1: “Greg Sloan was on the fast track,” Sahil Bloom writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.
“Just into his early thirties,” he notes, “he had risen to become a vice president at Goldman Sachs, one of the most prestigious financial institutions in the world, and he served as a trusted financial adviser to a long list of well-known corporate executives.”
He was crushing his goals and enjoying a rising salary and annual bonuses: “The money, the trust, the client list, the respect,” Sahil observes. “All of it was there.”
It was time for the annual Doughnuts with Dad event at his five-year-old son’s preschool. Because he had a business trip that day, unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to attend.
“When his wife told his son the news,” Sahil writes, the boy reacted with a shrug and said, “That’s okay, Dad’s never around anyway.”
Pow.
“The words felt like acid when his wife repeated them to Greg that evening,” Sahil writes. “This, he decided, was the final straw.”
“I quit my job at Goldman Sachs later that year,” Greg recalls. “My son is twenty-four years old now. No regrets.”
2: From when our children are born until they are about ten years old, we are their favorite person in the world.
“After that,” Sahil observes, “children have other favorite people—best friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, partners, and, eventually, their own children.
“But during those ten years, we are everything to them,” he writes. “We occupy a unique place in their world. It is during this period that the foundation for the parent-child relationship—so central to many people’s Social Wealth—is built.”
Here’s a bracing statistic: By the time our kids are eighteen, we’ve already experienced the vast majority of the time we’ll spend with them.
“Unfortunately,” he notes, “we live in a society where children’s early years coincide with their parents’ peak working hours, travel, and other professional responsibilities. For many of us, these special years come and go in the blink of an eye—a blur of late nights in the office, meetings about meetings, emails at the dinner table, and weekend calls.”
Sahil believes there is a healthy tension between (1) being present and spending time with those we love, and (2) having the people we love see us work hard on things we care about.
“The importance and value of the second point often gets lost in the narrative around work-life balance,” he writes.
“Put differently, the goal is not to sacrifice our career progression, fail to live up to our professional potential, or stop learning or growing in an effort to be constantly present with our kids.
“The goal is to have the clarity to choose—to define our balance and live by design rather than by default,” Sahil writes. “At the very least, we need to recognize and internalize the trade-offs we are making if we do.”
3: Sahil shares that the way he approaches this tension is shaped by his experience growing up with his dad.
“His ability to balance the two worldviews is something I will always remember,” he writes. “He would come home for dinner, play catch with me outside, then work late once I went to bed.
“Much of my own discipline and work ethic,” Sahil explains, “came from seeing him work hard on things that lit him up intellectually but that he never allowed to get in the way of what was most important to him—his family.”
One particular memory still stands out today.
“I vividly recall going with him on one of his international work trips when I was ten. While I watched movies and enjoyed the snacks on the long flight, he stayed up for twelve straight hours working on his presentation.
“When I asked—almost incredulously—how he had not watched a single movie on the entire flight, he smiled and replied, “This is what is necessary—to deliver up to my expectations for myself and to be able to bring you along for the trip.”
His father also would share “why he was working hard on things and what he hoped to achieve with them,” he writes. “Involving our loved ones in our journey this way is a beautiful thing. They will understand why we’re working hard, the value it creates for them and us, and feel connected to our growth and achievement.”
The magic years come and go. “Reject the defaults, ask the questions, embrace the tension, and design the balance that fits our world,” Sahil suggests.
“Stop living the deferred-happiness plan, saying, ‘Well, I’m just going to work really hard now so that I can be happy and spend time with my kids when I’m sixty.'”
Why? “Because when we’re sixty, we’re not going to be three years old anymore.”
The ability to choose is, of course, a privilege and “requires a certain level of baseline comfort,” Sahil acknowledges. “For those who have the ability to choose, it’s important not to squander it by falling into the default path.
Greg Sloan made his choice.
“When his colleagues’ drank the Kool-Aid that financial success would solve our work-life balance issues,’ he opted for a different path.”
Looking back on his decision now, Greg says, “Leaving [Goldman Sachs] allowed me to coach [my son’s] baseball teams and be heavily involved in his sports passion. He is now twenty-four years old and we have a special bond.”
This bold decision had other benefits as well: “I believe there is a high likelihood that Katherine and I would have gotten divorced if I had stayed. The travel lifestyle and high stress was simply not healthy for our marriage. We’ll celebrate thirty-one years of marriage in June.”
More tomorrow.
Reflection: Am I intentionally designing my days to nurture the relationships that matter most, or am I letting work and habit quietly crowd out this precious time?
Action: Review my current routines and make one concrete adjustment—however small—that creates more space for meaningful moments with loved ones.
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