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