planet. And I know it's a really challenging thing too, to have this, you know, desire to want to live where you want to live, in a space that feels, you know, inspiring and exciting to you, if that's not where your family lives. And also to prioritize career movement and, you know, what's going to be helpful for you. So I'm curious, that was such a big shift in moving back home to be closer to your families and kind of rearranging those priorities and understanding what you and your wife wanted to be your center, as you said. But I imagine that there must be some transition in there of letting go of like the past identity of the finance guy who like wanted to make all the money and achieve all the things, um, in that way, right? So I'm curious what it felt like after that, letting go of that identity or that perception of self, and if it affected you at all moving into a different line of work or making less money, and like how you navigated that. Okay, so I have something I think you're really gonna love, and your business is gonna love it even more. Do you want to steal the strategy I've been using to seduce premium buyers and sell out my offers on Instagram Stories? Chances are you're already posting, you're already making sales, but if your Instagram Stories aren't working as hard as you are, you're leaving money on the table. Sold Out Stories is going to teach you exactly how to change that so that you can sell out any offer at any price point. And even high-caliber coaches miss this. Because selling on stories isn't about how much you post or how frequently you show up face to camera. It's about psychological sequencing. And the way you're posting right now might be giving the premium buyers in your audience the ick. Documenting your day and hoping it builds trust, posting look at me content and calling it authority, sharing client wins as soon as they drop in instead of strategically weaving them into a story selling sequence designed to drive demand and convert We both know that you're not here to learn how to show up more. You're here because you know your content could be converting faster and more effectively. Sold Out Stories is gonna give you 5 high-converting story selling frameworks built specifically for premium buyer psychology. Inside, you'll get over 6 hours of deep dive video trainings, real IG story breakdowns, and live walkthroughs that show you exactly how to elevate your slides from authority building all the way to offer flow in less than 10 steps. Slides. My clients have already been using these frameworks to pull 5-figure sales days while posting less. One client generated 14 premium leads from a single story sequence. Another sold out her event in under 6 hours with just 8 strategic story slides. No sales calls, no paid ads, just the right frameworks. You'll walk away knowing how to sequence for desire, transition into your offer seamlessly, and sell daily without ever feeling salesy. You already know your offer is incredible, so now it's just time for your stories to sell it like it is. Grab Sold Out Stories today and turn 10 slides or less into your highest converting content. Let's make your next story your most profitable one yet. Click the link in the show notes below and I'll see you inside.

I think what you're hitting on is a really important idea, which is the transition idea. It, it's very easy in hindsight to talk about breakthroughs as like a before and an after. And after it looks much better and I'm very happy and life is great and we're making money and doing all these things. And there's this tendency to be like, well, obviously, you know, like you were before, then you made a decision, now you're in the after. And that's not actually how life works. As we all know, there's this period of real discomfort, of struggle, and a lot of that discomfort comes from the challenge of letting go of the old, of unbecoming the old in order to become the new. And I think what you hit on, which is you said identity very appropriately, that's the, the hardest one because letting go of the old identity means letting go of the stories you told yourself. It means letting go of a lot of the people who are a part of that environment, even though you don't have the new stories or the new people out in front of you. You don't know what it is that you really are. You might not really have the structure or the purpose around those things. And that was really challenging for me. Um, I would say that it was much easier given that I was grounded in doing something that I really fundamentally got energy from, which was writing. Um, I knew that that was going to be a core part of it. And so I was able to center on this one thing between that family and my kind of like health pursuits that I refound. I had appropriate anchor points to start kind of grounding my identity that I could then build upon. And I think that when we talk about identity, that's really important. Is to sort of know what the, like, foundational bricks are in that that you can build up from. You know, there's a tendency to just think that your identity is this, like, perfect fixed thing and then you shift to a new identity. The truth is that it's like this brick wall, and when you make a change, you pull a whole bunch of bricks out of it and it feels really disconcerting. But you don't just like all of a sudden have a new wall. You kind of build it up brick by brick with the new actions that you are taking. You don't think your way into the identity, you act your way into it. And that was really what I grounded myself in. I had these few things. I started taking action on a daily basis. My absolute favorite quote of all time is the ancient poet Rumi, who said, "As you start to walk on the way, the way appears." That is the idea that you cannot plan the future. You cannot plan the identity. You cannot plan out this journey standing where you are. You have to start walking. And then the way appears.

So good. I love that so much because I always say, like, action is the thing that creates clarity. I think a lot of people are waiting for the clarity in order to take the action of who that next version of themselves is going to be or what that next move is in their life, and it's like, you have to just do something and trust that by taking step 1, step 2 will appear. And it's this weird sort of like video game simulation that you're living where you almost like step out onto the first stone in the path, and then like, boop, like the next one appears and you're like, okay, so I guess I do that next. And you really do just have to follow along in that journey of self-trust, of doing the one thing that you know and trusting and believing that the next thing will appear. So you go through that transition of building brick by brick this new identity. And I'd, I'd love if you can share kind of with our listeners today what that new version or definition of living a wealthy life eventually became for you? Because before it was really centered around accolades, recognition, money, success, those things. But once you kind of started to build this new identity, how did that reshape your definition of what it means to live a wealthy life and kind of discovering these 5 different types of wealth?

So when I made that transition, the first thing that I did was I went on a journey to try to understand why I had fallen victim to that trap in the first place. Like, what was it that had actually led to me walking down this path towards what I really think of as like a Pyrrhic victory, as it's called? It's like the battle won, but the war lost. It's a victory that comes at such a steep cost that it might as well have been a defeat. I was walking down that like very traditional path that you don't need to look very far to find examples of. Like, you know, it's the, it's the person who's made hundreds of millions, maybe a billion dollars, that we celebrate and admire and pat on the back, tell them that they won the game, and we ignore the fact that they have 4 ex-wives and 5 kids that don't talk to them. And as a society, we celebrate that person in a lot of ways. But to me, that is a Pyrrhic victory. You won the battle, but you lost the much bigger picture war of building this great beautiful life. I wanted to understand why it was that that had happened. And to me, what I came to understand was that it was all about what you measure. What you measure in life really matters. The things that you measure end up dictating all of your actions. Again, not hard to find examples of that. A silly example, like if you know anyone that has ever put on an Oura Ring or like a sleep tracking band, all of a sudden These people suddenly become the most annoying sleep person in the world. They're like, oh no, I can't go out. I can't do this. I can't drink. Cuz my sleep score, all of your actions suddenly start surrounding the one thing that you can measure historically as a society. What can we measure? Money. Money is the one most measurable thing. It is very clear how you measure it, how you stack yourself up. So all of our actions surrounded that one thing. But unfortunately, while money is a contributor to a good life, as we talked about, it may enable some of these things. It is not the only thing. And so as I started having conversations with at first tens and then hundreds and then eventually thousands of people across all walks of life to try to understand this bigger picture problem that we were all facing and how to wrestle with it, to write about it, I asked people like, what your ideal life really looks like when you get older. What is the life you are trying to go and build? And then those older people, what, What advice would you give to that younger self? And what I kept coming across were these 4 key themes: time, people, purpose, and health. Over and over and over again, all walks of life, all around the world, didn't matter who these people were. Those were the 4 things that kept coming up. Money was an enabler to some of those, but it was not an end in and of itself. And so that was where I started to formulate this idea of these 5 types of wealth. Time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, physical wealth, and financial wealth as being the pillars of this new scoreboard, if you will, a new way to measure your life. Because when you measure your life for the broader, bigger picture war, you can take the right actions and then create the right outcomes.

So good. I have a friend who— she, she's so good at this. She like categorizes her calendar into all these different colors and everything that's for like her social life or for leisure and like pouring into herself, like they're all in these different colors so that she can literally measure at the end of every month like how much time she spent on work versus pouring into herself versus pouring into her relationships. And I think it speaks beautifully to what you were saying of like it can be challenging to measure these other things, which is why we don't focus on them as much. And you're so, so right.

And you don't think— you don't think about the fact that they compound. Like, I am, you know, everyone listening and, you know, you obviously speak about this as well, that like when you talk about money in your finances, we all know that investments today are going to stack and build over the long term. You know that, that putting away $50 or $100 today is better than nothing. Because it's going to grow into your future. The exact same principle applies to these other areas of life. But we don't think that way. We don't realize and recognize that an investment in your relationships is, quite frankly, the best investment that you can make when it comes to your future happiness, your future health. Investments in your relationships are the single greatest investment, but they're the first thing that fall by the wayside when we get busy because we don't think about the fact that the tiny thing done well today is going to stack and compound into our future.

You have this, uh, saying that I've heard you talk about of like everything above zero compounds, which I think kind of speaks to exactly what you said. Like even if it seems like that one little thing that you do to pour into or nurture or invest in your relationship doesn't— is kind of like useless, it's not gonna do anything, if you will. Like the same way you would think maybe investing $2 or $10 is not gonna have that much of an effect. It's like it creates that compound over time and it actually does create a really— in the same way that neglecting the relationships or being like, oh, we'll have time later. You know, intimacy later with my partner. This season of life, too busy. Later, later. Like the reverse is also true.

Later is the most dangerous word in the dictionary. I mean, we like even just hearing you say it, it like gives me chills because I spent so many years of my own life just saying like, you know, all the laters you hear people, it's right. It's like I'll spend more time with my kids later. I'll focus on my relationship with my partner, with my friends later. I'll invest in my health later. I'll find my freedom and purpose later. And the sad thing is that those laters just become another word for never, because those things aren't going to exist in the same way later. Your health won't be there for you later if you don't invest in it now. Your partner, your friends, they won't be there for you if you're not there for them now. Your kids aren't going to be 5 years old later, right? You won't magically wake up with freedom and purpose later. So either you find some way, tiny way to design those things into your life right now, or you're just going to end up regretting it later. And as you said, anything above zero compounds. Like, I wish I could— I maybe I will. I need to get this tattooed on my body like it is. It is the failure of the ambitious mind. Everyone listening to this, right? Anyone that listens to podcasts probably self-identifies as an ambitious person. Ambitious people have a lot going for them. One of the things that they suck at is allowing optimal to get in the way of beneficial. Over and over and over again, optimal gets in the way of beneficial. They say things like, and I know because I've done this, I don't have an hour to work out, so I'm just not going to work out today. Or, you know, I don't have 2 hours for deep work, so I guess I'm just going to send emails. I don't have an hour to call my mom, so I'm not even going to text her. Over and over again, allowing optimal to get in the way of beneficial when the truth is that a 15-minute walk is infinitely better than doing nothing. 30 minutes of deep work, infinitely better than nothing. Sending a text to your mom, infinitely better than doing nothing. Anything above zero compounds. So design those things into your life that you want to create in some tiny way. The tiniest way still stacks and compounds into the future.

Oh, so good. I'm guilty of that.

I definitely— we all are.

I know, I know. It's so bad, but I'm sure people listening are like, fuck, I'm called out. But I'm right there with you. So let's talk about relationships, because in the book you tell the story about your parents who have been together for 43 years, um, but they had to make this really significant sacrifice in order to choose each other. And I, I saw you post about this on their anniversary, and I was like literally tearing up. I was like, this is the sweetest thing ever. So can you tell that story and share how it has kind of impacted your views on love?

Yeah, I am extraordinarily blessed to have had the example of a loving relationship of my parents and to have grown up around that. My parents come from two completely different worlds. My mom was born and raised in Bangalore, India. She was the third daughter of three and was kind of like the rebellious one, like her two older sisters were very high achieving academically. My mom was always kind of like screwing around. My mom applied in secret to go to university in the United States. Her parents weren't going to allow her to do that. She applied, got in, got a scholarship, and comes to the United States. Brave. My dad— Indian parents. What's that?

Brave with Indian parents.

Very brave. My mom has always had a bit of a rebellious spirit, as you'll see in the story. My dad was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. Very domineering, overbearing father. My dad was kind of like the golden child. On the track, doing well in school, go to school, go into academia, safe, stable job. They crossed paths over a 2-week period at Princeton University. My mom was working in the library to pay her way through a master's program. My dad was just finishing his dissertation. This is like Indian girl, thick accent, you know, had recently come over and then white Jewish guy from the Bronx, New York, studying in the library. My mom walked up to him and asked him on a date, asked him to go out for ice cream. And they go out on this first date. And my dad says to my mom on the first date, my father will never accept us. And my mom was so excited and blinded by his use of the word us that she completely missed the message. And unfortunately, she was— he was right. His father was not accepting of this courtship, this idea of his, his golden child marrying, you know, for lack of a better way to put it, a brown girl, and forced him to choose between her and his family. And my dad walked out the door and never saw his family again. I've never met my dad's parents. He has 3 siblings I've never met. I have first cousins out there in the world that I've never met, all on this one decision. To choose love above all else, to reject this default path that was handed and to choose to carve their own. And if there's one lesson I feel I have learned from that, it is that your love is yours, your life, your love, the people that you care about, your energy. It does not need to make sense to anyone else. It is perfectly okay to live a life that looks confusing to everyone around you as long as it is yours and you have truly chosen it. And my parents' relationship now, you know, 43 years later, they are, um, a true example to me of what a loving, supportive partnership and marriage looks like. My wife and I have been blessed to grow up around that, to see that. Um, and it's hard for me to imagine that it all could have fallen apart if not for that one fateful decision that they made.

Yeah, it's so cool to hear our parents love stories and think about all of the— I mean, this makes me go so existential sometimes when I'm like, every single decision has been adding up to like all the things that have ever happened. And if this one thing went wrong, then like I wouldn't exist and my child wouldn't exist or whatever. Like, it's pretty crazy, but it's also really beautiful. And I just love that story, so I wanted you to share it. But knowing and seeing growing up that, you know, fierce level of love that your parents had for each other, to be willing to choose each other over, you know, being accepted by their own family and, and parents. Um, I'm sure that had an impact on the way that you viewed choosing your own life partner. So I'm curious how you would rank, you know, obviously you're married, you have a child, so you kind of know what this is like now in this stage of your life. But in retrospect, how would you rank the importance of the choice when it comes to choosing a life partner? How, like, how much does that impact for you in your life? Hey, don't forget that every month we are picking a Listener of the Month to win $50 in cash just for showing love to the show. All you have to do is leave an epic review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts, screenshot the review before you hit submit, and DM that screenshot to to us on Instagram at Makeshift Happen Podcast. And that's it. I want to thank you for being such a loyal listener and show my appreciation by putting a little extra cash in your pocket. I know it's super easy not to do it, but every single rating and review seriously helps the show rank higher and reach new people, so we appreciate them more than you know. We'll announce the next winner at the end of the month and slide into your DMs if it's you, so keep an eye out. And good luck. Love you guys, and thanks for supporting Makeshift Happen.

I think that it is the single most important decision that you will ever make, but I think that that is also a bit of a mischaracterization because what it implies is that it is a single decision. And if there's one thing that I've learned and probably changed my mind on recently, it is that You cannot make the right choice on the first decision. You can definitely make the wrong choice, but you can't make the right choice. The reason I say that is because the right choice is determined by the thousands upon thousands of daily choices that you make to show up with energy and support for that person day in and day out. From there on out, you can't make the right choice on day one because if you marry the perfect person on day one, everything's great. But then you disappear, then you are not there to support them in their dark times, then you are not there to have the hard conversations, then you're not there when you need to struggle in the mud. That is not going to work out. I can guarantee it. And similarly, you could make an okay decision at the upstart. You know, you're not positive that this is the right person, but you commit to showing up with energy and enthusiasm and a positive attitude to be there in the hard times and the good. That will probably work out. And the truth is that it is a choice. Love is a choice to show up on a daily basis. It is not a single decision that you make. And I think that recognizing that is a rather empowering idea because when you assume that it has to be the perfect single decision, that puts an enormous burden on you to think about it so, so much prior to that one decision. And what that does is it leads to paralysis. It leads to an overthinking. That can be traumatizing for a lot of people when they're single and they're trying to find that person. I mean, I have so many friends who are in their 30s. They want to find their partner and they're convinced that it's like it's the one decision. And over and over again, they kind of get close and there's someone they clearly have a connection, a bond with that they clearly love. But they start getting into this overthinking pattern about the one decision rather than recognizing that it's actually going to be thousands upon thousands. So the— it's really about finding the person where you have this alignment of core big picture values and you want to be in the foxhole with that person. It's like finding your foxhole partner, like the person that you're going to be willing to struggle and crawl through the mud with is the person that you're going to build a beautiful bond with, because that's what most of life really is. It is just that struggle in different scenarios and different seasons of life. I mean, life is not the perfect, beautiful honeymoon phase throughout. You have moments of that for sure, but a lot of life is like these simple random stressors and things that come up that you are navigating together. It is one long conversation, as the saying goes.

I love that reframe so much because I, I also have single friends, and I think when you get to a certain age, especially as a woman, and you kind of have that pressure of the timeline, then adding that additional pressure on top of feeling like this has to be the perfect exact right person, and then it's all down to just that one decision, can feel really insanely, you know, high pressure to where you're just not sure, and then you don't trust yourself to keep moving forward with this individual. When in reality, it is those thousands of decisions. It's, is this someone that I would want to keep choosing and working with and working on over and over? And so kind of in that, in that vein of like working on a relationship and growing in a relationship, can you talk about the difference between falling in love versus growing in love? Because I think you have some interesting takes on this in terms of like the hidden debt theory and things like that that I've heard you talk about.

Falling in love is very, very easy. Growing in love is very hard. Falling in love is what you see on social media. It's the perfectly curated posts. It's the filtered images. It's the honeymoon. It's the fancy date nights out. Growing in love is what you don't see on social media. That is the nights sitting around in your pajamas, uh, you know, talking about nothing, uh, struggling with things, crawling through the mud together, hard conversations. Growing in love is what actually builds a deep long-term bond. But we get so convinced that the falling is what matters because of this social media age that we live in, that we lose sight of the fact that the growing is really what creates the connection over the future seasons of your life that you want to build across. And so reframing that in your own mind to focus on the growing, not the falling, is a really important thing. I mentioned hard conversations. I have this theory, I call it the hidden debt theory, that when you avoid a hard conversation, you are taking on a debt that you have to repay with interest at a date in the future. Time doesn't heal anything when it comes to relationships. It just makes it worse. So when you avoid these hard conversations, recognize that you are going to have to repay them later. It's much better to make those minor repairs along the way, to just have those minor hard conversations now to avoid those much bigger payments that you're gonna have to make in the long run.

Mm. It's so true. Oh my gosh. How time does not— when you let things fester, it just gets so much worse.

And we all make that mistake. I just think, you know, one of the other things that I've recognized recently is there is this obsession with finding all things in one person that is really, uh, challenging and, um, holds a lot of people back. Like, I, you know, I have a lot of— yeah, like, I have a lot of friends who, you know, if they want to find the partner that literally fulfills fills every single need that they might have as a human being. And the truth is that that person does not exist. You are not going to find a one person that is all things to you, just like you will not be all things to one person. That's okay. That is because we are all imperfect. Marriage is not about finding the perfect person. It's about embracing the imperfect person, finding that complementarity to meet those people and to grow together as a unit to be more perfect. But when you chase that perfection, when you assume that that is what you need to find, you build this standard in your mind that is going to be impossible to meet. And, um, it is holding a lot of people back from finding a, a relationship that could be an extraordinary and beautiful one for them.

Hmm. So, so true. Oh my God. All my single friends and listeners are gonna be listening to this, like, eating this up because it's so true.

It's— I hope it helps. I mean, I, um, I really do think that just like we need to not build up in our minds these false standards and impressions. And like, when it comes to that list of things, like, I have so many friends that make these elaborate lists of all the things they want to find in another person, and then they don't embody a single one of those things. Like, I'm like, I have a friend and he's got this whole list of what he wants to find in his future wife. And, you know, the first one is like, you know, oh, I want her to be really trusting. I'm like, but you're not trusting. So how can you expect to find, you know, like, how can you expect to find a person that's going to embody something that you're not embodying yourself? Single best piece of relationship advice I've ever heard is to make a list of all of the things that you want to find in a partner, then go out and embody those things. You attract into your life the things that you are putting out into the world. The values you wanna find in another person, embody those values yourself. Mend your garden and the butterflies will come. Mario Quintana said that. Incredible, incredible idea. Applies to almost everything in life and it is 100% true.

So, so true. We talk so much on this show about manifestation too, and that's kind of like the main principle, right? Is like you attract what you are. You don't attract what you want, you attract what you are. So like go become that, go be that, those characteristics that you're desiring. In a partner. I love that. Okay. This idea of time is something that I think a lot of, you know, young professionals are also obsessed with wanting the time freedom. That's a big piece of what, how they view their wealthy life, their rich life, if you will, is like having time and knowing that it's such a precious asset. Um, you, you've talked about this idea where you ask people if they would trade lives with of Warren Buffett, and it just beautifully illustrates, you know, the— how important time actually is to us more so than money. So can you talk about that a little bit and your kind of perspective on how to prioritize and value time over other things like money?

This is the question that I love to ask all young people, which is, would you trade lives with Warren Buffett? He's worth $130 billion last I checked. He has access to absolutely anyone in the world. He flies around on a Boeing business jet. He basically reads and learns for a living. He can sort of stay anywhere and do whatever he wants. But you wouldn't trade lives with him simply because he's 95 years old. There is no way that you would agree to trade the amount of time that he has left for all of that money. And on the flip side, He would give anything. He would give up all of that money to be in your shoes, to have the amount of time that you have left. So with a simple question, you acknowledge that your time has quite literally incalculable value. And yet on a daily basis, how much of it are you really wasting? How much of your time are you spending scrolling on your phone, comparing yourself to other people, stressing about the past, anxiety about the future, all of these things that are fundamentally disregarding this one most precious asset that you really have. Because the truth is that you are a billionaire in one very clear sense, which is that you are a time billionaire. You have billions of seconds left in your life. A billion seconds is roughly 30 years. So when you're 20 years old, you have 2 billion seconds left. When you're 50 years old, you maybe have a billion seconds left, maybe more if our health technologies continue to improve. But you are not treating yourself that way. You are not recognizing that time is the most precious asset. It is the one thing that we really need to be careful about how we allocate. And the thing that most people do is they say that later idea again, when it comes to time, they say like, well, I'm gonna make money and then that's going to get me the freedom. And the truth is that money doesn't equal freedom. Thoughtfully designed lives can be free. Money can help with that. But it does not equal freedom. What happens to a lot of people is they start making a bunch of money, they start spending a lot of money, and the money actually does not buy them the freedom they thought because they never created this margin of freedom along that journey. They never created slack in the system that allows them to be free. I have friends that make $10 million a year that are stuck in a job they absolutely hate working long hours because their entire life has been built up to that level of earning. They cannot leave to go do some other job that would pay them less, uh, that would provide less of a life for their wife, for their kids, for the other people in their life that have come to expect certain things. That is a design flaw. That is not an issue with the money. You're making plenty of money to have a super, super free life. And most people who have not yet made money find that incomprehensible, but It happens over and over again, especially when you spend so much of your time comparing yourself to other people, doing the keeping up with the Joneses thing that so many people in these big cities do.

Mm-hmm. Oh my God. Because the money can then become its own sort of prison and cage when it's like, well, now the expenses are at such a level that I have to keep making more money. And I think it's so real that there's millionaires and billionaires even that still feel a very consistent consistent level of stress around money. They probably don't even feel financially free. They have a lot of flexes, they can do a lot of things, it looks great, but it doesn't feel great. And I think to your point, like, a free life is not something that just looks good, but it actually feels good, and you're enjoying the process of it and the way that you live that life, right?

When the money that was supposed to serve you can start to own you very, very easily. I think that is all— it all comes down to this idea that I've written about, about this margin of freedom in your life, making sure that as you continue to build and grow your earnings, cash that you are generating, which is great, make more money, make sure that you have a margin of freedom there so that if you do take a step back from the earnings, you're not going to feel this enormous drop in your overall life. And really, that margin of freedom is about maintaining expectations at a reasonable level. Your expectations are your single greatest financial liability. If your expectations for what your life needs to be for you to be happy rise faster than your assets, you will never feel wealthy. You'll never feel rich because you're just going to be chasing some more that the world has handed to you, whether it's what you see on social media. So-and-so has a bigger house, a better private jet, better schools for their kids, whatever, or whether it's what you see on your street from the people that you're living around in your environment. You'll just be chasing some more that someone else has created for you rather than the life that you actually want.

In knowing that time is our most valuable asset and the thing that we have to be the most intentional about how we allocate, I'm curious how you think about time now and kind of evaluating what you say yes versus no to because you have a lot going on for you in your career. You're an author. You've got to go on these book tours. Um, but you also have a family and you have a young child. So I'm curious if you have any kind of like frameworks that you use in your own life to decide what is worth saying yes versus no to, and how do I get out of that matrix of, you know, comparing yourself to the people that you read books about or that seem super successful?

I think that the comparison one ends when you get very clear about what you want your life to look like. A lot of insecurity and comparison comes from the lack of clarity about the life you are actually trying to build. What you find when you talk to people across the spectrum, across all walks of life, is generally speaking, the life they are building towards is one that they have adopted through like mimetic desire. They basically have just decided that like, oh, here's the life that I'm building, and really it's just a byproduct of like indoctrination into this culture, social media, whatever. They don't actually have a clear picture of what the life is that they want. What is the money for? What does your enough life look like? Where are you living? What are you doing? Who are you with? What are you thinking about? What is the life you were really trying to build? Once you get clear on that, that is your game. You are playing your own game. You don't need to get grabbed By the millions of other games out there, because you know what your game is and you know the actions you're going to take to go and build and win that one game that reduces all of that insecurity. I mean, I used to go to parties, events, whatever, in New York City when I was first going through this transition, when I was not clear on that picture. And I would feel this like, um, negative energy, like this desire to almost lie, to like build up my accomplishments and the things that I was doing to sound more impressive to those other people. And I would catch myself doing it and wonder, like, why am I doing that? Like, it doesn't make sense to me. And it was because I didn't have a clear picture of the game that I was trying to play, of the life I was trying to build. So I was consenting to try to measure myself on their scoreboard, playing their game, and I was doing worse than them on theirs. And so I would try to lie to make myself sound bigger on it. Now that I have a clear picture of the life I'm trying to build, I don't give a— like, excuse my language— I don't give a fuck. I know what I'm trying to do, the life I'm trying to build, the people that I'm trying to build that life for. And if other people want to play a different game, I'm super happy for them. That's great. But I know exactly what I want to do. Once you have that clarity, it's easy to say no to things that don't fit into that. It means sometimes cutting things that you previously felt were kind of part of your identity. Like, you know, it means doing things that feel uncomfortable, saying no to opportunities that might pay you more money, but they would mean traveling 200 nights out of the year. And that's not in line with the life you are trying to build. And so that is sort of the like natural give and take and the struggle that comes with these different seasons. But the biggest thing that I can offer of advice is to just get ultra clear on what that life looks like that you are trying to build. It's like that story of the fisherman and the banker, right? Like you need to understand where you sit on that spectrum and what that life really looks like.

So, so good. I think where a lot of people struggle is they get clear on that and then they get pulled, they get sucked back into the matrix or they're, you know, they're looking at the wrong things on social media or they're still kind of exposing themselves to those people that have a totally different map of what's important. And so they're being in those environments can kind of like make them wobble in a sense of what they had established was like their enough version of life and what was important to them and what their priorities were. I see that a lot, um, you know, with friends, with clients, with even myself sometimes. It's like, okay, this is where I'm going, this is who I want to be, this is enough for me, I'm not going to sacrifice these things. And then you kind of get the shiny object syndrome sometimes of like, oh shit, but that looks really fun, or that looks really nice, or I wish I was on a yacht in Italy, or, or whatever, right? And so, um, I think that's where people can struggle. And that probably comes down to, I guess, in, in my mind, environment and being really careful with how you curate, you know, your surroundings and your circle of people around you, and making sure that you have people in your close circle that are in alignment with those values. I don't know, what do you, what do you think is helpful in terms of maybe having some bumpers or some guardrails so that you can stay focused on that clear vision?

Yeah, I think that your environment dictates a lot of this. Like, it is very difficult to have your own vision of this and be really modest, you know, and clear on that vision if you live in New York City and you're spending time around a bunch of billionaires and going to parties with them. The sad reality is that social media gives you access to that billionaire life. Nonstop, no matter where you live. You could live in the middle of, you know, Alabama, Omaha, wherever, like, you know, random city across the United States. Anywhere you live, you can, you know, you can be right there in the mix. And so you really need to curate your digital consumption just as much as your physical when it comes to your environment, because that really does impact a lot of those feelings and how you feel. I think being clear on what that vision looks like means having triggers all around you. To reset you when you feel those pulls. I don't think it's unnatural or weird to feel those pulls. I still feel them. You know, I see people doing things, I see people living certain ways, and I'll feel the pull. And then I'll look at a picture that's sitting on my desk of me and my son in the pool at 1 PM on a Tuesday. And I remember like, hey, I probably couldn't do that if, if I wanted to make 10 times as much money. I would have to go dramatically all in on one thing, be traveling 300 nights out of the year. My life would just look fundamentally different. And it would probably mean not being able to take my 3-year-old son in the pool at 1 PM on a Tuesday. And that's not really worth it to me. I've got enough money. Like, I have a pool in my backyard. That's pretty good for me. You know, there's not a whole lot more than I need. I don't need a yacht. I don't need a private jet. You know, I have some friends that maybe have those things. Maybe I'll be able to fly on them every now and then. That's good enough for me. Then I don't have to worry about, you know, maintaining the damn things in the first place. And by the way, when people feel the, like, pull, when you're like, oh man, I wish I was on a yacht in Italy, usually you don't actually want that thing. You want to be able to show other people that you have that thing. And so I have this idea in my book of— I call it the bought status test. Before you buy something, ask yourself, would I buy this thing if I couldn't show or tell a single other person that I had it? Would I actually spend the money on this thing? Usually the answer is no. That doesn't mean you don't need to buy it. That doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it, but it does mean that you can be clear about the things that you were doing purely for the benefit of some other random person out in the world. The amount of time and headspace that we spend worrying about the opinions of people who won't remember your name in 5 seconds is insane to me. And if we can pull back on those reins a little bit and recognize the few things that we really care about and focus our energy and attention on those, our lives improve.

Hmm. I think Gary V talks about that quite often too. This idea that, you know, you're, you're doing stuff for someone else on the internet in a basement somewhere who's going to see it for 5 seconds and they don't know you. And it's like then you're kind of ruining your goals of what you had set was the clarity for who you want to be and how you want to operate for people that don't even know you and that don't matter. And it goes back to that kind of keeping up with the Joneses phenomenon that you spoke about. But yeah, I think curating your environment is such a, such a good tip because we know that it has such an effect on our mental wellbeing, our physical wellbeing, our creativity, productivity. I mean, for even just things beyond, you know, buffering and having those bumpers and guardrails for the comparison, it's like when you can curate an environment that's in alignment with your values and people who are on the same page as you, and you're not, um, seeing things on your social media that are constantly making you feel not enough or like you need someone else's version of success. It can really help you thrive in all these different areas of your life. And so as we talk about this idea of time, I'm curious what— I just love to ask like successful, cool people like what, what an average day in their life looks like. So as a guy who completely, you know, changed his whole life to prioritize these 5 forms of wealth outside of the realm of money, but is also, you know, still doing a lot to create income and impact. I'm curious what like a random day in your life looks like. You mentioned like being in the pool with your son at 1 o'clock, but I've also seen on Instagram that you have— I don't know if you do this all the time— I saw you waking up at 4:30.

I do wake up early.

Okay, so don't lie to us about being in the 5 AM Club. But like, what is it? What does a day in your life look like?

Yeah, I, um, I wake up at 4:15. Um, that is not that I'm a hardo about sleep. I go to bed at like 8:15. I just live like an 80-year-old man schedule. I wake up at 4:15. I generally speaking do my cold plunge. Then I read from about 4:30 to 5. For me, that's just like anything. It's not like I'm reading specific things to try to get better at something. I like— I read trashy fiction just as much as I read, you know, helpful, productive nonfiction. I then generally will work on something creative from 5 to 7:30. The reason I get up so early is because it's the quiet time in my day when I feel most creative, and it's before my son wakes up and before my wife wakes up. So I get a few hours of really focused time on my most important creative project. For the last couple of years, that was the book. That might be my newsletter that I write 3 or 4 times a week, but I get this quiet, creative, focused time when I feel really creative from about 7:30 or 8 to 9. I'll spend time with my wife and son. We'll all have breakfast together, hang out, maybe go for a walk. Then I do my workouts. So I do kind of a combination of like distance running marathons with lifting. That's from, say, 9 to 11-ish. 11 to about 1 ends up being family time. We have lunch, go for a walk, maybe go in the pool, do something like that if it's nice out. And then from 1 to 5, I have sort of a like focus work block that is more focused on business stuff. So that's you know, any calls or meetings, podcasts, you know, investing stuff. I run a venture fund. Doing any of those things is kind of the afternoon. Then we all have dinner together, make dinner at home, and I always cook. Like, it's kind of one of my acts of service. Like, I really enjoy cooking. So I cook us all dinner, might go outside, go for a walk, do something if it's nice out. And then we sort of wind down, like bath time for my son. Get him to bed. And then in the evening, I always do kind of like a 30 or 40-minute sauna, reading, reflection, journaling, just kind of clear my head and think on things before getting into bed to watch a show with my wife around 7:30 or so.

It sounds like such a nice day.

It is very confusing to a lot of my friends my age that, you know, live the high life in L.A. or New York and are going out to dinner at the time when I'm like, you know, when I'm falling asleep and people invite me out to dinner and I'm like, can we do it at 5:30? Do a 5:30 dinner if you want to do that. But it really works for us and I absolutely love it. Like, I am never happier than I'm when— than when I'm at home in my routines, living my boring life. And I would just say that, like, I have come to realize the older I get, the more I realize that it is perfectly reasonable to live a boring life that looks confusing to others. Like wake up early, move, think deeply on things, obsess over something, pray, you know, uh, reflect on your life, spend time with people you care about. Like these are all things that are not sexy but are definitely the recipe for a truly good life.

Yeah, I think there's a really amazing sense of peace that comes when you accept kind of the mundaneness of your routines because you know that those actually are the pieces of freedom that you've intentionally created for yourself and not kind of wishing that it looked different, but because you feel genuinely, that's when you feel your best. Like genuinely, that is when you are the most fulfilled, the happiest, the most grounded, the most rested. It's like, That is the purpose. And yes, we can do these, you know, grandiose things from time to time, take a big vacation, go travel, do something wild, you know, do a New York City weekend where you are having late dinners or drinks or whatever. And those are fun things to like inject into your life here and there, but really understanding what works for you. And again, not stacking up your life against other people and knowing not everyone's going to get it because it's, it's, that sounds probably like everyone who's listening to this podcast, like that's the dream day, right? Like, that is the goal. But most people listening to this podcast are not normal people. Like, it's also— we have to recognize, like, when you look out into the normal world— I'm looking at all these apartment buildings and homes outside my windows right now, and I think about the people that are living their lives in those homes right now— like, that's not their reality. And so it is this beautiful privilege, especially as entrepreneurs, that we get to create that freedom for ourselves and not have to judge that it looks boring or it doesn't look right to other people, but really understanding like, this is the freedom that we desired. And I think sometimes we can lose the appreciation for that when you're deeper in it, when you've been doing it for a couple of years and it just becomes your new normal. You can start to tell yourself like, oh, I need that next exciting thing, or this isn't how it's supposed to be, or I want something different. And always kind of remembering, I guess, that the version of reality that you've created, if it is this intentional freedom, remembering like, this is what you prayed for, because so many of us have created that intentionally, and then we can lose the reverence and the gratitude for it quite quickly.

The things that you prayed for become the things that you complain about if you let them, over and over again in our lives. I mean, the, the house you prayed for becomes the house that you complain is too small. Yeah, the car you prayed for becomes the one you can't wait to trade in. Um, we need to create triggers in our lives to remember that we are quite literally living out our prayers.

Yeah. That's so beautiful. Oh my God, I love that. That's such a good way to close out this conversation that I feel like I have a thousand things I could ask you. You're fascinating, Sahil. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I loved your book. I'm excited to share it with everyone in the audience. We'll link everything for them in the show notes, but can you share where they can find you and come read your content and see what you're up to?

You can find me @sahilbloom on any major platform. My book is available on Amazon. It's called The Five Types of Wealth. Or anywhere else books are sold. If you have a favorite local bookshop, I'm sure you can get it there as well. And my newsletter is on my website as well.

So, so good. Thank you so much, Sahil. It's been such a pleasure. If you loved this episode, make sure that you copy the link, send it to a friend in a text, send it to your mom. Nurture those relationships. Let's kill two birds with one stone. Share the love on this episode and let someone know that you are thinking of them. Or also take a screenshot, maybe share it to your Instagram stories, tag both Sahil and I so that we can see you guys are listening. We love you so much., and we'll talk to you next week. Bye. If you loved this episode, make sure to check out the show notes where I've linked a few similar episodes I know you're also going to love. You'll find them under the similar episodes section in the description down below with direct links so you can dive in and start listening right away or add them to your queue for later. Binge away for even more growth, expansion, abundance, and fire motivation.