MBA2686 Must Read: The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom

0:00On today's must-read episode, we're diving deep into a book that really reshaped the way I define success or being rich. That book is The Five Types of Wealth by Sahlblum. Now, I got to tell you that when I first started reading this book, I didn't love it. I actually was going to stop reading it, but I said, let me give it a chance. Let me keep reading it. I read past, you know, chapter two and three and four, and it kind of grew on me. It actually started to make more sense to me and be more applicable. And that's why I'm covering it in today's episode. It's all about reframing what wealth means, not just about money, but it's also about having a balanced, meaningful life.

0:40And I'll talk about why I was a little bit uncomfortable with this book at the beginning, and why I didn't really love it at the start, and why I am happy that I give it a chance. We'll unpack the five types of wealth that are covered in this book, time, social, mental, physical, and financial. And I'll share my key takeaways and stories that helped me really rethink what wealth truly means through the lessons that were shared in this book. Let's jump in.

1:14Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Before we jump in, can I get 30 seconds of your time? We love guiding you on your business journey, and we want to help even more people build their dream businesses and lives. So if you could hit the follow button on this podcast app, it would be greatly appreciated. It's completely free and it helps us out more than you know. Thanks. I want to start by just addressing the elephant in the room, why I didn't really love this book at the start and how it grew on me and I started to enjoy it more and more.

1:54One of the big reasons why is because financial wealth is covered pretty much last in the book. and he starts by talking about time wealth, talking about social wealth, talking about mental wealth, physical wealth. And in my head, as Sal's going through these types of wealth, I'm saying, well, a lot of this stuff is not applicable if you don't have money, right? A lot of this stuff is not available to you. You don't have free time if you are working two jobs just to cover rent and cover your expenses. You can't afford getting good mental health or take a holiday or get a trainer or get healthy food if you want physical wealth.

2:33And that was constantly echoing in my head. But I just kept on telling myself, hey, listen, give the book a chance. Let's just presume everybody has the availability of these things to have more time in social wealth and mental wealth and physical wealth. And let's wait until we get to the financial wealth and talk about how the book pans out. Now, I will still say there are things I strongly disagree with in this book, but it doesn't mean there's not value in it. After going through the book, it really allowed me to focus on the things I need to invest more time in or more energy in, in my life that will create a happier life, whether it's social wealth or physical wealth or whatever it might be.

3:15And it's just an interesting thought experiment of understanding, seeing your life as, hey, it's not just one bucket or one idea of success. There's different buckets you need to fill in order for you to feel balance, to feel a sense of belonging to feel joy and happiness and i started to realize i really spent a lot of time and focus and energy on the financial wealth piece of my life because i felt like it would unlock a lot of things and it's true it has but at the same time you still need to do the work on the other things right you still need to work on your social wealth and you need to work on your mental wealth you need to work on your physical wealth or time wealth so this is really something that had me thinking.

3:55Sometimes we get addicted as business owners of the financial status, of the financial goals. It's the only barometer really we have of success. It's like, hey, if we're making more and more money every year, we must be doing well. And we forget the fact that, hey, why? At some point, you don't need all that money. At some point, maybe you want to invest in other things other than financial success, like time wealth, having all the free time you want to do new things and learn new things and explore and travel and pick up hobbies or whatever it might be. That's kind of the journey I went on with this book.

4:27Let me get into the book itself. I just want to kind of preface my experience of reading this book. Maybe you'll have a similar experience, but let's jump into it. One of my favorite first chapters in the book is Time Wealth, which is where Sal opens up with a powerful exercise, asking a lot of older people that he's interviewed toiling over a thousand years of life. Think a group of people where their total lifespan is a thousand years of life. And he asked them what they valued most. And he noticed something that was missing from all their answers. Everyone skipped money. No one said, hey, money matters the most in your life.

5:05Most people said time, family, purpose. That's what really matters. Now, I want to take a quick time out. When I read that chapter, and it was interesting and thought-provoking, but I'm somebody who really likes to think beyond the study, and you know, most people are not going to want to say money is important because they don't want to seem greedy or shallow or whatever it might be. Some people just give answers that people want to hear. Now, I'm not saying that everybody's a liar in this study. I'm saying that, you know, Take that with a grain of salt. There's probably a few people that probably would have changed their answer if it was anonymous.

5:43Still, the thought experiment was valid. Then he uses the American Times Use Survey to show how dramatically time with loved ones declines. Family time peaks early in childhood when you're growing up as a kid in your family. You're with your family a lot. But then you get a job. you start working, and you start not seeing your family, especially your parents, as much as you used to. And it kind of reminds us in the book, you never know which moment will be the last of someone important in your life. So you never know when it's going to be the last time you see your father or your mother or even a sibling or an aunt or an uncle.

6:21And the takeaway of this chapter is really time is finite. We don't get more time. And your time wealth starts with controlling how you spend your time, who you spend it with, what you're doing in that time, and when to kind of just let go. The idea that I really love about this chapter is, it's okay if you love spending your time playing golf. If that's what you enjoy, and that gives you happiness, and that gives you contentment, and you love the camaraderie, and that adds to your social wealth, awesome. But be conscious of it. Be the fact that, hey, I'm spending X amount of hours of my week playing golf, which is going to never come back.

7:00Those hours will never come back. And if I'm happy with that investment, great. But just be conscious of the decisions you're making and just don't let time go by without you making these decisions. The next type of wealth he dives into is called social wealth. And this is where Bloom tackles this idea of relationships in your life and how they're an essential pillar of real fulfillment. He cites many studies showing relationship satisfaction at age 50 is the single strongest predictor of health at the age of 80. So if you have good satisfaction, you feel great when it comes to your relationships by the time you're age 50, those social relationships actually create a great foundation for your health as you get older into your 80s.

7:46I've seen a separate study about blue zones. Blue zones in the world are where people live up to 100 years old, places like Okinawa, Japan or Sardinia in Italy. And one of the biggest reasons is they have a social life. They have a community. They have people that are depending on them. They have people that they look forward to seeing on a regular basis. There's other things involved, diet, health, movement. A lot of them are walking up and down hills and things like that. But that social aspect is a big reason why they live so long. The crazy thing is that we know that, you know, the ages of 40 to 50 or so, we are busy trying to work hard and build a great career and or build a great business and make something of ourselves.

8:31And the first thing that we sacrifice is often our relationships. Our relationships slip and we prioritize work and making money and other maybe distractions even just to, you know, decompress. So the takeaway of this type of wealth is to invest in connection. You have to make it a priority. You have to invest like you're investing your money, meaning how do you invest in something? Well, you put it in your calendar, right? When are you going to have dinner with those old friends that you've been wanting to see again? Or maybe even just family members that you want to get together with? Are you doing social activities, whether it's sport or hobbies or bridge or whatever it might be?

9:09You have to build three to five solid relationships that you can maintain actively over time to have that strong social health. And that's true when it comes to your social wealth. You want to make sure that if you want to be wealthy socially, you have to have relationships you can count on that are resilient. The next type of wealth is mental wealth. Mental wealth is about curiosity. It's about learning. It's about growth. It's about mindset. I'm not a doctor here, but I find that mental health and mental health issues often creep up when you are not actively trying to keep sharp and grow and learn.

9:44And Sahel Bloom in this book, the author argues that purpose, resilience, reflection, these really define a good mental wealth. If your mental health is eroding, nothing really else matters. You really can't do much, right? You can't do much if you're not solid up here. Think about that for a moment. If you're not solid up here, you're not going to have any physical health. You're not going to have any financial health. You're not going to have any social health, all these things kind of collapse. So the takeaway from this chapter was you really need to cultivate a steady stream of learning, clarity, curiosity, and this will make you resilient.

10:24It'll give you emotional strength because you're constantly achieving new goals and learning new things, whether it's learning a new language or learning how to code or become a better writer. These things, even though they're hard, they really allow us to become stronger mentally. And that's really where meaning begins, when we create meaning in our life through what we do in our head, right? What we build in our head. And that stuff lasts, right? Whatever you're doing, you know, one of the things I love to do is just pick up new things, learn new things, whether it's a new hobby like poker, or picking up a new book on a topic I never really was interested in before, but just learning about something new.

11:05Maybe it's gardening, or maybe it's cooking or whatever it might be. But the point here is that it's good for you to just explore a new world and challenge your head. It was kind of meta because when I was reading this chapter, I was resisting this book a little bit. And I was like, hey, let me give it a chance. Even though it's not like my exact cup of tea, maybe I can get something out of this book, even though I disagree with a lot of things that are mentioned. And that's okay. You could disagree with things in a book and still get value. The next type of wealth is physical wealth. Physical wealth is foundational, according to Sal Bloom, the author, who, by the way, was a former athlete, a baseball player.

11:39In the book, he shares stories about people who realize that, you know, their health and their well-being was really underpinning everything. You really can't do much again without physical health either. He encourages three simple principles in the book, which is movement, sleep, and nutrition. We all know that being healthy is pretty simple. And it's really those things is move your body, get good rest, you know, sleep well consistently and eat well. Small routines that compound over time. One of the things I've learned about when it comes to health and compounding and getting better and healthier over time is that something simple is easy to do, but it's also easy not to do.

12:19It's easy to have a salad every day, right? It's also easy not to. It's easy to go for a 10 minute walk, a 15 minute walk. It's also easy not to. So it's actually these small little things that are kind of feel insignificant that you do over time that compound and allow you to just have good habits and be a healthy person. The takeaway from this chapter is treat your body like a home that you're living in long term because you only get one body, right? Small daily habits really will allow you to build a vitality of life and also allow you to enjoy more of life for longer. And that's really why I try to stay healthy.

12:57The next chapter is finally financial wealth. He circles back to money. He talks a little bit about it briefly in the beginning, but Sal Bloom reframes now and says, okay, let's talk about financial wealth and how it's critical, but it's a tool and not a goal. And that's how he sees it. He sees like, hey, we got to use financial wealth as a tool to fulfill other things and not a goal within itself. The message that he wants to kind of drill home in the book is, you know, define your financial enough, right? What's enough for you? And that's a tough one because what we want in life often changes as we grow older.

13:33One tip he gives us is to align money with purpose and not vice versa. He breaks down structures like passive income, value creation, smart savings. These are very simple ideas that we all kind of know, you know, invest your money, let your money work for you so that, you know, over time, you know, that money can serve you as you get older when you can't work no longer. The takeaway he wants you to have in this chapter is like, let money serve your life, not rule it. Now, I get what he's saying. Don't be a slave to trying to make money. I get it. But this is kind of where in the book I have a issue with, where it's like, that's a very simplistic understanding of financial wealth, right?

14:12And if you've come from no money, like I did, my parents were immigrants, came from Egypt. I grew up with very little money, never had any pocket money growing up. we just barely were able to live a very modest lifestyle. But the reason why I'm sharing that is because when you don't have anything and then you are striving to make money, the reason why you do that, the back of your mind, you're just like, I just never want to go back there. I never want to, you know, not have financial abundance. And in order for you to allow money to serve you, you need to make some money in the first place, right?

14:44You got to work hard, build assets, to build a business that allows you to have a surplus of money that you can then invest and allow it work for you. But it just doesn't happen magically. I'm like, okay, I'm just going to let money serve me, but where are you going to make that money? And how are you going to make that money? And how much money will you have left over? And how long will it take with that money left over? I mean, if your bills are$5 ,000 and you make$5 ,200 a month, you have$200 of savings each month. Is that enough for you to let money serve you long term? How long is that going to take?

15:17Are you going to be able to take vacations? Are you gonna be able to get any kind of reward from not spending another extra dime? I mean, you got to be practical. And that's really where I have a difference of opinion with the author in this book. I believe that growing financial wealth is something that should be a priority in your life because it makes things a lot easier once you do. Okay, once it's not a hindrance on your ability to do other things like have time wealth or having social wealth or having physical wealth or having mental wealth. All that stuff, to me, is so much easier to achieve when the money part is solved, okay?

15:50Because money does unlock a lot of things for you. It at least reduces your financial stress so that you can have the peace of mind to start thinking about investing these other things. But when you don't have any financial freedom, when money's tight, it's very hard for you even to absorb a book like this. Now, despite the fact that I disagree with Sal Bloom in some of these areas, I found the book very valuable. And it was a great reminder of what's important in life and to have a balanced life. And just to recap, those five types of wealth are time to reclaim your most precious finite resource, which is time.

16:24Social wealth, invest deeply in relationships that last and will serve you as you get older. Mental wealth, learn, grow, reflect, and do that as a daily practice. Physical wealth, health as a foundation, routines, small things done over time, compound. And then lastly, financial. Financial wealth, build enough to fuel the life that you want and allow money to work for you. Now, one of the things I love about this book is that he doesn't just write a book. He gave a life scorecard that you can score yourself on. And that way you can kind of check in with yourself every six months and see how you're doing or every year.

17:01and then you can start to really see objectively if you're living a rich life on your terms. So I do recommend that you pick up The Five Types of Wealth by Sal Bloom. It's an easy, quick read, but also it's thought-provoking, regardless if you agree with everything in it or not, like myself. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Thanks again for being a part of our community, being a listener, being a viewer of this podcast. Building a rich life, in my opinion, takes a lot of effort, okay? I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It takes a lot of time. But what I have found that makes it a little bit easier is just seeing it as habits.

17:40What can I do on a regular basis, whether it's a daily basis with exercise or on a weekly basis when it comes to your social wealth? What can I do that's small, that I can do, that does not feel overwhelming on a regular basis so that over time, time is on my side, meaning that after a year, two, five, ten years, wow, I've had some great social experiences. I've had some rich experiences of learning and growing through travel and courses and books. I've had incredible time to reflect, and I invested in having more free time on the things I enjoy. And of course, I've worked hard and did the right moves and took a few risks even to build the financial wealth I was looking for.

18:25So this is something that I really believe in, that it's just a little bit easier when you are just chipping away at it little by little in a non-overwhelming and a sensible and maintainable way, right? Something that is just sustainable. And that's really what we're trying to do here is just sustain that healthy lifestyle and rich life every single day. if you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start grow and scale your business the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app the one that you're using right now whether it's apple or spotify or ever you listen to podcasts by hitting subscribe you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show it's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business.

19:15And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.