Episode 421: Sahil Bloom: How Boring and Basic Routines Can Build 5 Types of True Wealth

24:45Yeah. I mean, physical wealth is one of the pillars. I know. And it's a huge catalyst for all of that. Let's talk about it. I mean, this is like one of my hot takes on life that there's no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5 a.m. and works out. And I say that over and over again, and people always get outraged by it every time I say it. And what I'm talking about is that it's not about the workout. It's about what it means. It's about the ability that you create when you go and do that, is that you convince yourself that you are someone that can do a hard thing. Because it's very hard to wake up early and work out.

25:17It's very hard to convince yourself to do that. And so like the first thing I say when a young person comes to me and they're feeling lost in life, feeling stuck is for 30 straight days, wake up at 5 a.m. and work out. And I guarantee you will rewire your brain. You will immediately start identifying as a winner if you can do that because you're doing something hard. You're doing something you don't want to do. You're delaying gratification and you will feel the impact of that action after 30 days. You will look different. You will feel different. You will be more confident. You'll carry yourself.

25:45And that has ripple effects into every other area of your life. You just said the main word, though, confidence, because I think it breeds confidence. Because you see yourself doing a hard thing over and over again, you will have that self-efficacy, like, I can do hard things, I am confident, I can finish this thing. And I think that, like I said earlier, that's why I think people are very myopic when they think about what exercise really means. And so when I see that as one of your pillars of your wealth, of physicality, I think it's like the number one pillar. It's like the number one. If I was going to do one through five, that's like the first thing, because it does open up all these other channels.

26:22Yeah, it's a catalyst into everything else. I mean, I tell the story of a young man in the book. Throughout the book, there's all these stories of real people that I've interacted with and tell their stories. and there's a young man who was on the path to killing himself. And he was given a month free pass to go to a gym and decided like, what the hell, I'm gonna use it. And he went one day and felt like shit from going. He was like, all right, I'm gonna go another day. And he went the second day and then he went the third day. Then he kind of felt a little good. He felt a little sore from some of the workouts.

26:53So he went the fourth day and he went for 30 straight days. And at the end of the 30 days, he noticed he was getting dressed for work that day and his belt had gone a notch in from where it was. And the way he described it was that in that moment, he recognized that he had power, that he had control over the outcomes in his life. And that was something that he hadn't felt. He had felt completely powerless in his life. That was that feeling of feeling lost, feeling stuck. And the fitness was a catalyst because it proved to him that he actually did have that power to make an action, to create an outcome.

27:26and that had ripple effects into every other area of his life and now today he's inspiring millions of people he's uh creating content he's doing all of these incredible things and it all started with this 30-day window and that tiny notch in his belt that's amazing i love that story actually and i bet you when you were 30 and you were kind of like recalibrating your life and you gained all that weight it's because you weren't working out and then i bet you one of the first things you did was start working out again yeah i mean i was drinking six seven nights a week yeah um i mean you would like i'll we can put a picture in the show notes or we can put it up i mean i looked like a different person in a lot of ways and i can't imagine that you look like he by the way he looks like an ab if you're just listening he looks like an abercrombie fitch model and then like he said to me before we started he was didn't always look like my uh my like awkward childhood years of going to abercrombie and and not fitting into the clothes i feel very uh i feel very vindicated right now um but you were a baseball player you're an athlete I was very strong.

28:23No, I was very strong, but I was like, I was fujacked, if you know what that means. Like fat jacked. Yeah, we always used to talk about, the football guys at Stanford used to talk about having a shallow water body where like they had like big traps and shoulders and chest, but their abs were like disgusting. So you'd stand in shallow water and look really good. I always, that always cracked me up. That's hilarious. I was like, that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good term. I like that, the shallow water body. Yeah, you should write that down. Shallow? Water body. Okay. I am going to write it down.

28:52It's like sloppy lower abs, but pretty good up top. I'm going to use that. And then the other one is fat jacked. Yeah. Fajacked. Fajacked. Yeah. That is so hilarious. Some good terms. Oh my God. I love it. Yeah. I'm just creating value. That's why I'm an author, you know, because I come up with these great ideas. That's so good. Yeah. No, fitness was definitely a huge catalyst in my life. And refinding, A, like just the simple things of walking every single day. I mean, we, I mentioned we were, we were really struggling to conceive. And that was, that's something, I don't know, there's probably some listeners out there that have experienced this.

29:28It is, it's something that people don't talk about. You bottle it up and you internalize it because it's, it feels like a stigma. And for women in particular, there's this assumption of fault. And my wife carried that burden. And unfortunately, I was not there to either help or bear that burden myself. And frankly, in hindsight, I would argue that it was probably mostly me because I was not in any sort of health or shape or stress levels or all of these things that we now know impact fertility to be there for her in the way that I needed to. And the most beautiful thing in all of this was made this big change, sold her house, moved back to the East Coast.

30:08Within two weeks of getting home, my wife got pregnant naturally. And it was just this like unbelievable example, whatever you believe in, God, energy, whatever it is, it was this unbelievable example of like when energy comes into alignment, everything falls into place as it should. And I remember so vividly coming home from the hospital after my son was born, pulling onto our street and we turned into our driveway and like both of our sets of parents who lived in the area were there like cheering in the driveway and just that moment like i will never forget that moment of feeling like we were truly home like that feeling of having arrived in that way i love that that's so nice that's so very lucky i love that is your wife here in in la with you now or no she's not here with me right now she's back home with her son what's your son's name but roman and by the way i didn't even ask to you earlier, but what does your sister do now?

31:09I'm curious. She said she's such a rock star. I don't even know what she does. She's still a rock star. She's the CEO of a healthcare technology startup in the Boston area. She was a physics major at Yale and then went to Harvard Business School and now is a CEO. And it's interesting. She's a real loser. You're right. But my relationship with my sister is, I write about it and it's one of the most beautiful things in all of this, frankly, has been the metamorphosis of that relationship because I spent 30 years of my life resenting my sister and feeling competitive and creating this dynamic with her that was fundamentally one of tension and one where I couldn't get over the fact that she was achieving the things that I was supposed to be and that I resented that.

31:53And after my son was born, I so clearly remember this one moment. They came down to see him when he came back from the hospital and she has a son who is 11 months older than mine. It was her first. And we were together and we took a picture of the two of us holding our little boys. And I looked at her and I remember this sensation that after 30 years of living together, it was like I was meeting my sister for the first time. Because we were, for the first time in our lives, like we were in the same stage. We were in the same place in our lives. It was no longer this like competitive, you know, resentment, all these things.

32:31We were just in it together. And it was this beautiful reminder to me that sometimes relationships blossom and bloom in a new season of your life when they haven't been in the past. And like that relationship and the way that it has bloomed and the way that it has grown and the joy that I find in it and that I hope she finds in it is really an amazing thing. It's like it is really a reminder that there are people that are going to love you deeply that you have not even met yet. That's so true. I think this is what I think. Sorry. No, no, no. This is what I think is interesting about you a little bit because like I said at the beginning, I don't know where you came from.

33:12I just started seeing some posts, some content. I'm like, wow, this is really deep. I really like this one. Then I'm going to look at this one. And I think this is your superpower. I think you're really good at like taking some like human feeling and then like creating content around it that's very that resonates with a lot of people. Because all these things that you talk about, like it like it touches people in a way that's like, yeah, that's that's so true. Or like, you know, like I think that, you know, that 10 year old thing, anyone who's a parent can relate to the fact that that happens or when or when your parent is aging and you only have X amount of time to see them, especially because my mom, she lives on the East Coast.

33:49And like I said, like that, I'm like, oh, wow, you're right. Like she's 80. I probably get to see her four times maybe if I'm lucky. So when you started to kind of like get out of where you were and then move to the East Coast and get your life back, did you make a decision like, okay, I'm going to start being a content creator. I'm going to start like building my Instagram. Like how did it go from private equity guy living here to then write? Like obviously I get why you're writing books because you're a thinker and all that. But like, is that how it kind of happened with the book? So I had started writing on Twitter originally about a year before we made the big change in our life.

34:27Oh, okay. And that was, I was stuck at home. Like COVID, you live in California. Like I was living in the Bay Area. The lockdowns happened. I was stuck at home. I was no longer commuting every single day. I was no longer traveling four days a week. I didn't have a social life because you weren't allowed to see anybody. Right. And so I was like, I need something to do to fill the time. And I had always loved writing, but never had a public outlet for it. At the time, I started writing these like originally threads on Twitter that were about finance, like about business, about finance, about things I was working on.

34:56And people had started sharing them. I'd started kind of growing, you know, 15, 20 ,000 followers, like from 500. And I was like, oh, this is enjoyable. I'm liking this. But what I realized really early on was I didn't really care about business and finance. I cared about humans. Like I cared about life, the things that we talk about now. And so I started sort of like slowly broadening, opening the aperture of what I was talking about. And by May of 2021, when that drink with a friend happened, my Twitter platform had grown to maybe like 100 ,000 followers. And there was like seeds of the fact that there might be businesses you could build around it.

35:32Like people were coming to me asking about how to build their platform. Startups I'd invested in were asking about like wanting to do more storytelling around their businesses. And so I could see a path where there was something else to do other than investing. But frankly, when we left California and when we were moving back to the East Coast, my initial thought was, I'm going to go work at another investment fund. Right. Because that was all I knew. And I come from a very risk-averse family. Right. My dad's a tenured professor, as risk-averse a track as you can have. What does he do? What kind of professor, though?

36:05Economics and demography. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So he's been at Harvard for the last 20, 25 years. He was the chair of the economics department at Columbia before that. Bunch of dummies in your life. I don't know how you can handle it. But you can see how the expectations around academic orientation were. Totally. And also your mom's Indian. Is your dad Indian too? No, my dad's white. My dad is a white Jewish guy from the Bronx. Oh, okay. By the way, that's hilarious. So I was going to say, because I'm Jewish, and the Indian culture and the Jewish culture are so similar in the academics and education.

36:34Yes. I'm thinking, but now I'm like, okay, well, at least you only have one Indian. Maybe you have like a Protestant. no no no you have a jew and an indian exactly it was all it yeah it all it all added up exactly exactly oh my god yeah no but like i thought i was just gonna go work at another investment fund and i had no luck finding a new job on the east coast and i was interviewing at places and getting rejected from a bunch of things and my wife was the one that looked at me and was like and i said to her i was like i think i made a terrible mistake you know i left i i had a great job in the Bay Area.

37:06I loved my colleagues. I loved the people I worked with. And for, I didn't like what I was doing. It wasn't a fit for me, but I was able to pay the bills. So in some ways it was good. I think I made a terrible mistake. And she just said to me, can't you just do the thing you're doing on the weekend right now? Can't you just do that full time? And I had honestly never thought of it. It never crossed my mind that I could build my own ecosystem, do my own thing, be an entrepreneur. And until she said that, it was like this snap in my mind of someone believing in you before you believe in yourself and the power that comes from that.

37:41And you know, in hindsight, part of that is like, I started dating my wife when she was 15 years old and I was 16. So she had seen, she probably knew me better than I knew myself in some ways. And she had seen the journey and my insecurity and my growth. And she had seen the things I was hiding from the world and she could see, she could really see me. And she saw the energy I was getting from this new thing and knew that like that was the path. And so while I was trying to do all this calculation and be all like quantitative about how to make the next choice and like doing this like Stanford math around all of it, she just saw like, oh, you're really energized by this thing.

38:17I can see your heart being pulled towards it. Why don't you go do that? And there's something really beautiful about that. Like the idea that you can do all the analysis, pros, cons, whatever, weighing of everything. But at the end of the day, your gut, like your instinct, your energy does not lie about these things. Absolutely not. And what's interesting, because you come from that background, but a lot of your like thoughts and ideas are like anti, like even you're like, I want to go, I want to go through some of these, like one of your things I saw is like the anti to do list, right? Yeah. Yeah.

38:47So the anti to do list is the idea of like avoiding things during the day rather than just thinking about what you need to do. Right. So you have like, you have your to do list. Everyone has theirs. It's probably way too long if I had to I guess. And the anti-to-do list is like, what do I need to not do during this day? And it changes from time to time. Like you have different things that you're trying to avoid. But what I have found is that creating an awareness around the things that I'm trying not to do during the day is just as important as knowing what I want to do. So good. Yes. I love that.

39:18So like things on mine would be like, don't complain. That's been a big one for me. Like I just naturally default to like complaining about stupid things. But if you have that in front of you and you're like, okay, I'm not going to complain today. I need to like actually check that off. When you start finding that you're getting pulled that way, you like stop in your tracks or, you know, not having my phone out in front of my son has been a big one and a very challenging one for me. But awareness around the things that you're trying to avoid is powerful because people think that transformation comes from taking specific actions.

39:49It also comes from avoiding specific actions that are holding you back. Like sometimes growth actually comes from not doing the thing that is holding you back, cutting the boat anchors. It's so true because it's actually this idea. And I agree with that. People think something's wrong. They add something versus take it away. And a lot of times when you like take things away, it actually is much more beneficial in a way. It's sort of like another way of saying it is like to become who you want to be, you have to unbecome who you previously were. And a lot of that comes from destruction. like you have to destroy the old version of you.

40:25Yeah. Deconstruct it. Yeah. And there's a loneliness that comes in that too, that I think often goes unsaid that like when you are changing, when you are transforming, when you're living a different way, defining your priorities different from your surroundings, there is going to be a period of loneliness in doing that because you are no longer going to be well-suited to your surroundings, your environment, the people that you felt aligned with all of a sudden start feeling like they're speaking a different language. You almost like cannot communicate because that alignment no longer exists. And you haven't made enough progress to attract the new into your life.

41:00You haven't created those new relationships or had that texture with new people. And so there's a period where you feel alone on these journeys. And what provided solace to me in all of that was viewing that period of loneliness as a tax, quote unquote, on that personal transformation, like a necessary thing that you have to pay. a burden that you have to endure in order to get the gold that's on the other side. I think that's so true. And I, you know, I think we do a lot of behaviors and stay in relationships even because we're trying to avoid that loneliness feeling, right? Like we get to, we distract ourselves with whatever we can, be it a bad relationship, too much work, whatever that bad habit or ritual is, just because we don't want to feel lonely.

41:47And I think that's exactly what we, I think that's like, that's another thing that's human nature, right? And I think it takes a lot of strength to like encourage to not do that and be, I guess, self-awareness to do something different. So you can have maybe a better outcome later on. Yeah. It's also reframing what loneliness means. I think our default setting is to say that loneliness is like not being around people. But I think the loneliest thing in the world is being around people that don't understand you. Totally true. And don't see you for who you are. You can be in a crowded room, but if those people don't really know you, that is the loneliest feeling in the world.

42:23And the flip side of that is if you were around one person who truly sees you for who you are, you will never feel lonely. Yeah, I agree. What was also the other one I love? It's like the law of reverse, was that the law of reverse effect? Reversed effort. Yeah, reverse effort. Yeah. This is a cool idea. Aldous Huxley is this author. You probably like read his book, Brave New World when we were all in high school. That was a big book. Or Spark noted it or whatever, whatever we used to use back then to avoid reading. But the idea is that sometimes you put in more effort and it actually reverses your progress.

42:55And so what you need to do is actually relax in order to make dramatic forward gains. And there was a famous sprinter, Carl Lewis, who had this like 80 % rule where he found that he would run fastest when he tried at an 80 % effort level. because when he really like forced and strained and tried to run at 100%, he actually slowed down because his whole body would tense up and he wouldn't actually run as fast. It made him more tense. And so it's a reminder that sometimes in order to speed up, you need to slow down. You actually need to like lower the effort level a little bit so that you can see things a little bit more clearly.

43:31That's like Messi, the soccer player. Yes, 100%. Right? I write about that in the book. It's one of my favorite examples. It's a great example, right? Because he walks on that field at a snail's pace. And I was so frustrated. I took my kid to see him. And I'm like, what's with this guy? They're paying$500 million. The guy barely moves a little bit so he can see you run. And he just saunters from one side to another. But meanwhile, he's the best player in the world. And he's slower than everybody. Yeah, and then all of a sudden, snaps. And then snaps. And it's like in the perfect moment, at the perfect angle, right to the place where he needed to be to deliver whatever the outcome was.

44:11He is the perfect example of that. Yeah, it's just like deploys effort into the one moment that really counts. And the rest of the time, he's just scanning, thinking, seeing the entire field, creating space. I mean, it's all part of his strategy of how he actually operates. Well, I think though, like it's a great kind of like analogy for life, right? I think all of us, especially me, I'm like busy all the time. and meanwhile like what am i really doing not much of anything because i'm so busy in the weeds that the things that are actually important that i'm like not really paying like where i can actually really excel i'm not doing because i'm too busy now in the weeds of stuff so isn't that more like delegating or more like kind of like how do people do you talk about this ever like how do we stop how do we be more like messy and less and less like me or more like or the majority of people, you know?

45:04It's a central theme, particularly within the time wealth section, that idea of like deploying energy into the things that matter and figuring out how to remove the things that don't. Because what you're trying to avoid and what you're alluding to is like this rocking horse phenomenon where you're moving constantly, but you're not going anywhere. Exactly. Just like swaying around in place. And that's the default in a lot of corporate cultures. That's literally the default. Like you're getting paid to just be a rocking horse. You're like emailing all day, but you're not actually doing anything.

45:30You're doing PowerPoints all day, but you're not actually doing anything. Do you know what you say? Actually, this is what I love. Okay. It's like, you're grazing on low quality tasks. That's what I saw. I love that because that's literally what I'm doing. I'm grazing on low quality tasks. And I bet you 95 % of people are doing that. Yeah. 95 % of people. And the biggest and most consistent thing that you find in high performers is that they do the opposite. They're deploying all of their energy into like two or three things that really matter and finding ways to remove the other things. And so, you know, like I think the quickest thing that anyone can do that's listening to this to start making a change around that is to actually, I call it like my energy calendar is how I think of it, which is at the end of every day for a week, color code your calendar according to whether the activity was energy creating, market green, energy neutral, market yellow, or energy draining, market red.

46:22Energy meaning like, how did you feel after doing it? Like if you felt uplifted by the thing and you felt really pulled towards it or if you felt drained, super tired, bored, whatever. At the end of a week, if you do that for every single day, you will have a very clear perspective on the tasks that you are having your energy pulled towards, the things that are really lighting you up. Those are going to be the things that really drive your life forward, whether it's your fitness, the people that really drive your life forward, the handful of tasks that you are like uniquely pulled towards where you're going to deliver extraordinary returns, and you're going to understand the things that are crushing your soul.

46:55And the challenge then is figuring out what do you do with that information? How do you make slow, steady changes to your work or your life that allow you to remove some of that red, some of the energy draining things from your calendar? Simple ones like energy draining task for me, the number one was like Zoom calls and phone calls. Miserable. Like I would rather staple gun my stomach than sit on a full day of Zoom calls. And what I did was like, okay, I know that those are energy draining for me. I also know that doing a call on a walk is like, arguably energy creating for me, I really enjoy that I'm very present, I feel great when I walk as we were talking about.

47:33And so I shifted half of my phone calls to just being on walks. And all of a sudden, at the end of a week, I feel totally different, because a bunch of that red that was sitting on my calendar is now green, or maybe yellow. And you feel entirely different. All of a sudden, like you have more energy for the energy creating tasks, you feel better at the end of the day, so you can be more present with your people. Making those slight changes has a huge, huge impact. I could not agree with you more. First of all, those Zooms are like, you're killing me slowly with those things. It's where your life force goes to die.

48:04A hundred percent. I refuse to do them. And I say to anybody, why do I have to stare at you to talk to you? I have no interest in looking at your face. I'm sorry. By the way, no one is looking at anyone else other than themselves. I know, they're looking at themselves, exactly. Everyone just looks at themselves on Zoom. Do you know that plastic surgery has gone up like a thousand percent since COVID? Because people are so used to staring at their imperfections all the time on Zoom. That like there are people like, I can't look at myself anymore. And they're like, you can't even get an appointment with these people.

48:32They've tracked people's, they've done studies tracking people's eyes. And it's like 95 % of the time people are just looking at themselves. It's really funny. That's so hilarious. And it's literally like, to me, like, why can't we go back to how it was before? Why do we have to stay on Zooms? Because now you can actually meet people in person, which is way more effective anyway, in my opinion. Like personal connection, connectivity. It's funny that that still works. Can you imagine? People are losing the ability. You know, it's really, don't get me started. I just actually, today, I just did a TED Talk on how to build mentally strong kids.

49:07And I talk all about this stuff. This is not a podcast about me, but we were talking about it. But I find like we're a lose, like the reason why our mental health is we're in a huge crisis and our younger generation are like becoming very, very weak because we're unable to do all these basics that you and I did when we were kids. People don't meet and like we're not even like meeting in person to date. We're not, we're not like comfortable even like looking at each other. And like when you're in an elevator, the first thing people do are they're staring at their phones. They're so scared to make eye contact.

49:41Yeah. People are losing that ability to know how to even deal with a human being. Have you seen, there's a crazy stat that teenagers are spending 70 % less time in person with their friends than they were 20 years ago. 70%. Can you imagine the impact that that is having on an entire generation? Not only do I know about it, it was a slide in my PowerPoint, in my TED Talk, because it is unbelievable. And all the things that we used to do, take out 85 % of those things. like bike riding, socializing, dating, flirting, adventuring, all that. Take 85 % of that stuff out and replace it with a screen and social media, and that's what we have right now.

50:23And then we're wondering why people have no self-esteem, are completely lonely, and we're on a decline every single day. Yeah. I mean, you're removing all... This is something I think about a lot, by the way, and so I can't wait to watch your talk. because I think one of the biggest challenges is that we have removed all friction from our lives. That's exactly what I talked about. If you go over the last 30 years, it's just like everything, right? We've tried to make dating easier. So now you can just, you don't have to go up to a girl at a bar. Nope. You don't have to like deal with the rejection.

50:53You can desensitize yourself to the rejection because it's all through your phone. And so what happens when you do that is later you realize that actually the hard things were what was necessary to achieve the great outcomes. It's like, I mean, I talk about this with relationships all the time that like to build a great relationship, it has nothing to do with the Instagram moments because falling in love is very easy, but growing in love is very, very hard. And growing in love is all about sitting in the mud with people. It's like having the hard conversations. It's not avoiding those moments of struggle and challenge.

51:29And the moments of doing nothing are where great relationships are actually built. It's not the manicured pictures and the perfect moments and the filtered, all of that stuff. It's really in the mud that that growth is found. So what is like, I'm like very passionate about all of this because I think I have kids too. And like, I'm really unhappy with where are the trajectory of life is going just with people. Like even people are single for like, people are not getting married. People are not in relationships. That's what I'm saying. The loneliness, the true loneliness is the real, to me, that's the real pandemic in life.

52:03right because people are losing these abilities to even like even know what it means so with all that being said what do you tell people do you talk i mean you obviously it resonates with you what can you do because you're lucky right you're in a relationship with someone that we're pre all this stuff do you have friends who are like i'm sure you're what 36 years old 33 33 what are your friends doing yeah you have to go back to the basics right and it's the same principle that I think I'll adopt with my son as he gets older, which is like, there's a reason that the old fashioned things still exist because they work.

52:38And that, by the way, goes for relationships just as much as for your health, just as much as for your money. All of the like boring, basic things really work. And grounding yourself in those is important. And so like when I talk to friends who have struggled to find meaningful relationships, especially in big cities, it's like well have you tried just like going to a place where you know people will be similar values to you and just going and talking to someone so like if you're a friend that's really into health you don't need to go on tinder whatever app is the thing and try to like find some perfect manicured picture of some girl right go to a farmer's market right and like go up strike up a conversation with someone that's also buying whatever weird health product that you're buying because chances are they're going to have similar values to you they're going to care about some of things.

53:24If you love dogs, go to an outdoor dog park with your dog and like go meet someone that way. It's like people have lost sight of the fact that there are real normal ways to go and do that. And it's, I mean, the biggest challenge of why you say it's like, it's the real pandemic is we know that social connection is essential to our health. The Harvard study of adult development found that the single greatest predictor of health at age 80 was your relationship satisfaction at age 50. Like how you felt about your relationships actually impacted your health in your later years. And we have an entire generation of people that are losing sight of that.

54:04You're stuck behind a phone. You're interacting with people here, but not with the people that are right in front of you. And it's also like, I think, I always think to myself, like, do you think that you don't know what you don't know, right? So if you were born in our generation, if you were born like after 1995 or 2000, whatever, after 2000, like, if you don't know that, how do you know what you're missing? You don't. So then you're now really stuck. Because it's easy for me to say when I already, I knew what it was like when I had to like, you know, go out there to a party and like, try to like meet a boy or like, you know, get in fights with this person because, you know, I didn't, they, you know, they didn't like my shirt or my sweater or whatever girl fight, whatever the nonsense is, or like sneak out of my house to go to a party, whatever it is, it doesn't happen anymore.

54:47We don't have that same thing. They don't have it anymore. So if you don't know what you don't know, what are you supposed to do? I think you have to be, you have to re-find the importance of delayed gratification. And that just needs to be hammered into people's brains. I mean, I think the whole thing of friction or any of this stuff is fundamentally that you have lost sight of the fact that delayed gratification is the key to life in all of these areas. The ability to do something hard now to achieve a reward later. That is where all of life comes. And that's where the best things in life happen is when you're willing to do that.

55:21And so like with relationships and friendships, that is what it is. You have to do the hard, you have to show up for the person during the hard time if you want them to be there for you later and during the good times. And have meaning. Okay, so let's get back to the book. So let's talk about the five. This is all the book, by the way. This is good. Good, good, good. I mean, I'm just trying to think of things I missed, like the social part, the mental part. Let's talk about the mental part and the financial. Well, the financial part is is pretty much, yeah. But I want to know, I want some key things that people, actionable items, we have a few we said, that people can really do tomorrow.

55:54Besides fitness stuff, we got that covered. Besides, what other ones did we really - The energy calendar with the time. That's a great one. I love that one. Everyone should do that. That's a really good one. Give me a few more like that. Easy to do. Yeah. So with mental wealth, I'll give you a couple. The first one is what I call my one, one, one method. Okay. So mental wealth, by the way, like what, as I write about it is your purpose, your growth, it's your ability to create space in your life. So Victor Frankl talks about the fact that your power exists in the space between stimulus and response.

56:27So when you're living a life that feels crazy, busy, running around tons of stimulus, and you're immediately responding to all of it, you have no space in between. In that space is your ability to choose the best response. It's to slow things down. And creating space is the most important thing that you have to find rituals and things on a daily basis that create that space. Maybe it's going for a five-minute walk between meetings. Maybe it's meditating. Maybe it's a prayer practice, whatever. In the evenings, I do something called the one-one-one method. I always wanted to journal my whole life, but you're probably wired similar to me.

57:00I thought that journaling meant sit down for 30 minutes with a notebook and like write all this beautiful stuff with a candle lit and like this whole environment that I was going to create. And so as a result, I never did it. I would be like, January 1st would come and I'd be like, I'm going to journal this year. And I'd sit down and I'd like, you know, for one day. And then by day three, inevitably I'd stop. You went to day three? Yeah, maybe, maybe. I might be giving myself too much credit. So the one, one, one method was my way of breaking that. And what I did was I said every single evening, right before bed, I'm going to write down one win from the day, something that went well, one point of stress, tension, or anxiety, something that I'm feeling, and then one point of gratitude, something I felt grateful for during the day.

57:42It takes two to five minutes max, and you feel this unbelievable sense of calm and energy to end the day. Because you're recognizing a win, you're giving yourself credit for that thing you did well, which most of us are really bad at doing. You're getting the point of stress or tension off your mind and onto the piece of paper, which helps you go to sleep at night as well. And then you're recognizing some tiny beauty, something that you didn't pause to appreciate on a normal basis that you're forcing yourself to stop and recognize. And if you do that, you'll A, have a great journaling practice that is now built two to five minutes every single evening, and you'll feel an immediate calm and peace that I have found has massively improved my mental health.

58:23I'm going to try that. Okay, I like that one. Give me another one. The other one, which is maybe like slightly more involved, is to do something called a think day on a either quarterly or monthly basis. This is derived from originally, I first read about it, Bill Gates would take like a week off when he was building Microsoft in the 1980s, go out to a cabin in the woods and just read for a week and just think about all these like big picture questions that were facing the business. and I knew that like I don't have a week I can't take a week off and go and do that it's just not what I'm able to do but the idea of pausing to just think about bigger picture questions in your work in your life and the things that you're doing is really important and we never take the time to do that so I do it now once a month where I will just like go to an Airbnb or go to a coffee shop and spend a few hours just wrestling with like a few bigger picture questions in life a couple of the questions I find really helpful.

59:21Mark Twain has this quote, it ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. And that idea is that there's something in your life right now that you know for sure that just ain't so. Like for me in my prior life, I knew for sure that making a bunch of money was going to make me feel happy and successful, but it just wasn't so. And asking yourself that more regularly, what do I automatically assume is correct in my life and in my approach to life that may not be? What am I marching on the path of that might actually be the wrong path? Forcing yourself to ask that question is really important.

59:57The other big one that I've contemplated a lot on these think days is, what are the boat anchors in my life? And a boat anchor is something that is creating a drag on your progress. Like it's literally sitting down in the seafloor behind you. You're trying to drive the boat forward and it's just sitting there dragging in the mud. It won't let you go full speed. That could be people. In a lot of cases, it is. It's someone that's telling you to be realistic, telling you to come back home, laughing at your ambitions. It could be actions that you're taking, habits, mindsets, things that you're doing on a daily basis that are not conducive to the life that you're trying to create.

1:00:33So the point of all of this is create more space in your life. create space, even if it's quarterly or if it's once a year, sit down and spend some time just thinking about some of the bigger picture things in your life. And the book has a whole series of question prompts for doing one of those think days. But I think those two questions get people started. Yeah, I love that. I say the same. I say like people could be bored. It won't kill them to be bored for a little bit. You think it will. People like take their phone into the bathroom because you can't be bored for two minutes. I know. That's what I'm saying.

1:01:03Like, God forbid that you have nothing to do for 30 seconds. What did people do 15 years ago before phones? I mean, I don't know how people even survive. Did you read a magazine on the toilet? I mean, it's unbelievable. Think about how gross and dirty those phones are. Just imagine. It's like so disgusting. I'll never touch someone's phone because I know where it is, and I don't want to have anything to do with it. That's for sure. That's actually a good point. I've never thought of that. Oh, I think about the most crazy things all the time. Like I'll try everything in my power not to touch someone's phone because it's like that phone has been in places that like is so dirty.

1:01:33It's probably so much like fecal matter on people's phones. Now I'm like not going to be able to unsee that, by the way. It's true because you know what people do? They put their phone behind their like toilet seat or toilet cup, like the back of the toilet, and then they flush the toilet and the water gets on the phone. Like all the crazy shit that I think of, honestly. It's so crazy. But anyway, I'm digressing. That's a good watch out. Yeah. That's good. That's the real piece of advice that you're going to get from this episode. Yeah, exactly. That's a great clip, actually. Okay, so besides the fact that the shallow water body is my favorite piece of clip, the favorite thing that you've shared so far, is there anything else that we didn't talk about?

1:02:14Oh, I want to know your routine. I want to know your morning routine, your evening routine, your habits. I mean, hello. Yeah, habits and hustle. Come on. I know. What was I thinking? Yeah. I mean, I said this earlier. I'm a crazy morning person. Yeah. I'm one of those annoying morning people that everyone gets mad at. I don't ever find it easy to wake up early. People are like, oh, you must just get up feeling excited. I'm like, no, I hate waking up early every morning, but I do it because I know how it makes me feel. I wake up at about 4.15 in the morning. I do that - 4.15 in the morning. Yeah.

1:02:45Every day? Yeah, every day. On purpose. On purpose. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I do that because it gives me several hours before the day really starts. Like before my son is up, before all the emails start, before texts are coming in, I have like a few hours of peace for myself where I can really focus on those couple of things that really matter. And so like when you talk about when life gets really busy and when the day starts, it's very hard to deploy actual energy into those couple of things that really matter. I find that in the morning. And so for the last two years, that morning block, that morning window of work has been working on the book.

1:03:20And it was the only way that I knew for sure I was going to have two hours of dedicated time every single day. So I get up at 4.15. First thing I do is I go and get in my cold plunge. I see yours outside there, which I appreciate. I use mine every single morning and have for several years now. That has been a practice that I've done on and off since like 2012 when I was in college. So you were doing it way before it was popular. Way before it was trendy. and I didn't know that it was a thing. I didn't know that it improved health. I knew that it had a huge impact on my mentality and my mindset.

1:03:51I knew that it made me feel like a badass. When you feel like a badass, you operate like a badass. It's like what we said earlier about confidence. If you feel superhuman, then you're going to do superhuman shit. Totally. Why do you think I wear this? Yeah, there you go. Exactly. It's like an alter ego effect. Alter ego. That's the whole thing. It's all about alter ego. You're creating this version of yourself that can go and do those things. And so I get up every morning and I do that. And then I'm at my desk by about five and I... Well, I think you go from cold plunge and then what do you do?

1:04:22Start working. Oh, so that's your big morning routine. I thought you're going to say exercise and this and that. Okay. I thought that we're going to go into a whole like four hour thing. No, no, no. I don't do the like four hour morning routine. My morning routine is like, I get up, I get in the cold plunge. And then depending on what time of year it is, I will take a hot shower after my cold plunge that I'm not shivering the rest of the day, Yeah, especially in winter in Boston. But like the hardest part of the cold plunge routine is opening the door to go outside It's not like actually getting into the water or sitting in the water because once i'm in it It's fine and everyone always asks does it get easier?

1:04:52Never once have I been like excited to go and do it and I like wrestle with it mentally like I don't really need to do it And so I started I film a video every single morning in it because i'm like, right? I was putting on I did 130 straight days of youtube videos on it But then I was doing I just do like an instagram story every morning from it and um part of that is like it's accountability it's like someone is going to know that i skipped this skip to this morning so i have to do it but yeah i do that and then i go to my desk so i get my like dunkin donuts large cold brew and i go and sit down at my desk to work i work out later in the morning what time i'll go i do my running and working out from about like 9 30 to 11 30 interesting so you don't okay so why don't you do it like right after the cold plunge or after or work out then do the plan i'm most creative first thing in the morning right when I wake up.

1:05:40And this is another just like general principle for people to take. Your energy flows happen at different times of the day. And what I find is that I'm most creative first thing in the morning. And if I don't harness that creative energy for something creative, it's not there. Like it's not like I can be creative in the afternoon. I'm useless in the afternoon. Like if you tried to get me to write in the afternoon, useless. And so what I know is that I need to match the energy I'm feeling to the activity that I'm actually doing. It would be a waste for me to like work out during the time when i'm really creative and similarly like i can work out and have a ton of energy mid-morning because then i've eaten something and uh you know it's a light out it's like if i'm gonna go for a run it's less dangerous too it also just allows me to like make breakfast for my wife and son and be kind of present during that do you want to come over here make breakfast yeah i'd be thrilled to have someone make me breakfast for once um okay and what do you eat are you like a animal person are you like don't tell me you're a vegan no i'm not a vegan no it'd be hard for me to be a vegan uh no i uh i eat pounds and pounds of red meat per week okay uh i would be the worst vegan in the world uh all respect to vegans uh if you want to do that i just i could never deprive myself of that and by the way i don't get this whole nonsense if you're a vegan you have to like shame people who eat and vice versa like this is i have stop with all this stuff this whole like nonsense that you god forbid that you have an opinion yeah that someone else doesn't like.

1:07:02That's the internet though. I can't stand it. You get the most likes for doing that. So people just keep doing it. The more polarizing you are or the more of like you say something that's very like absolute, that's how you get like, that's how you get your likes. Yeah. I mean, no, I am, and it comes across in the book too, but I am the biggest proponent of like finding balance and doing the boring basics. And so like with my nutrition, I make sure that I'm getting 200 plus grams of protein a day that's like a non that's a non-negotiable every single day so what do you eat like what's your favorite thing I eat every single morning for breakfast I'll have four eggs cottage cheese raw honey and if I'm working out and running I'll have some carbs with that either white rice or oatmeal all that yeah I have a big breakfast like a thousand calories probably I probably eat about four thousand calories a day how much do you run a day like what's your um if I'm training for something I ran a marathon like from training for that it was up to you know eight to ten miles average per day during peak of training right now four four miles yeah do you do weight this is that do you do weights and cardio same day do you do splits yeah i do because i run six days a week um so i have to so i run six days a week and lift six days a week for the most part oh me too okay so are you doing that's that's why push pull legs split on the on the uh weight lifting training is what i do but you're also doing the running i guess like you were saying or what we were both saying for your brain yeah the running i find is like meditative me too it's my meditation yeah because you're just like alone in your thoughts and in your head for a long time and i don't like i'm not listening to podcasts and doing stuff when i run i normally if anything i listen to like a sci-fi audio but like something totally like escape the normal i'm not doing business podcasts or how can you run to a business a lot of people do that i'm shocked but i can't i just need to like be in my thoughts yeah i would shoot myself.

1:08:51I totally agree. And like, you're not going to take any interesting takeaways while you're running. Like, are you going to take a note? I totally agree. And I always run before I lift, which is something that a lot of people ask about. I just, um, what I find personally is that like, I won't do it after I lift cause I'm tired. And so, uh, I won't have the motivation and I won't go do it in the same way or with the same intensity. And so I always just run before get it done. But yeah, I have that for breakfast basically every single morning. And if I'm at home, I eat the exact same thing every single day.

1:09:19Yeah, 100 % of the time. And I'm super boring. And I just view that like boredom of routine is the like cost of entry for building the life you want. Like everyone thinks that you need this like glamorous life and that that's what successful people do. But really what underlies all of that success is this like boring, basic drudgery of doing the same thing every single day. You know what I feel like, honestly, I know you haven't because you probably had no clue who I was, but I feel like everything you're saying is literally like videos that I've done or things that I've written that you're just like regurgitating.

1:09:54Yeah, like I say that all the time. It's like the boring shit gets you to think. It's that stuff that makes you thrive and become the most successful version of yourself. People don't want to hear it. There's no magic pill or magic anything. Like I eat the same thing every day. I do the same, I do my writing. It sounds so boring. And like, probably you don't want to hang out with me, but it gets the job done. and like I get from A to B to Z. Yeah. People don't want to know it. I love the boring. Me too. I love it. I love my routines. I don't like traveling and being out of my routines. I like try my best to just stay in my routines.

1:10:24Even when I'm on the road, I'm like I do my absolute best to stay in them. You and me are cut from the same plot. Yeah, I know. I know. We're going to be best friends. We're going to be BFFs. I know. I know. I mean, it's really funny. Like when I travel, I get like a little bit of anxiety. Like I'm like terrible. And I struggle. I mean, it's actually, it's something that I think a lot of people struggle with where like the perfectionism in you and the desire for that routine can actually be a negative because then when you get a little bit out of it, you start to feel the anxiety. Like if you're going to be up later than you'd like and you know that you're going to be tired in the morning or like you can't eat the way you want.

1:10:55Are you in my head? No, I know that exact feeling and I struggle with that a lot. It's literally I like Rose let me say about like adaptive. I think like adaptability is like a superpower and I'm not good at it. I have to learn to be less rigid and more adaptive to be successful, more successful, or whatever you want to call it. Because the people I know who are able to adapt to their environment really fast and regulate themselves and not be so nervous and scared with anger. I'm going to Fiji for crying out loud next week. And I'm nervous as shit. I'm like, how am I going to go to Fiji? What am I going to eat?

1:11:31What am I going to do? How am I going to work out? Most people would be like, wow, that's amazing. You're going to Fiji. And I'm like, that's the kind of neuroses that I have. Yeah, I mean, it's like the analogy I like for that is like when an explorer sets out on a voyage, they're not trusting in having like calm, perfect seas and the perfect plan. They're trusting in their ability to adapt when the chaos and storms inevitably come. And in your life, you are the explorer and life is your voyage. And you need to trust in your adaptability and your ability to navigate whatever storms come. Not that it's just going to be perfect and that your plan and course of action is going to be ideal.

1:12:10I know. Well, what did you do for breakfast today at your hotel? The one hotel here has the best. It's why I stay there. It has the best hotel breakfast. It does? It's so good, the cafe there. It's extraordinarily expensive. I think it was$96 for my breakfast today. By the way, I didn't want to say anything. Which is absurd. That place, I stayed there in Miami just recently. It was basically like it was offensive how expensive it was. It's offensive. The one in Miami I don't love because it's in Miami Beach, which is too touristy for me. The one here is great because it's right next to the Equinox, so I can go to the Equinox and get my workouts in.

1:12:42Yeah, I thought you went to the West Hollywood one. Which is super crowded and crazy, but it's also like it's right there, so it's nice. I get it. And then, yeah, the hotel breakfast there is amazing. What did you have? I had four eggs, a piece of sourdough toast, and a bowl of fruit. And that was$96? $96. Are you sure you weren't? They include gratuity, though. Oh, how nice of them. tell you that by the way which pisses me off when places do this when they hand you the check so rude like the waiter doesn't tell you that the gratuity is already included so it's just like you don't see it oh i know you're like putting 20 on top of 20 i'm like come on just at least say it like it's just a courtesy it's so sneaky yeah i like i'm offended by it but do you know what era one is by the way yes i go broke when i go there by the way that's the most absurd to me like it's the most absurd people are standing in line there like as if they're giving shit away yeah you also feel ugly automatically walking in there because everyone's a model you're like walking around you're like what the hell oh actually not anymore you know what they do now yeah they're getting they're taking tour buses from like ohio and minneapolis they're dropping off people by the droves by like 300 people to look in like it's like a zoo it's like a zoo in there they bring them off the the bus and they're all with their binoculars and their things taking pictures and they're all in line for the 30 dollar like you know bieber oh Oh, the Haley Bieber strawberry glaze.

1:14:01Smoothie, which by the way, had like a thousand calories. I think they made like$10 million of EBITDA on that one smoothie. They did. Which is just absolutely bonkers. Bonkers. I'm in the wrong business, by the way. I went there once. I did this podcast called Girls Gotta Eat. They're awesome. They're really funny. They're funny. It was my first time at Erewhon and then I walked over to their podcast and there's a clip somewhere of me talking about this on the podcast because I spent$30 getting a bottle of water and a cold brew. Like a small can and a bottle of water was$30. And I was like, I feel like I just got assaulted.

1:14:39Yeah, you got raped. I'm just like, this is absurd. It's beyond. How did this happen? How did they justify it is what I don't understand. Because no one says anything. I say it all the time. Everyone goes there. Everyone goes there. People go there. Best business in the world. They're so rich, the people who started Erewhon. They have like a$40 million house in Malibu. Oh, good for them. And they're building out more of these places. I don't know how people can afford this shit, though. People are buying this stuff. I could do a whole podcast on just Erewhon, honestly. I should just stop while I'm ahead.

1:15:09But it's crazy. Erewhon hot takes. You can do it. Exactly. I actually should do it because I have so many stories about this place. It would make some amazing social content, too. Wouldn't it, though? Great clips. I mean, I went through one last story about this place. I went in, I had to get strawberries. Okay, strawberries. At Ralph's, this is another grocery store, they're$4.99. At Whole Foods, maybe like$8.99. Maybe even at Gelson's, another upscale store, maybe$9.99, okay, which is very expensive. I walked into Erwin. I kid you not,$29.99. $29.99. I went up to the person. I'm like, is this wrong?

1:15:47I think you marked it wrong. They're like, no, it's not wrong. I'm like,$30? Gold lace strawberries. Can you believe that? And like an asshole, I'm fighting with this guy. What is he going to do? People are buying them like it's gold. Best strawberries of your life. Best strawberries of your life. They're from a place called Dave's Farm or I don't know, some other wacky farm. Who knows? But welcome to LA is all I have to say. Well, it's been a pleasure meeting you. We have some great takeaways. Some good hot takes. Some good tactics. Exactly. If you want a nice expensive breakfast day at the one hotel, don't go to Erewhon if you don't want to get raped.

1:16:27If you need financial wealth, don't go to Erewhon. Exactly. Maybe like six types of wealth. You should put that as your six. Do not shop at Erewhon. If you go to Erewhon. Well, it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast. Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been a really fun time. And I'm looking forward to staying in touch now that I know that we're kindred spirits. I know. If I would have known. We should have worked out together. Yeah, I know. Next time. I would love to. Like for 100%. Let's do it, 100%. Now, how do people could buy? The book is called Five Types of Wealth. Where else can people find you if they don't know who you are yet?

1:16:57Well, I have a weird name, so it's easy to find me, fortunately. I'm at Sawhill Bloom on every platform. And you can find the book anywhere books are sold now. And always go support your local bookstore if you can. So go find it there. And more info at thefivetypesofwealth.com. Thank you so much for being here.

1:17:20Thank you.