AI transcript
0:00:03 Support for Prop G comes from Crescent Family Office.
0:00:05 As an entrepreneur, you spend a lot of time
0:00:06 in energy building your business.
0:00:08 And chances are, you’ve been so busy,
0:00:09 there hasn’t been a ton of time to think about preparing
0:00:13 for an exit, tax strategies, and wealth management.
0:00:14 Crescent is here to help wealth creators
0:00:17 and families like yours streamline complexity
0:00:18 and invest for the future.
0:00:19 Crescent was built by entrepreneurs,
0:00:22 for entrepreneurs with financial advisory teams
0:00:23 who embrace the fiduciary duty
0:00:26 to place the client’s interests first.
0:00:28 You can learn how to optimize your life
0:00:29 by scheduling a call with a Crescent founder
0:00:32 at CrescentCapital.com.
0:00:33 We are not clients of Crescent.
0:00:34 There are no material conflicts
0:00:36 other than this paid endorsement.
0:00:39 All investing involves risk, including loss of principle.
0:00:41 (upbeat music)
0:00:44 – Nice.
0:00:46 – Support for the show comes from Nerd Wallet.
0:00:48 When it comes to finding the best financial products,
0:00:49 have you ever wished someone would do
0:00:51 the heavy lifting for you?
0:00:53 Take all that research off your plate?
0:00:56 Well, with Nerd Wallet’s 2025 Best of Award,
0:00:58 that wishes come true.
0:00:59 The nerds at Nerd Wallet are on it.
0:01:02 They have already reviewed more than 1,100 financial products
0:01:05 like credit cards, savings accounts, and more
0:01:08 in order to highlight and bring you the best of the best.
0:01:11 Check out the 2025 Best of Awards today
0:01:13 at nerdwallet.com/awards.
0:01:18 – Hey, what you doing?
0:01:21 – Programming our thermostat to 17 degrees
0:01:23 when we’re out at work or asleep.
0:01:25 We’re taking control of our energy use this winter
0:01:28 with some easy energy saving tips I got from Fortis BC.
0:01:31 – Ooh, conserve energy and save money?
0:01:33 Maybe to buy those matching winter jackets?
0:01:34 – Uh, no.
0:01:36 We’re also getting that whole matching outfit thing
0:01:37 under control.
0:01:40 – Discover low and no cost energy saving tips
0:01:43 at fortisbc.com/energysavingtips.
0:01:45 – Matching track suits?
0:01:46 – Please know.
0:01:50 – Episode 334, 334 is the area code
0:01:52 covering Southeast in Alabama in 1934.
0:01:55 Alcatraz opened as a federal prison.
0:01:57 True story, I have a friend who has sex
0:01:59 three to four times a week, works out every day
0:02:03 and reads at least two books a week.
0:02:05 And all this guy ever does is bitch about prison.
0:02:09 – Go, go, go!
0:02:12 (upbeat music)
0:02:21 – Welcome to the 334th episode of “The Prodigy Pod.”
0:02:22 What’s happening?
0:02:26 The dog is back in the incredible city of London.
0:02:29 That’s right, where the sun has decided to go on vacation.
0:02:31 The sun has decided to take a fall, winter,
0:02:33 and I would imagine spring off.
0:02:35 I did have a wonderful weekend.
0:02:37 Let’s bring this back to me.
0:02:39 What are the wonderful things about London?
0:02:41 One, it’s a great city.
0:02:44 Two, Premier League football, maybe that’s number one.
0:02:47 Three, probably first and foremost,
0:02:48 that’s actually a broad one,
0:02:50 is proximity to the continent.
0:02:52 So what did I do with my 14-year-old this weekend?
0:02:55 We went to Pancras, St. Pancras train station,
0:02:57 which is literally 10 minutes from my house.
0:03:00 Got on the Eurostar, which is lovely, which is lovely.
0:03:04 And I mean, zoomed at like 330 kilometers per hour.
0:03:06 I love public infrastructure.
0:03:08 I say raise taxes and just build shit
0:03:09 that the public can use.
0:03:13 Gerdynord, two hours and 21 minutes later,
0:03:16 and then boom, in our hotel, we went to the Notre Dame.
0:03:21 Jesus Christ, I believe that God hangs out there now.
0:03:23 Oh my God, oh my God,
0:03:27 we’re sitting in line for 70 minutes
0:03:29 with every tourist from everywhere, including myself.
0:03:32 Wow, wow, no truck to the Dom.
0:03:36 Jesus Christ, seriously, but more importantly,
0:03:39 stayed at a beautiful hotel, went to the pool with my son,
0:03:41 because when you have a son, you always gotta go to the pool.
0:03:43 You always gotta go to the pool, full stop.
0:03:44 Gotta check out the pool.
0:03:46 That’s how we evaluate hotels is by the pool.
0:03:48 Then we went upstairs to this fancy Tony restaurant
0:03:52 and had light apps, which was delightful.
0:03:53 And then the highlight of the trip,
0:03:58 we went to the PSG game, 20 minutes to the stadium, boom.
0:03:59 Harking wasn’t that bad.
0:04:01 Into the stadium, amazing fans.
0:04:04 We saw them, Ty Renz, great game, fantastic fans.
0:04:07 It was raining, but the stadium is designed really well,
0:04:08 so we didn’t get rained on.
0:04:12 And then boom, back to the hotel in just like 22 minutes.
0:04:15 What a wonderful, wonderful city.
0:04:18 Anyways, that’s what I’m doing.
0:04:20 Today, we speak with Sahil Bloom,
0:04:22 an investor, entrepreneur, and writer
0:04:25 known for his newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle.
0:04:27 That’s kind of an interesting name, The Curiosity Chronicle.
0:04:29 That sounds like it’s being on PBS.
0:04:31 We discussed with Sahil his latest book,
0:04:32 “The Five Types of Wealth,
0:04:35 “A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.”
0:04:39 Okay, moving on to a shakeup in the AI world.
0:04:41 Oh my God, what are we gonna talk about?
0:04:44 This is kind of the business story of the week.
0:04:47 DeepSeq, a Chinese startup that’s just over a year old,
0:04:49 sent shockwaves to the global tech markets
0:04:52 in an AI model that’s as powerful
0:04:55 as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini,
0:04:57 but it was built with just a fraction
0:04:59 of the usual resources.
0:05:03 DeepSeq R1 was trained using just 2,000 NVIDIA chips
0:05:05 and 6 million in computing power.
0:05:07 That’s about 10 times less
0:05:10 than what Meta spent on building its latest AI technology.
0:05:12 Why does this matter?
0:05:14 This signals a major shift,
0:05:16 maybe even a paradigm shift in AI development.
0:05:21 Less money and fewer chips equals more players, right?
0:05:23 The market essentially has been rewarding
0:05:26 investment over innovation.
0:05:28 And the small number of players have been running away
0:05:30 with it, specifically the ones that have the capital
0:05:33 to deploy basically the defense budget of China,
0:05:35 which is the capital on their balance sheets
0:05:36 and how much they are spending
0:05:41 on developing these data centers, buying NVIDIA GPUs.
0:05:43 I mean, just this staggering investment here
0:05:46 and then all of a sudden comes this innovation
0:05:47 where the chips are speaking to each other
0:05:51 in a more efficient way, as opposed to traditional models
0:05:54 that had to be trained in a house where all appliances
0:05:56 and all lights were on at the same time.
0:05:58 This just said, we figured out a way
0:06:00 that you only have to have the lights on in the room you’re in
0:06:04 and is consuming a fraction of the processing power
0:06:06 and the energy of you will.
0:06:09 DeepSeq just proved it’s no longer a game dominated
0:06:10 by US tech giants.
0:06:14 And this is essentially the market has said, again,
0:06:18 maybe we overestimated investment versus innovation,
0:06:19 but there’s more to the story.
0:06:23 DeepSeq didn’t just develop this tech, they open sourced it.
0:06:25 That means they shared the underlying code
0:06:27 for others to build on.
0:06:29 – Well, open sourced AI accelerates innovation.
0:06:31 It does come with serious risks.
0:06:33 Many experts argue that US companies
0:06:35 shouldn’t open source their technologies
0:06:37 because they could be exploited to spread disinformation
0:06:39 or even create autonomous weapons.
0:06:41 This is essentially given the Chinese
0:06:43 that you could argue sort of open source,
0:06:46 the opportunity to catch up and even blow by this.
0:06:50 And this has so many kind of second order effects.
0:06:54 First off, not only did chip stocks fall
0:06:56 or the AI stocks fall, and we’ll talk more about that,
0:06:59 but the second order effects was that there had been
0:07:02 an equally vicious run up of energy stocks
0:07:04 because the choking point in what we thought
0:07:08 was gonna be an energy hungry AI world.
0:07:09 You saw constellation energy,
0:07:11 you saw all these energy stocks skyrocket,
0:07:14 they had a significant drawdown
0:07:17 because maybe energy isn’t going to be as scarce
0:07:19 as we had originally thought
0:07:24 because of the fact that AI may not be quite as power hungry
0:07:25 as we’d originally anticipated.
0:07:27 This is really shaking up global markets.
0:07:29 I wouldn’t say investors are panicking,
0:07:30 but there’s definitely been a drawdown.
0:07:33 Nvidia shares plummeted 17% on Monday
0:07:35 after DeepSeq debuted its AI system,
0:07:38 wiping out, get the 600 billion in market value.
0:07:40 This marked Nvidia’s worst trading day
0:07:42 since the pandemic crash in 2020.
0:07:45 Now, having said that, we’ve got some context here,
0:07:46 that takes them all the way back
0:07:49 to where the stock was in October.
0:07:50 And when stocks run up like this,
0:07:52 it is like a balloon inflating.
0:07:56 And if it becomes more and more inflated/overinflated,
0:07:58 the smallest scratch can pop the balloon.
0:08:01 And I think that in addition to this news,
0:08:04 it’s likely that these stocks had such incredible run ups
0:08:06 that the market was looking for kind of any excuse
0:08:10 or any slight brush of the balloon to pop, if you will.
0:08:12 But still, this gives you a sense also
0:08:14 of how scary it is that markets is concentrated
0:08:16 because at 600 billion dollars,
0:08:19 you have essentially wiped out
0:08:20 the value of a smaller stock market.
0:08:21 I mean, that’s the value
0:08:24 of the entire global auto industry, Sons Tesla.
0:08:26 And this is what happens when markets are allowed
0:08:28 to get too concentrated.
0:08:30 The other second order effect, I find fascinating.
0:08:31 It’s on fascinado, okay?
0:08:33 What’s French and fast?
0:08:34 What’s fascinating in French?
0:08:36 I don’t know.
0:08:40 But anyways, effectively you have this argument
0:08:43 for global trade and that is what would have happened
0:08:46 if we had continued to ship Nvidia chips to China?
0:08:48 Would they have been as motivated
0:08:50 to figure out a work around here
0:08:53 that would have resulted in what is probably,
0:08:57 I mean, this is just, I’m blown away, I’m blown away.
0:09:00 But at the same time, this kind of is following
0:09:02 where most markets evolved to.
0:09:03 And that is eventually over time,
0:09:05 everything goes Android and iOS.
0:09:06 What do I mean by that?
0:09:07 Scott, what do you mean by that?
0:09:08 What’s going on?
0:09:10 You’re on a train, you’re in the channel,
0:09:14 you’re underneath water, you’re going 320 kilometers per hour.
0:09:15 It’s time to put on your thinking cap.
0:09:17 You got peace, do some deep breathing
0:09:20 and then really bring us some blue flame clarity here.
0:09:23 Essentially, every market bifurcates
0:09:25 into Walmart or Tiffany.
0:09:28 And that is, as a species, the easiest way
0:09:30 to process information is zeros and ones.
0:09:33 And we’ve essentially based all innovation
0:09:35 or computing on binary code, zero and one.
0:09:36 Why?
0:09:37 It is easy to understand yes and no.
0:09:39 It’s easy to understand, I’m interested in you,
0:09:42 I’m not interested in you, I’m friend, I’m foe, right?
0:09:44 So we distill everything down
0:09:46 to a basic binary decision framework.
0:09:49 That is the fastest way to make decisions.
0:09:52 It is the fastest way to process information.
0:09:55 So the entire consumer world bifurcates
0:09:57 into a binary set of decisions.
0:10:00 Do I want the most stuff at the lowest price?
0:10:01 Okay, that’s Amazon.
0:10:03 Okay, that’s Walmart.
0:10:04 Okay, that’s Costco.
0:10:07 Do I want something more artisanal, that’s special,
0:10:10 that has self-expressive benefit that makes me feel
0:10:12 as if I’m in the company of God?
0:10:15 By the way, the reason why we buy luxury goods
0:10:17 is one, it makes us more attractive to potential mates.
0:10:19 When I have a Porsche, it says I’m a baller,
0:10:21 when I’m a member of Maison Estelle
0:10:23 or the new Crane Club or Shea Margo.
0:10:24 I just went there last week.
0:10:27 Oh my God, talk about a lot of hot people.
0:10:30 Jesus Christ, I mean, come on.
0:10:31 Where do those people come up?
0:10:33 They’re like those warlocks or whatever they are.
0:10:34 Where do they come from?
0:10:36 Do they just descend from the ground at like 9 p.m.
0:10:38 and go to these members only clubs in New York?
0:10:40 Anyway, zero and one, right?
0:10:43 The one, the artisanal stuff, self-expressive benefit
0:10:46 and two, and two, making more attractive to mates,
0:10:48 makes you feel closer to God.
0:10:49 The message about taking a Veneta bag,
0:10:51 the slope on the back of a Range Rover
0:10:53 makes you feel like it steals you
0:10:54 in the presence of something.
0:10:55 Why do we do that?
0:10:59 Why do we slow down and find inspiration and spirituality
0:11:01 as if we’re closer to God?
0:11:04 It’s because the majority of the great artisanal work
0:11:05 throughout history has been sequestered
0:11:07 to mosque, temples, and churches.
0:11:08 When you go into St. Peter’s Cathedral,
0:11:10 you’re like, oh my God, do you see the pieta?
0:11:11 Is that what it’s called?
0:11:14 You think Jesus Christ, maybe God does hang out here,
0:11:16 or God, maybe Jesus Christ does hang out here.
0:11:17 Maybe they’re both together.
0:11:19 Maybe it’s a father-son basketball tournament,
0:11:22 by the way, by far, the best moment I’ve ever had.
0:11:22 Ever had?
0:11:23 One of the top moments I’ve ever had
0:11:27 was father-son basketball game, eighth grade, golf stream.
0:11:31 Daddy had practiced in the backyard with his son, boom,
0:11:34 steals the ball, break away, dish off to his son,
0:11:36 three, two, one, scores the layup.
0:11:39 Eighth grade wins, hello!
0:11:43 My son has never been less embarrassed of me in his life.
0:11:46 Anyway, back to me.
0:11:49 You have churches and mosques where we got used to seeing
0:11:51 these incredible works of artisanship,
0:11:53 such that when we see these really beautiful things,
0:11:55 it does still us, it makes us feel more spiritual,
0:11:57 it makes us feel maybe this is all worthwhile,
0:11:59 or maybe there’s some, maybe I’m gonna go hang out
0:12:02 with my parents and my old dog or something like that.
0:12:06 But this is the one, that’s the one,
0:12:07 the zero is the low cost.
0:12:09 Everything is bifurcating the zero one.
0:12:11 Now, the question is, I would offer,
0:12:13 I would posit, I would argue, is the following?
0:12:15 Is AI going the same way of all retail
0:12:16 and all consumer markets?
0:12:18 Are we going to have a zero layer,
0:12:21 super inexpensive, open source, built on things?
0:12:24 And then are we gonna have the Tiffany and the artisanship?
0:12:27 And that is companies will still spend a great deal of money
0:12:31 on a massive amount of compute, super sophisticated LLMs
0:12:35 that do more sophisticated, artisanal, difficult work,
0:12:37 in that we’re essentially going where every market is going,
0:12:40 and that is we’re going Android and get a free phone
0:12:43 with a great operating system for free, essentially,
0:12:47 if you go Android or iOS, where the cost of a phone
0:12:51 will command three months average salary of a Hungarian.
0:12:55 So I don’t know if this is the end of kind of AI
0:12:57 as we know it, or these companies.
0:12:59 There is a risk here, and that is when you have
0:13:04 the magnificent 10 representing 27% of the S&P,
0:13:07 and now the S&P or the US market represents 50%
0:13:10 of global value, of 13% of the global economy
0:13:12 kind of wrapped up, or at least led by
0:13:14 a small number of companies.
0:13:16 And if one sneezes, the entire fucking thing
0:13:18 might catch a cold, and that is the world might,
0:13:21 or the world economy might get pneumonia
0:13:23 if there’s a serious drawdown in these stocks.
0:13:25 I also think it reflects some of our arrogance
0:13:27 that people like me about out there saying,
0:13:29 we’re all AI, who’s doing anything important around AI,
0:13:32 and China said, I know, China’s core competence,
0:13:35 they’re exercising here, China’s core competence,
0:13:38 supply chain, and number two, IP theft.
0:13:42 They basically steal the plans of the IP
0:13:45 and the architectural plans of a cell tower from Siemens,
0:13:48 and instead of building it for $200,000,
0:13:50 they offer it for $40,000.
0:13:52 The majority of people think espionage
0:13:54 is some good looking guy killing another agent
0:13:56 and then banging the foreign agent or the double agent
0:13:58 and then rolling around in an Austin Martin.
0:13:59 No, that’s not espionage.
0:14:01 Espionage is the following.
0:14:04 It’s an overweight guy who’s the personal assistant
0:14:08 to some attache or some senior executive at Google
0:14:11 who gets proprietary information on their new LLM
0:14:14 or their new search algorithm, puts it on a thumb drive,
0:14:16 and then gives it to his handler,
0:14:18 and then they ship it to Beijing.
0:14:19 The majority of espionage right now
0:14:22 isn’t about killing spies or state secrets,
0:14:23 it’s about corporate espionage.
0:14:25 This is economic warfare.
0:14:27 Think about how few wars are really when you think about it
0:14:30 relative to the economic warfare that takes place every day.
0:14:35 So number one, confidence of China is in fact supply chain.
0:14:38 Number two is IP theft or specifically espionage.
0:14:40 By the way, that’s not unusual.
0:14:42 If you wanna grow your economy faster than 5% a year,
0:14:43 you have to engage in massive theft,
0:14:45 which is what we did during the 19th century
0:14:49 when we stole European textile and manufacturing technology
0:14:53 and littered the Eastern seaboard with these factories
0:14:56 where we could take advantage of our abundant resources.
0:14:58 We even kidnapped artisans
0:14:59 and people could operate this machinery.
0:15:01 So IP theft is not unique to China,
0:15:02 they’re just doing it better than us
0:15:03 and we’re pissed off about it.
0:15:06 And this is kind of the ultimate example, right?
0:15:08 They took our open source, they sort of borrowed it,
0:15:11 so it’s not really theft, call it IP leasing.
0:15:14 And they said, I know we can come up with more for less.
0:15:16 We did work around not because you wouldn’t ship us
0:15:18 those fancy American ships,
0:15:20 and we have figured out potentially a way
0:15:22 to have the Walmart of AI.
0:15:25 This will rock the markets, but I would argue,
0:15:27 I would argue this is a natural evolution
0:15:30 where we’re bifurcating into zeros and ones
0:15:31 where Walmart and Tiffany.
0:15:36 We’ll be right back for our conversation with Sahil Bloom.
0:15:43 Support for Prop G comes from 1-800-FLOWERS.
0:15:44 Valentine’s Day is coming up
0:15:45 and you can let that someone in your life
0:15:47 know just how special they are
0:15:50 with the help of 1-800-FLOWERS.com.
0:15:52 They offer beautiful, high quality bouquets
0:15:55 and this year, you can get double the roses for free.
0:15:57 When you buy one dozen from 1-800-FLOWERS,
0:16:00 they’ll double your bouquet to two dozen roses.
0:16:02 Of course, roses are a classic sweet way to say,
0:16:03 I love you.
0:16:06 And 1-800-FLOWERS lets you share that message
0:16:07 without breaking the bank.
0:16:09 All of their roses are picked at their peak
0:16:11 cared for every step of the way
0:16:13 and shipped fresh to ensure lasting beauty.
0:16:16 Our producer Claire ordered from 1-800-FLOWERS
0:16:18 and she thought they were just wonderful.
0:16:22 Her partner was just so delighted, so delighted,
0:16:24 strengthening the relationship.
0:16:26 Their bouquets are selling fast
0:16:28 and you can lock in your order today.
0:16:31 Win their heart this Valentine’s Day at 1-800-FLOWERS.com
0:16:33 to claim your double your roses offer.
0:16:36 Go to 1-800-FLOWERS.com/PROFG.
0:16:39 That’s 1-800-FLOWERS.com/PROFG.
0:16:47 Support for the show comes from Vanta.
0:16:49 Trust isn’t just earned, it’s demanded
0:16:51 whether you’re a startup founder navigating your first audit
0:16:55 or a seasoned security professional scaling your GRC program.
0:16:56 Proving your commitment to security
0:16:59 has never been more critical or more complex.
0:17:01 That’s where Vanta comes in.
0:17:03 Businesses use Vanta to establish trust
0:17:06 by automating compliance needs across over 35 frameworks
0:17:10 including SOC2 and ISO 27001.
0:17:11 They also centralized security workflows,
0:17:14 complete questionnaires up to five times faster
0:17:16 and proactively manage vendor risk.
0:17:19 Vanta not only saves you time, it can also save you money.
0:17:22 A new IDC white paper found that Vanta customers
0:17:25 achieve $535,000 per year in benefits
0:17:28 and the platform pays for itself in just three months.
0:17:30 Join over 9,000 global companies
0:17:32 including Atlassian, Quora and Factory
0:17:36 who use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
0:17:40 For a limited time, our audiences get $1,000 off Vanta
0:17:42 at Vanta.com/PROFG.
0:17:47 That’s Vanta.com/PROFG for $1,000 off.
0:18:03 – Welcome back, here’s our conversation
0:18:05 with Sahil Bloom, an investor, entrepreneur and writer
0:18:08 known for his newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle.
0:18:12 – Sahil, where does this podcast find you?
0:18:14 – I’m in Westchester, New York,
0:18:15 just outside New York City.
0:18:16 – Nice.
0:18:19 So in your debut book titled The Five Types of Wealth,
0:18:22 a transformative guide to design your dream life,
0:18:23 you write about five types of wealth.
0:18:25 Time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth,
0:18:28 physical wealth and financial wealth.
0:18:30 Can you break these down for us?
0:18:31 – Absolutely.
0:18:34 Time wealth is all about freedom to choose.
0:18:36 How you spend your time, who you spend it with,
0:18:39 where you spend it, when you trade it for other things.
0:18:41 It’s fundamentally about an awareness
0:18:44 of the precious nature of time,
0:18:47 of time as your most precious asset.
0:18:49 Social wealth is all about your relationships.
0:18:51 These are the people that you love,
0:18:53 the depth of a few close relationships
0:18:55 and then the breath, the connection to something
0:18:57 bigger than yourself.
0:19:00 Mental wealth is about purpose, it’s about growth,
0:19:03 it’s about creating the space necessary in your life
0:19:05 to engage and wrestle with some of those
0:19:08 bigger unanswerable questions in the world,
0:19:10 whether through religion, solitude,
0:19:12 spirituality, meditation.
0:19:17 Physical wealth is about taking the controllable actions
0:19:19 on a daily basis to fight the natural decay
0:19:22 and atrophy that your body goes through with aging.
0:19:24 It’s all about your health and vitality.
0:19:27 And then financial wealth, as I talk about it,
0:19:30 is what you think of, net worth, money.
0:19:33 But with the specific nuance of really focusing in
0:19:35 on your definition of enough,
0:19:37 what it means to have enough,
0:19:39 to wrestle with the idea that your expectations
0:19:42 are really your single greatest financial liability.
0:19:45 If your expectations rise faster than your assets,
0:19:47 you will never feel wealthy.
0:19:49 – You talk about this term,
0:19:52 or you use the term arrival fallacy.
0:19:54 Why is it important for everyone to understand
0:19:55 and what is it?
0:20:00 – The arrival fallacy is this common psychological phenomenon
0:20:03 that we’ve all experienced in one form or another in our life.
0:20:07 It is the idea that we prop up these specific achievements,
0:20:10 goals, or destinations as the point
0:20:12 when we will feel we have arrived.
0:20:14 It could be the promotion, it could be the title,
0:20:18 it could be the bonus, the pay raise, whatever the thing is,
0:20:21 we tell ourselves that once we get to X,
0:20:23 we are going to feel that feeling of happiness
0:20:24 and contentment that will be durable.
0:20:28 And unfortunately, it is a fallacy, meaning you get to it,
0:20:32 you feel that sort of momentary dopamine-infused euphoria,
0:20:36 and then you immediately reset to some new arrival
0:20:38 that you need, some new height, some new summit.
0:20:41 – You also talk a little bit about this term life-raiser,
0:20:43 what did you mean by that?
0:20:45 – The idea of a life-raiser is
0:20:50 to have a single identity-defining statement or rule
0:20:53 that allows you to literally cut through the noise
0:20:55 at different points in your life.
0:20:59 So the term razor broadly used is from philosophy
0:21:01 and it’s an idea of having a rule of thumb
0:21:03 that allows you to simplify decision-making.
0:21:05 Occam’s razor is kind of the most famous one
0:21:06 that most people know.
0:21:09 It says that the simplest possible explanation
0:21:10 is often the best one.
0:21:14 The idea of a life-raiser is to have a similar simple rule
0:21:15 that allows you to navigate
0:21:17 whatever chaos or opportunities come.
0:21:22 It is a statement, say, a single thing that you could say
0:21:23 to help you navigate those situations.
0:21:27 An example would be Mark Randolph, the CEO of Netflix,
0:21:30 who often talks about the fact that he had a rule
0:21:34 to never skip a Tuesday dinner with his wife.
0:21:37 He had a hard rule when he founded Netflix originally.
0:21:38 He was the first CEO of the company
0:21:41 that at Tuesday at 5 p.m., no matter what was happening
0:21:43 at the company, he would leave work
0:21:45 and go have dinner with his wife.
0:21:47 And that was an identity-defining rule,
0:21:50 meaning it had ripple effects into every other area.
0:21:53 It meant that he created these boundaries in his life,
0:21:55 that while he was pursuing all these professional aspirations,
0:21:58 navigating the chaos of founding a technology company,
0:22:01 he still put his family and his relationships first,
0:22:03 that empowered other people to do the same.
0:22:06 It had all these ripple effects in his life.
0:22:08 And it meant something in terms of
0:22:10 how his ideal self showed up in the world.
0:22:12 So having a similar rule like that,
0:22:14 that is your life-raiser.
0:22:15 It’s that single point of focus
0:22:18 that helps you navigate through the chaos in life.
0:22:19 – It strikes me when we go back
0:22:22 to the different forms of wealth, time, social,
0:22:24 mental, physical, and financial,
0:22:26 that you can’t have it all.
0:22:29 You can have it all just not at once.
0:22:31 And that is, I found that my time,
0:22:35 social, mental, and physical wealth took a backseat
0:22:37 when I was younger in an attempt
0:22:39 to establish financial wealth,
0:22:41 or at least establish the trajectory.
0:22:44 And then once I achieved financial wealth,
0:22:46 I was able to go back and work on the previous four.
0:22:49 So, and I think it’s anyone’s gonna argue with you
0:22:52 around the different types of wealth as you define them.
0:22:54 You know, the trick is finding the balance
0:22:57 and knowing when to trade off one for the other.
0:22:59 Have you given any thought to the fulcrum
0:23:01 between the five of these?
0:23:02 – Absolutely.
0:23:05 And exactly what you said relates to something
0:23:07 that I talk about and write about often,
0:23:10 which is your life has seasons.
0:23:12 And what you prioritize or focus on
0:23:14 during any one season will change.
0:23:18 So your 20s and early 30s are an incredible time
0:23:20 to focus on building financial wealth
0:23:21 because we know compounding,
0:23:23 it’s going to compound for the rest of our journey.
0:23:25 It’s a great time to focus there.
0:23:27 That being said, the traditional wisdom
0:23:28 around these different types of wealth
0:23:31 is that they exist on these on/off switches
0:23:34 and that to turn on financial wealth all the way,
0:23:35 you have to turn off the others.
0:23:37 And the unfortunate thing with that mindset
0:23:41 is that a lot of these things will atrophy and die
0:23:44 if you don’t invest in them at all.
0:23:45 You know, it’s sort of like thinking about,
0:23:48 you know, when you look at a chart of compounding,
0:23:49 yes, you know, 1% per day,
0:23:51 everyone likes to show that chart,
0:23:53 gets you to 37X after a year.
0:23:56 The unfortunate thing is the negative 1% per day,
0:23:58 which effectively zeros you out after a year.
0:24:01 And that is really the risk that people run
0:24:03 by living with that on/off switch mindset.
0:24:04 And so what I like to do,
0:24:06 the mindset shift that I talk about in the book
0:24:09 is these areas all exist on a dimmer switch.
0:24:11 And just because you have one turned all the way up,
0:24:14 that might be financial wealth in your 20s and 30s,
0:24:16 does not mean the other ones should be turned completely off.
0:24:19 You can still do the tiny little investment
0:24:22 on a daily basis that compounds positively
0:24:24 because anything above zero compounds
0:24:26 in the direction that you’re heading.
0:24:29 So if you think about it just tactically
0:24:30 for your relationships as an example,
0:24:32 even while you’re focusing on your financial wealth
0:24:34 and on building your career,
0:24:36 sending the one text to your parents
0:24:38 to just let them know you were thinking about them,
0:24:39 making the phone call,
0:24:40 planning that one extra trip,
0:24:43 getting together with the old friend for the coffee
0:24:45 or gathering the group for the one annual trip.
0:24:48 Those are things that compound positively in that domain
0:24:49 that don’t take a whole lot of effort.
0:24:51 The dimmer switch can be turned down
0:24:54 without it zeroing you out.
0:24:55 – I really liked that.
0:24:57 You know, I think about you don’t need
0:24:58 to call your mom every day.
0:25:01 I mean, ideally you can and should,
0:25:03 but if you’re working exceptionally hard,
0:25:06 if you only have time to call her once a week,
0:25:07 that one call becomes much more important
0:25:09 and has a higher ROI.
0:25:14 I say this because in order to achieve financial security,
0:25:16 I traded off a lot of those things.
0:25:20 And I did try to be home for dinner or at least bath time.
0:25:24 You know, I’m self-conscious which I am,
0:25:27 but I like the notion that even if you take it down
0:25:29 to 10 or 20%,
0:25:33 that is infinitely better than taking it down to zero.
0:25:37 Any specific thoughts about managing the relationship
0:25:40 with your partner as you’re trying to kind of not go all
0:25:44 in, but go mostly in on establishing financial wealth?
0:25:48 – There are similar principles, I would say,
0:25:51 to you’re sort of the analog to texting
0:25:52 or calling your mom once a week
0:25:55 that you can leverage in your romantic relationship.
0:25:57 So while you are chasing that purpose
0:25:58 of building a big company
0:26:00 or going all in on your financial wealth,
0:26:02 making sure that you create a regular cadence
0:26:05 for proper kind of zoom out conversations
0:26:06 with your partner.
0:26:08 This entrepreneur named Brad Feld
0:26:11 had this concept called the life dinner, which I love.
0:26:15 It’s the idea of doing a once a month regular cadence date
0:26:16 where you get together
0:26:19 to actually talk about some of the bigger picture things
0:26:21 in each of your life’s lives and in your relationship.
0:26:23 So talk about some of the challenges,
0:26:24 some of the opportunities,
0:26:26 the things you’re excited about,
0:26:27 the things you’re stressed about,
0:26:29 but create a regular cadence around it.
0:26:32 Because what happens in life is when things get stressful,
0:26:33 when you have a young child in the house
0:26:35 or when you’re chasing some financial goal,
0:26:37 you forget to do that.
0:26:38 And so your ongoing communication
0:26:41 just becomes this sort of two ships in the night,
0:26:43 little things here and there.
0:26:44 And you forget to zoom out
0:26:46 and talk about some of those bigger picture questions
0:26:51 that actually contribute to true growth in a relationship.
0:26:53 So I’ve always thought that was a really helpful framing
0:26:55 for thinking about that.
0:26:58 – And you talked about,
0:27:00 when you were talking about social wealth,
0:27:03 you talked about front row people.
0:27:05 What was the Harvard study of adult development
0:27:07 and why do you consider it the most impactful study
0:27:09 of the last 100 years?
0:27:10 – The Harvard study of adult development
0:27:13 is this incredible longitudinal study
0:27:15 that was conducted over the course of 85 plus years.
0:27:19 They followed the lives of 1,300 original participants,
0:27:22 plus another 700 or so direct descendants.
0:27:24 And what they found was rather remarkable.
0:27:27 They found that the single greatest predictor
0:27:29 of physical health at age 80
0:27:32 was relationship satisfaction at age 50.
0:27:36 It wasn’t how their cholesterol was, their blood pressure,
0:27:37 wasn’t their smoking or drinking habits.
0:27:39 It was how they felt about their relationships
0:27:42 that contributed to their healthy aging.
0:27:43 So we know scientifically
0:27:45 that the strength of our relationships
0:27:48 actually determines our health and happiness in our life.
0:27:51 And yet, when you ask people what they’re investing in
0:27:54 on a daily basis, relationships are one of the first things
0:27:55 that fall by the wayside.
0:27:57 We don’t think to invest in relationships
0:28:00 in the same way that we think to invest in a financial asset.
0:28:03 We know putting $100 away in the S&P 500
0:28:05 is gonna compound and grow into our future.
0:28:07 The exact same principle applies to your relationships
0:28:10 and you need to have that mindset shift to do it.
0:28:12 The concept of front row people
0:28:16 is a sort of visualization and representation of that fact.
0:28:19 This concept of closing your eyes
0:28:21 and thinking about at your own funeral,
0:28:23 who are going to be the people
0:28:24 that sit down in the front row?
0:28:26 Who are those people that occupy
0:28:30 that incredibly special cherished space in your life?
0:28:33 And are you recognizing those people on a daily basis?
0:28:35 Are you showing up for them?
0:28:38 Are you being a front row person to someone else?
0:28:41 – You also talk about insights that you gathered
0:28:44 from couples who have been married 40 plus years.
0:28:46 What are some of those insights?
0:28:50 – I love talking to older people
0:28:54 about their kind of wisdom from their lives.
0:28:56 And the reason I find it so powerful
0:28:59 is just because they have the earned wisdom
0:29:00 that none of us have.
0:29:01 And so I went and talked to couples
0:29:06 that have been married for 500 total years
0:29:07 across all of them.
0:29:10 And a few of the ones that I thought jumped out.
0:29:13 Number one was never keep score in love.
0:29:17 Just the idea of in relationships
0:29:19 living with a quid pro quo mindset
0:29:21 is a recipe for disaster.
0:29:24 It’s not always gonna be 50/50 in a relationship.
0:29:26 Sometimes it’s going to be 90/10.
0:29:28 Sometimes it’s going to be 10/90.
0:29:29 But the important thing
0:29:31 is that it always adds up to 100.
0:29:33 And then one of the other ones that I absolutely loved
0:29:36 was just the idea of never involve
0:29:41 a non-professional third party in your relationship conflicts
0:29:43 because you will forget about the thing
0:29:45 but they never will.
0:29:49 So telling your mother or mother-in-law, sister,
0:29:51 whoever about the relationship conflict
0:29:53 that you were having is often a recipe
0:29:54 for struggle down the line
0:29:56 because you will hear about it from them a year or two later
0:29:59 even once you’ve completely moved past the thing.
0:30:02 We’ll be right back.
0:30:08 Support for the show comes from Wealthfront.
0:30:10 Your cash could be earning 4% annual percentage yield
0:30:13 from partner banks with Wealthfront’s cash account.
0:30:15 And you can get free instant withdrawals
0:30:16 to eligible accounts every day
0:30:18 even on weekends and holidays.
0:30:20 That 4% APY is not a promo rate.
0:30:23 There’s no limit on deposits and earnings.
0:30:24 And with free same day withdrawals,
0:30:27 you can earn industry leading rates until you need your cash.
0:30:30 When you’re ready, it takes just minutes to transfer cash
0:30:32 to any of Wealthfront’s automated investing accounts.
0:30:36 You can start earning 4% APY on your cash today.
0:30:39 Get a free $50 bonus with a $500 deposit
0:30:41 when you open your first cash account
0:30:43 at Wealthfront.com/PropG.
0:30:47 That’s Wealthfront.com/PropG to get started.
0:30:49 This has been a paid ad from Wealthfront brokerage LLC,
0:30:52 a member FINRA SIPC Wealthfront is in a bank.
0:30:54 The current APY is representative,
0:30:56 subject to change and requires no minimum funds
0:30:57 are swept to partner banks
0:30:59 where they earn the variable APY.
0:31:08 Support for PropG comes from Domo.
0:31:09 Some businesses thrive on data,
0:31:11 but sometimes all of those numbers
0:31:12 can seem like a maze to sift through.
0:31:15 What if you could simply ask your data a question
0:31:16 and get a quick answer back?
0:31:18 Questions like how are sales is quarter?
0:31:21 Or how’s the new marketing campaign performing?
0:31:24 Or what does the overall health of the company look like?
0:31:27 With Domo’s AI and data product platform,
0:31:28 you can get answers right away,
0:31:31 packed with charts, graphics and actionable information.
0:31:34 Domo simplifies data exploration and analysis,
0:31:36 intelligently guiding you at every turn.
0:31:38 Domo says that anyone across your team
0:31:41 can use it to easily prepare, analyze, visualize,
0:31:44 automate and distribute data using simple natural language.
0:31:46 And while you can maximize every minute
0:31:49 with Domo’s AI agents, it can go way beyond productivity.
0:31:51 It’s designed to transform your processes,
0:31:53 helping you make smarter and faster decisions
0:31:55 to drive real growth,
0:31:57 all powered by Domo’s trust, flexibility
0:32:00 and years of expertise in data and AI innovation.
0:32:02 Some of the world’s best companies rely on Domo
0:32:04 to make smarter decisions.
0:32:06 See how Domo can help transform yours.
0:32:11 Learn more at ai.domo.com, that’s ai.domo.com.
0:32:14 (upbeat music)
0:32:22 – What has earned status and how is it different
0:32:25 from sort of the more traditional views on status?
0:32:26 – Status is an interesting topic
0:32:31 because it’s very easy to demonize.
0:32:34 And at the end of the day, we are status seeking creatures
0:32:35 and there’s actually nothing wrong with that.
0:32:39 Status is a very smart way of organizing as a society.
0:32:41 And frankly, it has helped us in many ways as humans
0:32:43 to navigate all of the changes
0:32:46 that we’ve endured over the thousands of years.
0:32:48 The point though is you wanna chase
0:32:51 and play the right kind of status games.
0:32:54 The way that we typically think of accumulating status,
0:32:55 when you think about status,
0:32:57 the way I think about it is what you’re looking for
0:32:59 is the respect and admiration of others.
0:33:00 You want to kind of stack up
0:33:02 and have their respect and admiration.
0:33:05 The way that people typically today try to do that
0:33:08 is through acquired status symbols.
0:33:09 It’s through the watch, it’s the car,
0:33:11 it’s the fancy club membership,
0:33:14 it’s the expensive bottles of wine.
0:33:16 And we think that those are going to confer
0:33:19 this lasting respect and admiration upon us.
0:33:21 And unfortunately they don’t.
0:33:24 Otherwise lottery winners would be held
0:33:26 in the highest possible regard among society
0:33:29 because they have a whole lot of those status symbols.
0:33:32 The reality is that real status has to be earned.
0:33:35 It is built through these hard one treasures,
0:33:38 these things that require long periods of time to build,
0:33:40 things like a healthy fit physique,
0:33:42 things like deep meaningful relationships
0:33:43 with the people that you love,
0:33:46 things like building a meaningful business,
0:33:48 creating a whole bunch of value, creating jobs.
0:33:51 Those are the things that actually confer upon us
0:33:54 the lasting durable respect and admiration that we want.
0:33:57 And so the question in the test that I always try to ask
0:33:59 is what I call the bot status test.
0:34:01 Before buying something, you ask yourself,
0:34:05 would I buy this thing if I couldn’t tell anyone about it?
0:34:06 If I couldn’t take a picture of it,
0:34:08 if I couldn’t show it to anyone else,
0:34:10 would I still want the thing?
0:34:11 And usually that’ll cut through the noise
0:34:14 of whether you’re doing it as an attempt at bot status
0:34:16 or if it is something that truly provides utility
0:34:18 and happiness in your life.
0:34:21 – And the part of the book that I think
0:34:23 will probably stand out the most to people
0:34:25 or be the most read or reread will be,
0:34:28 you have a list of what you call mental health hacks
0:34:30 that you wish you knew at the age of 22.
0:34:32 Share some of your favorites.
0:34:36 – Yeah, this is a collaboration with Susan Kane
0:34:38 who is, for those who don’t know,
0:34:40 an incredible multi-time,
0:34:42 number one New York Times bestselling author.
0:34:43 She wrote the book Quiet,
0:34:46 which is one of the most famous books of all time
0:34:48 written about the power of introverts
0:34:49 and an extroverted world.
0:34:52 And a few of my favorites from that collaboration,
0:34:55 number one was your purpose in life
0:34:58 does not have to be related to what you do for work.
0:35:00 Your purpose in life does not have to be grand or ambitious.
0:35:03 Your purpose in life simply has to be yours.
0:35:07 And in a lot of ways this is a statement
0:35:10 that has rang true throughout history.
0:35:11 If we trace this back in history,
0:35:15 the Bhagavad Gita famous Hindu epic
0:35:17 talks about the idea of Dharma.
0:35:18 It’s the idea of your sacred duty.
0:35:19 That is your purpose.
0:35:21 And it was that exact statement
0:35:23 that it doesn’t have to be impressive to anyone else.
0:35:25 It just has to be yours.
0:35:27 To me, that is such an empowering idea
0:35:30 for your mental wealth because you recognize that
0:35:33 you actually don’t need to impress others
0:35:34 with the things you’re doing.
0:35:38 You don’t need to trying to be impact a billion lives
0:35:41 or do this grand, amazing things, make a billion dollars.
0:35:42 Whatever the thing is,
0:35:44 your purpose could be as simple as providing
0:35:45 for the people that you love,
0:35:47 showing up in the way that you want to in the world
0:35:50 in a way that you feel like you didn’t have in your life.
0:35:54 That is such a powerful and empowering notion to me.
0:35:54 – That was nice.
0:35:59 You also talk about the Feynman technique.
0:36:03 – So Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist,
0:36:07 won the Nobel Prize in I believe quantum electrodynamics.
0:36:09 And what he was known for
0:36:12 was the fact that he was able to simplify complex topics.
0:36:13 He was able to teach them in terms
0:36:15 that anyone could understand.
0:36:18 And that was really the mark of true genius
0:36:20 that he had was his ability to do that.
0:36:22 The concept of the Feynman technique
0:36:26 is that the most powerful way to learn anything
0:36:28 is to teach it to others.
0:36:30 You cannot teach something to others
0:36:33 if you don’t truly understand it yourself.
0:36:36 And the actual operationalization of this idea
0:36:39 is as you were attempting to learn something new,
0:36:41 the first thing you need to do is default
0:36:42 to trying to teach it to someone else.
0:36:46 And ideally teach it to someone else who is uninitiated,
0:36:49 sort of explain it to a five year old, if you will.
0:36:50 So you’re learning a concept,
0:36:52 you go try to explain it to someone
0:36:53 who doesn’t understand that.
0:36:56 You will immediately know where there were gaps
0:36:57 in your understanding or knowledge
0:36:59 because the other person will expose them
0:37:01 through the points where they’re getting confused.
0:37:02 That ends up being the places
0:37:04 where you need to study more, fill in those gaps,
0:37:08 and you’ll kind of have this natural iterative process
0:37:10 between teaching and learning
0:37:12 that will lead you to a true depth of understanding
0:37:13 on any topic.
0:37:15 – What are the three pillars of physical wealth
0:37:17 that you break down in your book?
0:37:20 – I talk about the three pillars of physical wealth
0:37:23 as movement, nutrition, and recovery.
0:37:25 And the reason I think it’s so important
0:37:27 to identify these pillars is because we live
0:37:30 in a social media age where you are bombarded
0:37:33 by complex sexy information
0:37:35 when it comes to your physical health.
0:37:37 You know, you are being convinced
0:37:39 that unless you are willing to do the Brian Johnson
0:37:42 and spend millions of dollars a year on your health,
0:37:44 that you’re not gonna be able to get healthy.
0:37:46 And unfortunately for a beginner,
0:37:50 that type of information is really intimidating and scary.
0:37:52 And it actually impedes starting.
0:37:53 It halts you from starting
0:37:56 because you view it as such an intimidating pursuit.
0:37:59 The reality is that level one
0:38:01 of the physical wealth video game, if you will,
0:38:04 is very, very simple across those three pillars.
0:38:06 Move your body for 30 minutes a day.
0:38:08 Don’t care if it’s walking, jogging, hiking, biking,
0:38:10 running, rowing, whatever you like doing,
0:38:11 move your body for 30 minutes a day.
0:38:15 Nutrition, eat whole unprocessed foods at 80% of your meals.
0:38:18 That’s 17 out of 21 meals during the week.
0:38:21 And then recovery, just try to sleep seven hours a night.
0:38:22 If you can do those three things,
0:38:25 you are probably getting at 80% of the value
0:38:26 in this domain and you’re getting ahead
0:38:28 of the vast majority of people.
0:38:30 Very, very simple and super cost effective.
0:38:33 You don’t have to do the crazy complex regimen
0:38:34 to get there.
0:38:36 – Finally, the last type of wealth, financial wealth.
0:38:39 What can you, or what can people do to build financial wealth?
0:38:42 What does the research say about the connection
0:38:44 between money and happiness?
0:38:46 – The research on money and happiness
0:38:49 is actually rather clear at this point.
0:38:50 The numbers vary.
0:38:52 And we’ve all seen the famous Kahneman study
0:38:54 that said $70,000 a year.
0:38:56 Above that, you’re no longer getting happier.
0:38:58 And it’s an old study and it’s been disputed
0:38:59 in various forms.
0:39:02 And more recent things by Matthew Killingsworth
0:39:05 have said something more like $200,000, $300,000.
0:39:07 The reality is that all of those numbers
0:39:10 are inherently flawed because they are applying
0:39:11 an average to the population.
0:39:15 And as, I think it wasn’t a seem to live one said,
0:39:16 you should never cross a river
0:39:18 if it’s four feet deep on average.
0:39:20 Because in different places,
0:39:21 it’s gonna be much deeper than that.
0:39:23 And if you live in New York City,
0:39:26 the number is gonna be very different than Omaha, Nebraska.
0:39:28 The point, though, of all of that research
0:39:31 is above a certain level,
0:39:34 there are very diminishing returns to incremental money.
0:39:36 The incremental happiness gains that you have
0:39:39 are going to come from these other types of wealth.
0:39:43 And so the pursuit of money that we get patterned into
0:39:44 in those early years,
0:39:45 where there is a direct correlation
0:39:47 between money and happiness,
0:39:49 sort of becomes our default setting
0:39:50 that we continue chasing.
0:39:52 Arthur Brooks talks about this
0:39:54 as us being sort of like mice,
0:39:55 and we ring the bell
0:39:56 and we think we’re gonna get the cheese.
0:39:58 And you pattern that in the early years of your life,
0:40:00 and then you continue chasing it,
0:40:02 thinking that the cheese is gonna be there later in life,
0:40:05 only to realize far too late that it wasn’t.
0:40:07 And that you pursued all of these things,
0:40:08 you made all this money,
0:40:09 but you have three broken marriages
0:40:11 and four kids who don’t talk to you.
0:40:12 You think you won the game,
0:40:14 you got padded on the back the whole way,
0:40:15 but you’re kind of wondering,
0:40:18 was this a game that I really cared to win?
0:40:19 – And doing this research,
0:40:21 what did you uncover that sort of affected
0:40:23 the way you approach your own life?
0:40:26 – I mean, I completely changed my life on this journey.
0:40:31 I was chasing the very traditional definitions of success
0:40:32 for the first seven years of my career.
0:40:35 I was rising through the ranks in the world of investing,
0:40:36 a private equity fund,
0:40:39 and I had a single conversation with an old friend
0:40:42 that fundamentally changed my life.
0:40:44 I went out for a drink,
0:40:45 he asked me how I was doing,
0:40:47 and I told him that it had started to get tough
0:40:50 living so far away from my parents on the East Coast.
0:40:53 I lived 3000 miles away.
0:40:55 They’re getting older, health things, things coming up.
0:40:56 And he asked how old they were.
0:40:58 I said mid sixties.
0:41:00 He asked how often I saw them.
0:41:02 I said about once a year at that point.
0:41:03 And he just looked me and said,
0:41:06 “Okay, so you’re going to see your parents 15 more times
0:41:07 before they die.”
0:41:08 And I just remember feeling
0:41:11 like I’d been punched in the gut.
0:41:13 The idea that the amount of time you have left
0:41:15 with the people that you love most in the world
0:41:19 is that finite and countable just shook me to the core.
0:41:23 And within 45 days, my wife and I had sold our house
0:41:24 in California.
0:41:26 I had left my job and we had moved across the country
0:41:28 to live closer to our families.
0:41:32 And that was the start of this entire journey
0:41:34 because it reminded me of one important fact,
0:41:36 which is you are in much more control
0:41:37 of your time than you think.
0:41:40 That number 15 is now in the hundreds.
0:41:42 I see my parents several times a month.
0:41:46 They’re a huge part of my son, their grandson’s life.
0:41:48 We spend so much time with our families.
0:41:53 And that idea that you can actually control time
0:41:54 is such an empowering notion.
0:41:57 It’s such a realization that the way that we’ve been
0:42:00 measuring, the way that we’ve been measuring our success
0:42:03 in these games can change
0:42:05 and you can take action to change it.
0:42:08 – Sahil Bloom is an investor, entrepreneur and writer,
0:42:10 known for his newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle.
0:42:12 He’s the owner of SRB Holdings
0:42:14 and the managing partner of SRB Ventures
0:42:16 and Early Stage Investment Fund.
0:42:19 His debut book, The Five Types of Wealth,
0:42:21 A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life
0:42:22 is out next week.
0:42:25 He joins us from his home in Westchester
0:42:29 where he is living close to his family.
0:42:31 Sahil really enjoyed this conversation.
0:42:33 Thanks for your time today.
0:42:34 – Thank you for having me.
0:42:47 – Happy, it’s the last question reminded me
0:42:49 just how fleeting your time is
0:42:51 are a couple of these questions
0:42:55 in our interview with Sahil.
0:42:56 It’s just crazy.
0:43:00 Time, as you age, time is really asymptotic
0:43:01 or it falls off a cliff.
0:43:04 It’s kind of going too slow when you’re a kid
0:43:07 or it goes too slow when my kids were kids.
0:43:08 I thought that was painful
0:43:10 when they were babies and toddlers.
0:43:11 Then it hits a nice cadence.
0:43:14 And then when they hit 12 or 13, it just falls off a cliff.
0:43:16 One, they don’t want to spend as much time with you.
0:43:18 And then all of a sudden it dawns on you
0:43:20 that they’re gonna be gone soon.
0:43:25 And I had somebody today ask me, CNN anchor,
0:43:26 I’m gonna start a podcast.
0:43:27 Can you give me some thoughts?
0:43:29 I’m like, well, the thing I can tell you
0:43:30 is the power of now.
0:43:34 And that is just between the time it takes
0:43:36 to decide you want to do a podcast
0:43:38 and all the planning and strategy.
0:43:42 Cut out most of that and just get a mic,
0:43:43 some podcast equipment,
0:43:46 hire a producer and start now.
0:43:47 And the first one’s gonna suck
0:43:49 and make the second one a little bit better.
0:43:51 Just Mr. Beast it.
0:43:52 I feel the same way now.
0:43:54 And I’ve gotten so much better at this
0:43:56 about now with my kids.
0:44:00 Oh my gosh, I have a weekend alone with my 14 year old.
0:44:04 Let’s take the Eurostart of Paris and go see a PSG game.
0:44:05 And I’m privileged and then I can afford it.
0:44:06 But you know what?
0:44:08 It’s not that expensive.
0:44:09 The hardest part is in the money.
0:44:11 The hardest stuff is now.
0:44:13 Like, sure, you can get tickets on the Eurostart
0:44:14 that aren’t that expensive.
0:44:15 You can find an Airbnb.
0:44:16 You can get shitty seats.
0:44:18 And by the way, the great thing about a 14 year old
0:44:19 is there are no shitty seats.
0:44:22 I remember getting bad seats to an Arsenal game
0:44:23 and I was all pissed off
0:44:25 ’cause I think of myself as being important.
0:44:27 And my son looked at me and was like, this is amazing.
0:44:28 Look at how high up we are.
0:44:31 So kids just want to be with you.
0:44:34 They just want to do really crazy things.
0:44:37 So if you’re living, I don’t know,
0:44:38 in Buckhead or somewhere and you think,
0:44:41 okay, we haven’t been to the Aquarium in Atlanta.
0:44:42 When should we go?
0:44:43 We should go now.
0:44:44 What are we doing this weekend?
0:44:48 Now, yet you are gonna look back on these moments
0:44:50 and you are going to treasure them.
0:44:51 So this is what I want you to do.
0:44:54 I want you to shrink the time in between deciding
0:44:56 you’d like to do something and it’s a good idea
0:44:57 and starting to plan it.
0:44:59 And I want you to skip the planning stage
0:45:01 and move right to doing it.
0:45:02 Would this be fun?
0:45:03 Would you like to do this?
0:45:04 Well, we’re gonna do this.
0:45:05 When are we gonna do this?
0:45:07 We’re gonna do it now.
0:45:09 (upbeat music)
0:45:11 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
0:45:13 Our intern is Dan Chalon.
0:45:15 Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:45:17 Thank you for listening to the PropG Pod
0:45:19 and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:45:22 We will catch you on Saturday for “No Mercy, No Mouse”
0:45:23 as read by George Hahn.
0:45:25 And please follow our PropG Markets Pod
0:45:28 wherever you get your pods for new episodes
0:45:29 every Monday and Thursday.
0:45:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]
0:00:05 As an entrepreneur, you spend a lot of time
0:00:06 in energy building your business.
0:00:08 And chances are, you’ve been so busy,
0:00:09 there hasn’t been a ton of time to think about preparing
0:00:13 for an exit, tax strategies, and wealth management.
0:00:14 Crescent is here to help wealth creators
0:00:17 and families like yours streamline complexity
0:00:18 and invest for the future.
0:00:19 Crescent was built by entrepreneurs,
0:00:22 for entrepreneurs with financial advisory teams
0:00:23 who embrace the fiduciary duty
0:00:26 to place the client’s interests first.
0:00:28 You can learn how to optimize your life
0:00:29 by scheduling a call with a Crescent founder
0:00:32 at CrescentCapital.com.
0:00:33 We are not clients of Crescent.
0:00:34 There are no material conflicts
0:00:36 other than this paid endorsement.
0:00:39 All investing involves risk, including loss of principle.
0:00:41 (upbeat music)
0:00:44 – Nice.
0:00:46 – Support for the show comes from Nerd Wallet.
0:00:48 When it comes to finding the best financial products,
0:00:49 have you ever wished someone would do
0:00:51 the heavy lifting for you?
0:00:53 Take all that research off your plate?
0:00:56 Well, with Nerd Wallet’s 2025 Best of Award,
0:00:58 that wishes come true.
0:00:59 The nerds at Nerd Wallet are on it.
0:01:02 They have already reviewed more than 1,100 financial products
0:01:05 like credit cards, savings accounts, and more
0:01:08 in order to highlight and bring you the best of the best.
0:01:11 Check out the 2025 Best of Awards today
0:01:13 at nerdwallet.com/awards.
0:01:18 – Hey, what you doing?
0:01:21 – Programming our thermostat to 17 degrees
0:01:23 when we’re out at work or asleep.
0:01:25 We’re taking control of our energy use this winter
0:01:28 with some easy energy saving tips I got from Fortis BC.
0:01:31 – Ooh, conserve energy and save money?
0:01:33 Maybe to buy those matching winter jackets?
0:01:34 – Uh, no.
0:01:36 We’re also getting that whole matching outfit thing
0:01:37 under control.
0:01:40 – Discover low and no cost energy saving tips
0:01:43 at fortisbc.com/energysavingtips.
0:01:45 – Matching track suits?
0:01:46 – Please know.
0:01:50 – Episode 334, 334 is the area code
0:01:52 covering Southeast in Alabama in 1934.
0:01:55 Alcatraz opened as a federal prison.
0:01:57 True story, I have a friend who has sex
0:01:59 three to four times a week, works out every day
0:02:03 and reads at least two books a week.
0:02:05 And all this guy ever does is bitch about prison.
0:02:09 – Go, go, go!
0:02:12 (upbeat music)
0:02:21 – Welcome to the 334th episode of “The Prodigy Pod.”
0:02:22 What’s happening?
0:02:26 The dog is back in the incredible city of London.
0:02:29 That’s right, where the sun has decided to go on vacation.
0:02:31 The sun has decided to take a fall, winter,
0:02:33 and I would imagine spring off.
0:02:35 I did have a wonderful weekend.
0:02:37 Let’s bring this back to me.
0:02:39 What are the wonderful things about London?
0:02:41 One, it’s a great city.
0:02:44 Two, Premier League football, maybe that’s number one.
0:02:47 Three, probably first and foremost,
0:02:48 that’s actually a broad one,
0:02:50 is proximity to the continent.
0:02:52 So what did I do with my 14-year-old this weekend?
0:02:55 We went to Pancras, St. Pancras train station,
0:02:57 which is literally 10 minutes from my house.
0:03:00 Got on the Eurostar, which is lovely, which is lovely.
0:03:04 And I mean, zoomed at like 330 kilometers per hour.
0:03:06 I love public infrastructure.
0:03:08 I say raise taxes and just build shit
0:03:09 that the public can use.
0:03:13 Gerdynord, two hours and 21 minutes later,
0:03:16 and then boom, in our hotel, we went to the Notre Dame.
0:03:21 Jesus Christ, I believe that God hangs out there now.
0:03:23 Oh my God, oh my God,
0:03:27 we’re sitting in line for 70 minutes
0:03:29 with every tourist from everywhere, including myself.
0:03:32 Wow, wow, no truck to the Dom.
0:03:36 Jesus Christ, seriously, but more importantly,
0:03:39 stayed at a beautiful hotel, went to the pool with my son,
0:03:41 because when you have a son, you always gotta go to the pool.
0:03:43 You always gotta go to the pool, full stop.
0:03:44 Gotta check out the pool.
0:03:46 That’s how we evaluate hotels is by the pool.
0:03:48 Then we went upstairs to this fancy Tony restaurant
0:03:52 and had light apps, which was delightful.
0:03:53 And then the highlight of the trip,
0:03:58 we went to the PSG game, 20 minutes to the stadium, boom.
0:03:59 Harking wasn’t that bad.
0:04:01 Into the stadium, amazing fans.
0:04:04 We saw them, Ty Renz, great game, fantastic fans.
0:04:07 It was raining, but the stadium is designed really well,
0:04:08 so we didn’t get rained on.
0:04:12 And then boom, back to the hotel in just like 22 minutes.
0:04:15 What a wonderful, wonderful city.
0:04:18 Anyways, that’s what I’m doing.
0:04:20 Today, we speak with Sahil Bloom,
0:04:22 an investor, entrepreneur, and writer
0:04:25 known for his newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle.
0:04:27 That’s kind of an interesting name, The Curiosity Chronicle.
0:04:29 That sounds like it’s being on PBS.
0:04:31 We discussed with Sahil his latest book,
0:04:32 “The Five Types of Wealth,
0:04:35 “A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.”
0:04:39 Okay, moving on to a shakeup in the AI world.
0:04:41 Oh my God, what are we gonna talk about?
0:04:44 This is kind of the business story of the week.
0:04:47 DeepSeq, a Chinese startup that’s just over a year old,
0:04:49 sent shockwaves to the global tech markets
0:04:52 in an AI model that’s as powerful
0:04:55 as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini,
0:04:57 but it was built with just a fraction
0:04:59 of the usual resources.
0:05:03 DeepSeq R1 was trained using just 2,000 NVIDIA chips
0:05:05 and 6 million in computing power.
0:05:07 That’s about 10 times less
0:05:10 than what Meta spent on building its latest AI technology.
0:05:12 Why does this matter?
0:05:14 This signals a major shift,
0:05:16 maybe even a paradigm shift in AI development.
0:05:21 Less money and fewer chips equals more players, right?
0:05:23 The market essentially has been rewarding
0:05:26 investment over innovation.
0:05:28 And the small number of players have been running away
0:05:30 with it, specifically the ones that have the capital
0:05:33 to deploy basically the defense budget of China,
0:05:35 which is the capital on their balance sheets
0:05:36 and how much they are spending
0:05:41 on developing these data centers, buying NVIDIA GPUs.
0:05:43 I mean, just this staggering investment here
0:05:46 and then all of a sudden comes this innovation
0:05:47 where the chips are speaking to each other
0:05:51 in a more efficient way, as opposed to traditional models
0:05:54 that had to be trained in a house where all appliances
0:05:56 and all lights were on at the same time.
0:05:58 This just said, we figured out a way
0:06:00 that you only have to have the lights on in the room you’re in
0:06:04 and is consuming a fraction of the processing power
0:06:06 and the energy of you will.
0:06:09 DeepSeq just proved it’s no longer a game dominated
0:06:10 by US tech giants.
0:06:14 And this is essentially the market has said, again,
0:06:18 maybe we overestimated investment versus innovation,
0:06:19 but there’s more to the story.
0:06:23 DeepSeq didn’t just develop this tech, they open sourced it.
0:06:25 That means they shared the underlying code
0:06:27 for others to build on.
0:06:29 – Well, open sourced AI accelerates innovation.
0:06:31 It does come with serious risks.
0:06:33 Many experts argue that US companies
0:06:35 shouldn’t open source their technologies
0:06:37 because they could be exploited to spread disinformation
0:06:39 or even create autonomous weapons.
0:06:41 This is essentially given the Chinese
0:06:43 that you could argue sort of open source,
0:06:46 the opportunity to catch up and even blow by this.
0:06:50 And this has so many kind of second order effects.
0:06:54 First off, not only did chip stocks fall
0:06:56 or the AI stocks fall, and we’ll talk more about that,
0:06:59 but the second order effects was that there had been
0:07:02 an equally vicious run up of energy stocks
0:07:04 because the choking point in what we thought
0:07:08 was gonna be an energy hungry AI world.
0:07:09 You saw constellation energy,
0:07:11 you saw all these energy stocks skyrocket,
0:07:14 they had a significant drawdown
0:07:17 because maybe energy isn’t going to be as scarce
0:07:19 as we had originally thought
0:07:24 because of the fact that AI may not be quite as power hungry
0:07:25 as we’d originally anticipated.
0:07:27 This is really shaking up global markets.
0:07:29 I wouldn’t say investors are panicking,
0:07:30 but there’s definitely been a drawdown.
0:07:33 Nvidia shares plummeted 17% on Monday
0:07:35 after DeepSeq debuted its AI system,
0:07:38 wiping out, get the 600 billion in market value.
0:07:40 This marked Nvidia’s worst trading day
0:07:42 since the pandemic crash in 2020.
0:07:45 Now, having said that, we’ve got some context here,
0:07:46 that takes them all the way back
0:07:49 to where the stock was in October.
0:07:50 And when stocks run up like this,
0:07:52 it is like a balloon inflating.
0:07:56 And if it becomes more and more inflated/overinflated,
0:07:58 the smallest scratch can pop the balloon.
0:08:01 And I think that in addition to this news,
0:08:04 it’s likely that these stocks had such incredible run ups
0:08:06 that the market was looking for kind of any excuse
0:08:10 or any slight brush of the balloon to pop, if you will.
0:08:12 But still, this gives you a sense also
0:08:14 of how scary it is that markets is concentrated
0:08:16 because at 600 billion dollars,
0:08:19 you have essentially wiped out
0:08:20 the value of a smaller stock market.
0:08:21 I mean, that’s the value
0:08:24 of the entire global auto industry, Sons Tesla.
0:08:26 And this is what happens when markets are allowed
0:08:28 to get too concentrated.
0:08:30 The other second order effect, I find fascinating.
0:08:31 It’s on fascinado, okay?
0:08:33 What’s French and fast?
0:08:34 What’s fascinating in French?
0:08:36 I don’t know.
0:08:40 But anyways, effectively you have this argument
0:08:43 for global trade and that is what would have happened
0:08:46 if we had continued to ship Nvidia chips to China?
0:08:48 Would they have been as motivated
0:08:50 to figure out a work around here
0:08:53 that would have resulted in what is probably,
0:08:57 I mean, this is just, I’m blown away, I’m blown away.
0:09:00 But at the same time, this kind of is following
0:09:02 where most markets evolved to.
0:09:03 And that is eventually over time,
0:09:05 everything goes Android and iOS.
0:09:06 What do I mean by that?
0:09:07 Scott, what do you mean by that?
0:09:08 What’s going on?
0:09:10 You’re on a train, you’re in the channel,
0:09:14 you’re underneath water, you’re going 320 kilometers per hour.
0:09:15 It’s time to put on your thinking cap.
0:09:17 You got peace, do some deep breathing
0:09:20 and then really bring us some blue flame clarity here.
0:09:23 Essentially, every market bifurcates
0:09:25 into Walmart or Tiffany.
0:09:28 And that is, as a species, the easiest way
0:09:30 to process information is zeros and ones.
0:09:33 And we’ve essentially based all innovation
0:09:35 or computing on binary code, zero and one.
0:09:36 Why?
0:09:37 It is easy to understand yes and no.
0:09:39 It’s easy to understand, I’m interested in you,
0:09:42 I’m not interested in you, I’m friend, I’m foe, right?
0:09:44 So we distill everything down
0:09:46 to a basic binary decision framework.
0:09:49 That is the fastest way to make decisions.
0:09:52 It is the fastest way to process information.
0:09:55 So the entire consumer world bifurcates
0:09:57 into a binary set of decisions.
0:10:00 Do I want the most stuff at the lowest price?
0:10:01 Okay, that’s Amazon.
0:10:03 Okay, that’s Walmart.
0:10:04 Okay, that’s Costco.
0:10:07 Do I want something more artisanal, that’s special,
0:10:10 that has self-expressive benefit that makes me feel
0:10:12 as if I’m in the company of God?
0:10:15 By the way, the reason why we buy luxury goods
0:10:17 is one, it makes us more attractive to potential mates.
0:10:19 When I have a Porsche, it says I’m a baller,
0:10:21 when I’m a member of Maison Estelle
0:10:23 or the new Crane Club or Shea Margo.
0:10:24 I just went there last week.
0:10:27 Oh my God, talk about a lot of hot people.
0:10:30 Jesus Christ, I mean, come on.
0:10:31 Where do those people come up?
0:10:33 They’re like those warlocks or whatever they are.
0:10:34 Where do they come from?
0:10:36 Do they just descend from the ground at like 9 p.m.
0:10:38 and go to these members only clubs in New York?
0:10:40 Anyway, zero and one, right?
0:10:43 The one, the artisanal stuff, self-expressive benefit
0:10:46 and two, and two, making more attractive to mates,
0:10:48 makes you feel closer to God.
0:10:49 The message about taking a Veneta bag,
0:10:51 the slope on the back of a Range Rover
0:10:53 makes you feel like it steals you
0:10:54 in the presence of something.
0:10:55 Why do we do that?
0:10:59 Why do we slow down and find inspiration and spirituality
0:11:01 as if we’re closer to God?
0:11:04 It’s because the majority of the great artisanal work
0:11:05 throughout history has been sequestered
0:11:07 to mosque, temples, and churches.
0:11:08 When you go into St. Peter’s Cathedral,
0:11:10 you’re like, oh my God, do you see the pieta?
0:11:11 Is that what it’s called?
0:11:14 You think Jesus Christ, maybe God does hang out here,
0:11:16 or God, maybe Jesus Christ does hang out here.
0:11:17 Maybe they’re both together.
0:11:19 Maybe it’s a father-son basketball tournament,
0:11:22 by the way, by far, the best moment I’ve ever had.
0:11:22 Ever had?
0:11:23 One of the top moments I’ve ever had
0:11:27 was father-son basketball game, eighth grade, golf stream.
0:11:31 Daddy had practiced in the backyard with his son, boom,
0:11:34 steals the ball, break away, dish off to his son,
0:11:36 three, two, one, scores the layup.
0:11:39 Eighth grade wins, hello!
0:11:43 My son has never been less embarrassed of me in his life.
0:11:46 Anyway, back to me.
0:11:49 You have churches and mosques where we got used to seeing
0:11:51 these incredible works of artisanship,
0:11:53 such that when we see these really beautiful things,
0:11:55 it does still us, it makes us feel more spiritual,
0:11:57 it makes us feel maybe this is all worthwhile,
0:11:59 or maybe there’s some, maybe I’m gonna go hang out
0:12:02 with my parents and my old dog or something like that.
0:12:06 But this is the one, that’s the one,
0:12:07 the zero is the low cost.
0:12:09 Everything is bifurcating the zero one.
0:12:11 Now, the question is, I would offer,
0:12:13 I would posit, I would argue, is the following?
0:12:15 Is AI going the same way of all retail
0:12:16 and all consumer markets?
0:12:18 Are we going to have a zero layer,
0:12:21 super inexpensive, open source, built on things?
0:12:24 And then are we gonna have the Tiffany and the artisanship?
0:12:27 And that is companies will still spend a great deal of money
0:12:31 on a massive amount of compute, super sophisticated LLMs
0:12:35 that do more sophisticated, artisanal, difficult work,
0:12:37 in that we’re essentially going where every market is going,
0:12:40 and that is we’re going Android and get a free phone
0:12:43 with a great operating system for free, essentially,
0:12:47 if you go Android or iOS, where the cost of a phone
0:12:51 will command three months average salary of a Hungarian.
0:12:55 So I don’t know if this is the end of kind of AI
0:12:57 as we know it, or these companies.
0:12:59 There is a risk here, and that is when you have
0:13:04 the magnificent 10 representing 27% of the S&P,
0:13:07 and now the S&P or the US market represents 50%
0:13:10 of global value, of 13% of the global economy
0:13:12 kind of wrapped up, or at least led by
0:13:14 a small number of companies.
0:13:16 And if one sneezes, the entire fucking thing
0:13:18 might catch a cold, and that is the world might,
0:13:21 or the world economy might get pneumonia
0:13:23 if there’s a serious drawdown in these stocks.
0:13:25 I also think it reflects some of our arrogance
0:13:27 that people like me about out there saying,
0:13:29 we’re all AI, who’s doing anything important around AI,
0:13:32 and China said, I know, China’s core competence,
0:13:35 they’re exercising here, China’s core competence,
0:13:38 supply chain, and number two, IP theft.
0:13:42 They basically steal the plans of the IP
0:13:45 and the architectural plans of a cell tower from Siemens,
0:13:48 and instead of building it for $200,000,
0:13:50 they offer it for $40,000.
0:13:52 The majority of people think espionage
0:13:54 is some good looking guy killing another agent
0:13:56 and then banging the foreign agent or the double agent
0:13:58 and then rolling around in an Austin Martin.
0:13:59 No, that’s not espionage.
0:14:01 Espionage is the following.
0:14:04 It’s an overweight guy who’s the personal assistant
0:14:08 to some attache or some senior executive at Google
0:14:11 who gets proprietary information on their new LLM
0:14:14 or their new search algorithm, puts it on a thumb drive,
0:14:16 and then gives it to his handler,
0:14:18 and then they ship it to Beijing.
0:14:19 The majority of espionage right now
0:14:22 isn’t about killing spies or state secrets,
0:14:23 it’s about corporate espionage.
0:14:25 This is economic warfare.
0:14:27 Think about how few wars are really when you think about it
0:14:30 relative to the economic warfare that takes place every day.
0:14:35 So number one, confidence of China is in fact supply chain.
0:14:38 Number two is IP theft or specifically espionage.
0:14:40 By the way, that’s not unusual.
0:14:42 If you wanna grow your economy faster than 5% a year,
0:14:43 you have to engage in massive theft,
0:14:45 which is what we did during the 19th century
0:14:49 when we stole European textile and manufacturing technology
0:14:53 and littered the Eastern seaboard with these factories
0:14:56 where we could take advantage of our abundant resources.
0:14:58 We even kidnapped artisans
0:14:59 and people could operate this machinery.
0:15:01 So IP theft is not unique to China,
0:15:02 they’re just doing it better than us
0:15:03 and we’re pissed off about it.
0:15:06 And this is kind of the ultimate example, right?
0:15:08 They took our open source, they sort of borrowed it,
0:15:11 so it’s not really theft, call it IP leasing.
0:15:14 And they said, I know we can come up with more for less.
0:15:16 We did work around not because you wouldn’t ship us
0:15:18 those fancy American ships,
0:15:20 and we have figured out potentially a way
0:15:22 to have the Walmart of AI.
0:15:25 This will rock the markets, but I would argue,
0:15:27 I would argue this is a natural evolution
0:15:30 where we’re bifurcating into zeros and ones
0:15:31 where Walmart and Tiffany.
0:15:36 We’ll be right back for our conversation with Sahil Bloom.
0:15:43 Support for Prop G comes from 1-800-FLOWERS.
0:15:44 Valentine’s Day is coming up
0:15:45 and you can let that someone in your life
0:15:47 know just how special they are
0:15:50 with the help of 1-800-FLOWERS.com.
0:15:52 They offer beautiful, high quality bouquets
0:15:55 and this year, you can get double the roses for free.
0:15:57 When you buy one dozen from 1-800-FLOWERS,
0:16:00 they’ll double your bouquet to two dozen roses.
0:16:02 Of course, roses are a classic sweet way to say,
0:16:03 I love you.
0:16:06 And 1-800-FLOWERS lets you share that message
0:16:07 without breaking the bank.
0:16:09 All of their roses are picked at their peak
0:16:11 cared for every step of the way
0:16:13 and shipped fresh to ensure lasting beauty.
0:16:16 Our producer Claire ordered from 1-800-FLOWERS
0:16:18 and she thought they were just wonderful.
0:16:22 Her partner was just so delighted, so delighted,
0:16:24 strengthening the relationship.
0:16:26 Their bouquets are selling fast
0:16:28 and you can lock in your order today.
0:16:31 Win their heart this Valentine’s Day at 1-800-FLOWERS.com
0:16:33 to claim your double your roses offer.
0:16:36 Go to 1-800-FLOWERS.com/PROFG.
0:16:39 That’s 1-800-FLOWERS.com/PROFG.
0:16:47 Support for the show comes from Vanta.
0:16:49 Trust isn’t just earned, it’s demanded
0:16:51 whether you’re a startup founder navigating your first audit
0:16:55 or a seasoned security professional scaling your GRC program.
0:16:56 Proving your commitment to security
0:16:59 has never been more critical or more complex.
0:17:01 That’s where Vanta comes in.
0:17:03 Businesses use Vanta to establish trust
0:17:06 by automating compliance needs across over 35 frameworks
0:17:10 including SOC2 and ISO 27001.
0:17:11 They also centralized security workflows,
0:17:14 complete questionnaires up to five times faster
0:17:16 and proactively manage vendor risk.
0:17:19 Vanta not only saves you time, it can also save you money.
0:17:22 A new IDC white paper found that Vanta customers
0:17:25 achieve $535,000 per year in benefits
0:17:28 and the platform pays for itself in just three months.
0:17:30 Join over 9,000 global companies
0:17:32 including Atlassian, Quora and Factory
0:17:36 who use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
0:17:40 For a limited time, our audiences get $1,000 off Vanta
0:17:42 at Vanta.com/PROFG.
0:17:47 That’s Vanta.com/PROFG for $1,000 off.
0:18:03 – Welcome back, here’s our conversation
0:18:05 with Sahil Bloom, an investor, entrepreneur and writer
0:18:08 known for his newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle.
0:18:12 – Sahil, where does this podcast find you?
0:18:14 – I’m in Westchester, New York,
0:18:15 just outside New York City.
0:18:16 – Nice.
0:18:19 So in your debut book titled The Five Types of Wealth,
0:18:22 a transformative guide to design your dream life,
0:18:23 you write about five types of wealth.
0:18:25 Time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth,
0:18:28 physical wealth and financial wealth.
0:18:30 Can you break these down for us?
0:18:31 – Absolutely.
0:18:34 Time wealth is all about freedom to choose.
0:18:36 How you spend your time, who you spend it with,
0:18:39 where you spend it, when you trade it for other things.
0:18:41 It’s fundamentally about an awareness
0:18:44 of the precious nature of time,
0:18:47 of time as your most precious asset.
0:18:49 Social wealth is all about your relationships.
0:18:51 These are the people that you love,
0:18:53 the depth of a few close relationships
0:18:55 and then the breath, the connection to something
0:18:57 bigger than yourself.
0:19:00 Mental wealth is about purpose, it’s about growth,
0:19:03 it’s about creating the space necessary in your life
0:19:05 to engage and wrestle with some of those
0:19:08 bigger unanswerable questions in the world,
0:19:10 whether through religion, solitude,
0:19:12 spirituality, meditation.
0:19:17 Physical wealth is about taking the controllable actions
0:19:19 on a daily basis to fight the natural decay
0:19:22 and atrophy that your body goes through with aging.
0:19:24 It’s all about your health and vitality.
0:19:27 And then financial wealth, as I talk about it,
0:19:30 is what you think of, net worth, money.
0:19:33 But with the specific nuance of really focusing in
0:19:35 on your definition of enough,
0:19:37 what it means to have enough,
0:19:39 to wrestle with the idea that your expectations
0:19:42 are really your single greatest financial liability.
0:19:45 If your expectations rise faster than your assets,
0:19:47 you will never feel wealthy.
0:19:49 – You talk about this term,
0:19:52 or you use the term arrival fallacy.
0:19:54 Why is it important for everyone to understand
0:19:55 and what is it?
0:20:00 – The arrival fallacy is this common psychological phenomenon
0:20:03 that we’ve all experienced in one form or another in our life.
0:20:07 It is the idea that we prop up these specific achievements,
0:20:10 goals, or destinations as the point
0:20:12 when we will feel we have arrived.
0:20:14 It could be the promotion, it could be the title,
0:20:18 it could be the bonus, the pay raise, whatever the thing is,
0:20:21 we tell ourselves that once we get to X,
0:20:23 we are going to feel that feeling of happiness
0:20:24 and contentment that will be durable.
0:20:28 And unfortunately, it is a fallacy, meaning you get to it,
0:20:32 you feel that sort of momentary dopamine-infused euphoria,
0:20:36 and then you immediately reset to some new arrival
0:20:38 that you need, some new height, some new summit.
0:20:41 – You also talk a little bit about this term life-raiser,
0:20:43 what did you mean by that?
0:20:45 – The idea of a life-raiser is
0:20:50 to have a single identity-defining statement or rule
0:20:53 that allows you to literally cut through the noise
0:20:55 at different points in your life.
0:20:59 So the term razor broadly used is from philosophy
0:21:01 and it’s an idea of having a rule of thumb
0:21:03 that allows you to simplify decision-making.
0:21:05 Occam’s razor is kind of the most famous one
0:21:06 that most people know.
0:21:09 It says that the simplest possible explanation
0:21:10 is often the best one.
0:21:14 The idea of a life-raiser is to have a similar simple rule
0:21:15 that allows you to navigate
0:21:17 whatever chaos or opportunities come.
0:21:22 It is a statement, say, a single thing that you could say
0:21:23 to help you navigate those situations.
0:21:27 An example would be Mark Randolph, the CEO of Netflix,
0:21:30 who often talks about the fact that he had a rule
0:21:34 to never skip a Tuesday dinner with his wife.
0:21:37 He had a hard rule when he founded Netflix originally.
0:21:38 He was the first CEO of the company
0:21:41 that at Tuesday at 5 p.m., no matter what was happening
0:21:43 at the company, he would leave work
0:21:45 and go have dinner with his wife.
0:21:47 And that was an identity-defining rule,
0:21:50 meaning it had ripple effects into every other area.
0:21:53 It meant that he created these boundaries in his life,
0:21:55 that while he was pursuing all these professional aspirations,
0:21:58 navigating the chaos of founding a technology company,
0:22:01 he still put his family and his relationships first,
0:22:03 that empowered other people to do the same.
0:22:06 It had all these ripple effects in his life.
0:22:08 And it meant something in terms of
0:22:10 how his ideal self showed up in the world.
0:22:12 So having a similar rule like that,
0:22:14 that is your life-raiser.
0:22:15 It’s that single point of focus
0:22:18 that helps you navigate through the chaos in life.
0:22:19 – It strikes me when we go back
0:22:22 to the different forms of wealth, time, social,
0:22:24 mental, physical, and financial,
0:22:26 that you can’t have it all.
0:22:29 You can have it all just not at once.
0:22:31 And that is, I found that my time,
0:22:35 social, mental, and physical wealth took a backseat
0:22:37 when I was younger in an attempt
0:22:39 to establish financial wealth,
0:22:41 or at least establish the trajectory.
0:22:44 And then once I achieved financial wealth,
0:22:46 I was able to go back and work on the previous four.
0:22:49 So, and I think it’s anyone’s gonna argue with you
0:22:52 around the different types of wealth as you define them.
0:22:54 You know, the trick is finding the balance
0:22:57 and knowing when to trade off one for the other.
0:22:59 Have you given any thought to the fulcrum
0:23:01 between the five of these?
0:23:02 – Absolutely.
0:23:05 And exactly what you said relates to something
0:23:07 that I talk about and write about often,
0:23:10 which is your life has seasons.
0:23:12 And what you prioritize or focus on
0:23:14 during any one season will change.
0:23:18 So your 20s and early 30s are an incredible time
0:23:20 to focus on building financial wealth
0:23:21 because we know compounding,
0:23:23 it’s going to compound for the rest of our journey.
0:23:25 It’s a great time to focus there.
0:23:27 That being said, the traditional wisdom
0:23:28 around these different types of wealth
0:23:31 is that they exist on these on/off switches
0:23:34 and that to turn on financial wealth all the way,
0:23:35 you have to turn off the others.
0:23:37 And the unfortunate thing with that mindset
0:23:41 is that a lot of these things will atrophy and die
0:23:44 if you don’t invest in them at all.
0:23:45 You know, it’s sort of like thinking about,
0:23:48 you know, when you look at a chart of compounding,
0:23:49 yes, you know, 1% per day,
0:23:51 everyone likes to show that chart,
0:23:53 gets you to 37X after a year.
0:23:56 The unfortunate thing is the negative 1% per day,
0:23:58 which effectively zeros you out after a year.
0:24:01 And that is really the risk that people run
0:24:03 by living with that on/off switch mindset.
0:24:04 And so what I like to do,
0:24:06 the mindset shift that I talk about in the book
0:24:09 is these areas all exist on a dimmer switch.
0:24:11 And just because you have one turned all the way up,
0:24:14 that might be financial wealth in your 20s and 30s,
0:24:16 does not mean the other ones should be turned completely off.
0:24:19 You can still do the tiny little investment
0:24:22 on a daily basis that compounds positively
0:24:24 because anything above zero compounds
0:24:26 in the direction that you’re heading.
0:24:29 So if you think about it just tactically
0:24:30 for your relationships as an example,
0:24:32 even while you’re focusing on your financial wealth
0:24:34 and on building your career,
0:24:36 sending the one text to your parents
0:24:38 to just let them know you were thinking about them,
0:24:39 making the phone call,
0:24:40 planning that one extra trip,
0:24:43 getting together with the old friend for the coffee
0:24:45 or gathering the group for the one annual trip.
0:24:48 Those are things that compound positively in that domain
0:24:49 that don’t take a whole lot of effort.
0:24:51 The dimmer switch can be turned down
0:24:54 without it zeroing you out.
0:24:55 – I really liked that.
0:24:57 You know, I think about you don’t need
0:24:58 to call your mom every day.
0:25:01 I mean, ideally you can and should,
0:25:03 but if you’re working exceptionally hard,
0:25:06 if you only have time to call her once a week,
0:25:07 that one call becomes much more important
0:25:09 and has a higher ROI.
0:25:14 I say this because in order to achieve financial security,
0:25:16 I traded off a lot of those things.
0:25:20 And I did try to be home for dinner or at least bath time.
0:25:24 You know, I’m self-conscious which I am,
0:25:27 but I like the notion that even if you take it down
0:25:29 to 10 or 20%,
0:25:33 that is infinitely better than taking it down to zero.
0:25:37 Any specific thoughts about managing the relationship
0:25:40 with your partner as you’re trying to kind of not go all
0:25:44 in, but go mostly in on establishing financial wealth?
0:25:48 – There are similar principles, I would say,
0:25:51 to you’re sort of the analog to texting
0:25:52 or calling your mom once a week
0:25:55 that you can leverage in your romantic relationship.
0:25:57 So while you are chasing that purpose
0:25:58 of building a big company
0:26:00 or going all in on your financial wealth,
0:26:02 making sure that you create a regular cadence
0:26:05 for proper kind of zoom out conversations
0:26:06 with your partner.
0:26:08 This entrepreneur named Brad Feld
0:26:11 had this concept called the life dinner, which I love.
0:26:15 It’s the idea of doing a once a month regular cadence date
0:26:16 where you get together
0:26:19 to actually talk about some of the bigger picture things
0:26:21 in each of your life’s lives and in your relationship.
0:26:23 So talk about some of the challenges,
0:26:24 some of the opportunities,
0:26:26 the things you’re excited about,
0:26:27 the things you’re stressed about,
0:26:29 but create a regular cadence around it.
0:26:32 Because what happens in life is when things get stressful,
0:26:33 when you have a young child in the house
0:26:35 or when you’re chasing some financial goal,
0:26:37 you forget to do that.
0:26:38 And so your ongoing communication
0:26:41 just becomes this sort of two ships in the night,
0:26:43 little things here and there.
0:26:44 And you forget to zoom out
0:26:46 and talk about some of those bigger picture questions
0:26:51 that actually contribute to true growth in a relationship.
0:26:53 So I’ve always thought that was a really helpful framing
0:26:55 for thinking about that.
0:26:58 – And you talked about,
0:27:00 when you were talking about social wealth,
0:27:03 you talked about front row people.
0:27:05 What was the Harvard study of adult development
0:27:07 and why do you consider it the most impactful study
0:27:09 of the last 100 years?
0:27:10 – The Harvard study of adult development
0:27:13 is this incredible longitudinal study
0:27:15 that was conducted over the course of 85 plus years.
0:27:19 They followed the lives of 1,300 original participants,
0:27:22 plus another 700 or so direct descendants.
0:27:24 And what they found was rather remarkable.
0:27:27 They found that the single greatest predictor
0:27:29 of physical health at age 80
0:27:32 was relationship satisfaction at age 50.
0:27:36 It wasn’t how their cholesterol was, their blood pressure,
0:27:37 wasn’t their smoking or drinking habits.
0:27:39 It was how they felt about their relationships
0:27:42 that contributed to their healthy aging.
0:27:43 So we know scientifically
0:27:45 that the strength of our relationships
0:27:48 actually determines our health and happiness in our life.
0:27:51 And yet, when you ask people what they’re investing in
0:27:54 on a daily basis, relationships are one of the first things
0:27:55 that fall by the wayside.
0:27:57 We don’t think to invest in relationships
0:28:00 in the same way that we think to invest in a financial asset.
0:28:03 We know putting $100 away in the S&P 500
0:28:05 is gonna compound and grow into our future.
0:28:07 The exact same principle applies to your relationships
0:28:10 and you need to have that mindset shift to do it.
0:28:12 The concept of front row people
0:28:16 is a sort of visualization and representation of that fact.
0:28:19 This concept of closing your eyes
0:28:21 and thinking about at your own funeral,
0:28:23 who are going to be the people
0:28:24 that sit down in the front row?
0:28:26 Who are those people that occupy
0:28:30 that incredibly special cherished space in your life?
0:28:33 And are you recognizing those people on a daily basis?
0:28:35 Are you showing up for them?
0:28:38 Are you being a front row person to someone else?
0:28:41 – You also talk about insights that you gathered
0:28:44 from couples who have been married 40 plus years.
0:28:46 What are some of those insights?
0:28:50 – I love talking to older people
0:28:54 about their kind of wisdom from their lives.
0:28:56 And the reason I find it so powerful
0:28:59 is just because they have the earned wisdom
0:29:00 that none of us have.
0:29:01 And so I went and talked to couples
0:29:06 that have been married for 500 total years
0:29:07 across all of them.
0:29:10 And a few of the ones that I thought jumped out.
0:29:13 Number one was never keep score in love.
0:29:17 Just the idea of in relationships
0:29:19 living with a quid pro quo mindset
0:29:21 is a recipe for disaster.
0:29:24 It’s not always gonna be 50/50 in a relationship.
0:29:26 Sometimes it’s going to be 90/10.
0:29:28 Sometimes it’s going to be 10/90.
0:29:29 But the important thing
0:29:31 is that it always adds up to 100.
0:29:33 And then one of the other ones that I absolutely loved
0:29:36 was just the idea of never involve
0:29:41 a non-professional third party in your relationship conflicts
0:29:43 because you will forget about the thing
0:29:45 but they never will.
0:29:49 So telling your mother or mother-in-law, sister,
0:29:51 whoever about the relationship conflict
0:29:53 that you were having is often a recipe
0:29:54 for struggle down the line
0:29:56 because you will hear about it from them a year or two later
0:29:59 even once you’ve completely moved past the thing.
0:30:02 We’ll be right back.
0:30:08 Support for the show comes from Wealthfront.
0:30:10 Your cash could be earning 4% annual percentage yield
0:30:13 from partner banks with Wealthfront’s cash account.
0:30:15 And you can get free instant withdrawals
0:30:16 to eligible accounts every day
0:30:18 even on weekends and holidays.
0:30:20 That 4% APY is not a promo rate.
0:30:23 There’s no limit on deposits and earnings.
0:30:24 And with free same day withdrawals,
0:30:27 you can earn industry leading rates until you need your cash.
0:30:30 When you’re ready, it takes just minutes to transfer cash
0:30:32 to any of Wealthfront’s automated investing accounts.
0:30:36 You can start earning 4% APY on your cash today.
0:30:39 Get a free $50 bonus with a $500 deposit
0:30:41 when you open your first cash account
0:30:43 at Wealthfront.com/PropG.
0:30:47 That’s Wealthfront.com/PropG to get started.
0:30:49 This has been a paid ad from Wealthfront brokerage LLC,
0:30:52 a member FINRA SIPC Wealthfront is in a bank.
0:30:54 The current APY is representative,
0:30:56 subject to change and requires no minimum funds
0:30:57 are swept to partner banks
0:30:59 where they earn the variable APY.
0:31:08 Support for PropG comes from Domo.
0:31:09 Some businesses thrive on data,
0:31:11 but sometimes all of those numbers
0:31:12 can seem like a maze to sift through.
0:31:15 What if you could simply ask your data a question
0:31:16 and get a quick answer back?
0:31:18 Questions like how are sales is quarter?
0:31:21 Or how’s the new marketing campaign performing?
0:31:24 Or what does the overall health of the company look like?
0:31:27 With Domo’s AI and data product platform,
0:31:28 you can get answers right away,
0:31:31 packed with charts, graphics and actionable information.
0:31:34 Domo simplifies data exploration and analysis,
0:31:36 intelligently guiding you at every turn.
0:31:38 Domo says that anyone across your team
0:31:41 can use it to easily prepare, analyze, visualize,
0:31:44 automate and distribute data using simple natural language.
0:31:46 And while you can maximize every minute
0:31:49 with Domo’s AI agents, it can go way beyond productivity.
0:31:51 It’s designed to transform your processes,
0:31:53 helping you make smarter and faster decisions
0:31:55 to drive real growth,
0:31:57 all powered by Domo’s trust, flexibility
0:32:00 and years of expertise in data and AI innovation.
0:32:02 Some of the world’s best companies rely on Domo
0:32:04 to make smarter decisions.
0:32:06 See how Domo can help transform yours.
0:32:11 Learn more at ai.domo.com, that’s ai.domo.com.
0:32:14 (upbeat music)
0:32:22 – What has earned status and how is it different
0:32:25 from sort of the more traditional views on status?
0:32:26 – Status is an interesting topic
0:32:31 because it’s very easy to demonize.
0:32:34 And at the end of the day, we are status seeking creatures
0:32:35 and there’s actually nothing wrong with that.
0:32:39 Status is a very smart way of organizing as a society.
0:32:41 And frankly, it has helped us in many ways as humans
0:32:43 to navigate all of the changes
0:32:46 that we’ve endured over the thousands of years.
0:32:48 The point though is you wanna chase
0:32:51 and play the right kind of status games.
0:32:54 The way that we typically think of accumulating status,
0:32:55 when you think about status,
0:32:57 the way I think about it is what you’re looking for
0:32:59 is the respect and admiration of others.
0:33:00 You want to kind of stack up
0:33:02 and have their respect and admiration.
0:33:05 The way that people typically today try to do that
0:33:08 is through acquired status symbols.
0:33:09 It’s through the watch, it’s the car,
0:33:11 it’s the fancy club membership,
0:33:14 it’s the expensive bottles of wine.
0:33:16 And we think that those are going to confer
0:33:19 this lasting respect and admiration upon us.
0:33:21 And unfortunately they don’t.
0:33:24 Otherwise lottery winners would be held
0:33:26 in the highest possible regard among society
0:33:29 because they have a whole lot of those status symbols.
0:33:32 The reality is that real status has to be earned.
0:33:35 It is built through these hard one treasures,
0:33:38 these things that require long periods of time to build,
0:33:40 things like a healthy fit physique,
0:33:42 things like deep meaningful relationships
0:33:43 with the people that you love,
0:33:46 things like building a meaningful business,
0:33:48 creating a whole bunch of value, creating jobs.
0:33:51 Those are the things that actually confer upon us
0:33:54 the lasting durable respect and admiration that we want.
0:33:57 And so the question in the test that I always try to ask
0:33:59 is what I call the bot status test.
0:34:01 Before buying something, you ask yourself,
0:34:05 would I buy this thing if I couldn’t tell anyone about it?
0:34:06 If I couldn’t take a picture of it,
0:34:08 if I couldn’t show it to anyone else,
0:34:10 would I still want the thing?
0:34:11 And usually that’ll cut through the noise
0:34:14 of whether you’re doing it as an attempt at bot status
0:34:16 or if it is something that truly provides utility
0:34:18 and happiness in your life.
0:34:21 – And the part of the book that I think
0:34:23 will probably stand out the most to people
0:34:25 or be the most read or reread will be,
0:34:28 you have a list of what you call mental health hacks
0:34:30 that you wish you knew at the age of 22.
0:34:32 Share some of your favorites.
0:34:36 – Yeah, this is a collaboration with Susan Kane
0:34:38 who is, for those who don’t know,
0:34:40 an incredible multi-time,
0:34:42 number one New York Times bestselling author.
0:34:43 She wrote the book Quiet,
0:34:46 which is one of the most famous books of all time
0:34:48 written about the power of introverts
0:34:49 and an extroverted world.
0:34:52 And a few of my favorites from that collaboration,
0:34:55 number one was your purpose in life
0:34:58 does not have to be related to what you do for work.
0:35:00 Your purpose in life does not have to be grand or ambitious.
0:35:03 Your purpose in life simply has to be yours.
0:35:07 And in a lot of ways this is a statement
0:35:10 that has rang true throughout history.
0:35:11 If we trace this back in history,
0:35:15 the Bhagavad Gita famous Hindu epic
0:35:17 talks about the idea of Dharma.
0:35:18 It’s the idea of your sacred duty.
0:35:19 That is your purpose.
0:35:21 And it was that exact statement
0:35:23 that it doesn’t have to be impressive to anyone else.
0:35:25 It just has to be yours.
0:35:27 To me, that is such an empowering idea
0:35:30 for your mental wealth because you recognize that
0:35:33 you actually don’t need to impress others
0:35:34 with the things you’re doing.
0:35:38 You don’t need to trying to be impact a billion lives
0:35:41 or do this grand, amazing things, make a billion dollars.
0:35:42 Whatever the thing is,
0:35:44 your purpose could be as simple as providing
0:35:45 for the people that you love,
0:35:47 showing up in the way that you want to in the world
0:35:50 in a way that you feel like you didn’t have in your life.
0:35:54 That is such a powerful and empowering notion to me.
0:35:54 – That was nice.
0:35:59 You also talk about the Feynman technique.
0:36:03 – So Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist,
0:36:07 won the Nobel Prize in I believe quantum electrodynamics.
0:36:09 And what he was known for
0:36:12 was the fact that he was able to simplify complex topics.
0:36:13 He was able to teach them in terms
0:36:15 that anyone could understand.
0:36:18 And that was really the mark of true genius
0:36:20 that he had was his ability to do that.
0:36:22 The concept of the Feynman technique
0:36:26 is that the most powerful way to learn anything
0:36:28 is to teach it to others.
0:36:30 You cannot teach something to others
0:36:33 if you don’t truly understand it yourself.
0:36:36 And the actual operationalization of this idea
0:36:39 is as you were attempting to learn something new,
0:36:41 the first thing you need to do is default
0:36:42 to trying to teach it to someone else.
0:36:46 And ideally teach it to someone else who is uninitiated,
0:36:49 sort of explain it to a five year old, if you will.
0:36:50 So you’re learning a concept,
0:36:52 you go try to explain it to someone
0:36:53 who doesn’t understand that.
0:36:56 You will immediately know where there were gaps
0:36:57 in your understanding or knowledge
0:36:59 because the other person will expose them
0:37:01 through the points where they’re getting confused.
0:37:02 That ends up being the places
0:37:04 where you need to study more, fill in those gaps,
0:37:08 and you’ll kind of have this natural iterative process
0:37:10 between teaching and learning
0:37:12 that will lead you to a true depth of understanding
0:37:13 on any topic.
0:37:15 – What are the three pillars of physical wealth
0:37:17 that you break down in your book?
0:37:20 – I talk about the three pillars of physical wealth
0:37:23 as movement, nutrition, and recovery.
0:37:25 And the reason I think it’s so important
0:37:27 to identify these pillars is because we live
0:37:30 in a social media age where you are bombarded
0:37:33 by complex sexy information
0:37:35 when it comes to your physical health.
0:37:37 You know, you are being convinced
0:37:39 that unless you are willing to do the Brian Johnson
0:37:42 and spend millions of dollars a year on your health,
0:37:44 that you’re not gonna be able to get healthy.
0:37:46 And unfortunately for a beginner,
0:37:50 that type of information is really intimidating and scary.
0:37:52 And it actually impedes starting.
0:37:53 It halts you from starting
0:37:56 because you view it as such an intimidating pursuit.
0:37:59 The reality is that level one
0:38:01 of the physical wealth video game, if you will,
0:38:04 is very, very simple across those three pillars.
0:38:06 Move your body for 30 minutes a day.
0:38:08 Don’t care if it’s walking, jogging, hiking, biking,
0:38:10 running, rowing, whatever you like doing,
0:38:11 move your body for 30 minutes a day.
0:38:15 Nutrition, eat whole unprocessed foods at 80% of your meals.
0:38:18 That’s 17 out of 21 meals during the week.
0:38:21 And then recovery, just try to sleep seven hours a night.
0:38:22 If you can do those three things,
0:38:25 you are probably getting at 80% of the value
0:38:26 in this domain and you’re getting ahead
0:38:28 of the vast majority of people.
0:38:30 Very, very simple and super cost effective.
0:38:33 You don’t have to do the crazy complex regimen
0:38:34 to get there.
0:38:36 – Finally, the last type of wealth, financial wealth.
0:38:39 What can you, or what can people do to build financial wealth?
0:38:42 What does the research say about the connection
0:38:44 between money and happiness?
0:38:46 – The research on money and happiness
0:38:49 is actually rather clear at this point.
0:38:50 The numbers vary.
0:38:52 And we’ve all seen the famous Kahneman study
0:38:54 that said $70,000 a year.
0:38:56 Above that, you’re no longer getting happier.
0:38:58 And it’s an old study and it’s been disputed
0:38:59 in various forms.
0:39:02 And more recent things by Matthew Killingsworth
0:39:05 have said something more like $200,000, $300,000.
0:39:07 The reality is that all of those numbers
0:39:10 are inherently flawed because they are applying
0:39:11 an average to the population.
0:39:15 And as, I think it wasn’t a seem to live one said,
0:39:16 you should never cross a river
0:39:18 if it’s four feet deep on average.
0:39:20 Because in different places,
0:39:21 it’s gonna be much deeper than that.
0:39:23 And if you live in New York City,
0:39:26 the number is gonna be very different than Omaha, Nebraska.
0:39:28 The point, though, of all of that research
0:39:31 is above a certain level,
0:39:34 there are very diminishing returns to incremental money.
0:39:36 The incremental happiness gains that you have
0:39:39 are going to come from these other types of wealth.
0:39:43 And so the pursuit of money that we get patterned into
0:39:44 in those early years,
0:39:45 where there is a direct correlation
0:39:47 between money and happiness,
0:39:49 sort of becomes our default setting
0:39:50 that we continue chasing.
0:39:52 Arthur Brooks talks about this
0:39:54 as us being sort of like mice,
0:39:55 and we ring the bell
0:39:56 and we think we’re gonna get the cheese.
0:39:58 And you pattern that in the early years of your life,
0:40:00 and then you continue chasing it,
0:40:02 thinking that the cheese is gonna be there later in life,
0:40:05 only to realize far too late that it wasn’t.
0:40:07 And that you pursued all of these things,
0:40:08 you made all this money,
0:40:09 but you have three broken marriages
0:40:11 and four kids who don’t talk to you.
0:40:12 You think you won the game,
0:40:14 you got padded on the back the whole way,
0:40:15 but you’re kind of wondering,
0:40:18 was this a game that I really cared to win?
0:40:19 – And doing this research,
0:40:21 what did you uncover that sort of affected
0:40:23 the way you approach your own life?
0:40:26 – I mean, I completely changed my life on this journey.
0:40:31 I was chasing the very traditional definitions of success
0:40:32 for the first seven years of my career.
0:40:35 I was rising through the ranks in the world of investing,
0:40:36 a private equity fund,
0:40:39 and I had a single conversation with an old friend
0:40:42 that fundamentally changed my life.
0:40:44 I went out for a drink,
0:40:45 he asked me how I was doing,
0:40:47 and I told him that it had started to get tough
0:40:50 living so far away from my parents on the East Coast.
0:40:53 I lived 3000 miles away.
0:40:55 They’re getting older, health things, things coming up.
0:40:56 And he asked how old they were.
0:40:58 I said mid sixties.
0:41:00 He asked how often I saw them.
0:41:02 I said about once a year at that point.
0:41:03 And he just looked me and said,
0:41:06 “Okay, so you’re going to see your parents 15 more times
0:41:07 before they die.”
0:41:08 And I just remember feeling
0:41:11 like I’d been punched in the gut.
0:41:13 The idea that the amount of time you have left
0:41:15 with the people that you love most in the world
0:41:19 is that finite and countable just shook me to the core.
0:41:23 And within 45 days, my wife and I had sold our house
0:41:24 in California.
0:41:26 I had left my job and we had moved across the country
0:41:28 to live closer to our families.
0:41:32 And that was the start of this entire journey
0:41:34 because it reminded me of one important fact,
0:41:36 which is you are in much more control
0:41:37 of your time than you think.
0:41:40 That number 15 is now in the hundreds.
0:41:42 I see my parents several times a month.
0:41:46 They’re a huge part of my son, their grandson’s life.
0:41:48 We spend so much time with our families.
0:41:53 And that idea that you can actually control time
0:41:54 is such an empowering notion.
0:41:57 It’s such a realization that the way that we’ve been
0:42:00 measuring, the way that we’ve been measuring our success
0:42:03 in these games can change
0:42:05 and you can take action to change it.
0:42:08 – Sahil Bloom is an investor, entrepreneur and writer,
0:42:10 known for his newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle.
0:42:12 He’s the owner of SRB Holdings
0:42:14 and the managing partner of SRB Ventures
0:42:16 and Early Stage Investment Fund.
0:42:19 His debut book, The Five Types of Wealth,
0:42:21 A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life
0:42:22 is out next week.
0:42:25 He joins us from his home in Westchester
0:42:29 where he is living close to his family.
0:42:31 Sahil really enjoyed this conversation.
0:42:33 Thanks for your time today.
0:42:34 – Thank you for having me.
0:42:47 – Happy, it’s the last question reminded me
0:42:49 just how fleeting your time is
0:42:51 are a couple of these questions
0:42:55 in our interview with Sahil.
0:42:56 It’s just crazy.
0:43:00 Time, as you age, time is really asymptotic
0:43:01 or it falls off a cliff.
0:43:04 It’s kind of going too slow when you’re a kid
0:43:07 or it goes too slow when my kids were kids.
0:43:08 I thought that was painful
0:43:10 when they were babies and toddlers.
0:43:11 Then it hits a nice cadence.
0:43:14 And then when they hit 12 or 13, it just falls off a cliff.
0:43:16 One, they don’t want to spend as much time with you.
0:43:18 And then all of a sudden it dawns on you
0:43:20 that they’re gonna be gone soon.
0:43:25 And I had somebody today ask me, CNN anchor,
0:43:26 I’m gonna start a podcast.
0:43:27 Can you give me some thoughts?
0:43:29 I’m like, well, the thing I can tell you
0:43:30 is the power of now.
0:43:34 And that is just between the time it takes
0:43:36 to decide you want to do a podcast
0:43:38 and all the planning and strategy.
0:43:42 Cut out most of that and just get a mic,
0:43:43 some podcast equipment,
0:43:46 hire a producer and start now.
0:43:47 And the first one’s gonna suck
0:43:49 and make the second one a little bit better.
0:43:51 Just Mr. Beast it.
0:43:52 I feel the same way now.
0:43:54 And I’ve gotten so much better at this
0:43:56 about now with my kids.
0:44:00 Oh my gosh, I have a weekend alone with my 14 year old.
0:44:04 Let’s take the Eurostart of Paris and go see a PSG game.
0:44:05 And I’m privileged and then I can afford it.
0:44:06 But you know what?
0:44:08 It’s not that expensive.
0:44:09 The hardest part is in the money.
0:44:11 The hardest stuff is now.
0:44:13 Like, sure, you can get tickets on the Eurostart
0:44:14 that aren’t that expensive.
0:44:15 You can find an Airbnb.
0:44:16 You can get shitty seats.
0:44:18 And by the way, the great thing about a 14 year old
0:44:19 is there are no shitty seats.
0:44:22 I remember getting bad seats to an Arsenal game
0:44:23 and I was all pissed off
0:44:25 ’cause I think of myself as being important.
0:44:27 And my son looked at me and was like, this is amazing.
0:44:28 Look at how high up we are.
0:44:31 So kids just want to be with you.
0:44:34 They just want to do really crazy things.
0:44:37 So if you’re living, I don’t know,
0:44:38 in Buckhead or somewhere and you think,
0:44:41 okay, we haven’t been to the Aquarium in Atlanta.
0:44:42 When should we go?
0:44:43 We should go now.
0:44:44 What are we doing this weekend?
0:44:48 Now, yet you are gonna look back on these moments
0:44:50 and you are going to treasure them.
0:44:51 So this is what I want you to do.
0:44:54 I want you to shrink the time in between deciding
0:44:56 you’d like to do something and it’s a good idea
0:44:57 and starting to plan it.
0:44:59 And I want you to skip the planning stage
0:45:01 and move right to doing it.
0:45:02 Would this be fun?
0:45:03 Would you like to do this?
0:45:04 Well, we’re gonna do this.
0:45:05 When are we gonna do this?
0:45:07 We’re gonna do it now.
0:45:09 (upbeat music)
0:45:11 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
0:45:13 Our intern is Dan Chalon.
0:45:15 Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
0:45:17 Thank you for listening to the PropG Pod
0:45:19 and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:45:22 We will catch you on Saturday for “No Mercy, No Mouse”
0:45:23 as read by George Hahn.
0:45:25 And please follow our PropG Markets Pod
0:45:28 wherever you get your pods for new episodes
0:45:29 every Monday and Thursday.
0:45:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Sahil Bloom, an investor, entrepreneur and writer, known for his newsletter The Curiosity Chronicle, joins Scott to discuss his latest book, The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.
Follow Sahil, @sahilbloom.
Scott opens with his thoughts on the buzz surrounding DeepSeek’s new AI model.
Algebra of Happiness: the power of now.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices