December 31, 2025 • 37 mins
**BEST OF**
You can be ticking off goals, crushing deadlines, and still feel like you’re missing the point. If your time and energy aren’t going where they should, it might be because you’re tracking the wrong scoreboard. In this episode, we explore how to reset the way you measure progress - so your actions align with what truly matters.
I’m joined today by Sahil Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of The Five Types of Wealth and Managing Partner of SRB Ventures. Sahil shares how to stay grounded in the middle of chaos, build richer relationships, and create space for reflection - without needing a complete life overhaul.
We unpack how to spot when you’re drifting, what a broken scoreboard looks like, and why tiny rituals can have an outsized impact when life gets overwhelming.
Sahil & I discuss:
- Why the scoreboard you use shapes your priorities and choices
- Sahil’s monthly “think day” and how it helps him course-correct
- A mindset shift that radically simplified his business and life
- His “buyer or seller” test for deciding what to drop
- A 3-minute journaling ritual that helped him survive book launch
- The underrated power of sending thoughtful messages to friends
- What “social wealth” really means—and why it’s the key to a great life
- How he fuels creativity through reading, walking, and reflection&nb
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How I work is having a little break over the
Best of season, so I have handpicked a few of
my absolute favorite episodes from the last year to play
for you in this best of series. I hope you
enjoy and I will be back with new episodes twice
weekly from January twenty nine.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
That is why this concept of a scoreboard is so
important in your life, because if you have the right scoreboard,
then your actions will align around the right things. But
if you have a broken scoreboard, you will take the
wrong actions.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
If you find yourself feeling like you never have the
time and energy for the things that are really important,
then this episode is for you. My guest today is
Sakil Bloom, the New York Times best selling author of
The Five Types of Wealth and managing partner of SRB Ventures.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
There's no such thing as holding something in life. You
are either a buyer or you are a seller of
that thing, and.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It is really easy for relationships to be the first
thing that goes like. What are some practices that you
have found have served you, particularly in those really busy
and hectic times.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The number one practice I have is a rule, which.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is I want to know Sachhel's number one rule for
strengthening social connections. Find out in this episode Welcome to
How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies
for optimizing your day. I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imbo.
(01:39):
I want to start by talking about the concept of
a broken scoreboard. Can you tell me what does this mean?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
This is the idea that what you measure in life
really matters. We don't often think about how much impact
the things that we are measuring have on our acts
on a day to day basis. But you don't have
to look very far to realize that impact. You know,
think about the person that puts on like a sleep
(02:08):
tracker ring or one of those wristbands, and then all
of a sudden, they're like the most annoying sleep person
in the world. They're like, Oh, I can't go out
because I need to optimize this. My sleep score will
be screwed up. All of these things suddenly your actions
start falling in line with the thing that you were measuring.
Peter Drucker, this famous management theorist, said, what gets measured
(02:29):
gets managed. That's the idea that the thing that you
can measure becomes the thing that you optimize around. It's
the thing that you sort of myopically hone in on.
That is why this concept of a scoreboard is so
important in your life, because if you have the right scoreboard,
then your actions will align around the right things. But
if you have a broken scoreboard, which I'll argue we do,
(02:51):
you will take the wrong actions. And that was really
the realization that sparked this entire journey for me, was
the idea that we were only measuring one thing to
sort of sum up our life and our worth, and
that was money.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It reminds me of a time this is a few
years back where I was at a conference in Vancouver
and I met a really senior executive from Google and
he was telling me about him and his family. Obviously,
they have okas at work at Google and they're famous
for it, but he said he took it into his
personal life and every quarter him and his wife sat
down and they set personal OKRs. What is your process
(03:28):
for setting the right metrics in your life and with
your family.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I think it all starts with figuring out what your
priorities actually are. I would say that that is the
first biggest picture exercise that people need to think about.
Very few people really take the time to think about
what is the life you actually want to build. So
the question that I like to ask myself, which I
think everyone should ask, is to sit down and say,
(03:56):
if a third party were to come in and observe
my actions for a week, they were to come in
and just watch me for a week, what would they
say my priorities are? And the recognition there is that
there is a big gap between what you would say
your priorities are and what your actions show your priorities are.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
How often do you personally reflect on that, like in
the last year, because it's always interesting, Like I don't know,
when you write about concepts and some of them just
kind of seep in and they become you, but some
of them you still have to deliberately realign. So I'm curious,
how does it work for you Right now?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I do something I call a think day about once
a month. But think day is the idea of carving
out one to two hours once a month to go
to a new, new open space, a coffee shop outside,
et cetera. Bring a journal, bring a pen, and just
think on some of these bigger picture questions of your life,
reflect on them, allow yourself the space to see the
(04:52):
bigger picture, and then to make course corrections along the way.
I find that every single time I do it, there's
somewhere that I've gotten a little bit off kilter, fallen
a little off course. And the truth is that those
tiny course corrections are very impactful in the long run.
There's this concept in aviation, the one in sixty rule
(05:13):
that for every one degree error in heading, a plane
will miss its eventual target by a mile for every
sixty miles flown. So the idea is that small deviations
and course are amplified by distance and time. Your life
is no different when when you are slightly off course,
it is going to have a big impact over five, ten,
fifteen years. So making yourself have a ritual or a
(05:35):
habit to create the space and to identify these course
corrections that need to happen so that you can execute
on them, that's been really impactful in my life.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I was reading on your LinkedIn fate that you actually
went on a think week, if I'm correct, and came
back from that like quite recently, how do you stretch
a think week as distinct from a think day?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Technically it was three days, but I'm calling it a
think week because it was most of a working week.
The idea was for it to be as unstructured as possible.
I personally think the whole point is to create enough
space that you are sort of able to think differently
and more broadly, the way that we did it I
did it with my business partner was that we each
proposed sort of a set of reflection questions, big picture
(06:18):
questions that we wanted to think on, and the idea
was that we would pose a question. We kind of
have a session set up, say like a couple hour block,
and we would just go out into some open space,
bring a notebook, and we would pose the question, and
then we would each spend however long hour two hours
thinking and journaling on it. Then we would come together
(06:41):
for some sort of meal and sort of talk through
reflect on pressure test what those insights were that we
had as we were writing.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Could you share examples of some of the questions that
you praised.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, one of the biggest ones for me is what
did I know for sure that just wasn't? So there
are these things that we automatically assume are correct, that
we've been told our entire life, Like we know for
sure that those things are so, and in reality they
are not. And making sure that you recognize those in
(07:14):
real time and that you're able to change your mind
on those things is really important. It's also very uncomfortable,
so most people don't do it because it requires you
sort of breaking down your own ego and your own
correctness in favor of finding the truth. All of this
is sort of about a long term truth seeking operation
that you are trying to get closer and closer to
(07:34):
the truth and your relationships and your work and your
personal life in all of these areas. So that one
I found to be really impactful because for me it's
sort of identified. I mean, one really major insight about
how I've been operating and working that I think if
I had continued to perpetuate and repeat, would have really
held me back and would have harmed my life in
(07:56):
a number of different ways.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Oh, I'm curious, So you are able to share what
that was if it's not too personal.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
No, it's not too personal. I had, for the longest
time had the belief that my path to building something
really interesting, engaging and big from a business standpoint around
this platform that I've created in these ideas was to
take a lot of different sort of swings and a
lot of different bets that wereround in the world and
(08:23):
have sort of like a small amount of energy deployed
across a bunch of different things that sort of a
venture capital portfolio, if you will, for those in the
investing world, and that a couple of those would work
out to an enormous extent, most of them might not,
or they would be small, and that would lead to
a good overall outcome across the portfolio. What I found
(08:43):
and what I confronted was just this idea that actually,
when it comes to my energy and my attention, that
was harming more than it helped, because being scattered across
one hundred things just meant that I was going to
do none of them well and make myself miserable in
the process. And so it precipitated a pretty radical simplification
(09:05):
of my entire business and life ecosystem. I will be
going into much more of a season of no, if
you will, when it comes to taking things on and
really trimming the things that I am sort of actively
engaged in and involved in.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Accordingly, how do you make decisions then, with this new
perspective around firstly, what to drop that you're currently committed to,
and then what will you say no to that you'd
previously said yes to.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I have a couple of different ways I think about this.
So the first one is, if you are currently doing something,
you have to look at it as either I am
a buyer of this thing I e. I'm going to
continue doing it. I think it makes sense to continue
doing and investing my time, energy and attention in which
are your most precious assets. Or I'm a seller of it,
(09:53):
meaning I would not buy this right now based on
what my current ecosystem is, so I don't think it
should continue to exist. I'm a seller of it. That
doesn't mean that you can immediately exit it, but it
means that you should start thinking about are there ways
to exit whatever this situation is. The second thing I
would say is I have a test. I talk about
this in the book. I call it my New Opportunity test,
(10:15):
and it is a really useful heuristic or razor if
you will, for looking at new opportunities and very quickly
deciding whether it's one that makes sense. And it is
basically to say, if I assume that to this thing,
whatever it is, is going to take twice as long
and be half as rewarding or profitable as I currently
(10:36):
think would I still want to go do it. The
reason that's such a useful heuristic is because we tend
to be overly optimistic at the outset of something new.
We get the shiny object syndrome. There's a new opportunity.
It's sitting off here. You're like, Wow, it's going to
be so great. I'm gonna make all this money, or
it's going to be so enriching, so rewarding in all
these ways, and we get into too many things because
(11:01):
of that optimism. Podcasting is a great example. There are
a lot of people who love the idea of having
the winning version of a podcast. They're like, Oh, I
love the idea of having a big podcast. Everyone listens
to me. I get great guests, I have all these
cool conversations, I get to travel. It's such a great thing,
the winning version. And they asked that question themselves and
they say, yeah, hell, yes, I want the winning version
(11:22):
of this thing. But very few people are willing to
do the losing version for as long as is necessary
to get to the winning version. It's years for most people,
grinding through the mud, crawling like hard conversations, you know, navigating, booking,
all of the research, all of the challenging aspects. So
if you are willing to do the losing version long
(11:44):
enough to earn the winning version, it tends to be
a great thing to then go take on.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I love that as a perspective. Something that you recently
posted and I was writing it on LinkedIn. I think
this is from a couple of days ago. You said
that you're optimistically pessimistic about AI and found that curious,
Like as someone that invests in AI companies and I
imagine is using it a lot in your work life,
tell me what you mean by that.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I actually, you know this is funny. I think optimistically
pessimistic was the nicest way that I could possibly have
said that. If I'm being completely honest with you, I
am mildly terrified of what the future looks like. Yeah,
I have a young son. I have a three year old,
so a lot of things that I think about the
future are viewed through the lens of what his future
(12:33):
is going to look like. And I have some pretty
serious concerns about what that future looks like. Given what
I'm starting to see, I do not believe that anyone
has the incentive to think humanity wide about the implications
of the technology that we are building. I see companies
(12:53):
that have the incentive to go as fast as possible
to generate the most profit, to get the biggest releases
so that they can maximize profits. I see countries that
have the incentive to go as fast as possible so
that their geopolitical foe does not get the thing before them.
Everyone is going to rush, rush, rushrush, rush, without ever
thinking about what happens if the genie gets out of
the bottle, and humans are notoriously bad at acting early
(13:16):
enough to get out in front of exponential growth, whether
it's with a pandemic or whether it's with technological expansion
and growth. The other piece that's concerning to me is
the idea of enormous job displacement that is simultaneously paired
with a booming stock market. I can see a world
(13:39):
where you have twenty to thirty percent unemployment of knowledge
workers and a stock market that has never been higher
because that unemployment has come in line with enormous efficiencies
that have bolstered profits to an extraordinary extent. And I
think that the unrest and upheaar that comes from a
(14:01):
world where they're rich are so massively richer because they're
invested in equities, and sort of the middle class and
lower income folks are all unemployed. Is a really scary prospect.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I would love to also understand, like how you think
about it on more of a micro day to day level,
and where are the ways that you're currently using and
experimenting with it in your own workflows to augment your
own work and thinking.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I do my own writing mainly because I love writing,
and writing is how I think. Clearly. If I did
not write these things myself, I would never be able
to articulate them or have conversations about them, which is
why I value writing so much. I will use AI
as a brainstorming partner, as like a thought collector, as
(14:49):
like a research assistant in a variety of cases. You know,
I'm currently working on seeing if I can build like
a sort of like a proper like book research assistant
effectively works twenty four to seven to kind of source
and find me interesting things that I can incorporate into
my next book. And the technology sort of exists that
you're starting to get close to that world. My dad
(15:12):
jokes about this. He spent his whole career as a researcher.
He's an academic professor. How much time he spent like
in libraries looking at old texts and research and then
you know how much time he's spent paying research associates
in people insistence to dig up all of these studies
and all the sources. And now it can all be done,
(15:33):
you know, like effectively, instantaneously, and so again, thinking through
implications of all that is interesting. I think in the
short term it allows for, you know, kind of a
lowering of you know, the prerequisites necessary to create and
share ideas that are a world positive.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, it's funny what you say about writing. I can
definitely relate to that as a writer that needs to
use their writing to work out their thinking. And I
was having a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday
who's he's a writer as well, is written many books,
mostly through Harvard, and he was saying, for the first
time in his book contract there was a clause that
said you can't use AI to create any content in
(16:12):
this book. More from a copyright point of view, is
a writing quality point of view, but I find that
quite intriguing. I would love to know when you're writing
because you're so prolific online with your newsletter and social media, Like,
what's your process or what rituals do you have in
place around how you do that? Because it doesn't seem
like it's scattergun and just waiting for that spark to
(16:34):
hit you.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I don't have a schedule of stuff that's scheduled to
go out for the next week. When you see me
post on LinkedIn, ninety nine percent of the time, I
wrote it right then and then posted it. And that's
just part of how I work. I have a really
tough time thinking foreign advance on anything creative. I like
to write about things that kind of sparked my interest,
like the Think Week. I wrote a newsletter on that
(16:55):
because I was flying home from the Think Week and
I was like, Oh, I need to write down all
these insights colections that I had. So what I think
about from a structure standpoint is a little bit different
than how most people think about creating content or creating
sharing ideas. Most people think that that is about creation.
I view creation as one of say four steps that
(17:17):
are really in this process. The first step is consumption.
It is to say that you actually need to consume
at the top of funnel interesting ideas and sort of
immerse your brain and interesting ideas through things you read,
listen to conversations you have, et cetera. I am structured
about that. I make sure that every single day I'm
reading for at least an hour. I read thirty minutes
(17:40):
first thing in the morning when I wake up, and
then I read thirty minutes in the evening later in
the day and the sauna or just sort of quiet
reading time. Read anything. I mean, I read everything from
like physics books to books about history and geography, to
just anything that's kind of sparking my interest. So that's
sort of the consumption piece. The second piece is about ideation.
(18:02):
This is really about the idea of like, I need
to make sure that I have time to think, because
that is when the ideas are kind of intermingling, connecting,
sparking these new ways of thinking about them. Sometimes the
ideation is individual on a walk. Sometimes it's a conversation
trying to bat things around with someone. But again, I
am structured about that. I have time during my day
(18:23):
when I am just thinking, you know, when I'm like
going out on a walk, just stewing on these ideas.
Then comes the creation process of being able to sit
down and really think about turning those ideas into something
that I can put out into the world. And then
the final piece is sort of thinking about amplification. It's like,
where all does this go out? Generally speaking, I think
(18:45):
about writing a newsletter, and then we think about taking
it from the newsletter and how it goes out across
different mediums in video or written format. But it sort
of depends on the on the given situation.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Something I heard you did and I think I heard
it in a YouTube video and I'm not sure if
it's in the five Types of wealth. But you talked
about when you were growing on Twitter or x several
years ago that you formed the think it was called
the one hundred K Club. Can you tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Oh? Yeah, So when I was just starting to write
on Twitter, this is May of twenty twenty. I first
started writing there, I was starting to have some traction.
I was writing about business and markets and finance. I
was still working in my full time day job as
an investor, and maybe late twenty twenty, there was like
a small group of people across sort of like technology investing,
(19:36):
entrepreneurship that we kind of become friendly with from just
you know, interacting on Twitter, and I got a message
from one of them saying, hey, like, go to make
a group chat where we can kind of like share
what's working, what's not, support each other, you know, just
like generally people that are trying to grow their platform
on Twitter and we can share ideas. So I said, cool.
We ended up forming it. That was late twenty twenty,
(19:58):
and it ended up becoming an enormous, you know, sort
of like force multiplier on all of our efforts and
our ability to grow and reach more people. And all
of those people have now grown their platforms but also
just like their businesses in a variety of different ways.
And we all still have the group chat. It is
still active, it's still there, we still interact in there,
not about the same stuff that we did in the
(20:20):
early on days. But it has been a really cool
thing and a great lesson that having a community of
people who are sort of in the trenches with you
on these journeys can be really impactful.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Well, some of the tactics that came out of that group,
I guess in its first year of existence that really
shifted the needle for you.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It was very focused on sort of the nitty gritty,
so you know, one of the big ones was like
how to craft a kind of hook to a tweet
that was most likely to grab people and drive the
highest number of like clickthroughs and impressions. There was a
lot of how to convert people to subscribe to your newsletter.
At the end of these kind of longer form Twitter posts,
(21:00):
the types of content that were really getting shared, you know,
whether like visuals versus no visuals, the sort of like
pillars and archetypes of the types of content. It was
pretty nitty gritty in terms of the things that people
were focused on. Because these were like real business operators
or investors that liked to get in the weeds. It
(21:20):
wasn't just like, oh, good job, you know, pat each
other on the back type thing. It was very much
like sharing best practices. Everyone was kind of in their
own domain, so no one was competitive with one another,
at least not beyond a friendly level. It was really
really useful.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
We will be back with Sahil soon and when we
come back, we'll discuss how you can use social wealth
to vastly improve your life and his number one rule
for strengthening social connections. If you're looking for more tips
to improve the way you work can live. I write
a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've discovered that
(21:58):
have helped me personally. You can sign up for that
at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com. I love
the sound of it. I would love to talk about
social wealth, which was one of the five types of
wealth that you talk about in your book, Like I
would love to know first what's the biggest mistake that
(22:19):
you see people making when it comes to social wealth,
and perhaps maybe we need to define it in case
that is not obvious, what it means to be socially wealthy.
Let's start there.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, social wealth is just about your relationships. It's about
a recognition of relationships as an asset that compounds over
the long run if you invest in those things. And
that ties to the most common mistake that I see,
which is thinking that relationships are just a static entity
(22:51):
and not something that compounds, and not something that will
pay the greatest returns and dividends in life. The reality,
in the science and in our own anecdotal experience is
that relationships are the single greatest predictor of a happy, healthy, life.
The strength of your relationships determines those outcomes, and yet
they tend to be the first thing that fall by
(23:13):
the wayside when we get busy. You know, you get
busy in life, and you stop texting the friends, you
stop calling your mom, you don't get that old group
of buddies together for the annual trip. All of those
things start to fall, when in reality, those are the
things that are going to contribute to the great life
that you are trying to build. And so recognizing that
and realizing that really anything above zero compounds. A tiny
(23:38):
action done for a friend or a family member is
something that is going to compound and stack over the
long run. Showing up for these people during their time
of need, showing up when it's not easy. These people
will be there for you when your life is in
a tough spot.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
How do you I guess action the principles around social
wealth when I imagine and particularly like with the insight
that you shared around you had taken on a lot,
a lot of different things that perhaps you are now
going to draw and I just know, you know what
it's like being incredibly busy, and it is really easy
for relationships to be the first thing that goes like,
(24:17):
what are some practices that you have found have served you,
particularly in those really busy and hectic times.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
The number one practice I have is a rule, which is,
when you think something nice about someone, let them know
right then. I am very good about that. I'm not
great about replying to text messages or emails really promptly
because I'm overloaded most of the time, but I'm very
good about sending someone a message when I think something
(24:44):
nice about them, And that has a powerful effect of
keeping you in touch with people, of creating this level
of connection with people over long, long periods of time.
I have friends and people that I don't see very
often at all anymore, but we still I feel really connected.
Your one little hack is I have an iPhone. I
don't know if anyone else does, but on the iPhone
(25:07):
there's this like for you, sort of like photo memories feature,
And once a week or so, I'll go to that
photo memories thing and I'll send the picture to people
that are in it, so it'll prompt you know, some
sort of memory from your life with friends, and if
you just send it to them and say, you know, hey, great,
like this was great times, fun time, whatever, it sparks
(25:29):
a tiny little interaction with the person. You don't need
to spend thirty minutes catching up with them, but it
sparks a little interaction that just lets them know that
you were thinking about them, And that goes a long
way over long periods of time.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
When you like when you say, you know, when you
think something nice about someone, you will communicate that, Like
what's your go to? Like, you know, if we were friends,
would I just like get an email out of the
blue from you? What I get a voice memory?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Like?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
In practice, generally a text out of a blue yeah
I'm not a great email or sometimes voice note if
I'm driving or something like that, but generally speaking, a
text just saying like, hey was thinking about you. Hope
you're doing great, or saw this thought of you, Hope
you're thriving. Something tiny like that. Not trying to force
(26:11):
a catch up or a conversation, because oftentimes too then
you like put a burden on the other person if
they're busy, they feel bad. It can just be super simple.
I think it goes a long way.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Tell me about the life dinner concept and how that works.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
The life dinner is an idea that I first came
across from an entrepreneur named Brad Feld who sort of
recognized that when life starts to get chaotic and busy,
there are a lot of things that start to naturally
slip in a romantic partnership. Importantly, things like bigger picture
(26:46):
catch ups about your vision for a relationship, for what
your goals are, for the things that you're striving towards.
And this life Dinner is an idea of creating a
monthly date that is dedicated to those things. Its entire
purpose is to catch up and talk about those bigger
picture opportunities, goals, stresses, visions, etc. That the two of
(27:07):
you have, both individually and for your command for your relationship.
My wife and I have done this since our son
was born, which is now three years in May twenty
twenty two, and it has been an incredible ritual for
keeping us connected when life got more chaotic than ever.
There's the pushback that people like to have with this,
which is like, you shouldn't have to do that, You
(27:27):
should be talking every day, But once you have a
kid and life starts to get a little chaotic, they're
not sleeping a lot. You both have so many things
going on that it can be hard to find the
time to talk about, what are our finances, what are
the business things I'm excited about, what are the things
you're excited about, what are the big picture goals we
have for the next three years. And creating a monthly
(27:51):
date dedicated to that makes sure that there is that
touch point and does it in a fun way that
doesn't make it feel like a chore.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I could really relate to that when I read that
in your book. Something that my husband and I do,
we call it a relationship check in. I think that's
our latest language around it. And we've got like we've
got to set agenda of questions that we go through,
and I think it's so important to carve out time
to actually reflect on what has the last month actually
been like when we sit and you know, be present
(28:21):
about it, and then you know again looking to the
future and going, well, what are we trying to create
here and are we on track? So I've got to
say it's been very powerful for us as well.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, I completely agree. I love that you do that too.
That's great.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I would love to know, Like I mean, there are
so many different tactics that you talk about in the
five Types of Wealth. And something I'm always curious about
with authors that do write books that are you know,
full of different strategies, is for you personally now, and
I imagine it's probably been like a good twelve month
since you've submitted the manuscript, you know, before it was
released into the world. Like, what are maybe the sort
(28:55):
of the two or three rituals or habits or strategies
that right now like just a serving you best, and
they're things that maybe have an inordinate amount of impact
considering the time investment.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
The one to one to one method that I write
about in the mental wealth section is probably the one
thing that kept me sane during this entire crazy period
of my life and book launch. I had always wanted
to be a journaler in my whole life. I always
had these grand aspirations of what journaling looked like, that
I'd sit down for thirty minutes in like a candlelit
(29:28):
room and write beautiful prose for thirty minutes. And life
always has different plans, And so what would happen was
January first, I would try to make a journaling habit.
By like January fifth, I would have broken it, and
it wouldn't happen. So I created this idea of a
one to one one method as my solution to try
to build a journaling muscle. An idea was in the evening,
(29:49):
before going to bed, I would take a blank sheet
of paper like this, and I would just write down
one win from the day, something that I felt good about,
one point of stress, tension or anxiety, something that I
want to get off my brain and onto the paper,
and then one point of gratitude. Takes two to three minutes,
maybe five minutes max if you're being really reflective, and
(30:09):
it creates an immediate feeling of calm at the end
of the day. And as someone who often struggled to
go to sleep when I feel that kind of anxiety
build and tension, it has been an enormous life improvement,
and so in particular during these times of life that
feel somewhat unbalanced, when you're really sprinting on something. It
was one simple two to three minute ritual that didn't
(30:31):
add you know, time or craziness to my life, that
just allowed me to reset at the end of every day,
you know, really operate from a place of strength.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I'd love to know anything else that comes to mind,
like in terms of those daily or weekly things that
have just had an enormous impact and continue to.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I grown myself a lot in the physical I write
about physical wealth in the book obviously, but physical rituals
for me have a big impact because they dictate how
I feel I show up in the world. I think
that physical wealth has ripple effects into every other area
of life. It is a catalyst in terms of how
(31:08):
you look at yourself in the mirror, how you feel
about yourself. You feel like a winner. You start operating
like a winner in your relationships and your work in
your life. So I have always found that during stressful
periods of time like the one I've been going through,
making sure that I can handle these kind of like
daily non negotiables when it comes to my physical health
have been really impactful. And so for me, you know,
(31:29):
that's trying to make sure that I sleep, you know,
seven hours a night, sometimes at six, but try to
get seven hours of sleep a night, making sure I'm
moving for thirty minutes a day, no matter what. That
could be a walk, but it has to be something
I have to move for thirty minutes a day. And
then from an eating standpoint, that I'm prioritizing protein and
having only really whole unprocessed foods, just like making sure
(31:53):
that I'm having kind of single ingredient whole unprocessed foods.
If I do those three things, I feel pretty good.
I'm keeping myself and check in line, and I feel
like that has ripple effects into how I show up
all across my life.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Something else I'm curious about is now that you know,
the book has been out in the world for several
months and you've done many interviews, and I'm sure I've
spoken to many readers, what are the two or three
concepts that have resonated most with readers, And I'm wondering,
you know, if there's been any surprises there.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
You know, the dimmer switch mentality really resonated with people,
and that was a bit surprising to me. I wasn't
sure if that would really click. This is the idea that,
like your life, these different areas of life can exist
on dimmer switches. They don't need to be on off.
And so while you have one dimmer switch turned up,
you may be focusing on one area during this season
of your life, you can have the others turned down low.
(32:44):
They just can't be off and low is better than nothing.
Low was actually infinitely better than nothing because anything above
zero compounds. That idea has really been sticky with people,
and I see people actioning on that in a major way,
which is fun for me to see. Anti goals, I
would say, is the other one that has really jumped out.
(33:05):
You know, this is the idea of like you know,
goals are the summit of the mountain, the thing that
we all know we set goals at the beginning of
the year. Anti goals are the things that you don't
want to happen in your pursuit of those goals. So
my goal might be to become CEO of the company.
I want to go achieve that, but my anti goal
may be traveling three hundred nights out of the year,
(33:26):
or allowing my stress and health to deteriorate in pursuit
of the goal. I want to achieve the goal, but
not if it means having these anti goals become real.
They provide the really useful and helpful boundary and sort
of guardrails in your pursuit so that you can make
those course corrections on the journey to make sure that
you're not running a foul of these things that you
(33:48):
don't want to happen, so that you can ultimately win
the battle of achieving the goal, but also the much
bigger picture war of its impact on your whole life.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
You seem like someone that is constantly experimenting with new
things and new ways of living and working. What is
something that you've recently been experimenting with in terms of
something that is helping you, like in work or life.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I recently started reading to start my morning for thirty minutes,
and I've really enjoyed that. I would say for the
longest time, I had kind of always thought about like
reading for purpose. It's sort of this separation between tellic
and atellic activities. You know. Teleic activity is an activity
done for a purpose, an atellic activity is an activity
(34:35):
just done for the sake of it, no real clear purpose.
And I sort of decided that I wanted to have
like thirty minutes of kind of atellic reading time to
start the day, to just like open my brain up
a little bit wake up in the morning, if you will,
and replace the time that I previously would like scroll
on my phone when I got up in the morning
with just read. And I have absolutely loved that. You know,
(34:58):
I like, we'll go downstairs, get my coffee, go and
sit in my office or stand here in my nice
spot and turn on some bright lights to help me
kind of wake up since I wake up really early,
and just have thirty minutes of quiet reading time. I
got this little time glass thing. I don't know if
you can see that. It's a fifteen minute time glass.
So I flip it over twice and I just kind
(35:19):
of like read whatever grabs me. And I have a
bookshelf behind me that's got a bunch of books on it.
I don't like finish the book necessarily. I sort of
just try to grab whatever is grabbing me that morning,
and I'll just sit and read, and when it's not
grabbing me, I'll switch books. And it's really nice. It
feels liberating to read that way too, in a kind
of unique way.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I love that as someone who kind of like my
first reaction is wow, that sounds like, oh, that sounds
so indulgent, But it's not, like, what a brilliant way
to experiment with stating your day. I am going to
give that a shot.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, I would say it was indulgent if it wasn't
At four fifteen in the morning. You know, so like
it's hard to say anything is that indulgent? At four
fifteen in the morning, it feels luxurious, Like having my
cold brew coffee and sitting and reading. I'm like, ah,
this is really nice. Like sometimes I'm going to bed,
I feel more excited to wake up at four knowing
that I'm going to get to read something neat and
(36:09):
just kind of like start my day that way.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
That's awesome. Well, Sakhil, I've so enjoyed this chat, and
I so love everything you put out into the world.
So thank you for choosing to spend some of your
time wealth with me.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was
a real thrill. I hope you have a great day.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I hope you enjoyed my chat with Saquiel. I know
that I am definitely going to be trying out that
morning reading strategy to see what results it might give me. Now,
if you want to learn more about Saquil, there are
links to his socials and website in the show notes,
and I highly recommend grabbing a copy of The Five
Types of Wealth. If you like today's show, make sure
(36:49):
you get follow on your podcast app to be alerted
when new episodes drop. How I work was recorded on
the traditional land of the Warringery people, part of the
Cooler Nation
How I work is having a little break over the
Best of season, so I have handpicked a few of
my absolute favorite episodes from the last year to play
for you in this best of series. I hope you
enjoy and I will be back with new episodes twice
weekly from January twenty nine.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
That is why this concept of a scoreboard is so
important in your life, because if you have the right scoreboard,
then your actions will align around the right things. But
if you have a broken scoreboard, you will take the
wrong actions.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
If you find yourself feeling like you never have the
time and energy for the things that are really important,
then this episode is for you. My guest today is
Sakil Bloom, the New York Times best selling author of
The Five Types of Wealth and managing partner of SRB Ventures.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
There's no such thing as holding something in life. You
are either a buyer or you are a seller of
that thing, and.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It is really easy for relationships to be the first
thing that goes like. What are some practices that you
have found have served you, particularly in those really busy
and hectic times.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The number one practice I have is a rule, which.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is I want to know Sachhel's number one rule for
strengthening social connections. Find out in this episode Welcome to
How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies
for optimizing your day. I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imbo.
(01:39):
I want to start by talking about the concept of
a broken scoreboard. Can you tell me what does this mean?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
This is the idea that what you measure in life
really matters. We don't often think about how much impact
the things that we are measuring have on our acts
on a day to day basis. But you don't have
to look very far to realize that impact. You know,
think about the person that puts on like a sleep
(02:08):
tracker ring or one of those wristbands, and then all
of a sudden, they're like the most annoying sleep person
in the world. They're like, Oh, I can't go out
because I need to optimize this. My sleep score will
be screwed up. All of these things suddenly your actions
start falling in line with the thing that you were measuring.
Peter Drucker, this famous management theorist, said, what gets measured
(02:29):
gets managed. That's the idea that the thing that you
can measure becomes the thing that you optimize around. It's
the thing that you sort of myopically hone in on.
That is why this concept of a scoreboard is so
important in your life, because if you have the right scoreboard,
then your actions will align around the right things. But
if you have a broken scoreboard, which I'll argue we do,
(02:51):
you will take the wrong actions. And that was really
the realization that sparked this entire journey for me, was
the idea that we were only measuring one thing to
sort of sum up our life and our worth, and
that was money.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It reminds me of a time this is a few
years back where I was at a conference in Vancouver
and I met a really senior executive from Google and
he was telling me about him and his family. Obviously,
they have okas at work at Google and they're famous
for it, but he said he took it into his
personal life and every quarter him and his wife sat
down and they set personal OKRs. What is your process
(03:28):
for setting the right metrics in your life and with
your family.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I think it all starts with figuring out what your
priorities actually are. I would say that that is the
first biggest picture exercise that people need to think about.
Very few people really take the time to think about
what is the life you actually want to build. So
the question that I like to ask myself, which I
think everyone should ask, is to sit down and say,
(03:56):
if a third party were to come in and observe
my actions for a week, they were to come in
and just watch me for a week, what would they
say my priorities are? And the recognition there is that
there is a big gap between what you would say
your priorities are and what your actions show your priorities are.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
How often do you personally reflect on that, like in
the last year, because it's always interesting, Like I don't know,
when you write about concepts and some of them just
kind of seep in and they become you, but some
of them you still have to deliberately realign. So I'm curious,
how does it work for you Right now?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I do something I call a think day about once
a month. But think day is the idea of carving
out one to two hours once a month to go
to a new, new open space, a coffee shop outside,
et cetera. Bring a journal, bring a pen, and just
think on some of these bigger picture questions of your life,
reflect on them, allow yourself the space to see the
(04:52):
bigger picture, and then to make course corrections along the way.
I find that every single time I do it, there's
somewhere that I've gotten a little bit off kilter, fallen
a little off course. And the truth is that those
tiny course corrections are very impactful in the long run.
There's this concept in aviation, the one in sixty rule
(05:13):
that for every one degree error in heading, a plane
will miss its eventual target by a mile for every
sixty miles flown. So the idea is that small deviations
and course are amplified by distance and time. Your life
is no different when when you are slightly off course,
it is going to have a big impact over five, ten,
fifteen years. So making yourself have a ritual or a
(05:35):
habit to create the space and to identify these course
corrections that need to happen so that you can execute
on them, that's been really impactful in my life.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I was reading on your LinkedIn fate that you actually
went on a think week, if I'm correct, and came
back from that like quite recently, how do you stretch
a think week as distinct from a think day?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Technically it was three days, but I'm calling it a
think week because it was most of a working week.
The idea was for it to be as unstructured as possible.
I personally think the whole point is to create enough
space that you are sort of able to think differently
and more broadly, the way that we did it I
did it with my business partner was that we each
proposed sort of a set of reflection questions, big picture
(06:18):
questions that we wanted to think on, and the idea
was that we would pose a question. We kind of
have a session set up, say like a couple hour block,
and we would just go out into some open space,
bring a notebook, and we would pose the question, and
then we would each spend however long hour two hours
thinking and journaling on it. Then we would come together
(06:41):
for some sort of meal and sort of talk through
reflect on pressure test what those insights were that we
had as we were writing.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Could you share examples of some of the questions that
you praised.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, one of the biggest ones for me is what
did I know for sure that just wasn't? So there
are these things that we automatically assume are correct, that
we've been told our entire life, Like we know for
sure that those things are so, and in reality they
are not. And making sure that you recognize those in
(07:14):
real time and that you're able to change your mind
on those things is really important. It's also very uncomfortable,
so most people don't do it because it requires you
sort of breaking down your own ego and your own
correctness in favor of finding the truth. All of this
is sort of about a long term truth seeking operation
that you are trying to get closer and closer to
(07:34):
the truth and your relationships and your work and your
personal life in all of these areas. So that one
I found to be really impactful because for me it's
sort of identified. I mean, one really major insight about
how I've been operating and working that I think if
I had continued to perpetuate and repeat, would have really
held me back and would have harmed my life in
(07:56):
a number of different ways.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Oh, I'm curious, So you are able to share what
that was if it's not too personal.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
No, it's not too personal. I had, for the longest
time had the belief that my path to building something
really interesting, engaging and big from a business standpoint around
this platform that I've created in these ideas was to
take a lot of different sort of swings and a
lot of different bets that wereround in the world and
(08:23):
have sort of like a small amount of energy deployed
across a bunch of different things that sort of a
venture capital portfolio, if you will, for those in the
investing world, and that a couple of those would work
out to an enormous extent, most of them might not,
or they would be small, and that would lead to
a good overall outcome across the portfolio. What I found
(08:43):
and what I confronted was just this idea that actually,
when it comes to my energy and my attention, that
was harming more than it helped, because being scattered across
one hundred things just meant that I was going to
do none of them well and make myself miserable in
the process. And so it precipitated a pretty radical simplification
(09:05):
of my entire business and life ecosystem. I will be
going into much more of a season of no, if
you will, when it comes to taking things on and
really trimming the things that I am sort of actively
engaged in and involved in.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Accordingly, how do you make decisions then, with this new
perspective around firstly, what to drop that you're currently committed to,
and then what will you say no to that you'd
previously said yes to.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I have a couple of different ways I think about this.
So the first one is, if you are currently doing something,
you have to look at it as either I am
a buyer of this thing I e. I'm going to
continue doing it. I think it makes sense to continue
doing and investing my time, energy and attention in which
are your most precious assets. Or I'm a seller of it,
(09:53):
meaning I would not buy this right now based on
what my current ecosystem is, so I don't think it
should continue to exist. I'm a seller of it. That
doesn't mean that you can immediately exit it, but it
means that you should start thinking about are there ways
to exit whatever this situation is. The second thing I
would say is I have a test. I talk about
this in the book. I call it my New Opportunity test,
(10:15):
and it is a really useful heuristic or razor if
you will, for looking at new opportunities and very quickly
deciding whether it's one that makes sense. And it is
basically to say, if I assume that to this thing,
whatever it is, is going to take twice as long
and be half as rewarding or profitable as I currently
(10:36):
think would I still want to go do it. The
reason that's such a useful heuristic is because we tend
to be overly optimistic at the outset of something new.
We get the shiny object syndrome. There's a new opportunity.
It's sitting off here. You're like, Wow, it's going to
be so great. I'm gonna make all this money, or
it's going to be so enriching, so rewarding in all
these ways, and we get into too many things because
(11:01):
of that optimism. Podcasting is a great example. There are
a lot of people who love the idea of having
the winning version of a podcast. They're like, Oh, I
love the idea of having a big podcast. Everyone listens
to me. I get great guests, I have all these
cool conversations, I get to travel. It's such a great thing,
the winning version. And they asked that question themselves and
they say, yeah, hell, yes, I want the winning version
(11:22):
of this thing. But very few people are willing to
do the losing version for as long as is necessary
to get to the winning version. It's years for most people,
grinding through the mud, crawling like hard conversations, you know, navigating, booking,
all of the research, all of the challenging aspects. So
if you are willing to do the losing version long
(11:44):
enough to earn the winning version, it tends to be
a great thing to then go take on.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I love that as a perspective. Something that you recently
posted and I was writing it on LinkedIn. I think
this is from a couple of days ago. You said
that you're optimistically pessimistic about AI and found that curious,
Like as someone that invests in AI companies and I
imagine is using it a lot in your work life,
tell me what you mean by that.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I actually, you know this is funny. I think optimistically
pessimistic was the nicest way that I could possibly have
said that. If I'm being completely honest with you, I
am mildly terrified of what the future looks like. Yeah,
I have a young son. I have a three year old,
so a lot of things that I think about the
future are viewed through the lens of what his future
(12:33):
is going to look like. And I have some pretty
serious concerns about what that future looks like. Given what
I'm starting to see, I do not believe that anyone
has the incentive to think humanity wide about the implications
of the technology that we are building. I see companies
(12:53):
that have the incentive to go as fast as possible
to generate the most profit, to get the biggest releases
so that they can maximize profits. I see countries that
have the incentive to go as fast as possible so
that their geopolitical foe does not get the thing before them.
Everyone is going to rush, rush, rushrush, rush, without ever
thinking about what happens if the genie gets out of
the bottle, and humans are notoriously bad at acting early
(13:16):
enough to get out in front of exponential growth, whether
it's with a pandemic or whether it's with technological expansion
and growth. The other piece that's concerning to me is
the idea of enormous job displacement that is simultaneously paired
with a booming stock market. I can see a world
(13:39):
where you have twenty to thirty percent unemployment of knowledge
workers and a stock market that has never been higher
because that unemployment has come in line with enormous efficiencies
that have bolstered profits to an extraordinary extent. And I
think that the unrest and upheaar that comes from a
(14:01):
world where they're rich are so massively richer because they're
invested in equities, and sort of the middle class and
lower income folks are all unemployed. Is a really scary prospect.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I would love to also understand, like how you think
about it on more of a micro day to day level,
and where are the ways that you're currently using and
experimenting with it in your own workflows to augment your
own work and thinking.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I do my own writing mainly because I love writing,
and writing is how I think. Clearly. If I did
not write these things myself, I would never be able
to articulate them or have conversations about them, which is
why I value writing so much. I will use AI
as a brainstorming partner, as like a thought collector, as
(14:49):
like a research assistant in a variety of cases. You know,
I'm currently working on seeing if I can build like
a sort of like a proper like book research assistant
effectively works twenty four to seven to kind of source
and find me interesting things that I can incorporate into
my next book. And the technology sort of exists that
you're starting to get close to that world. My dad
(15:12):
jokes about this. He spent his whole career as a researcher.
He's an academic professor. How much time he spent like
in libraries looking at old texts and research and then
you know how much time he's spent paying research associates
in people insistence to dig up all of these studies
and all the sources. And now it can all be done,
(15:33):
you know, like effectively, instantaneously, and so again, thinking through
implications of all that is interesting. I think in the
short term it allows for, you know, kind of a
lowering of you know, the prerequisites necessary to create and
share ideas that are a world positive.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, it's funny what you say about writing. I can
definitely relate to that as a writer that needs to
use their writing to work out their thinking. And I
was having a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday
who's he's a writer as well, is written many books,
mostly through Harvard, and he was saying, for the first
time in his book contract there was a clause that
said you can't use AI to create any content in
(16:12):
this book. More from a copyright point of view, is
a writing quality point of view, but I find that
quite intriguing. I would love to know when you're writing
because you're so prolific online with your newsletter and social media, Like,
what's your process or what rituals do you have in
place around how you do that? Because it doesn't seem
like it's scattergun and just waiting for that spark to
(16:34):
hit you.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I don't have a schedule of stuff that's scheduled to
go out for the next week. When you see me
post on LinkedIn, ninety nine percent of the time, I
wrote it right then and then posted it. And that's
just part of how I work. I have a really
tough time thinking foreign advance on anything creative. I like
to write about things that kind of sparked my interest,
like the Think Week. I wrote a newsletter on that
(16:55):
because I was flying home from the Think Week and
I was like, Oh, I need to write down all
these insights colections that I had. So what I think
about from a structure standpoint is a little bit different
than how most people think about creating content or creating
sharing ideas. Most people think that that is about creation.
I view creation as one of say four steps that
(17:17):
are really in this process. The first step is consumption.
It is to say that you actually need to consume
at the top of funnel interesting ideas and sort of
immerse your brain and interesting ideas through things you read,
listen to conversations you have, et cetera. I am structured
about that. I make sure that every single day I'm
reading for at least an hour. I read thirty minutes
(17:40):
first thing in the morning when I wake up, and
then I read thirty minutes in the evening later in
the day and the sauna or just sort of quiet
reading time. Read anything. I mean, I read everything from
like physics books to books about history and geography, to
just anything that's kind of sparking my interest. So that's
sort of the consumption piece. The second piece is about ideation.
(18:02):
This is really about the idea of like, I need
to make sure that I have time to think, because
that is when the ideas are kind of intermingling, connecting,
sparking these new ways of thinking about them. Sometimes the
ideation is individual on a walk. Sometimes it's a conversation
trying to bat things around with someone. But again, I
am structured about that. I have time during my day
(18:23):
when I am just thinking, you know, when I'm like
going out on a walk, just stewing on these ideas.
Then comes the creation process of being able to sit
down and really think about turning those ideas into something
that I can put out into the world. And then
the final piece is sort of thinking about amplification. It's like,
where all does this go out? Generally speaking, I think
(18:45):
about writing a newsletter, and then we think about taking
it from the newsletter and how it goes out across
different mediums in video or written format. But it sort
of depends on the on the given situation.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Something I heard you did and I think I heard
it in a YouTube video and I'm not sure if
it's in the five Types of wealth. But you talked
about when you were growing on Twitter or x several
years ago that you formed the think it was called
the one hundred K Club. Can you tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Oh? Yeah, So when I was just starting to write
on Twitter, this is May of twenty twenty. I first
started writing there, I was starting to have some traction.
I was writing about business and markets and finance. I
was still working in my full time day job as
an investor, and maybe late twenty twenty, there was like
a small group of people across sort of like technology investing,
(19:36):
entrepreneurship that we kind of become friendly with from just
you know, interacting on Twitter, and I got a message
from one of them saying, hey, like, go to make
a group chat where we can kind of like share
what's working, what's not, support each other, you know, just
like generally people that are trying to grow their platform
on Twitter and we can share ideas. So I said, cool.
We ended up forming it. That was late twenty twenty,
(19:58):
and it ended up becoming an enormous, you know, sort
of like force multiplier on all of our efforts and
our ability to grow and reach more people. And all
of those people have now grown their platforms but also
just like their businesses in a variety of different ways.
And we all still have the group chat. It is
still active, it's still there, we still interact in there,
not about the same stuff that we did in the
(20:20):
early on days. But it has been a really cool
thing and a great lesson that having a community of
people who are sort of in the trenches with you
on these journeys can be really impactful.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Well, some of the tactics that came out of that group,
I guess in its first year of existence that really
shifted the needle for you.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It was very focused on sort of the nitty gritty,
so you know, one of the big ones was like
how to craft a kind of hook to a tweet
that was most likely to grab people and drive the
highest number of like clickthroughs and impressions. There was a
lot of how to convert people to subscribe to your newsletter.
At the end of these kind of longer form Twitter posts,
(21:00):
the types of content that were really getting shared, you know,
whether like visuals versus no visuals, the sort of like
pillars and archetypes of the types of content. It was
pretty nitty gritty in terms of the things that people
were focused on. Because these were like real business operators
or investors that liked to get in the weeds. It
(21:20):
wasn't just like, oh, good job, you know, pat each
other on the back type thing. It was very much
like sharing best practices. Everyone was kind of in their
own domain, so no one was competitive with one another,
at least not beyond a friendly level. It was really
really useful.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
We will be back with Sahil soon and when we
come back, we'll discuss how you can use social wealth
to vastly improve your life and his number one rule
for strengthening social connections. If you're looking for more tips
to improve the way you work can live. I write
a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've discovered that
(21:58):
have helped me personally. You can sign up for that
at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com. I love
the sound of it. I would love to talk about
social wealth, which was one of the five types of
wealth that you talk about in your book, Like I
would love to know first what's the biggest mistake that
(22:19):
you see people making when it comes to social wealth,
and perhaps maybe we need to define it in case
that is not obvious, what it means to be socially wealthy.
Let's start there.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, social wealth is just about your relationships. It's about
a recognition of relationships as an asset that compounds over
the long run if you invest in those things. And
that ties to the most common mistake that I see,
which is thinking that relationships are just a static entity
(22:51):
and not something that compounds, and not something that will
pay the greatest returns and dividends in life. The reality,
in the science and in our own anecdotal experience is
that relationships are the single greatest predictor of a happy, healthy, life.
The strength of your relationships determines those outcomes, and yet
they tend to be the first thing that fall by
(23:13):
the wayside when we get busy. You know, you get
busy in life, and you stop texting the friends, you
stop calling your mom, you don't get that old group
of buddies together for the annual trip. All of those
things start to fall, when in reality, those are the
things that are going to contribute to the great life
that you are trying to build. And so recognizing that
and realizing that really anything above zero compounds. A tiny
(23:38):
action done for a friend or a family member is
something that is going to compound and stack over the
long run. Showing up for these people during their time
of need, showing up when it's not easy. These people
will be there for you when your life is in
a tough spot.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
How do you I guess action the principles around social
wealth when I imagine and particularly like with the insight
that you shared around you had taken on a lot,
a lot of different things that perhaps you are now
going to draw and I just know, you know what
it's like being incredibly busy, and it is really easy
for relationships to be the first thing that goes like,
(24:17):
what are some practices that you have found have served you,
particularly in those really busy and hectic times.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
The number one practice I have is a rule, which is,
when you think something nice about someone, let them know
right then. I am very good about that. I'm not
great about replying to text messages or emails really promptly
because I'm overloaded most of the time, but I'm very
good about sending someone a message when I think something
(24:44):
nice about them, And that has a powerful effect of
keeping you in touch with people, of creating this level
of connection with people over long, long periods of time.
I have friends and people that I don't see very
often at all anymore, but we still I feel really connected.
Your one little hack is I have an iPhone. I
don't know if anyone else does, but on the iPhone
(25:07):
there's this like for you, sort of like photo memories feature,
And once a week or so, I'll go to that
photo memories thing and I'll send the picture to people
that are in it, so it'll prompt you know, some
sort of memory from your life with friends, and if
you just send it to them and say, you know, hey, great,
like this was great times, fun time, whatever, it sparks
(25:29):
a tiny little interaction with the person. You don't need
to spend thirty minutes catching up with them, but it
sparks a little interaction that just lets them know that
you were thinking about them, And that goes a long
way over long periods of time.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
When you like when you say, you know, when you
think something nice about someone, you will communicate that, Like
what's your go to? Like, you know, if we were friends,
would I just like get an email out of the
blue from you? What I get a voice memory?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Like?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
In practice, generally a text out of a blue yeah
I'm not a great email or sometimes voice note if
I'm driving or something like that, but generally speaking, a
text just saying like, hey was thinking about you. Hope
you're doing great, or saw this thought of you, Hope
you're thriving. Something tiny like that. Not trying to force
(26:11):
a catch up or a conversation, because oftentimes too then
you like put a burden on the other person if
they're busy, they feel bad. It can just be super simple.
I think it goes a long way.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Tell me about the life dinner concept and how that works.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
The life dinner is an idea that I first came
across from an entrepreneur named Brad Feld who sort of
recognized that when life starts to get chaotic and busy,
there are a lot of things that start to naturally
slip in a romantic partnership. Importantly, things like bigger picture
(26:46):
catch ups about your vision for a relationship, for what
your goals are, for the things that you're striving towards.
And this life Dinner is an idea of creating a
monthly date that is dedicated to those things. Its entire
purpose is to catch up and talk about those bigger
picture opportunities, goals, stresses, visions, etc. That the two of
(27:07):
you have, both individually and for your command for your relationship.
My wife and I have done this since our son
was born, which is now three years in May twenty
twenty two, and it has been an incredible ritual for
keeping us connected when life got more chaotic than ever.
There's the pushback that people like to have with this,
which is like, you shouldn't have to do that, You
(27:27):
should be talking every day, But once you have a
kid and life starts to get a little chaotic, they're
not sleeping a lot. You both have so many things
going on that it can be hard to find the
time to talk about, what are our finances, what are
the business things I'm excited about, what are the things
you're excited about, what are the big picture goals we
have for the next three years. And creating a monthly
(27:51):
date dedicated to that makes sure that there is that
touch point and does it in a fun way that
doesn't make it feel like a chore.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I could really relate to that when I read that
in your book. Something that my husband and I do,
we call it a relationship check in. I think that's
our latest language around it. And we've got like we've
got to set agenda of questions that we go through,
and I think it's so important to carve out time
to actually reflect on what has the last month actually
been like when we sit and you know, be present
(28:21):
about it, and then you know again looking to the
future and going, well, what are we trying to create
here and are we on track? So I've got to
say it's been very powerful for us as well.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, I completely agree. I love that you do that too.
That's great.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I would love to know, Like I mean, there are
so many different tactics that you talk about in the
five Types of Wealth. And something I'm always curious about
with authors that do write books that are you know,
full of different strategies, is for you personally now, and
I imagine it's probably been like a good twelve month
since you've submitted the manuscript, you know, before it was
released into the world. Like, what are maybe the sort
(28:55):
of the two or three rituals or habits or strategies
that right now like just a serving you best, and
they're things that maybe have an inordinate amount of impact
considering the time investment.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
The one to one to one method that I write
about in the mental wealth section is probably the one
thing that kept me sane during this entire crazy period
of my life and book launch. I had always wanted
to be a journaler in my whole life. I always
had these grand aspirations of what journaling looked like, that
I'd sit down for thirty minutes in like a candlelit
(29:28):
room and write beautiful prose for thirty minutes. And life
always has different plans, And so what would happen was
January first, I would try to make a journaling habit.
By like January fifth, I would have broken it, and
it wouldn't happen. So I created this idea of a
one to one one method as my solution to try
to build a journaling muscle. An idea was in the evening,
(29:49):
before going to bed, I would take a blank sheet
of paper like this, and I would just write down
one win from the day, something that I felt good about,
one point of stress, tension or anxiety, something that I
want to get off my brain and onto the paper,
and then one point of gratitude. Takes two to three minutes,
maybe five minutes max if you're being really reflective, and
(30:09):
it creates an immediate feeling of calm at the end
of the day. And as someone who often struggled to
go to sleep when I feel that kind of anxiety
build and tension, it has been an enormous life improvement,
and so in particular during these times of life that
feel somewhat unbalanced, when you're really sprinting on something. It
was one simple two to three minute ritual that didn't
(30:31):
add you know, time or craziness to my life, that
just allowed me to reset at the end of every day,
you know, really operate from a place of strength.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I'd love to know anything else that comes to mind,
like in terms of those daily or weekly things that
have just had an enormous impact and continue to.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I grown myself a lot in the physical I write
about physical wealth in the book obviously, but physical rituals
for me have a big impact because they dictate how
I feel I show up in the world. I think
that physical wealth has ripple effects into every other area
of life. It is a catalyst in terms of how
(31:08):
you look at yourself in the mirror, how you feel
about yourself. You feel like a winner. You start operating
like a winner in your relationships and your work in
your life. So I have always found that during stressful
periods of time like the one I've been going through,
making sure that I can handle these kind of like
daily non negotiables when it comes to my physical health
have been really impactful. And so for me, you know,
(31:29):
that's trying to make sure that I sleep, you know,
seven hours a night, sometimes at six, but try to
get seven hours of sleep a night, making sure I'm
moving for thirty minutes a day, no matter what. That
could be a walk, but it has to be something
I have to move for thirty minutes a day. And
then from an eating standpoint, that I'm prioritizing protein and
having only really whole unprocessed foods, just like making sure
(31:53):
that I'm having kind of single ingredient whole unprocessed foods.
If I do those three things, I feel pretty good.
I'm keeping myself and check in line, and I feel
like that has ripple effects into how I show up
all across my life.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Something else I'm curious about is now that you know,
the book has been out in the world for several
months and you've done many interviews, and I'm sure I've
spoken to many readers, what are the two or three
concepts that have resonated most with readers, And I'm wondering,
you know, if there's been any surprises there.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
You know, the dimmer switch mentality really resonated with people,
and that was a bit surprising to me. I wasn't
sure if that would really click. This is the idea that,
like your life, these different areas of life can exist
on dimmer switches. They don't need to be on off.
And so while you have one dimmer switch turned up,
you may be focusing on one area during this season
of your life, you can have the others turned down low.
(32:44):
They just can't be off and low is better than nothing.
Low was actually infinitely better than nothing because anything above
zero compounds. That idea has really been sticky with people,
and I see people actioning on that in a major way,
which is fun for me to see. Anti goals, I
would say, is the other one that has really jumped out.
(33:05):
You know, this is the idea of like you know,
goals are the summit of the mountain, the thing that
we all know we set goals at the beginning of
the year. Anti goals are the things that you don't
want to happen in your pursuit of those goals. So
my goal might be to become CEO of the company.
I want to go achieve that, but my anti goal
may be traveling three hundred nights out of the year,
(33:26):
or allowing my stress and health to deteriorate in pursuit
of the goal. I want to achieve the goal, but
not if it means having these anti goals become real.
They provide the really useful and helpful boundary and sort
of guardrails in your pursuit so that you can make
those course corrections on the journey to make sure that
you're not running a foul of these things that you
(33:48):
don't want to happen, so that you can ultimately win
the battle of achieving the goal, but also the much
bigger picture war of its impact on your whole life.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
You seem like someone that is constantly experimenting with new
things and new ways of living and working. What is
something that you've recently been experimenting with in terms of
something that is helping you, like in work or life.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I recently started reading to start my morning for thirty minutes,
and I've really enjoyed that. I would say for the
longest time, I had kind of always thought about like
reading for purpose. It's sort of this separation between tellic
and atellic activities. You know. Teleic activity is an activity
done for a purpose, an atellic activity is an activity
(34:35):
just done for the sake of it, no real clear purpose.
And I sort of decided that I wanted to have
like thirty minutes of kind of atellic reading time to
start the day, to just like open my brain up
a little bit wake up in the morning, if you will,
and replace the time that I previously would like scroll
on my phone when I got up in the morning
with just read. And I have absolutely loved that. You know,
(34:58):
I like, we'll go downstairs, get my coffee, go and
sit in my office or stand here in my nice
spot and turn on some bright lights to help me
kind of wake up since I wake up really early,
and just have thirty minutes of quiet reading time. I
got this little time glass thing. I don't know if
you can see that. It's a fifteen minute time glass.
So I flip it over twice and I just kind
(35:19):
of like read whatever grabs me. And I have a
bookshelf behind me that's got a bunch of books on it.
I don't like finish the book necessarily. I sort of
just try to grab whatever is grabbing me that morning,
and I'll just sit and read, and when it's not
grabbing me, I'll switch books. And it's really nice. It
feels liberating to read that way too, in a kind
of unique way.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I love that as someone who kind of like my
first reaction is wow, that sounds like, oh, that sounds
so indulgent, But it's not, like, what a brilliant way
to experiment with stating your day. I am going to
give that a shot.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, I would say it was indulgent if it wasn't
At four fifteen in the morning. You know, so like
it's hard to say anything is that indulgent? At four
fifteen in the morning, it feels luxurious, Like having my
cold brew coffee and sitting and reading. I'm like, ah,
this is really nice. Like sometimes I'm going to bed,
I feel more excited to wake up at four knowing
that I'm going to get to read something neat and
(36:09):
just kind of like start my day that way.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
That's awesome. Well, Sakhil, I've so enjoyed this chat, and
I so love everything you put out into the world.
So thank you for choosing to spend some of your
time wealth with me.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was
a real thrill. I hope you have a great day.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I hope you enjoyed my chat with Saquiel. I know
that I am definitely going to be trying out that
morning reading strategy to see what results it might give me. Now,
if you want to learn more about Saquil, there are
links to his socials and website in the show notes,
and I highly recommend grabbing a copy of The Five
Types of Wealth. If you like today's show, make sure
(36:49):
you get follow on your podcast app to be alerted
when new episodes drop. How I work was recorded on
the traditional land of the Warringery people, part of the
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