The “5 Types of Wealth”: Why you’re wealthier than you think

Earlier this year, I spoke with the writer, investor, and influencer Sahil Bloom about his new book, The 5 Types of Wealth. This was back in the foggy post-holiday — that time of year when most people are staggering back to work, gingerly opening emails, and spending a good deal of the day talking with colleagues over coffee.

Bloom is not. He’s started the year at a full sprint. He’s finishing up the media rounds for his new book with days crammed full of podcasts, interviews, and signing events. And while Bloom gave the socially obligatory puff of the cheeks, he wasn’t unhappy with all this busyness. This wasn’t someone forced to do something or resentful of how he “has” to spend his time. Everything Bloom is doing — including talking with me — is a deliberate and consciously chosen allocation of his time. It’s a decision about what he wants his life to be.

“The first section of my book is time wealth,” he says. “The reason that one is first is for a very specific purpose, which is that time is what unlocks all of the other things. When you have the freedom, when you have time wealth — the ability to choose how you spend your time, who you spend it with, what you spend it on, and when you trade it for other things — that’s what enables you to then decide which areas you want to focus on or prioritize during this season of life.”

Types of wealth

The main hypothesis of Bloom’s book is that if we’re to be happy in life, we have to answer one question: What does wealth mean to me? What does success mean to me? As Bloom puts it:

“The entire ethos of the book is that you will never feel successful unless you create your own definition of success. And if you blindly follow the definition of wealth and success that the world has handed you, you will just be chasing whatever ‘more’ you’ve convinced yourself is the thing that will give you happiness. And that is really what The 5 Types of Wealth is all about. It’s a book to help you redefine what a wealthy life looks like, what success looks like to you, based on the pillars that truly contribute to a fulfilling, happy existence. That includes money, but it is not solely defined by money. It also includes these other things in your life.”

There are three key arguments behind Bloom’s position. First, a happy and fulfilling life is about defining what “wealthy” means for each of us. Second, history and philosophy reveal, very broadly, five types of wealth — or five ways to define wealth. And third, we cannot devote ourselves fully to all five definitions of wealth. The sheer fact of our mortality means we can only ever be “wealthy” in one way at a time. So, happiness requires us to first define what wealth means and then consciously commit our time to becoming that type of wealthy individual.

The seasonality of life

Bloom’s book is not about extremes. It is not about becoming a certain type of person. We do not commit to a “type of wealth” and then suddenly emerge as a cookie-cutter archetype. There is no “Business Person Archetype,” “Family Person Archetype,” or “Sporty Person Archetype.” Instead, we must devote our time to the many and varied aspects of life. And, as philosophers have been saying for millennia, this is about balance. It’s not one or the other. It’s not excess or deficiency; not yin or yang. It’s a combination of everything. It’s spending time today on this and time tomorrow on that.

And that last point led Bloom and I to discuss seasonality. How and where you spend your time — and what you define as a “wealthy” life — will not be the same throughout your entire existence. Just as there is no one way to define “wealth” for every human living, there is also no one way to define “wealth” within a single life.

“The concept of seasons is essential to the whole book because what you prioritize or focus on during any one season will change. So maybe I’m in my 20s and early 30s, and I’m in a season of foundation building, and I really want to lean into building financial wealth during that season. Well, time wealth allows you to deploy most of your energy into financial wealth. Now, I might be in my 40s, and I have young children, and I want to really prioritize relationships with my partner, with my children. So, I’m going to really lean into social wealth.”

The philosophy of seasons is an old one, and poets, philosophers, and sages have written about it for millennia. But Bloom’s point takes on a fresh edge in modernity because so many of the painful comparisons we make are between different seasons of life. So many of the arguments and debates we have with each other — and ourselves — stem from different starting points. An elderly person might rebuke a young professional for working late, while someone focused heavily on their family might sneer at people who take hours of their day to exercise or train.

Seen from Bloom’s interpretation, this is as ridiculous as summer ridiculing winter, or the Sun mocking the Moon. Everyone you meet will be living in their own season. They have their own foundational accounts of “wealth.” The trick to life is to find the season in which you feel most at home and appreciate the joy that comes with it. The falling leaves of autumn are not any less beautiful than the first snowdrops of spring. One type of wealth is no greater than another.