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The mindbodygreen Podcast
637: How to identify what really matters & reverse engineer your life | Sahil Bloom
00:44:30
Sahil Bloom is a NYT bestselling author of The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life. He’s also an entrepreneur, investor and a proud, son, husband, and father who believes the greatest things in life come not from finding the right answers, but from asking the right questions.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the MyBodyGreen podcast. I'm Jason Wakab, founder and co CEO of MyBodyGreen and your host.
- [00:09]
B
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A
You're going to see your parents 15 more times before they die. That single sentence changed everything for today's guests and it might change everything for you too. Saheel Bloom is the New York Times best selling author of the Five Types of Wealth and one of the most compelling voices on redefining success and time. At age 30, he had the prestigious job, the money, the markers of success. But his relationships were deteriorating and he was living 3,000 miles away from the people who mattered most. When a friend calculated he'd only see his aging parents 15 more times, Bloom quit his job, sold his house and rebuilt his life around what actually mattered. In today's show, we explore the shocking reality that 75% of our time with our children is over by age 12. We also talk about the arrival fallacy and why external achievements leave us unfulfilled and practical frameworks like anti goals and treating life priorities as dimmer switches rather than light switches. We also discussed the last time principle, a reminder that we don't know when we'll experience anything for the last time and how to define enough for yourself. Instead of chasing what society tells you what to want. This is a wake up call about how we spend our time and whether we're building the life we actually want. Let's dive in. So you start the book by packing a punch and I'll start with this opening quote. You're going to see your parents 15 more times before they die. End quote. Let's start there.
- [02:17]
B
We're going to go right into it. I love it. Those words hit me at a moment in my life that was pretty interesting because it was a time in my life life when from the outside looking in, I was winning the game. I was doing the things that you're supposed to want to do. I was, you know, 30 years old. I had the fancy sounding job, the title, the, you know, the money. You know, I had the markers of quote unquote success. As we, as we typically Think about it. And yet everything in my life was slowly falling apart. You know, my. My relationships were deteriorating. My wife and I were in the middle of this two year struggle with infertility that was causing strain in our life. For the first time, I was living 3,000 miles away from the people that I cared about most. I was drinking six, seven nights a week, you know, deeply unhealthy, mentally and physically. And on the surface like that surface interpretation sort of was just belied the reality that was underneath. And I went out for a drink with this old friend and we sat down and he asked how I was doing. And I sort of opened up that it was getting difficult living so far away from my parents, that these two people that were really two of my best friends in the whole world, that I just wasn't seeing them often, that I had noticed that they were slowing down and getting older. And he asked how old they were, and I said mid-60s. And he asked how often I saw them and I said about once a year. And he just looked at me and said that quote, those exact words, okay, so you're going to see your parents 15 more times before they're gone. That hit me in the same way that it hit you right there. Reading it right like that punch to the gut of recognizing that the amount of time you have left with the people you care about most in the world is that finite, that countable, that you can literally place it onto a few hands. That just shook me to the core. And that was the moment, that was the math that changed everything in my life. Because in that moment I realized this entire definition of success, of what it meant to build a wealthy life, had been incomplete. My entire mental model for what mattered in life was fundamentally broken. And that if I didn't change course, I was going to end up somewhere where I didn't want to be. And so my wife and I took a dramatic action. I mean, within 45 days of that conversation, I had quit my job, we had sold our house in California, and we had moved 3,000 miles across the country to live closer to both of our sets of parents. The last thing I'll say here is the most powerful realization in that was that you are in much more control of your time than you think. We had taken an action and fundamentally created time that number 15 more times before they're gone. It's now in the hundreds. I see my parents multiple times a week. They're coming over in a couple hours. Like I'm going to get to go in the sauna. With my dad, get to spend time with him on a random what's today Wednesday? We had taken an action and, and reassumed agency over our own lives, realized that we were capable of building our life around the priorities that we truly had. And so that was the spark that I think changed everything. That recognition, that reassumption of agency over our own journey. And it's why I felt so strongly about opening with that, because I wanted that spark to kind of take hold in other people and start letting that fire, to take action and to recognize that you are capable of, of building the life that you actually want.
- [05:45]
A
It is very intentional. And in my view, I'm sure it was a coincidence that you open with essentially time wealth, and then the last chapter is financial wealth.
- [05:55]
B
It all begins with time, right? Like, time is this thing that if you were to like map out the amount that people think about time over a typical lifespan, it's basically zero until the very end where it's the only thing that you think about, right? When you can't do anything about it and you have none of it left. Like our entire youth, we spend under this assumption of our own immortality. And even, you know, in most cases, if you're lucky enough to have healthy parents during your childhood, you don't even think about mortality outside of maybe losing a grandparent. And until it gets to the point where things are too far gone. And so the reason I think for opening with that and for really thinking deeply on this idea of time as the most precious asset is because it causes you to live differently. When you recognize that time is your most precious asset, you start interacting with the whole world around you in a completely different way.
- [06:47]
A
Well, on the flip side, we've been talking about your parents. You also go into great detail about children and you share a chart in the book which details time spent with your children. Let's talk about that.
- [06:58]
B
So this chart that you're referencing is based on the American Time Use Survey, which is this incredible data set that looks at how Americans spend time over the course of their lives. And one of the things that you can get from that data set is who Americans spend that time with over the course of their lives. And so this is looking at over the average American lifespan, how much time do we spend with our children? And the chart is so striking visually when you see it, because what it points out is this shocking fact that 95% of the time you have with your kids effectively happens over this 18 year window that you have with them. The time from when they're born until they turn 18. 95% of your time, 75% of the time you have with them is over by the time they turn 12. After that, they start having more activities. They have best friends, girlfriends, boyfriends of their own. They're off, they're doing things. That window of time, that recognition that time is not all created equal. There are windows that have a sort of magical importance. They have more texture and more meaning. And yet we live in a world where that is the window of time where you are told that you should be chasing every single more that the world has told you that you're supposed to want. That is what I want people to question when they see a chart like that or when they think of time as an asset. What do I really want out of my life? What do I really want my life to look like? Rather than just assuming by default the things that other people have told me that I'm supposed to go and chase.
- [08:25]
A
Which is 75% of your time spent with your child occurs before age 12. And if, and if you think about that too, the first two years, it's like your kids are cute, but they're not really doing much. They're just like, they're along for the ride. So I would argue you've got a 10 year window, really maybe even shorter because like three, four, it's like kids, their personality, everything in my perspective starts to come out like age four or five. So like you've got like seven years, real solid years. If I, if we were to look critically where you've got like this fully formed human who wants to hang out with you and can participate. And then I think, okay, and you talk about this in the book, the fact that most parents, this is when they're working a lot in their career to advance and provide security during this time frame. How do you reconcile that?
- [09:19]
B
I'd say that this is the most challenging tension that we all need to wrestle with as parents in the modern era, that we need to find this balance of what I would characterize as presence with ambition. Presence is the desire to be present during this magic window of time that we have with their kids, these magical years, that 10 year window that you talked about. And then ambition is the desire to go and create things out in the world, right? To go and be able to provide that life for your kids or for your family, that maybe you didn't have to go and chase some of the dreams that you have had. Learning to balance and navigate that tension, that is going to be the story of who you are as a parent and as an individual over those years. The way that I personally think about it, reconciling it, wrestling with it, is to recognize that your presence is really important for your children. But so is the lesson they learn from seeing you work hard on things that you care about, things that matter. Probably the most critical lesson your kids can learn, that delayed gratification is the key to life. That working hard for the things that drive value in the future today is how you achieve the things that you want on this journey. And so for you to be able to embody that principle is critical. You, you can't, you know, just be at home 99% of the time with your kids and also try to provide them the life that you're trying to provide them. It is, it is fundamentally intentioned in a capitalist society. And so I think that finding that balance for yourself, wrestling with it in that way, being present in the moments where you're present, making sure they understand the why of why you are working hard on the things you're working hard on, that is where people find what I think of as work life harmony rather than thinking of work life balance. It's really this harmony where the two come together.
- [11:09]
A
I love that. And I think with kids, in my experience, they often don't listen, but they'll watch. And so there are times I will tell our children, I'll just, you know, keep on going on whatever it is I'm trying to hammer home. And it really goes one in one ear and out the other. However, if they're watching us, you know, maybe work hard physically at the gym or working through something at work, they definitely pay attention and it sinks in.
- [11:41]
B
Yeah, you can't teach your kids anything. You just have to embody the things that you want them to learn. I think this, by the way, in almost every area of life applies. Like, you know, I have so many friends who are trying to find romantic partners, and, you know, they go off and make these long list of traits that they want to find in a partner, these long list of values and traits, and then they don't embody a single one of those things. And, you know, like, I think we attract what we put out into the world and what we embody, and I think that applies to children just as much as it does to loving relationships, romantic relationships.
- [12:16]
A
So earlier on, you talked about success, and you had it wrong, and you were climbing the wrong ladder. If you were to zoom out today, how do you define success? What does that look like to you.
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B
In the present season of life that I am in. I define success, I define wealth as being able to take my son in the pool at 1pm on a Tuesday. That encapsulates everything that success means to me in the present season of life. It means that I have enough money to have a pool. It means that I have the time, freedom to decide at 1pm on a Tuesday I can go outside. I am in control of my own calendar and my priorities. And it means I am healthy enough to do so and that I have the relationship with my son, that he wants me to be there and go and do that thing which is not a given. And so for me to be able to have this like simple heuristic, like a statement like that, that just allows me to sort of cut to the heart of what it is that I'm trying to achieve and accomplish. That has gone a long way for understanding how to navigate different decisions, opportunities that come up, how to say no to more things are pulling me away from that thing that I already actually have.
- [13:25]
A
And so you mentioned present season and I think that is very important as it relates to time because there are certain activities where there's a season for. So like for example, our kids are young, nine years old and six years old, they want to go to Disney right now. That Disney window, that Disney season will likely end. It's easy for us. We live in Miami, it's three and a half hour drive. Like this is it, like this is. I'm not saying we go to Disney every month, but like we will go because this is the season for Disney. This is the season. And you talk about this in the book. This also hit, hit home. There's going to be a time when it's the last time your child asks you to read to them. And so I think of time, time and season and there are certain activities where there's a window and then it's gone.
- [14:16]
B
That idea, what I would call, you know, the last time principle, if you will, has hit me so hard over the last year. You know, after I published the book In February of 2025, I guess six months later, in mid July 2025, I got a message on X from a young father named Wade Little who was reaching out and effectively saying thank you for the ideas shared in the book, particularly related to fatherhood, to parenting and to being present. And what he was saying was that it had caused him to just live differently with his two young daughters, a six year old and an eight year old daughter. And he had shown up and been present with them. And he put his phone down. He's a college football coach, so the travel and things were tough, but he had just shown up differently with. With real presence. And tragically, on July 4, his eldest daughter was one of the little girls who lost her life in the flooding at Camp Mystic. And he was reaching out to just say that, you know, he had been there like he had been with her. And he didn't have regrets about his time with her because she knew that he loved her. And I flew out to San Antonio after getting the message to have lunch with him, and, you know, we talked a lot about time at this lunch. He was still in the throes of this grief, naturally, and wrestling with it and all of the terrible waves. It came in and I left the lunch and I called my wife and I, you know, I broke down. It was a gut wrenching experience. And all I could think to say to my wife was, he didn't know it was the last time, but he had lived like it was. Like he had shown up in those months prior to that tragedy and been present. He had put the phone down. He had been there in those moments. He had lived like it was the last time. And that message, I would say, has hit me harder than anything else in the months since that interaction with him. He's become a friend. Obviously, I've continued to pray for him and his family through this terrible time, but the ripple effect of hearing a story like that, I think continues to have a positive impact on others out in the world, because it is that reminder, that gut punch of we don't know when it's the last time for any of these things, and God willing, none of us will ever have to experience that kind of tragedy, but we don't know. And so being able to pause and show up and slow ourselves down in those moments when stress starts to catch up to you and just live in that present, there's so much power that comes from that.
- [16:44]
A
So heartbreaking, heartbreaking, unfathomable. I'm not going to compare losing a parent to losing a child, but I have a rule, so. My father died of heart disease when I was 19. And I'll never forget. We. We got into it. We didn't have the best relationship, got into a fight. We didn't speak for, you know, maybe a week or so, and we had a phone call and essentially made up in our own, you know, not. Not. Not being the best communicators either of us way, but like, we. We had made up a couple days after that Passed away from heart attack. And one of the first things that went through my head, you know, it was obviously grieving and it was, it was shocking. I am so glad we made up in that conversation because, oh, wow. How terrible would I have felt with the last conversation of my father? Essentially me, like, hanging up the phone on him, me, you know, he probably deserved it. But with all that said, I will never leave a conversation with a loved one without, you know, and I love you. No matter how tense the conversation, how difficult, how angry we are, it's always on good terms. Just because of that experience I had when I was 19.
- [18:04]
B
Yeah, it is. It's one of those things that I think a lot of times gets bucketed into this category of, like, unteachable lessons. You're like, you hear the stories, you nod your head at them, and then you go on living the same way you were before. And the one thing that I would just ask of anyone listening to this right now is to do the opposite. Hear the story, nod your head, and then go tell one person that you love them, or then go put your phone down and be present for that five extra seconds with the person that you care about. Just slow down a little bit to actually go in action on that awareness. Because that tiny little thing that really could be the spark that changes the way that you show up in the world, that changes your life in a real fundamental way.
- [18:52]
A
I agree. And I think it happens to all of us. Look like everyone's busy. They've got professional lives, personal lives. And I think something, and you outline this in the book that we all suffer from occasionally, even if we know it is not true, is this idea of, you know, I'm just need to get to X or Y arrival fallacy. And we all experience it. Tell us more about your views on arrival fallacy and the pitfalls there.
- [19:23]
B
Yeah, the arrival fallacy, scientifically, is just this idea that we build up these destinations, these achievements, these goals, these titles, whatever they might be, as being the point at which we will feel that we have arrived. Like, you will suddenly get the thing and you'll say, ah, right, I've made it to the idyllic land of success and now everything is good. And it is a fallacy. It's a fallacy because we know we get that thing. We feel that momentary blip of, you know, dopamine induced euphoria and then we reset, we come back down, we feel that familiar dread of never doing enough, needing to go out and achieve more, go reach the next height there's this beautiful quote that I think brings this to life more than anything else from this kind of cute Disney movie from my childhood. Cool runnings. It's like this Jamaican bobsled team goes to the Olympics. I said, kind of cute movie. And the coach is John Candy, and he's talking to one of the athletes and sort of climax of the movie, and the athlete is saying, like, I don't understand why you're, you know, why you're miserable. Like, you had it all. You won the gold medal, you got the thing. And John Candy says to him, a gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you're never going to be enough with it. If you're not enough without it, you're never going to be enough with it. That is the arrival fallacy in a nutshell. If you do not feel like enough internally, no, no amount of gold medals is ever going to fix that feeling. No amount of achievement, no amount of goals reached, any of those things. You're just going to keep chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing until you are dead. And so the pushback and the counter to all of this is to just start appreciating the journey more, to start grounding yourself and your own satisfaction and your own feelings of achievement in the daily actions, in the showing up, in the small, rather than tying all of your feelings of validation to something external that, candidly, you very rarely can control in any meaningful way.
- [21:27]
A
Enjoy the process, enjoy the work, not the goal.
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B
Yeah, and I think it has become something of a cliche to say, like, you know, you know, you gotta enjoy the process. I really think of it as, like, how can I set micro goals rather than macro goals? I think we've all grown quite accustomed to this idea of, like the big summit of the mountain type goals. And we attach so much significance to that. So I could work for an entire year and make tons of progress, but if I miss that macro goal, I feel like a failure. I attach all of my significance and fulfillment to this arbitrary thing that I have set as this level, when, in fact, I did a whole lot of work and I changed who I was and my identity, and I reinvented myself and I did all of these incredible things that I'm now just going to be stomping down and not even thinking about, because it's in the face of this macro failure, quote, unquote. And so I think the case here is to be made for micro goals, right? It's like, did I show up today with presence for the work and for the thing that I wanted to do? Am I going out and getting that one tiny win every single day doing that little thing? Did I get up at the time I said I was going to like? It doesn't have to be some big significant thing or externally impressive. It doesn't have to be the, you know, humbled and honored LinkedIn post about some major life achievement or thing. These timelines that we create in life are false and have a really corrosive impact. I mean like I my 20s, my birthday was not something I looked forward to because it was this sign every time that I was like not on track, that I was falling behind, that I wasn't worthy, that I wasn't doing the right things and it created this low grade sense of self loathing all because I was measuring myself against someone else's timeline. Like some arbitrary thing that was out there in the world that I had somehow adopted as my own. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move. Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to safe with a personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [23:52]
A
Look, I think so many people who you know, you went to Stanford, you played baseball, you know I went to Columbia, I played basketball. You look at our peer set, it's very hard to not fall into that achievement oriented external validation machine if you will. Very easy. And then. And again. There's nothing wrong with that too. But I think it comes back to your original thesis. You don't want to wake up when it's too late and say I climbed maybe the wrong ladder here. Maybe I'm rich financially, but I'm time poor. Like there are a lot of very wealthy people who have zero control over their calendar.
- [24:39]
B
It is what I think of as the Pyrrhic victory. I don't know if anyone has heard this story. There's like this ancient king, King Pyrrhus of Epirus. He charges into battle with the Roman Republic. Like the Roman Empire comes and invades and he fights this bloody multi day battle and he's actually victorious. He beats back this Roman invader, but in the process loses all of his lead generals and most of his army. And after the battle he is said to have exclaimed another such victory and we will be undone his name today lives on in this term the Pyrrhic victory. It's the idea of a victory that comes at such a steep cost that it might as well have been a defeat. It's like the battle won, but the war lost. That's not just a random history lesson that I'm giving you. That is actually what we want to avoid in life. It's. It's the person that you just painted a picture of, the person who has made hundreds of millions, maybe a billion dollars that we pat on the back and celebrate and admire and maybe even write books about and ignore the fact that they have four divorces and five kids that don't talk to them. We ignore the fact that they're deeply lonely and unhealthy and poor in all of these other ways because we've learned to celebrate this one definition of what success and wealth looks like. My entire life changed when I realized that I would never want to trade lives with the people that, that I was reading books about. These people that were celebrated on a societal level were not people that I viewed as being the version of wealth that I wanted to create in my life. And I think the recognition there is a powerful one because what it means for anyone is that you will never feel wealthy or successful until you create your own definition of wealth and success. And once you do that, you start walking your own path confidently. You start walking down your own journey. You're not worried about all the noise of the other people and what their timelines look like, because you're living your own version of the truth.
- [26:32]
A
And in terms of living that version, I really like how you set the stage in the book with this big question. Visualize your life as an 80 year old. What are you doing? Who are you with? Where are you? How do you feel? And just really starting there and drilling down, in my experience, just kind of going through that loosely with my wife really helps you prioritize.
- [26:54]
B
Beginning with the end in mind is a really powerful exercise for life. You know, it could be 80. You know, if you're 20, maybe that feels too far off. You can do it as a 50 year old. But the point is the same. It is to say, where do I actually want to go? What is the place where I'm trying to end up? Because until you know that, you can't possibly walk in the right direction, right? It's like the think it was in Alice in Wonderland. It was like, you know, if you don't know where you're trying to go, any direction will do. You need to kind of know and be able to set your compass in a general direction. That doesn't mean that you're going to have every single step mapped out and planned perfectly. But if I know what I want my life to look like at 80, and I know the general arc of what matters at 80, what does that ideal day look like? What am I doing? Who am I with? What am I spending time on? For me, it's like sitting on a porch with my wife by my side, our kids around us talking, and a bunch of grandkids in the yard and, like, friends coming over for a great meal and me feeling healthy of body and mind. Like, okay, what does that imply? Well, I'm not on a private jet or on a yacht. I'm not in some, like, crazy mansion even, right? Like, I do. I want to have a nice enough place that I can have all these people over and entertain in that way. But that's probably not, you know, some extraordinary level of financial wealth. It is an enormous amount of other types of wealth, an enormous amount of social wealth to be able to say, my wife is still by my side. This is now going to be a wife of almost 60 years at that point, right? My kids are adults and they want to spend time with me. That is probably my number one definition of success out of anything at that age. It's that I have adult children who still want to spend time with me. Because every single action that leads up to them being adults is how you set the that in motion. Grandchildren out there, friends coming over, you have deep social connection, feeling healthy. All of those results that we talk about and that we point to as being part of that ideal day. Those seeds are being sewn today through the actions that you are taking on a day, you know, on the weeks ahead and the months ahead and in the years ahead. The compounded effect of what you are doing and how you are showing up in the world today is going to either create or completely break the that future.
- [29:06]
A
Especially if you want to have meaningful relationships with your grandchildren. You know, a lot changes. You need to be mobile, you need to be strong. This is what you need to do. And I think working backwards is just a tremendous exercise to get there. Because if you're not working on that today, it's going to become increasingly more difficult. Look, Elsa, it's never too late to start really working physically on some of those things in terms of muscle, health and VO2 max, et cetera. When you're 65 or 70, it's just, you can. But it's a hell of a lot more difficult than say 35.
- [29:40]
B
That's the reason I share in the book this analogy of light switches versus dimmer switches in life. You know, like when I share these ideas of these five types of wealth, right? Like these different areas of your life that you need to be thinking about and prioritizing. The most common pushback or articulation is like, well, I can't do all of them at once, right? I can't optimize all of them at once. And I actually agree. I don't think you can optimize all five. At any given point in time during different seasons of life, you are going to be prioritizing and focusing on different areas. But the important point is that you don't treat them like light switches. I think the common wisdom is to say, like, okay, in my 20s and 30s, I'm going to focus on financial wealth and building this foundation. So I flip that switch on and everything else gets flipped off. Like, focus on my career, okay, so like too bad family and friends, too bad health, too bad mental health. All of those areas get switched off. And the risk in doing that is if you leave one of these areas turned off for too long, you can never turn it back on. Or it becomes very, very difficult to like, don't invest in your health or your relationships in your 20s, 30s and 40s. Very difficult to refine those things in your 50s and 60s. The counter to that, the way that I offer is to treat these things like dimmer switches. Recognize that just because one is turned all the way up doesn't mean the others are off. You can just have them turned down low. Low is infinitely better than off because anything above zero compounds in these areas of life. A tiny action done well on a daily basis is infinitely better than doing nothing. It is going to stack and compound in your future a 15 minute walk. Infinitely better than doing nothing. You may not be in a season of your life. If you have a newborn kid and you're cranking at work to try to make ends meet. You're probably not in a season of your life where you should be training for an ironman, right? You're probably not. You're not going to be able to dedicate and put the time in to go and do that thing. You're probably not going to be in the best shape of your life. But does that mean you need to do nothing? No, it means that you might just be in a season of life where the dimmer switch is turned down low. It's 15 minute activity a day. Maybe it's walking, maybe there's a high intensity thing a couple of times a week, whatever it might be. But the dimmer switch on low as a mentality has really helped me across these different seasons because it is this appreciation that you start to build that the tiny thing done. Well, small things become big things in your life.
- [32:02]
A
So in terms of helping you, I'm sure your life has dramatically changed since the book became a runaway bestseller. What has been game changing for you in the last year?
- [32:13]
B
Having a wife who constantly tells me the truth is been the number one game changer for me throughout my entire life, but in particular over the last year. And you know, I say that somewhat jokingly and also quite serious that it is very important to have truth tellers in your life. People who you create the psychological and emotional safety and space to tell you the truth about things. I think the greatest risk and the most common reason that we see men and women fall throughout history is that as they achieved more and more and more success, they had fewer and fewer people around them who were willing and safe to tell them the truth. What you see is the people get higher and higher and then it becomes much better when you're around them to just say, oh yeah, you're great, you're awesome, that's a great idea, you're perfect, you're so cool, all of these things. And that creates the hubris of flying too close to the sun. And then we see the massive collapse having people in your life and being this person to someone else who can tell you the truth when you're getting too high or when something isn't quite aligned, when you're falling out of alignment with your priorities, those things really matter. And we need to cherish those people in our lives. And for me, my wife has been this incredible force because in the past year in particular, as I've had more opportunities come my way, making sure that they don't knock me out of alignment with the thing that was the thing in the first place which was building this life that was comprehensively wealthy across these different areas.
- [33:46]
A
And what role have anti goals. Another term I love from the book played in this journey.
- [33:52]
B
I mean an incredible one. Anti goals are sort of the framework manifestation of what I just said. You know, we know what goals are. Goals are the summit of the mountain, right? You're going to go try to go achieve this thing. Anti goals are the things that you don't want to happen during that climb. You know, if my goal is to become CEO of the company. My anti goal might be spending 300 nights out of the year away from my family or allowing my health to completely deteriorate. I want to achieve the goal becoming CEO, but not if it means these anti goals becoming real. Every single time you set a big goal, you should make sure you have your anti goals very clearly articulated. What that allows you to do is have regular check ins with yourself to say, okay, I'm progressing towards my goal. Am I starting to run afoul of any of these anti goals? Like am I starting to need a course correction on that journey? So when I said my wife being able to articulate that to me, I might be trying to go write and create a bestseller and go and do these things out in the world. But if it's pulling me away from my main thing of spending time with my son, with my wife being able to take my son in the pool at 1pm on a Tuesday, I'm starting to run afoul of that anti goal and I need a course correction. Those little course corrections are what prevent you from having the huge miss later on, right? Like I think the most tragic thing is the person who works and works their whole life wakes up at age 50 or age 70 and looks around at the top of some mountain and realizes they didn't want to be there in the first place. And what a tragedy to notice that at the end rather than along the way. Because if you pick up on it along the way now I can adjust. Like, oh, I'm spending too much time away. How do I adjust this slightly so I'm not away quite as much. Oh, I'm not being present in these moments that I wanted to be. How do I adjust? Oh, I'm drinking a few too many nights a week. How do I adjust? Those tiny course corrections have a meaningful impact in keeping you on the path.
- [35:49]
A
So I actually think this may be a first. I found an opportunity for you, so something seems off. So your son, 1pm Tuesday pool. You and your family need to move to South Florida. That's not happening in Massachusetts.
- [36:03]
B
It is January in Massachusetts right now and there is no pool happening. I. That is, that is very true. That is a good point. We do, we do try to get to Florida a couple times every winter. But I think seasonal depression sets in this time of year and I, I could certainly see a world where we would want to do that. If family ever had any interest in living in, you know, living in Florida, I could see it happening. Good.
- [36:27]
A
Good enough. Good enough. You know, it reminds me another Great one from the book, I think, just illustrates this. The story of the fisherman and the banker. You tell that one briefly.
- [36:36]
B
So this investment banker, and apologies to any investment bankers who might be listening, an investment banker goes down to this Mexican fishing village, and he's walking along the docks, he comes across this fishing boat with a few fish in it. He asks the fisherman, how long did it take you to catch those fish? The fisherman says, only a little while. The banker asks, why didn't you fish for longer? Fisherman says, well, I have everything I need. In the morning, I fish for a little while, then I go home, I have lunch with my wife and kids, then I take a nap. Then in the evening, I go into town, drink wine, play music and laugh with my friends. And the banker's like, ah, you got this all wrong. Here's what you need to do. You need to fish for longer so you can catch more fish. You use the extra money to buy a second boat. Then that boat will go out and fish, fish. And you can buy a third boat, a fourth boat, a fifth boat, a sixth boat. Pretty soon you're gonna have this whole fishing enterprise. You can move to the big city, you can take your fishing enterprise public, and you're gonna make millions. And the fisherman says, and then what? Banker says, and then what? Then you can retire and move to a small fishing town. You can fish for a little while in the morning, then you can go home, have lunch with your wife and kids. Then you can take a nap. Then in the evening, you can go into town, drink wine, play music and laugh with your friends. And the fisherman just smiles and walks off into the distance. That story, and the common interpretation of that story, I think, is completely incorrect. The common interpretation is to say that the banker is wrong and the fisherman is right. I think it's more nuanced than that. It is about the fact that the two have a fundamentally different definition of what it means to have enough. To me, it is perfectly okay and reasonable for the banker's definition of enough to be about building something big, going and chasing this grand ambition, building this vision for the future, creating jobs, doing all of those things. But for him to apply that map of reality to the fisherman's terrain makes no sense. Because the fisherman's already living his definition of enough. He has the things that he want. He's created the life that he dreamed of. And yet that is what we do on a daily basis. When we take out our phones and we compare our lives to other people, we allow other people's maps of Reality to impact how we feel about our terrain. The antidote to that, the message and the lesson, if you will, is to get very clear on what your enough life looks like. What are you trying to create? What is the money actually for? Where are you living? What are you doing? What are you thinking about? Who are you spending time with? What are you working on? When you get clear on that vision of what the life looks like, not a number, but the actual vision of the life, you start playing the game differently.
- [39:14]
A
Profound. I think if you had any advice just to go a little deeper here in closing, because I think this, this is the fundamental question in my view, what is, you know, for our listeners for what, what is that enough life look like other than picking up the book, which are the five types of wealth? Profound impact on our priorities as a family. I love the book. I encourage everyone to read it. Other than picking up the book for taking that next step, what, what other advice do you have for people in that process of defining enough? And also, what are some of the watch outs you've seen? I'm sure you've heard stories from people approach this and you say, oh no, no, no, all wrong here. What can you leave us with?
- [39:55]
B
The number one watch out is to avoid doing this in a silo. So the, the watch out comes from people that I've seen do this where, you know, wife or a husband will go and do this exercise by themselves and assume that everyone in the family is sort of aligned on what this vision looks like for the future. And it immediately creates this tension point because that entire vision is created without the broader picture in mind. The way that you want to go through this. And the first exercise that I would ask anyone to go do is with your full family. Okay? If you have teenage children, you can actually include your children in it as well. They'll probably have a view of it. But sit down as a family, do the exercise individually, like go. And actually, you know, in the book there kind of are these prompts and questions, but it's really what we're walking through. It's, you know, where are you living? What are you doing? What are you thinking about? What are you working on? What does your life look like? What are you able to afford? What luxuries do you have in your life? It doesn't need to be Spartan or bear. It can be as lavish as you want it to be. But really get clear on what that life looks like. The simple way to think about it is in five years, if you were to wake up and everything was in flow. You just felt in flow. What minute by minute, what does your life look like from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed? If you're able to create a picture of that each individually, you and your partner and then maybe any sort of teenage or adult children then come together and discuss those things, have a discussion each one, each person sort of shares what that vision looks like. And then think about what the overlaps are, what the tensions are and how you can navigate those. That as a first step is the most powerful and profound one for anyone because it creates this mutual understanding of where are we trying to go, what is this life that we're going and trying to build together and what are the steps we can take reverse engineering from that to start moving us towards that life.
- [41:47]
A
Very sage advice. Sahil, thank you so much.
- [41:50]
B
Thank you.