The Road Map to Real Wealth (It's Not What You Think)
Review of Sahil Bloom's The 5 Types of Wealth
We recently returned from a family road trip in which we drove many miles and to new places we had never been before. Thankfully, we had a GPS and maps to help guide us through new terrain and cities. Without this roadmap, we would have spent many hours driving around without a clear sense of purpose or direction. We may have thought we wanted to get to a certain destination, but not knowing the best path would have meant losing lots of precious time and unnecessary pain and turnarounds. Having a clear direction and guide to show us the path, allowed us to arrive timely and have extra time to enjoy our destination. Life is similar to this experience. We need help from others to help us avoid the pitfalls, lost time, and give us the most direct path to our destination.
While researching for the trip, we spent time on the internet and talking to others about the best destinations for each city we visited. This extra time spent up front saved us from wasting time going to lesser destinations. We were able to find the best routes, restaurants, and attractions by relying on those who had been to these places before us. They were our guides for our trip but we often go through life without turning to those who have gone before us. We need guides in our lives to show us the best paths, most direct routes, and how to avoid pitfalls and turnarounds. And in our lives, the stakes are often higher.
In Sahil Bloom’s new book, The 5 Types of Wealth, he shows us a new way of thinking about wealth. He acts as a guide by laying out the best paths based on his years of research and speaking to those who have gone before him. He shows us the best destinations and helps to give us a guide on how to get there. His book acts as a sort of GPS for our lives.
He tells us that we are using the wrong scoreboard for life if we are pursuing financial wealth for its own sake or in our search for happiness. He writes based on his own life story and search for different types of wealth in life.
He tells us, “The greatest discoveries in life come not from finding the right answers but from asking the right questions.”
He began his journey by asking what true wealth looks like, how we measure wealth, and what scoreboard we should be using.
In his book, Bloom gives us what he calls the 5 pillars of wealth. Time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, physical wealth, and financial wealth. He says these are the pillars that we should build our lives around to provide a framework for which to make decisions and how to allot our resources. He guides us in shifting the focus away from always earning more money to what truly matters in our lives. He does acknowledge that:
“money isn’t nothing – it simply can’t be the only thing.” He says, “Once you’ve received a baseline level of financial well-being, more money is unlikely to meaningfully affect your overall happiness.”
Bloom discusses goal setting in his early chapters and reminds us of the importance of setting goals in the different areas of our lives. He takes it a step further by explaining the importance of anti-goals. “Anti-goals are the things we don’t want to happen on our journey to achieve our goals.” The idea is to spend some time thinking about the things we want to avoid along our journey. By writing these down and setting clear boundaries, we have not just a vision for the direction we want to head, but also a vision for the things we want to avoid at all costs. By setting goals and anti-goals, we have some guidelines to help us make decisions that come across our path. For example, I want to be there for my children to help in their education as a homeschool family. An anti-goal could be avoiding taking a job that will have me travelling away from home multiple days per week. Even if that means giving up a higher-paying job.
The book is broken down into sections with the first five chapters laying the groundwork before breaking up the rest of the book into repeating chapters on the five types of wealth. Each of the sections on the types of wealth covers 4-5 chapters with a summary of that section. He first lays out the questions to orient you to each of the 5 types of wealth. He follows this by giving us some more background on each type of wealth and the three pillars for each type of wealth. He lays these out in easily digestible questions and gives examples and explanations for each. He follows this advice up with giving an abundance of practical tips and techniques that you can pick and choose from for each of the 5 types of wealth. This is where the gold lies. It is well worth the price of the book as these sections contain a wealth of information that you can apply directly to your life. He then finishes each section with an overall summary of that section.
Overall, this design is highly digestible and easy to reference quickly. I will admit, if you like this genre of self-help kind of books, you will probably recognize many of the tips in each section and not a lot of new ground is laid out here. The value lies in having it all in one place and format as a reference for the future. This book could be easily taken out once a year, quarter, or monthly as you see fit and make sure you are on track. The writing is easy to follow and many self-help type books contain 3-4 good tips but this book is filled with value to the reader and it is obvious Bloom spent many years working these areas out in his own life.
I enjoyed this book and found it a nice refresher for observing the different areas of my life and making sure I am looking at the right kinds of wealth in my life. It was engaging and I read it quickly as it is more of a reference book and can be skimmed in sections and read deeper in more applicable areas. I wish I had had this book as a young man. It could have distilled many life lessons down into an easily digestible and easy-to-apply book. Those who enjoy nonfiction and self-help type books, this is a must-read.
Just like the GPS was helpful for a road trip into unknown areas, The 5 Types of Wealth gives us a road map to finding true meaning and wealth in our lives.
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