The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom

How strongly I recommend this book: 9 / 10

Date read: March 10, 2025

Get this book on Amazon

Summary

My big takeaways from the 5 types of wealth –

1/ Time Wealth: Time is the most precious resource. You (likely) wouldn’t exchange your youth with Warren Buffett for his financial wealth. Calculate the time you have remaining with your closed ones. Reflecting on the limited amount of time you have will help orient your life decisions.

2/ Social Wealth: One point to takeaway – the single greatest predictor of physical health at age eighty was relationship satisfaction at age fifty. Prioritize it

3/ Mental Wealth: A life without curiosity is an empty life, a life of stasis, a life without wonder. Always be curious. Always be learning.

4/ Physical Wealth: The easiest way to gain confidence and control is to exercise the body. “Treat your body like a house you have to live in for another seventy years.”

5/ Financial Wealth: Financial success is a by product of the amount of value you create for those around you. Stick to a few core principles of managing wealth and focus on creating value for others.

Favorite Quotes and Chapter Notes

I went through my notes and captured key quotes from all chapters below.

P.S. – Highly recommend Readwise if you want to get the most out of your reading.

Highlights and Notes

Prologue: The Journey of a Lifetime

• Worse yet, the incessant quest for more had blinded me to the great beauty of what I had right in front of me. In a fable recorded in Plato’s early works, a philosopher named Thales of Miletus is walking along obsessively gazing at the stars, only to fall into a well that he did not see at his feet. A poetic retelling by Jean de La Fontaine concludes, How many folks, in country and in town, Neglect their principal affair; And let, for want of due repair, A real house fall down, To build a castle in the air?

• But reading, I found, can take you only so far— to understand something deeply human, you need to immerse yourself in the human experience.

• We all want the same thing— and it has very little to do with money. From the young entrepreneur to the old retiree, from the new mother to the empty nester, from the rich attorney to the middle- class teacher, the ideal future end looks remarkably aligned: Time, people, purpose, health. Without fail, every single person I guided through the exercise had some combination of these pillars at the center of the ideal future day. Spending time surrounded by loved ones, engaged in activities that create purpose and growth, healthy in mind, body, and spirit. Money was an enabler to these ends, but not an end in and of itself.

• If we fix the scoreboard to measure our wealth more comprehensively, our actions will follow. We’ll play the game right. Right scoreboard, right actions.

• Your entire life can change in one year. Not ten, not five, not three. One. One year of asking the right questions. One year of measuring and prioritizing the right things. One year of focused, daily effort on the right actions. Trust me, I’ve lived it.

• Never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough.

Designing Your Dream Life

• misogi challenge(a Japanese ritual that involves doing something so challenging on one day that it has lasting benefits for the rest of the year).

• “Never fear sadness, as it tends to sit right next to love.”

• “Find dear friends and celebrate them, for the richness of being human is in feeling loved and loving back.”

• In a text message, the eighty- year- old father of a close friend expressed regret over his body’s deterioration over the years:“Treat your body like a house you have to live in for another seventy years.” He added,“If something has a minor issue, repair it. Minor issues become major issues over time. This applies equally to love, friendships, health, and home.”

• ninety- two- year- old who had recently lost his beloved wife of seventy years said something that brought tears to both of our eyes, his poetic ode to their evening practice:“Tell your partner you love them every night before falling asleep; someday you’ll find the other side of the bed empty and you’ll wish you could tell them.”

• The responses ranged from playful and witty(“ Dance at weddings until your feet are sore”) to deeply moving(“ Never let a good friendship atrophy”).

• Regret from inaction is always more painful than regret from action”).

• In all the advice, insight, and wisdom shared, there was a notable omission. No one mentioned money.

• Money isn’t nothing— it simply can’t be the only thing. Three core insights summarize the body of research on the topic of money and happiness: Money improves overall happiness at lower levels of income by reducing fundamental burdens and stress. At these lower levels, money can buy happiness. If you have an income above these levels and are unhappy, more money is unlikely to change that. If you have an income above this baseline and are happy, more money is unlikely to drive increasing happiness.

• In a 2018 paper published by Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton, researchers asked a group of millionaires(1) how happy they were on a scale of 1 to 10 and(2) how much more money they would need to get to a 10 on the happiness scale. Commenting on the results, Norton said,“All the way up the income- wealth spectrum basically everyone says [they’d need] two to three times as much.”

• Your wealthy life may be enabled by money, but in the end, it will be defined by everything else.

• The term Pyrrhic victory now refers to the victory won at such a steep cost to the victor that it feels like a defeat. The victory damages the victor beyond repair. He wins the battle but loses the war. This is not just a random history lesson. This is important: A Pyrrhic victory is what you need to avoid in your own life. And unfortunately, a Pyrrhic victory could be where you’re headed if you don’t change direction. You’re walking this perilous path because of one simple mistake: You’re measuring the wrong thing. Money.

• Every new promotion, pay raise, and bonus feels like a win as you ignore the painful losses of a war slowly slipping through your fingers. Money has become not only the measure but the explicit, stated goal.

• The war you wage is about happiness, fulfillment, loving relationships, purpose, growth, and health. If all the battles you’re fighting are exclusively about money, you may win these battles, but you will lose the war.

• Your new scoreboard is the five types of wealth: Time Wealth Social Wealth Mental Wealth Physical Wealth Financial Wealth

• Each of the five types of wealth are individually important, but it’s the relationships across them— the interplay and prioritization— that are critical in building a comprehensively fulfilling existence.

• TIME WEALTH is the freedom to choose how to spend your time, whom to spend it with, where to spend it, and when to trade it for something else. It is characterized by an appreciation and deep understanding of the precious nature of time as an asset— its value and importance.

• What good is the freedom to control your time if you don’t have anyone special to spend it with? What joys can physical vitality bring if you can’t enjoy physical pursuits with people you love? What satisfaction can money provide if there is no one to dote on? Social Wealth is defined by a few deep, meaningful, healthy relationships and a fulfilling breadth of surface ties throughout your community or culture.

• If you have a life devoid of Mental Wealth, you live a life of stasis, self- limiting beliefs, stagnation, low- purpose activities, and perpetual stress.

• If you have a life devoid of Physical Wealth, you lack the discipline to maintain these habits and you are at the mercy of the natural physical deterioration that robs you of enjoyment, particularly in the latter half of life.

• FINANCIAL WEALTH is typically defined as financial assets minus financial liabilities, a figure often referred to as net worth. On your new scoreboard, there is an added nuance: Your liabilities include your expectations of what you need, your definition of enough.

• But the Tuesday- dinner rule wasn’t about the dinner— not really.“It was all about symbolism, ripple effects into every other area of my life. The ritual illustrates to me and everyone around me— my family, my partners, my employees, my friends— what my priorities are.” It was a small, consistent weekly display of respect and admiration for what he valued most in life, a strong signal through action, not words. His wife sees his commitment to their relationship and love, which strengthens her own commitment to the bond. His children see his dedication to their mother and the family unit, which makes them secure in their understanding of their role in his world. His employees see his priorities and boundaries with his family and are encouraged to set their own, which makes them more loyal and focused during the hours at work. One action— a weekly Tuesday- evening dinner— with ripple effects that extend well beyond.

• It’s time to define your Life Razor. The goal is to complete this sentence:“I am the type of person who [blank].” To do so, write down the actions and character traits that capture your ideal identity. If you were able to attend your own funeral, what would you want everyone to say about your actions, about who you were and how you lived? List them. Then zoom out and contemplate the bigger picture. What single action from the list would imply all the others?

• Pause here and walk through the exercise. Give yourself time to think deeply and reflect. Write down a few options. Test each against the three core characteristics(controllable, ripple- creating, identity- defining). Narrow down the options to select your starting version. Place it somewhere visible— it should always be top of mind as you face life’s opportunities and challenges. When they come, turn to it. What would the type of person who [blank] do in this situation? How would that person handle it?

• Your Life Razor can(and will) change across the seasons of your life. It may look very different when you’re a single twenty- four- year- old than it does when you’re a married forty- year- old— and it will certainly look different when you’re a parent to young children, a parent to adult children, or a grandparent. Revisit the exercise every few years to assess its continued value and relevance. Adjust and redefine it accordingly.

• An old school of thought would contend that your focus on each type of wealth exists in a binary state: on or off. It would say that you can have, at most, two types flipped on at any point in time and that the other three types would have to be flipped off. The fundamental problem with this is that if one remains off for too long, it can never be turned on again. If you don’t nurture and cultivate your relationships in your twenties and thirties, you won’t have them in your forties. If you don’t invest in your health in your forties and fifties, you won’t have it in your sixties. If you don’t take care of your mind in your sixties and seventies, you won’t have it in your eighties. This book rejects that old school of thought and offers a new one: If you have the appropriate goals, anti- goals, and high- leverage systems, your focus on each type of wealth can exist on a dimmer switch rather than an on/ off switch. This shift is important. It allows you to prioritize your values and goals for the present season without turning off any one area, something that leads to atrophy that proves painful(and difficult) to reverse.

• SEASON 2: You’re starting a family. You want to prioritize your relationship with your family but worry that the progress you’ve made in your career and finances will suffer. Time and Social Wealth become the primary goals. Your anti- goals are allowing Financial and Mental Wealth to diminish after the progress from Season 1, so you adopt a few high- leverage systems for maintenance. During this season, you have the freedom and energy to be an active figure in your family’s formative years, and while you may not have accelerated your career trajectory, you have certainly kept it from deteriorating.

• It was the same weight that I felt when I left my high- paying job to pursue a different path. I endured the confused looks from friends and colleagues, the assumption that I must have burned out, and a comment from a mentor, who remarked,“This will either work out, or it’ll be the worst decision of your life.” For both me and my wife, the idea that this was one season among many— that we could prioritize certain things and maintain others— was deeply empowering.

• Consider the mentality of surfers riding a wave. They fully enjoy this wave, with the wisdom and awareness that there are always more waves coming. They know they don’t have to ride every single wave that comes their way. They are aware that patience and proper positioning are all that matters for when the next wave inevitably comes. They know the only way to live is by putting themselves out there in the water, because they can’t catch any waves sitting on the shore. You need to adopt the surfers’ mentality with respect to the seasons of your life. There will be seasons of growth and seasons of maintenance for each type of wealth. Enjoy each season for its individual beauty, position yourself for future seasons according to your values and goals, and always place yourself in the water.

• At the end of each quarter, add these four questions to your regular ritual: WHAT IS CREATING ENERGY RIGHT NOW? Review your calendars from the prior quarter. What activities, people, or projects consistently created energy in your life? Did you spend ample time on these energy creators, or did they get neglected? Recalibrate to spend more time on these in the quarter ahead. WHAT IS DRAINING ENERGY RIGHT NOW? Review your calendars from the prior quarter. What activities, people, or projects consistently drained energy from your life? Did you allow energy drainers to persist, or did you cut them off in real time? Recalibrate to spend less time on these in the quarter ahead. WHO ARE THE BOAT ANCHORS IN MY LIFE? Boat anchors are people who hold you back from your potential. They literally create a drag on your life. Boat anchors are people who belittle, put down, or diminish your accomplishments, laugh at your ambition and tell you to be more realistic, harm the quality of your environment through negativity and pessimism, and make you feel bad by consistently showing off what they have. Recalibrate to minimize or eliminate the energy you give them in the quarter ahead. WHAT AM I AVOIDING BECAUSE OF FEAR? The thing you fear the most is often the thing you most need to do. Fears, when avoided, become limiters on our progress. Recalibrate to get closer to your fears in the quarter ahead.

• The raw voice of my younger self coming through the words felt jarring. As I reread the letter, one conclusion screamed off the page: The answers are within you— you just haven’t found the right questions yet. I was as dumb, arrogant, and insecure as they come when I wrote those words in 2014, but the letter reveals a wisdom and clarity that I had yet to act on. I knew there was a brighter path ahead. I just had to start asking the right questions to begin walking it.

• Before you continue, sit down and write a letter to your future self— ten years from now, five years from now, three years from now, whatever. Reflect on where you are and where you hope to be when you open the letter. Vividly imagine that desired future. The letter is your true north.

Time Wealth

• “Always remember,” she said,“everyone we love, they are on loan to us for a short period of time. They are gone in the blink of an eye.”

• There’s a devastatingly short window during which you are your child’s entire world. Don’t blink and miss it.

• Time spent with your partner trends up until death. The person you choose to confront life’s ups and downs with will have the largest impact on your happiness and fulfillment. Choose wisely.

• Work will pull you away from your family and loved ones throughout your life. If you have the luxury of choice, make sure you choose work— and coworkers— that you find meaningful and important. Aim to have coworkers who create energy in your life.

• Time spent alone steadily increases throughout your life. When you’re young, you tend to view time alone as a sign of not fitting in. You come to fear time alone, to fear boredom. But you need to learn to cherish it. Find happiness and joy in the time you have to yourself— there will be more of it as you get older.

• Here are six key lessons for life: Family time is finite— cherish it. Children time is precious— be present. Friend time is limited— prioritize the real friends. Partner time is meaningful— never settle. Coworker time is significant— find energy. Alone time is abundant— love yourself.

• There will be a last time your kids want you to read them a bedtime story, a last time you’ll go for a long walk with your sibling, a last time you’ll hug your parents at a family gathering, a last time your friend will call you for support.

• In the past month, how many times have you said some variation of“Busy!” when asked how you’re doing? I’m willing to bet the number is high— probably much higher than you’d like to admit. The problem: You want to take control, but with an old scoreboard entirely focused on Financial Wealth as the measure of your worth, if you’re anything other than“Busy!” you’re considered a failure. Society assures you that it’s okay to feel time- poor as long as it’s a by- product of a chase for more money. Busy has become standard fare, equal parts reality and pseudo- dystopian status symbol. The invisible hand is silently increasing the speed on your treadmill.

• The concept of attention residue was first identified by University of Washington business professor Sophie Leroy in 2009. In the original paper, Dr. Leroy defines attention residue as“the persistence of cognitive activity about a Task A even though one stopped working on Task A and currently performs a Task B.”[ 5] In other words, there is a cognitive switching cost to shifting your attention from one task to another. When your attention is shifted, there is a residue of it that remains with the prior task and impairs your cognitive performance on the new task. You may think your attention has fully shifted to the new task, but your brain has a lag. That lag has become even more prominent in the modern digital world, where you carry(and wear) multiple devices and tools that constantly pull on your attention with their notifications, beeps, and alluring lights.

• Cal Newport puts it well when he talks about the cultural propensity to“just check” on phone or email notifications:“If, like most, you rarely go more than 10– 15 minutes without a just check, you have effectively put yourself in a persistent state of self- imposed cognitive handicap. The flip side, of course, is to imagine the relative cognitive enhancement that would follow by minimizing this effect.”

• In Time Smart, Ashley Whillans, a researcher and professor at Harvard Business School, notes the steep costs of time poverty on the individual:“The data I and others have amassed show a correlation between time poverty and misery. People who are time poor are less happy, less productive, and more stressed out. They exercise less, eat fattier food, and have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease.”

• AWARENESS: An understanding of the finite, impermanent nature of time ATTENTION: The ability to direct your attention and focus on the things that matter(and ignore the rest) CONTROL: The freedom to own your time and choose exactly how to spend it The three pillars of Time Wealth— awareness, attention, and control— are individually important, but are best thought of as a progression: awareness first, attention next, control last. Each pillar builds on and is a by- product of the foundation established by the others.

• On the flip side, as Graham Duncan pointed out, there is a decent chance that Buffett would trade all of his billions of dollars to have your time. This brings a paradox to the surface— one I call the paradox of time: You are subconsciously aware of the immense value of your time, but you regularly and consciously take actions that disregard that value. In his On the Shortness of Life, Seneca wrote,“We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill- supplied but wasteful of it.”

• Attention is what allows you to get ahead, to stop running faster(more units of input) and start running smarter(higher output per unit of input). It requires appropriate project selection and rejection— saying yes to a few high- leverage things and no to everything else.

• With improved awareness and concentrated attention directed to the most important projects, high- leverage opportunities, and moments, let’s assume the ten units of output can be created with just five units of input(a 2: 1 ratio). With this improved ratio, the remaining five units of unused input represent created time that can be freely allocated according to your values and goals. You can use that time to create more professional output or allocate it to a different arena of your choice. You are in control.

• A few common Time Wealth anti- goals to avoid on your journey: Spending too much of my time on low- value, energy- draining activities Being so busy that I’m unable to prioritize time with the people who truly matter Losing the spontaneity in my life as I pursue my most important priorities

• My entire life changed when I confronted the mathematical reality of the amount of time I had remaining with the people I loved most. It was a hard reset for my life— an emotionally challenging yet necessary intervention that sparked new awareness and priorities.

• Now, do some basic math: Multiply the number of times you see that person per year by the number of years you have remaining with that person. With some terrifyingly simple math, you’ve determined the number of times you will see your loved one before the end.

• The Energy Calendar is designed to give you a view of your baseline time and energy outlay to spark the necessary questions to improve on the current baseline. The goal is not to eliminate all neutral and energy- draining activities(most likely an impossible pursuit) but to slowly improve on your energy- creating- to- energy- draining ratio(green- to- red ratio).

• The two- list exercise originated from a fabled conversation between Warren Buffett and his personal pilot Mike Flint. One day, Flint was bemoaning his lack of clarity around his personal and professional aspirations and goals, and Buffett asked him to go through a three- step process that would help. First, Buffett told Flint to write down twenty- five career goals, all the things he wanted to focus on and accomplish in the months and years ahead. Next, he asked Flint to circle the top- five goals from the list. This required some effort to narrow down, as Flint cared about all of them. Eventually, Flint was able to circle his top five. Finally, Buffett told Flint to separate it into two lists. He asked Flint what he would do with the non- circled items. Flint replied that he would work on those whenever he had free time. Buffett shook his head and replied that everything Flint hadn’t circled should become his Avoid at All Costs List. These items should get no attention until success was achieved with the top five.

• While the two- list exercise helps you narrow your attention on a macro level, the Eisenhower Matrix is designed to harness your attention on a micro, daily level.

• IMPORTANT AND URGENT: These are tasks that require immediate, focused attention but also contribute to your long- term mission or goals. These are Do now! tasks. Goal: In the short term, you want to handle these immediately, but in the long term, you want to manage the important tasks so that they rarely become urgent. IMPORTANT AND NOT URGENT: These tasks are your compounders— they build long- term value in your life. These are the projects and opportunities that you want to dedicate focused attention toward. Goal: Spend more time on these tasks— plan the time to do deep work here. In the long term, this is where you should try to spend most of your time and energy.

• I have never found a single productivity tool that is more useful than the Eisenhower Matrix when it comes to creating time awareness and directing my attention. I find myself turning to it regularly, especially when I have a lot on my plate and need to reset my focus.

• Establish time blocks that are shorter than you’re comfortable with for low- importance but necessary tasks. Use this artificial pressure to avoid procrastination and free up time for important, high- value tasks.

• Batch- process email in one to three short, time- constrained windows. If you allow yourself to check your email throughout the day, you’ll be plagued by attention residue and never get through your work. Condense the processing into short windows to become more efficient and avoid the negative cognitive impact of task- switching.

• Work on big projects in one- to three- hour focus blocks. Get a simple focus app on your computer or phone and set the timer. Start at sixty minutes and work your way up. The time constraint will make you more efficient, and the breaks in between will reset your mental energy.

• Batch dreaded personal tasks(tidying up, laundry, dishes, et cetera) into short, dedicated windows. Focusing on those tasks in sprints is more effective than lingering on them for extended jogs.

• PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER The three steps of the anti- procrastination system: DECONSTRUCTION: Deconstruct the big, scary project into small, manageable tasks. PLAN AND STAKE CREATION: Create a project document with specific, time- bound tasks. Create stakes to gamify their completion. ACTION: A body in motion tends to stay in motion. Create systems that spark initial movement. Engineer small wins(they become big wins over time).

• The ability to concentrate your attention and engage this deep focus— a flow state— is essential to Time Wealth, as it enables you to break the fixed relationship between inputs and outputs. Deep- focused blocks of work won’t be easy to execute at first. You’re forcibly overriding a lot of the natural dopamine- reward response that all these apps, digital tools, and social platforms were built on. You’ll build your focus muscle progressively: Start with thirty minutes, once per day. Work your way up to one hour two to three times per day by the end of the first month. From there, extend the periods to two hours(my personal maximum) or four hours(an ambitious target) as your focus muscle strengthens.

• Using this simple framing, I built a personal boot- up sequence that looks like this: TOUCH: Prior to sitting down for a deep work session, I either go for a five- minute walk outside or take a three- minute cold plunge. Both actions unlock my creative energy and prime my system. TASTE: I always have a black cold- brew coffee that I sip on prior to the start of the session and keep next to me during the session. The caffeine helps, but it’s mostly psychological, as I rarely finish the drink. SIGHT: My writing desk faces a window with dark walls on either side, some plants, and neutral art. SOUND: I listen to a Spotify playlist called Classical Essentials. SMELL: I love the smell of wood, so my writing nook has cedarwood/ sandalwood candles or oils. I typically go through this sequence twice each day, once first thing in the morning(around 5 A.M.) when I start my first deep creative session and once in the afternoon after lunch(around 12: 30 P.M.) when I start my second deep work session. Going through this sequence has become an incredibly effective routine that gets me into the appropriate state to enter my flow. To build your sequence, sit down and walk through each of the five senses. For each sense, think about a time when you were truly in flow. How was that sense engaged during(or before) that session?

• THE FOUR TYPES OF PROFESSIONAL TIME There are four types of professional time: Management Creation Consumption Ideation

• Starting on a Monday, at the end of each weekday, color- code the events from that day according to this key: Red: Management Green: Creation Blue: Consumption Yellow: Ideation At the end of the week, look at the overall mix of colors on the calendar. Focus on identifying the trends. What color dominates the calendar? Are there distinct windows for Creation Time? Are the colors organized or randomly scattered?

• TIP 2: INCREASE CREATION TIME Creation is what propels us forward with more interesting projects and opportunities. We all need more Creation Time in our days. As you batch Management Time, carve out distinct windows for Creation Time. Block them on your calendar. Don’t check your email or messages during them. Focus on creation during your Creation Time.

• TIP 3: CREATE SPACE FOR CONSUMPTION AND IDEATION Consumption and Ideation are the forgotten types of time because we rarely create space for them, but they are critical to long- term, compounding progress. History’s most successful people have all made a practice of creating space for reading, listening, learning, and thinking.

Social Wealth

• we spoke about our common bond as new fathers and about how he had been immersed in his job prior to Aubrie’s diagnosis, Erik reflected on the tension between work and fatherhood.“We all have obligations in life that need our attention, and those things pull us away from contemplating love with one hundred percent of our awareness. But we must remember what’s behind our desire to do those things in the first place; we must remember our center. And it’s not the money.”

• Conventional wisdom says one should focus on the journey, not the destination. I disagree. Focus on the people. When you surround yourself with inspiring people, the journeys become more beautiful, and the destinations become more brilliant. It’s impossible to sit where you are and plan the perfect journey. Focus on the company— the people you want to travel with— and the journey will reveal itself in due time. Nothing bad has ever come from surrounding oneself with inspiring, genuine, kind, positive- sum individuals. Find your Front- Row People. Cherish them. Be one to someone else.

• Anthropologist Robin Dunbar is most famous for his research- based determination of the number of stable social relationships a single person can maintain(the aptly named Dunbar’s number is 150). He also found that the strongest predictor of brain size across species is the size of the typical social group. The human brain is uniquely large relative to body size, which Dunbar attributes to the fact that our species is highly social. Put simply: You are social because you are human, and you are human because you are social.

• The study has found that strong, healthy relationships are the best predictor of life satisfaction, far outpacing other hypothesized predictors, such as social class, wealth, fame, IQ, and genetics. Perhaps even more important, the study found that relationship satisfaction had a direct positive impact on physical health. The study’s current director, Robert Waldinger, highlighted the findings in a TED Talk that has been viewed more than fifty million times.“It wasn’t their cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old,” he said.“It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age fifty were the healthiest at age eighty.” To reiterate that critical point: The single greatest predictor of physical health at age eighty was relationship satisfaction at age fifty.

• When you fail to measure and value your Social Wealth, you fail to consider it in your decisions.

• This raises an important point, particularly in the context of the popular narratives around geographic arbitrage, digital nomadic culture, tax optimization, and the like: What’s the point of all that financial optimization if you’re alone? How many people have sold their homes and moved to areas with lower taxes to save money only to realize that without their families and friends, they don’t feel at home? How many people have jetted around the world and seen incredible sights only to realize that seeing them alone isn’t quite as meaningful? How many people have taken high- paying jobs in new locations only to find themselves deeply unhappy without their support networks, friends, and family?

• For ten years, you are your child’s favorite person in the entire world. After that, children have other favorite people— best friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, partners, and, eventually, their own children. But during those ten years, you are everything to them. You occupy a unique place in their world. It is during this period that the foundation for the parent- child relationship— so central to many people’s Social Wealth— is built. It might be a strong foundation that is likely to last for decades or a flimsy one that’s likely to crumble in years, but there is one terrifying truth: By the time your children are eighteen, you’ve already used up the vast majority of the time you’ll have with them. Unfortunately, we live in a society where children’s early years coincide with their parents’ peak working hours, travel, and other professional responsibilities. For many of us, these special years come and go in the blink of an eye— a blur of late nights in the office, meetings about meetings, emails at the dinner table, and weekend calls.

• Being present and spending time with those you love is the most important thing in the end. Having the people you love see you work hard on things you care about is a principle they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. The importance and value of the second point often gets lost in the narrative around work- life balance. Understanding, navigating, and balancing the tension of these two beliefs is how you truly“win” the game. Put differently, the goal is not to sacrifice your career progression, fail to live up to your professional potential, or stop learning or growing in an effort to be constantly present with your kids.

• My own approach is informed by my experience with my father. His ability to balance the two worldviews is something I will always remember. He would come home for dinner, play catch with me outside, then work late once I went to bed. Much of my own discipline and work ethic came from seeing him work hard on things that lit him up intellectually but that he never allowed to get in the way of what was most important to him— his family. I vividly recall going with him on one of his international work trips when I was ten. While I watched movies and enjoyed the snacks on the long flight, he stayed up for twelve straight hours working on his presentation. When I asked— almost incredulously— how he had not watched a single movie on the entire flight, he smiled and replied,“This is what is necessary— to deliver up to my expectations for myself and to be able to bring you along for the trip.” I always felt connected to his work because he took the time to explain the why— why he was working hard on things and what he hoped to achieve with them. Involving your loved ones in your journey this way is a beautiful thing. They will understand why you’re working hard, the value it creates for them and you, and feel connected to your growth and achievement. An absence due to work becomes better understood and more appreciated with the benefit of context.

• Apple founder Steve Jobs put it well:“Almost everything— all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure— these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.”[ 11] Rohan Venkatesh was already naked— and in the face of the darkness, he found his light:“I had the power to choose.” An old Buddhist parable echoes this sentiment. The Buddha asks his student,“If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?” The student nods yes. The Buddha asks,“If a person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?” The student again nods yes. The Buddha then explains,“In life, we cannot always control the first arrow— the bad thing that happens. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the bad thing, and that second arrow is optional.” The first arrow is the negative event that hits you— the chaos, pain, challenges, and complexity that threaten to derail you, to take you out of the game. It hits and it hurts. But the second arrow is your response to the first, and as the parable teaches us, you can avoid being struck by the second arrow; it is entirely within your control.

• In The Good Life, the New York Times bestselling book by Marc Schulz and Harvard Study of Adult Development director Robert Waldinger, the authors point out,“Like muscles, neglected relationships atrophy.” If we incorrectly assume an infinite time horizon for our relationships— meaning that an investment in the future is effectively the same as an investment now— we may find that many of these relationships have atrophied to the point of no return by that later date. If you skip those family trips in your twenties and thirties, you might not have the chance in your forties and fifties. If you fail to check in on your friends in your thirties and forties, they might not be around when you’re in your fifties and sixties. If you don’t join that local community group in your forties and fifties, you won’t have those connections in your sixties and seventies. If you don’t show up for your loved ones during their times of need, they won’t show up for you during yours.

• You cultivate depth over long periods— it is forged during and across the ups and downs of life. Like a muscle, depth is built when relationships are forced to endure struggle, pain, and tension. Just as the muscle becomes stronger after being tested, so will your most durable relationships. While this circle may include family members, there is no requirement that depth be found through familial relationships. Depth of connection is personal— where you find it in your life is not important; what is important is that you find it.

• This breadth can be built through incremental individual connections as well as through community. Community can take many forms— cultural, spiritual, local, regional, national, and more— but in its broadest sense, it is built around the connection to something bigger than the self. Participation in a community creates leverage in your Social Wealth ecosystem— it connects you to individuals you haven’t physically met. That connection instills a feeling of belonging that is a source of lasting fulfillment in life.

• Breadth is built through behaviors that expose you to new people and environments: Join a local club or community around an area of interest. It could be a book club if you love reading, an art club if you love creating, or a gym if you love fitness. Be a child again, participating in new activities to meet friends. Attend a weekly spiritual gathering if you are a faith- driven individual. Participate in digital meetups for causes that you care about. Coordinate regular walks or hikes with others in your area. Go to the networking event you’ve been shying away from. All of these create the potential for many new nodes of connection through a single action.

• Breadth requires you to try new things, to open yourself up to the world around you. If you give generously with no expectation of return, you will build a new breadth of connection that will create lasting Social Wealth.

• Winning the status game, it turns out, is good for your health. In a study published in 2014 in the journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, a group of researchers found that among the Tsimane, a small, pre- industrial, politically egalitarian society in Amazonian Bolivia, the higher- status individuals exhibited lower levels of stress and better health.

• The problem: The durable, lasting status you seek— the true respect and admiration of your peers— cannot be bought. What’s more, the incessant pursuit of it has led many men and women down a dark, winding road to nowhere.

• Entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant once said,“A fit body, a calm mind, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought— they must be earned.” The most universally treasured, valuable, and durable things in life cannot be acquired with money. The things that earn the deep respect and admiration of your peers are not for sale.

• Earned status, however, is the real respect, admiration, and trust received through hard- won treasures: The freedom to choose how to spend your time(and whom to spend it with) The healthy, loving family relationships made possible by years of present energy The purpose- imbued work and mastery within a domain, built through years of effort The sought- after wisdom accumulated through decades of lived experience The adaptable mind capable of navigating stressful encounters shaped through a steady mindfulness practice and thoughtful introspection The strong, fit physique built through hours of movement and disciplined eating The professional promotion or company sale achieved after an extended period of hard work in the dark

• Earned status is lasting. It will elicit the durable respect, admiration, and trust that you seek from the people who matter to you, those whose opinions you value and cherish. To live a life of abundant Social Wealth, focus on what must be earned, not what can be bought.

• Importantly, while the pillars of Social Wealth remain the same, their application will be different for everyone, as the level of social connection people need to feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled varies from person to person. A natural extrovert might need significant breadth and depth of connection to keep loneliness at bay, while a natural introvert may need only a few close relationships to do the same.

• A few common Social Wealth anti- goals to avoid on your journey: Allowing my pursuit of financial success to hurt my deepest relationships Losing my connection to my local networks and community Chasing status symbols to improve my social position

• Happy people love people, use things, and worship the divine; unhappy people use people, love things, and worship themselves.

• It’s a bad trade to be special rather than happy. That’s what people are doing when they choose the fourteenth hour of work before the first hour with their children.

• Happiness does not depend on a certain net worth, family configuration, or set of ideological views. It requires that you be generous in love and allow yourself to be loved.

• Talk to people unlike you. The social path of least resistance is to stay in your traditional friend group, where interactions are familiar and easy. The social path of greatest benefit is to stray from that traditional group and expose yourself to new beliefs, mindsets, and views.

• Focus on your relationships; don’t leave their quality and intensity to chance. Treat them with the kind of seriousness that people usually reserve for their money or career.

• When it comes to love, expand your time horizon. Thinking short term leads to bad relationships.

• Don’t treat your family like emotional ATMs. When people treat their family as a one- way valve of help and advice— usually, it’s parents giving and children receiving— relationships suffer.

• Make friendship an end in itself, not a stepping- stone to something else.

• Don’t focus on looks and status in others. Good teeth and a high- paying job don’t predict faithfulness and kindness. Seek out evidence of the two latter traits.

• When you think something nice about someone, let them know.

• Tell your partner one thing you appreciate about them every single day.

• If you’re trying to make conversation with people who intimidate you, ask what they’re currently working on that they’re most excited about. Ask follow- ups and listen intently.

• Record a video interview with your parents. Ask them questions and have them tell stories about their childhoods, adventures, hopes, dreams, and fears. Our time with them is finite, but we often fail to recognize that until it’s too late. These recordings will last forever.

• Never keep score in life. When you’re with friends, pick up the check now and then— it all evens out if they’re real friends. Quid pro quo is a terrible way to live.

• Give a stranger a compliment every single day. Say you like someone’s shirt or shoes, compliment the person’s haircut, whatever. Don’t use it as a conversation starter— say it and continue on.

• Stop trying to be interesting and focus on being interested. Interested people give their deep attention to something to learn more about it. They open up to the world; they ask great questions and observe. Being interested is how you become interesting.

• In your twenties and thirties, do a few things that you’ll be excited to tell your kids about someday. Go on an adventure, train for some wild event, get your hands dirty on a crazy project, whatever. Create a few stories worth telling.

• Surprisingly, while you might expect demeaning relationships to be the most damaging to your life, research has shown that ambivalent relationships create the most trouble for your physical and mental well- being. For example, one study[ 17] found that participants experienced higher blood pressure after an interaction with someone who inspired mixed feelings than with someone who inspired purely negative feelings. The inconsistency of the interactions is damaging. You have likely experienced a relationship like this in your own life, a person who provides love and support at some times but criticism and contempt at others. The love and support cause you to open up, let the person in, which makes the future criticism and contempt all the more painful. As bestselling author Adam Grant wrote in a New York Times opinion piece on the topic,“The most toxic relationships aren’t the purely negative ones. They’re the ones that are a mix of positive and negative.”

• Falling in love is easy. Growing in love is hard. Falling is what you see on social media. Growing is what you don’t see. Growing in love is about developing and deepening a bond through discomfort, painful periods, darkness, hard conversations, and challenges. Growing in love happens over long periods, across seasons of life, in waves that come and go. Growing in love is what creates the depth of a lifelong bond.

• The awareness and recognition of your and your partner’s love language is essential for a thriving relationship because it allows each of you to show up in the way that is most effective for the other person.

• STONEWALLING ANTIDOTE(PHYSIOLOGICAL SELF- SOOTHING): Pause and take a break. Spend that time engaged in a soothing, distracting, or relaxing activity, like walking, breathing mindfully, or sitting with your eyes closed.

• Never keep score in love. Scoreboards are for sports games, not marriages.

• Maintain interests and passions separate from your partner’s. Marriage should not be the end of individuality.

• One man said,“Never stop dating. I’m ninety- nine and still courting my wife!” Marriages don’t get boring; you stop trying.

• Your spouse should always take priority over your birth family. Remember that when the two feel in conflict.

• PS: Specifically asking“Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged?” can be helpful at first, but after a while, a recognizable pattern should emerge. If you’re anything like me and have struggled to appropriately identify what your partner, friend, or family member needed in a situation, give the“helped, heard, or hugged” method a shot.

• PRINCIPLE 1: CREATE DOORKNOBS An improvisation artist once referred to the concept of“doorknobs” in conversations. Most questions are like stop signs: They invite an answer that naturally ends the conversation. Doorknobs are questions or statements that invite the other person to open them and walk through. They invite the other person to start telling a story. An example: Stop- sign question: Where did you get married? Doorknob question: How did you decide on the wedding venue? The stop- sign version likely leads to a conversational stop when the person responds with a location. The doorknob version likely leads to a story.

• Here is a set of great doorknobs that I like to use in conversations. Choose a few to incorporate in your tool kit and use them the next time you’re in an unfamiliar social or professional situation. I’d recommend thinking about your own response to these topics, as you will likely encounter situations where the person flips them on you to get the conversation moving. CONVERSATION STARTERS: What are you most excited about right now, personally or professionally? What was your favorite(or least favorite) thing about your hometown? What’s the origin of your name? Why did your parents give you that name? What is the most interesting thing you’ve read or learned recently? What is the best movie or show you’ve seen recently? What made it so compelling to you? What’s been making you smile recently? If you had an entire day to yourself with zero responsibilities, how would you spend it? CONVERSATION DEVELOPERS: What do you remember as some of the more formative moments of your life? What made them so formative? What have you changed your mind about recently? If you could have dinner with three to five people from any point in history, who would you choose and why? What is something you’ve purchased for a little money that has made a big difference in your life? How do you escape or unwind? What is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

• PRINCIPLE 3: REPEAT AND FOLLOW Active listening leads directly to the“repeat and follow” method: Repeat key points back to the speaker in your own words and follow that with an additional insight, story, or doorknob question. This is an opportunity to relay the things you agree or disagree with and shows engaged listening. It builds conversational momentum and cements connection.

• You don’t get anywhere by accumulating thousands of transactional personal and professional connections. You get somewhere by building genuine relationships: Giving with no intention of receiving in return Acting in the service of others Creating value for those around you Those who invest in building relationships rather than networking will reap the most valuable long- term rewards— health, wealth, and happiness.

• PRINCIPLE 1: FIND VALUE- ALIGNED ROOMS The best advice I’ve ever received when it comes to building new relationships: Put yourself into rooms with a high density of value- aligned individuals. What this means: Think about your core values, hobbies, and professional and personal interests, then consider what“rooms” are likely to filter for people with a similar set of values and interests. An example: If you’re a dog owner and love being outside, local dog parks, outdoor beer gardens, or walking trails would likely have a high density of others with similar interests. The point here is that you can increase your odds of meeting people with whom you will connect by putting yourself in the rooms where several levels of filtering have already occurred before you even arrive. If you’re passionate about fitness and health, frequent the local farmers’ market, the gym in the early morning, and local hiking trails. If you’re focused on your career in marketing, look up any local marketing mixers or events and attend any social media or creator conferences. If you’re into books and art, find a local book club, go to art- gallery openings, and join the local museum community.

• PRINCIPLE 2: ASK ENGAGING QUESTIONS Once you’re in the rooms, strike up conversations with new people. A warm hello and a smile is generally a great place to start, as it tends to be disarming and cut the tension in any situation. From there, I have a few go- to questions that I have found create reliably engaging discourse: What’s your connection to [insert current place or event]? What are you most excited about currently? What’s lighting you up outside of work? What’s your favorite book you’ve read recently? Note: Always avoid“What do you do?” as a question. It’s generic and generally gets you a cookie- cutter, automated response or an uncomfortable one if people don’t feel proud of their work.“What are you most excited about right now?” leads to more personal, interesting replies and increased conversational momentum.

• PRINCIPLE 3: BECOME A LEVEL 2 AND LEVEL 3 LISTENER There is a concept that there are three levels of listening: LEVEL 1.“ME” LISTENING: You’re having a conversation, but your internal voice is relating everything you hear to something in your own life. Your internal voice runs off on tangents; you’re thinking about your own life while the other person is talking. You’re waiting to speak, not listening to learn. This is the default mode of listening for everyone. LEVEL 2.“YOU” LISTENING: You’re having a conversation, and you are deeply focused on what the other person is saying. You’re not waiting to speak; you’re listening to learn. LEVEL 3.“US” LISTENING: You’re building a map of the other person, understanding how all the new information being shared fits into that broader map of the person’s life and world. You’re listening to understand, considering the layers beneath what the other person is saying. Most people default to Level 1 listening, but charismatic people have a practiced intention around Level 2 and Level 3 listening. If you want to build new, genuine relationships, you have to live in Level 2 and Level 3.

• PRINCIPLE 4: USE CREATIVE FOLLOW- UPS When a conversation has run its course, don’t feel pressured to keep it going. Exit gracefully. I’ve always found“It was so great meeting you, I look forward to seeing you again soon!” works well in any personal or professional setting. If it makes sense, you can offer to share contact information for the future. Following the conversation, log the mental notes you made in your phone or a notebook and create a plan to follow up in the days ahead. As an example, I used to talk about my favorite books with new people. If I was speaking to a new professional contact and it struck me as a relationship I hoped to deepen, I would send a copy of the book with a handwritten note to the person’s office. I’ve built many great mentor relationships with that as the start. A few ideas for thoughtful, creative follow- ups: Share an article or podcast that you think the person will like for a specific reason. Provide value in the form of a new idea related to one of the points of professional tension that was uncovered in the conversation. Offer to connect the person with a friend who has a shared interest. The aim is to show that you were listening intently and that you took the initiative to follow up. Playing hard to get is childish. Invest energy in building new, genuine relationships and you will be rewarded.

• The best public speakers don’t deliver a speech— they tell a story. They take the audience on a journey. Create a clear structure that is familiar and easy to follow. It’s helpful to be clear and explicit about that structure up front, whether in the presentation materials or in your early delivery.

• PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER These nine strategies will work wonders for your public speaking: STUDY THE BEST: Use YouTube to study speakers you admire. CREATE CLEAR STRUCTURE: Be deliberate about the storytelling arc. BUILD YOUR LEGO BLOCKS: Relentlessly practice the opening, transitions, and key lines, but avoid rote memorization. ADDRESS THE SPOTLIGHT: Ask“So what?” about your worst fears and stop suffering in your imagination. GET INTO CHARACTER: Turn your ideal character on prior to the start. ELIMINATE STRESS: Use the physiological sigh to eliminate stress. CUT THE TENSION: Find a way to cut the tension early with a joke or self- deprecating remark to get the audience on your side. PLAY THE LAVA GAME: Use big, confident gestures and avoid touching your pockets or torso. MOVE PURPOSEFULLY: Take slow, methodical, purposeful steps.

• The new robe had created a new identity, one that Denis Diderot became attached to and that he wanted to continue signaling to the world. In an essay later in life, which he titled, appropriately,“Regrets for My Old Dressing Gown,” Diderot lamented,“I was the absolute master of my old robe. I have become the slave of the new one.”

• Earned status is the great equalizer. It is the real respect, admiration, and trust received through hard- won treasures: Free time Loving relationships Purposeful work, expertise, and wisdom Healthy mind and body Hard- won financial success The richest people in the world cannot acquire these things in a day. If you don’t make a clear effort to create the space and prioritize effectively, each of these markers will prove elusive.

• THE THREE PILLARS OF SOCIAL WEALTH: DEPTH: Connection to a small circle of people with deep, meaningful bonds BREADTH: Connection to a larger circle of people for support and belonging beyond the self, either through individual relationships or through community, religious, spiritual, or cultural infrastructure EARNED STATUS: The lasting respect, admiration, and trust of your peers that you receive on the basis of earned, not acquired, status symbols

Mental Wealth

• A life without curiosity is a life devoid of the desire to search, explore, and learn and lacks the texture created by this desire. A life without curiosity is an empty life, a life of stasis, a life without wonder.

• In ancient Hindu traditions, the concept of dharma refers to one’s sacred duty— the life purpose that allows one to navigate the unknown with bravery and courage. Your dharma does not have to be grand or impressive; it must simply be yours. In the opening scene of the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu text that is part of the epic Mahabharata, the protagonist, Arjuna, stands before a battlefield at the outset of a great war with his rivals. Wrestling with the inner turmoil of a battle that will see him fight family members, Arjuna consults his charioteer, Krishna, a mortal incarnation of the god Vishnu, for guidance. Krishna encourages him to center his actions on his purpose, saying,“One’s own dharma performed imperfectly is better than another’s dharma well performed… It is better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own dharma. But competition in another’s dharma breeds fear and insecurity.”

• Reflecting on the passage, Bezos wrote,“In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness?… What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical— in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen. You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it.”

• The fight against normalcy is the most important fight of your life. To maintain your uniqueness, to live on your terms in a world that pulls you to blend in, is the only way to realize your full potential and live a fulfilled, texture- rich existence. Ultimately, this is what it means to build a life of Mental Wealth: to live according to your own purpose, to believe in your own ability to grow, change, learn, and develop, and to find your definition of peace, calm, and solitude in a fast- moving world. A life of Mental Wealth is a life of victory in the fight against equilibrium; it is a life that pays the price for its distinctiveness from its surroundings and reaps the immense rewards held therein.

• One particularly interesting common habit of the world’s longest- lived people: They all find their life’s purpose. This purpose provides daily meaning. It creates an identity, an understanding of who you are, what you stand for, and where you’re going. It defines how you connect with the world around you.

• Your purpose is your sword in the fight for distinctiveness, a fight that is won when you extend well beyond the self and manifest that purpose in the world. Living a purpose- imbued life means regularly connecting to something bigger than you— something outside yourself that defines your identity and guides your daily actions. It might be to build a company that influences millions of lives, to provide for your loved ones, to bring joy to a group that rarely feels it, or to be a useful member of your local community. Your purpose need not be impressive or grand to anyone else— it is personal; it is yours.

• Robert Butler, a legendary gerontologist considered one of the pioneers of healthy- aging research, led an eleven- year study to evaluate the role that purpose plays in longevity.[ 5] It found that those who expressed a clear purpose in life lived about seven years longer and had a higher quality of life than those who did not. A more recent 2019 study in The Journal of the American Medical Association looked at seven thousand Americans and linked a strong sense of purpose with a lower risk of all- cause mortality after age fifty.[ 6]

• The children who were praised for their intelligence after completing the first puzzle were less likely to choose a challenging puzzle for the next test than their peers who were praised for their effort. In a related study of adolescents, Dweck and her colleagues administered a nonverbal IQ test to a group and again praised the students for either their intelligence(“ You must be smart!”) or their effort(“ You must have worked really hard!”). The intelligence- praised children performed worse when given a harder set of problems, while the effort- praised children performed better on the second set. Further, those praised for their intelligence subsequently avoided challenging new tasks and even lied about their performance on tasks, while those praised for their effort sought out the challenging tasks as new learning opportunities.

• Or how many times have you felt like the shower was the only few minutes of the day that you had to yourself? No phone, no messages, no emails, nothing; just you, your thoughts, and the water. And, relatedly, how many times have you had an“aha moment” while in the shower? That new perspective on a relationship struggle, a creative idea for a business, an unlock on a big work project. This is no accident: Our power is in the space.

• Space is not lazy— on the contrary, space is rocket fuel for the mind. Space is what enables you to think, reset, wrestle with the big, unanswerable questions, manage stressors, and recharge. It is what unlocks you and allows you to listen to your inner voice. It is where ideas connect and mingle in your mind. It is where you are able to think differently, approach problems in interesting new ways, connect spiritually with a higher power, or formulate insights that may change your life.

• Your purpose in life does not have to be related to what you do for work. Your purpose in life does not have to be grand or ambitious. Your purpose in life simply has to be yours.

• If you want to get better at anything, do it for thirty minutes per day for thirty straight days. It’s easy to over- engineer progress; a little dedicated effort each day is all you need. Nine hundred minutes of accumulated effort is enough for you to make dramatic improvements in literally anything.

• Take yourself out for a meal alone once each month. Carry a notebook and pen, bring your favorite book, and leave your phone in your bag. Let your mind run free.

• I don’t know about you, but I tend to lie to myself and say that I have an interest in things that I’m good at, so interest can be deceiving. And passion is a heavy term, one that I’m never fully convinced I’m applying correctly when it comes to my life. My solution: I focus on energy, not interests or passions. Follow your energy, because it is the truly scarce resource. When you have energy for something, you go deep on it, you push to grow, you gain life from it. It fuels you. So as you contemplate the grand question of your life— how should I spend my time?— energy should take center stage in your consideration.

• STEP 1: CREATE YOUR MAP The pursuit map is a blank two- by- two matrix with competency level(from low to high competency) on the x- axis and energy(from energy- draining to energy- creating) on the y- axis. I define the terms as follows: ENERGY- CREATING: A pursuit that creates energy in your life; these activities leave you feeling energized— they fill your cup. ENERGY- DRAINING: A pursuit that drains energy from your life; these activities leave you feeling drained— they empty your cup. HIGH COMPETENCY: A pursuit at which you are skilled; these activities feel effortless. LOW COMPETENCY: A pursuit at which you are a novice; these activities feel challenging.

• ZONE OF GENIUS: In his 2010 book The Big Leap, author Gay Hendricks proposed the novel idea of the Zone of Genius, defined as the range of pursuits where you have excellent competency and high interest or passion. In the context of my pursuit- map matrix, I’d consider the Zone of Genius as the top right quadrant, where your competency and energy collide. This is your promised land, the sweet spot of pursuits where you will ideally spend most of your time, both professional and personal.

• ZONE OF HOBBY: This is the range of pursuits that create energy in your life but in which you have a lower competency level. This is where you would ideally spend the second biggest chunk of your time. It’s okay for certain pursuits to remain in this Zone of Hobby(it’s okay to be bad at things!), but you will find that pursuits for which you feel a lot of energy tend to slowly shift to the right as you improve at them. Pursuits that start in the Zone of Hobby often end up in the Zone of Genius over time.

• ZONE OF DANGER: This is the range of pursuits that drain your energy but in which you have a higher competency level. It is a dangerous place to spend your time because you will be given positive feedback on your performance and feel tempted to spend more of your time here as a result. The goal is to avoid the trap of these activities or find ways to make them more energy- creating for your life.

• Note: The bottom left quadrant is what I would consider the dead zone, in that pursuits here should generally be avoided due to being energy- draining and low competency. That being said, there are instances where something becomes energy- creating as you improve at it(for example, many novice runners fall in love with running as they improve their fitness), so writing off these pursuits completely may be a bad idea. To assess the likelihood of a pursuit becoming energy- creating as your competency improves, ask yourself,“Do I love the good version of this?” In other words, if you imagine yourself at a modest or improved competency level at the pursuit, does it give you energy?

• Choosing the right pursuits is a direct path to a more purpose- filled, fulfilling, productive, and successful life. Learn to follow your energy and you won’t be led astray. Conduct the pursuit- map exercise and slowly start to work toward a world where your time is invested in the pursuits that provide the greatest rewards.

• Feynman’s true genius was his ability to convey complex ideas in simple, elegant ways. He observed that complexity and jargon are often used to mask a lack of deep understanding. The Feynman technique is a learning model that leverages teaching and prioritizes simplicity to help you develop a deep understanding of any topic. It involves four key steps: Set the stage. Teach. Assess and study. Organize, convey, and review.

• What’s the problem you are trying to solve? We often waste time and energy trying to solve the wrong problem. Identify the right problem before you try to solve it.

• Eight thinking prompts I have found particularly useful: If I repeated my current typical day for one hundred days, would my life be better or worse? If people observed my actions for a week, what would they say my priorities are? If I were the main character in a movie of my life, what would the audience be screaming at me to do right now? Am I hunting antelope(big important problems) or field mice(small urgent problems)? How can I do less but better? What are my strongest beliefs? What would it take for me to change my mind on them? What are a few things I know now that I wish I’d known five years ago? What actions did I engage in five years ago that I cringe at today? What actions am I engaged in today that I might cringe at in five years?

• Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote,“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well- being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”

• These insights on the benefits of walking are more than just anecdotes; they are supported by a large and growing body of science: Stanford researchers found that students performed significantly better on tests measuring creative, divergent thinking during and after walks. In fact, walking boosted creative thinking by an average of 60 percent and the benefits lasted well beyond the walk itself.[ 8] Researchers in Illinois found that children exhibited improved cognitive performance after twenty minutes of walking compared to twenty minutes of sitting quietly.[ 9] University of Hong Kong researchers showed that talking while walking side by side with someone led to deeper feelings of connection, implying that walking meetings may actually create better outcomes.[ 10] A NeuroImage study in June 2021 suggested that daily walking may improve white- matter plasticity in older adults, meaning improved memory- retention curves.

• Take a five- minute walk between meetings, after a meal, or before an important presentation.

• Go for a fifteen- minute walk first thing in the morning. The sunlight, movement, and fresh air have a direct positive impact on your mood, circadian rhythm, metabolism, digestion, and more.

• Enjoy longer, passive, tech- free walks when you have the time. These walks are thirty to sixty minutes long and are done at a slow, leisurely pace with no technology. The mind should be free to wander. Allow your ideas to mingle. I’d suggest bringing a little pocket notebook to log anything interesting that comes into your head(it will happen!).

• The benefits of having a power- down ritual that I have observed: CLEAR BOUNDARIES: The ritual creates a clear set of boundaries that separate professional and personal activities. We become more present on each side of the boundary.

• IMPROVED MENTAL HEALTH: I feel so much better in the evenings after I have had the power- down. I’m more present with my wife and son, I’m not worried about the random notifications that are hitting, and I’m able to fall asleep faster.

• Every single evening, at the end of your day, open your journal(or favorite digital tool or application) and write down three simple points: One win from the day One point of tension, anxiety, or stress One point of gratitude

• THE THREE PILLARS OF MENTAL WEALTH: PURPOSE: The clarity of defining a unique vision and focus that creates meaning and aligns short- and long- term decision making; the unwillingness to live someone else’s life GROWTH: The hunger to progress and change, driven by an understanding of the dynamic potential of your intelligence, ability, and character SPACE: The creation of stillness and solitude to think, reset, wrestle with questions, and recharge; the ability and willingness to listen to your inner voice

• YOUR ONE- WEEK JUMP START Use the ikigai exercise to begin to explore and uncover your purpose and how it may connect to your current life endeavors. Create three separate lists: WHAT YOU LOVE: The activities that are life- giving, that bring joy WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT: The activities that feel effortless WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS: Define your current world and the activities that your current world needs from you. Identify the overlap of the three lists— this is a starting point for you to explore and uncover your higher- order life purpose.

Physical Wealth

• The disciplined pursuit of a life of Physical Wealth is a catalyst for growth: It initiates a mindset shift— it reminds you that you are in control, that you have the power. That mindset shift creates ripples that extend well beyond the core to every area of life.

• “I made it to the summit of corporate America and realized that life doesn’t provide control. The evidence was clear— the most ‘successful’ people weren’t people I wanted to emulate in any way— they had lots of Financial Wealth but zero Physical Wealth. So I hit the eject button.” Today, Kevin Dahlstrom lives his dream life. He estimates that he gave up about ten million dollars in future earnings by stepping off the track, but his vibrant energy and broad smile show he has no regrets. He spends most of his time rock climbing, with his wife and kids, or working on any number of exciting, flexible professional projects that give him energy.

• Your present self is the primary stakeholder in your world, but your future self is the direct heir of the long- term compounding of your actions in the present. Your eighty- year- old self would remind you that you get only one body, and the way you treat it today is reflected and amplified in the way it will treat you years in the future.

• “Treat your body like a house you have to live in for another seventy years.” Your body is, quite literally, the house that you’re going to live in for the rest of your life. And yet a lot of people treat that house like trash— they drink and eat too much, don’t sleep enough, rarely move, and avoid the basic investments and repairs necessary to keep it maintained. You are in control of the present and future state of your house. Keep the foundation and roof in solid order, fix minor issues as soon as they arise, and make the small daily, weekly, and monthly investments required to ensure it will last a long, long time. With a body, just as with a home, if you take care of it today, it will take care of you for years to come. Let’s make sure you’re dancing at your eightieth birthday party.

• The Olympic Games slowly faded after Greece was conquered by the Roman Empire in the second century B.C., and the celebration and cultural importance of the human physical form fell out of favor with the rise of Christianity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Author Maria Popova summarized the period:“Under Christian doctrine, the body was too sinful an instrument to be afforded public celebration or private homilies. The cerebral solemnity of the cathedral replaced the joyful physicality of the gymnasium, where crowds had once gathered as much to tone their bodies as to hone their minds on Plato and Aristotle’s philosophy lectures… and so it is that the notion of exercise fell out of the popular imagination for a millennium.”

• Johnson’s diet is as regimented as his mornings; his meals are eaten during a feeding window from 5: 00 A.M. to 11: 00 A.M. and consist of four components: The Green Giant: Pre- workout morning concoction of water, spermidine(greens powder), amino acids, creatine, collagen peptides, cocoa flavanols, and cinnamon Super Veggie: High- protein vegan combination of black lentils, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, and a variety of accompaniments, including garlic, ginger root, and more Nutty Pudding: Pudding rich in healthy fats composed of macadamia nut milk, macadamia nuts, walnuts, chia seeds, flaxseed, Brazil nuts, cocoa powder, berries, cherries, and more A Variable Third Meal: Generally a vegetable- heavy salad or stuffed sweet potato

• Two basic rules that everyone should follow with respect to macros: PRIORITIZE PROTEIN: Protein is essential for all body functions, but many under- consume it. Have a solid source of protein at every single meal. FOCUS ON CLEANLINESS OF SOURCE: Rather than adopting a dogmatic view on the specific balance of the different macronutrients, focus on the cleanliness of the sources of macronutrients. This means getting the macronutrients from primarily whole, unprocessed sources(foods in their natural state that have not been modified or had synthetic ingredients added to them). A good rule of thumb is to eat foods that have a minimal number of ingredients, as more ingredients typically indicate synthetic processing.

• LEVEL 3: Eat whole, unprocessed foods 95 percent of the time. Prioritize daily protein intake(about 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight) and overall macronutrient consumption. Supplement as necessary with key micronutrients for a well- rounded nutrition profile. Get the recommended amounts of fluid.

• MY APPLICATION: Waking up early is the easiest way to improve your odds of success. You don’t have to wake up early to be successful, but you rarely find an early riser who isn’t winning.

• IMPLEMENTATION PLAN: Make sure you drink sixteen ounces of water upon rising. If you want to add a boost to the water, consider adding lemon, electrolytes, or greens powder to supercharge the effects.

• MORNING ROUTINE PRINCIPLE 5: FOCUS Most people are not wired to work from nine to five. Modern work culture is a remnant of an earlier age— long periods of the same steady monotonous tasks. If your goal is to create, you must work like a lion. Sprint when inspired. Rest. Repeat. MY APPLICATION: I always start my day with two hours of focused work on the most important tasks. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN: Establish your most important tasks for the next day the night before. Go through them during a focused block of work to start your morning.

• Eat well most(about 80 to 90 percent) of the time. Save junk- food splurges for the stuff you really love. Prioritize single- ingredient, whole, unprocessed foods.

• Stop eating before you’re stuffed(eating to 80 percent satiety is a good rule of thumb).

• Make sure to get enough protein for your body goals. A good baseline is 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight for someone who is physically active.

• THE THREE PILLARS OF PHYSICAL WEALTH: MOVEMENT: Daily body movement through a combination of cardiovascular exercise and resistance training; activities to promote stability and flexibility NUTRITION: Consumption of primarily whole, unprocessed foods to meet major nutrient needs, supplementing as necessary to meet micronutrient needs RECOVERY: High- quality, consistent sleep performance, and other recovery- promoting activities

Financial Wealth

• History is littered with stories of billionaires who strive for the next rung of the ladder and take on undue risk, only to lose it all. In the past five years alone, we’ve seen several entrepreneurs go from being celebrated on the cover of Forbes to being jeered in the corner of a prison cellblock. Sam Bankman- Fried and Elizabeth Holmes were touted by many as being part of a new class of generational founders, their names expected to be plastered alongside those of Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos. Unfortunately, despite early successes that appear to have been legitimate, their chase for more led to a steady deterioration of ethical standards that resulted in eventual criminal charges and convictions.

• Importantly, the Enough Life doesn’t have to be simple or spartan; it can be as ambitious or lavish as you see fit. My Enough Life has a vacation home in a beautiful location, mainly because I want to be able to host family and friends to make incredible memories, but it is devoid of luxuries I have no interest in(private jets, yachts, mansions, supercars, fancy jewelry, and so on). The point is that it is your Enough Life— not someone else’s, not influenced by social or cultural pressures, not prone to the subconscious escalation of lifestyle creep. By defining it, by writing it down and keeping it top of mind, you force it into the conscious mind. This doesn’t perfectly halt the natural upward movement, but it does convert an irrational, subconscious movement into a rational, conscious one.

• Your aim then becomes building Financial Wealth— through income generation, expense management, and long- term investment— up to the point where it enables that Enough Life that you have defined. Beyond that point, the aim shifts to balancing your energy across a broader range of pursuits. Once you’ve reached this point, the Enough Life, you no longer need to focus on money and instead you can prioritize more time, relationships, purpose, growth, and health.

• The investment banker laughs at the silly question.“Well, then you could retire to a quiet town! You could sleep late, fish a little, and spend time with your children and beautiful wife. In the evening, you could go into town, drink wine, play the guitar, and sing and laugh with your friends.” The fisherman smiles broadly, thanks his new friend for the advice, and wanders off slowly in the warm afternoon sun. The popular interpretation of this parable is that the investment banker is wrong, and the fisherman is right. My own interpretation is that this story isn’t about the fisherman being right and the banker being wrong— it’s about identifying what success and purpose look like to you and building a life that meets that definition. It’s about defining your Enough Life and then working to embrace it.

• In a powerful scene in the movie Cool Runnings, the story of the unlikely journey of a Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics, the team’s coach, played by the late John Candy, observes to one of the stars of the team:“A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.”

• For hundreds of years, conventional wisdom held that as long as the paper money was, at least in principle, connected to gold, the global economy built on it could continue to function and thrive. Up through the early twentieth century, all the world’s major economies operated on a so- called gold standard, meaning the currency was backed by gold, and a certain quantity of paper money could be taken to the government and exchanged for a fixed amount of gold. In the United States, this meant that any citizen could exchange $ 20.67 for one ounce of gold. The value of the paper currencies was tied to gold. But while the system worked in the good times, it began to show major cracks in the bad. During the early years of the Great Depression, panicked citizens redeemed their paper currency for gold and hoarded the precious metal, depleting the reserves in the vaults of the major global powers. In 1931, the Bank of England abandoned the gold standard, and in 1933, concerned that the flight to gold would make the economy grind to a screeching halt at a time when it needed to move, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced the United States would do the same. These groundbreaking decisions untethered paper money from its connection to gold and shifted money from a system rooted in the physical world to a system tethered to something intangible— a system whose only constraint was human imagination.

• The gap between your income and your expenses is the most important tool in your financial independence tool kit— and it’s a tool that you get to create.

• The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.—CHARLIE MUNGER

• The young inventor replies,“Your Highness, I do not ask for money or jewels; I simply ask for a little rice. A single grain on the first square, two grains on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, and so on, for the full sixty- four squares of this chessboard.” The king, surprised to have gotten such a great bargain, smiles and summons his treasurer.

• During his long and illustrious investing career, Warren Buffett amassed a net worth of over $ 130 billion, a figure made even more stunning by the fact that the vast majority of this wealth was built after his sixtieth birthday. According to most estimates, he reached $ 1 million at age thirty, $ 25 million at age forty, $ 375 million at age fifty, and $ 1 billion at age fifty- six. That means that it took him roughly thirty- two years(from when he started working for Benjamin Graham at age twenty- four up to his fifty- sixth birthday) to earn his first billion but just thirty- seven years to earn his next $ 129 billion. Warren Buffett created one of history’s greatest compounding machines, got out of its way, and allowed it to work on his behalf.

• When it comes to leveraging compounding to build Financial Wealth, we all need to take a lesson from Buffett: Time, not average annual returns, is the most important factor. Morgan Housel, the bestselling author of The Psychology of Money and Same as Ever, adds clarity to this point:“All compounding is, is returns to the power of time, but time is the exponent. So that’s to me what you want to maximize.”

• Albert Einstein famously referred to compound interest as“the eighth wonder of the world”:“He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.”

• A few common Financial Wealth anti- goals to avoid on your journey: Focusing on my pursuit of financial goals at the expense of the other types of wealth Allowing my definition of the Enough Life to subconsciously expand

• Here are the prompts I used to define my Enough Life: Where do you live? Are you living in a house, apartment, or something else? What specific characteristics do you love about the place where you live? Do you spend all your time in one place or live in different places? Whom do you live with? Are you close to family or far away? What are you doing on an average Tuesday? What are you spending your time on? What are you working on? What are you thinking about? What material things do you have? What are the objects or possessions that truly bring joy to your life? What do you have the flexibility to spend money on freely? What does your financial profile look like? What amount of money enables that life? How much cushion do you have in your finances? What are you earning, saving, and investing each month? How much of a safety net do you have? Sit down and write out your responses to these questions. Remember that this is a personal exercise; your Enough Life is entirely individual and not subject to the judgment of others. One person’s Enough Life may involve several luxury homes to host family and friends, while another person’s may simply be the freedom to take two family vacations each year. Just as in the case of dharma, your Enough Life does not have to be grand or impressive— it simply must be yours. If you are married or have a life partner, you should conduct this exercise individually and then come together to compare your responses. My wife and I made a date out of it(which was quite fun!). Once you have a clear, vivid image of your Enough Life, you can use it as a tool for planning: What is the gap from your present reality to that future reality? What are the key steps and actions necessary to bridge that gap?

• The Enough Life exercise is one that can be completed every few years. In all likelihood, your definition of enough will increase over time as your reality comes closer to your definition. That is to be expected. The goal is simply for it to be a conscious upward movement that can be measured and monitored, rather than a subconscious one that can accelerate out of control.

• Frugality, quite simply, is about choosing the things you love enough to spend extravagantly on— and then cutting costs mercilessly on the things you don’t love.

• Ask $ 30,000 questions, not $ 3 questions. We’re obsessed with tiny financial decisions that make no real difference in our lives. They keep us busy and small. The amount you spend on coffee will not change your life, but focusing on $ 30,000 questions will. Focus on investment fees, asset allocation, negotiating salary, mortgage interest, and student loan interest. These $ 30,000 questions will make a difference in the long run.

• Buy the best and keep it as long as possible. Sometimes buying cheap ends up being expensive, and spending a little(or a lot) more for quality saves money in the end. For example, I enjoy buying high- end electronics because they last longer, high- end clothes because they don’t tear or rip as easily, and high- end cameras for their reliability. Some of these items can be passed on for generations.

• Be frugal with yourself and generous with others.

• Be a conscious spender, not a cheap person. Cheap people care about the cost of something. Conscious spenders care about the value of something. Cheap people try to get the lowest price on everything. Conscious spenders try to get the lowest price on most things but are willing to spend extravagantly on items they really care about.

• The way you feel about money is uncorrelated with the amount in your bank account. Many of us believe that if we just had $ 1,000 more, or $ 10,000 more, or even $ 100,000 more, we’d stop worrying about money and finally feel good about money. Bad news: No amount will change the way you feel about money. To feel good about money, you need to(a) know your numbers and(b) improve your money psychology by spending unapologetically on things you care about(and paying as little as possible for things you don’t).

• CREATE VALUE, RECEIVE VALUE Financial success is a by- product of the amount of value you create for those around you. The richest people in the world have billions of dollars, but they have each created tens or hundreds of billions of dollars of value and simply captured a small portion of that value they created. If you want to make a lot of money, stop focusing on your investments, stop focusing on your plan, stop focusing on your strategy, and start focusing on how you can create immense value for everyone around you. If you do that, the money will follow.

• SWALLOW THE FROG If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.—MARK TWAIN For Mark Twain, the frog is the thing you don’t want to do. By eating it first thing in the morning, you build momentum from getting the toughest thing done. This wisdom provides one of the greatest hacks to get ahead early in your career: Swallow the frog for your boss. Observe your boss and figure out what she hates doing, learn to do it, take it off her plate(swallow her frog). This is a clear way to add value, put up a win, and build momentum.

• DO THE OLD- FASHIONED THINGS WELL In a world that has lost sight of the basics, there are simple things that still stand out. Some examples: Look people in the eye, do what you say you’ll do, be on time(or early!), practice good posture, have a confident handshake, hold the door, be kind(never gossip!). It may sound silly, but these things are all free, are entirely within your control, and will never go out of style.

• WORK HARD FIRST, WORK SMART LATER Over the past several years, it has become very trendy to say that hard work is overrated, that working smart is all that matters. Wrong. If you want to accomplish anything meaningful, you have to start by working hard. Build a reputation for hard work— take pride in it. Then you can start to build leverage to work smart. Leverage is earned, not found. When you’re starting out, you shouldn’t be focused on leverage. You should be focused on creating value anywhere and everywhere. Hard now, smart later. Earn your leverage.

• BUILD STORYTELLING SKILLS An observation from having the privilege of spending time with some incredible leaders: World- changing CEOs aren’t the smartest people in their organizations. They are exceptional at aggregating data and communicating it simply and effectively. Data in, story out. If you can build that storytelling skill, you’ll always be valuable.

• BUILD A REPUTATION FOR FIGURING IT OUT At every step of your career, you’ll be given a lot of tasks you have no idea how to complete. Impostor syndrome will inevitably set in— you’ll wonder how you can possibly do this thing that you’ve never done before(let alone do it well!). There’s nothing more valuable than someone who can just figure it out. Ask the key questions, do some work, get it done. If you do that, people will fight over you.

• DIVE THROUGH EVERY CRACKED- OPEN DOOR If someone cracks open a door that may present an opportunity, dive through it. It doesn’t matter if the opening is the exact opportunity you want. Become useful now, and the opportunities that excite you will appear later. Every great story starts with a tiny crack. Spot it. Dive through it.

• DESIGN: In a world where artificial intelligence will direct much of the doing, design taste and preferences will rise in importance. The ability to direct AI(and humans) to produce a coherent, beautiful design vision will be essential across many industries.

• WRITING: You cannot write clearly if you aren’t thinking clearly. Writing forces a clarity of thought that is useful across any major endeavor. The ability to convey ideas in simple, concise language is a meta- skill that will provide value in every arena.

• BUDGET FOR EXPERIENCES: In creating your monthly budget, be sure to factor in experiences and fun as a cushion. Dinners out, movies, travel, and so forth are all expenses that should be factored in as you contemplate the lifestyle you want to have.

• Investing in REITs is considered a tax- efficient, low- headache way to invest in real estate, as the REITs are required to pay out a minimum of 90 percent of their taxable income as dividends.

• PROS: High historical average compounded annual returns Provide tax- efficient real estate exposure without management headaches CONS: High volatility, comparable to or greater than stocks Significant drawdowns during market crashes

• ASSET 5: FARMLAND Farmland has historically been a significant source of wealth creation and an attractive, income- producing asset. Given this profile, today there are platforms that provide opportunities for accredited investors to own partial stakes in farmland operations. Farmland has low correlation to stock and bond returns and low overall volatility due to the stability of the land value, and it provides inflation protection, as it tends to rise in value in connection to broader market price trends. Investments in farmland tend to be highly illiquid and generally require higher fees and accreditation status. PROS: Low correlation with traditional assets, low overall principal risk Strong hedge against inflation CONS: Low liquidity Higher fees and accreditation requirements

• Choosing the right asset classes for your portfolio means selecting those that provide access to attractive average returns on a risk- adjusted basis, but also on a hassle- adjusted basis. Mitchell Baldridge, a well- known certified public accountant and writer, refers to a concept he calls“return on hassle”— the idea that the time and energy associated with an investment need to be considered as part of the return equation.

• As an example, when I started my first job, I chose to live by myself rather than with three roommates. On the surface, it seemed like a silly financial decision— about twice the monthly cost— but it gave me space for deep focus and deep relaxation. I think the investment paid for itself in accelerated career growth within a year. The bias is to underestimate the value that these investments have. The financial cost is easily quantifiable, so we focus on it and ignore the benefits in other areas of our lives. But if you evaluate the benefits through the lens of the other types of wealth— Time, Social, Mental, and Physical— you will more appropriately account for them and make a better long- term decision. As a rule of thumb: Never think twice about making investments in yourself.

• THE THREE PILLARS OF FINANCIAL WEALTH: INCOME GENERATION: Create stable, growing income through primary employment, secondary employment, or passive streams EXPENSE MANAGEMENT: Manage expenses so that they are reliably below your income level and grow at a slower rate LONG- TERM INVESTMENT: Invest the difference between your income and expenses in long- term, efficient, low- cost assets that compound effectively

Conclusion: The Leap of Faith

• The benefactor, played by Ken Watanabe, seems to sense his counterpart’s call to adventure and poses a single, powerful question:“Do you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?” My life— my entire story— is the result of a leap of faith.

• Make decisions that consider all five types of wealth. Rather than narrowly focusing on Financial Wealth, evaluate a decision based on its impact on all five types of wealth. When you’re considering a career change, weigh the impact of the decision on your time, your relationships, and your purpose and growth. When you’re thinking about a move, consider the effects on your loved ones and your health. When you’re evaluating a big investment or purchase, reflect on the impact it may have on your freedom and mental state. The most important decisions are best made with the full spectrum of your life in mind.