The 5 of Wealth

In The 5 Types of Wealth, entrepreneur Sahil Bloom offers a transformative guide filled with practical steps and actionable insights to help redesign your life. Read this extract to get started.

- Sahil Bloom

This is important: a Pyrrhic victory is what you need to avoid in your own life. And unfortunately, a Pyrrhic victory could be where you're headed if you don't change direction.

You're walking this perilous path because of one simple mistake: you're measuring the wrong thing.

Money.

When a measure of performance becomes an explicit, stated goal, humans will prioritize it, regardless of any associated and unintended consequences. You blind yourself to everything else, focusing on the single measure, no matter the costs elsewhere. Every new promotion, pay raise, and bonus feels like a win as you ignore the painful losses of a war slowly slipping through your fingers.

Money has become not only the measure but the explicit, stated goal.

The war you wage is about happiness, fulfillment, loving relationships, purpose, growth, and health. If all the battles you're fighting are exclusively about money, you may win these battles, but you will lose the war.

The warning signs on the path don't involve loss of life and limb like they did for King Pyrrhus, but they aren't pretty: You hit another quarterly profit target but miss another anniversary dinner.

• You earn a record bonus but fail to make it to a single one of your child's sports games.

• You say yes to every single work call but can't find time to reconnect with an old friend.

•You stay in a job for the security but allow your higher-order purpose to wither and die.

•You host five client dinners per week but can't walk up the stairs without feeling winded.

You never leave money on the table but won't think twice about leaving your peace of mind there.

If you march ahead, eyes fixed on the financial horizon, the Pyrrhic victory awaits.

YOUR NEW SCOREBOARD

Your new scoreboard is the five types of wealth: Time Wealth, Social Wealth, Mental Wealth, Physical Wealth and Financial Wealth.