Sahil Bloom has established himself as a force thanks to his bi-weekly newsletter ‘The Curiosity Chronicle’. An entrepreneur and Managing Partner of SRB Ventures, a venture investment firm, Bloom has spent a lot of his life working at breakneck speed and trying to fit in life around that. In his debut non-fiction book, ‘The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life’, Bloom aims to demystify the idea that money brings happiness and provide a set of guidelines in five key areas that you can use to transform your life.
Written over the course of 3 years, and drawing plenty of inspiration from his own life, Bloom clearly outlines five areas that we all should be paying attention to – Time Wealth, Social Wealth, Mental Wealth, Physical Wealth and Financial Wealth. Before you get too far into the book, Bloom asks you to take a test so you can understand how you score in each of the areas. This is to set a benchmark so that when you start to implement the things he shares, you can retake the test in a few months and see if you’ve managed to switch the dial on your life.
Each of the 5 types of wealth gets it own chapter, and each is packed with stories from Bloom’s life. Perhaps the hardest hitting, and the one that sets the tone for the book, is Time Wealth as Bloom gives you a formula to work out how many times you’re likely to see people you love in your lifetime. It’s actually quite sobering, especially if you live away from your family. He offers a few different ways of understanding your time such as colour-coding your weekly calendar and writing lists where you prioritise a handful of things and forget about the rest (at least in the short term).
In Social Wealth Bloom puts emphasis on the quality of the people in your life rather than the quantity, while in Mental Wealth he explains the importance of purpose, growth and space as the foundations to live by. Physical Wealth explores how looking after yourself, eating well and exercising should be part of your routine to ensure you get the best out of the life you have. It sounds like common sense, and it is, but when being told to you in Bloom’s authoritative way, it helps you reframe things. The final chapter – Financial Wealth – finds Bloom telling some hard truths about understanding what ‘enough’ really means when it comes to money, and he reinforces the idea that money is a by-product of the way you live your life, and the things you do, rather than a driving force that is also the end goal.
What I really liked about this book is that Bloom isn’t patronising and the advice he gives in grounded in science and reality. This isn’t one of those self-help books that promises you everything will be fine if you just follow the advice; it highlights that you’ll need to put in work and there’ll be sacrifices along the way. Once you determine your priorities, it becomes easier to understand how you can achieve them and what things in your life you can, and need to, let go of.
‘The 5 Types of Wealth’ is a book that could well be transformative for some readers. Of course, you need to want to change your life in order to see any results from Bloom’s advice, but given that you’ve picked the book up in the first place, you’ll be starting from a strong position. What Bloom does with his book is help you work through the distractions that life throws your way, reminds you that time is finite and should be well spent, and that you have the power to do whatever you want, if you’re willing to put in the work.
Publisher: William Collins Release date: 4th February 2025 Buy ‘The 5 Types of Wealth’ now
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