1: Apple founder Steve Jobs once stated: “Almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
“Remembering that we are going to die,” Steve said, “is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking we have something to lose. We are already naked.”
So, let’s imagine our funeral.
“Close our eyes and take three deep breaths,” Sahil Bloom writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life. “People are walking in, crying, hugging each other. Everyone sits down.”
One question to consider is: “Who is sitting in the front row? Imagine their faces,” Sahil suggests.
“These people—our Front-Row People—are the ones who truly matter.”
Take a moment to think about these people.
“What are we doing to cherish the people who hold those special seats in our worlds? How are we letting those people know what they mean to us? Are we prioritizing time with them or letting it float by and disappear?”
In his book, Sahil explores the idea of five different types of wealth.
“The answers to these questions underlie our Social Wealth,” he notes, “the depth of connection to those few, important, irreplaceable people in our worlds.”
These relationships can “provide a stable basis of support and love,” Sahil writes. “They are the people with whom we can celebrate life’s sweetness and mourn life’s bitterness.”
We are wise to invest deeply in these relationships.
“Whether we’re an extrovert or an introvert, a social butterfly or a hermit crab,” he observes, “we can and should build this foundation, as the ability to call upon people for support during hard times becomes increasingly important with age.”
The importance of relationships is the key message that emerges from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a landmark, ongoing longitudinal research project that began in 1938.
“The key to healthy aging is relationships, relationships, relationships,” says Dr. George Vaillant, a longtime director of the study.
“The study has found that strong, healthy relationships are the best predictor of life satisfaction,” Sahil notes, “far outpacing other hypothesized predictors, such as social class, wealth, fame, IQ, and genetics.”
Not only that, but our overall satisfaction with our relationships has a direct positive impact on physical health.
Speaking in his TED talk that has been viewed more than 50,000,000 times, the study’s current director, Robert Waldinger, says: “It wasn’t their cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old,” he said. “It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age fifty were the healthiest at age eighty.”
2: Sahil believes there are three components of Social Wealth: (1) depth,(2) breadth, and what he calls (3) earned status.
Social Wealth Element #1: Depth.
Depth is at the heart of our Social Wealth. We “know depth when we feel it,” he says. “It is the people we can call at 3:00 a.m. when everything is going wrong.”
Depth is about “Front row people.” It is the “strength of our ties to these few, cherished relationships,” Sahil writes. It entails “connection to a small inner circle of people with deep, meaningful, durable bonds.”
We build deep relationships through three essential actions, behaviors, and attitudes:
- Honesty: Sharing our inner truth and weakness, listening to theirs
- Support: Sitting in the darkness during their struggle
- Shared experience: Encountering positive and negative experiences together
Depth is built over long periods of time. “It is forged during and across the ups and downs of life,” Sahil explains. “Like a muscle, depth is built when relationships are forced to endure struggle, pain, and tension. Just as the muscle becomes stronger after being tested, so will our most durable relationships.”
Many times our inner circle includes family members, but not always. “Depth of connection is personal—where we find it in our lives is not important; what is important is that we find it.”
Depth is an essential element of a happy, thriving life. “Without depth,” Sahiil writes, “we cannot live a happy, fulfilling life. With depth, anything is possible.”
Social Wealth Element #2: Breadth
Breadth involves “connection to extended circles of friends, communities, and cultures,” Sahil writes.
It requires us “to try new things, to open ourselves up to the world around us,” he observes, and is “built through behaviors that expose us to new people and environments,” and participation “in new activities to meet friends.”
There are many different opportunities to experience breadth:
- Attend a weekly spiritual gathering if we are faith-driven individuals
- Participate in digital meetups for causes that we care about
- Coordinate regular walks or hikes with others in our area.
- Go to the networking event we’ve been shying away from.
Social Wealth Element #3: Earned Status
Earned status “is the real respect, admiration, and trust received through hard-won treasures,” Sahil writes.
It is “the lasting respect, admiration, and trust of our peers,” he notes, “that we receive on the basis of earned, not acquired, status symbols.”
Sahil shares several examples, including:
- “The freedom to choose how to spend our time (and whom to spend it with).
- Healthy, loving family relationships made possible by years of present energy.
- The purpose-imbued work and mastery within a domain, built through years of effort.
- The sought-after wisdom accumulated through decades of lived experience.
- The adaptable mind capable of navigating stressful encounters shaped through a steady mindfulness practice and thoughtful introspection.
- The strong, fit physique built through hours of movement and disciplined eating.
- The professional promotion or company sale achieved after an extended period of hard work in the dark.”
As entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant once said, “A fit body, a calm mind, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought—they must be earned.”
3: Each of us will experience these three pillars of Social Wealth differently.
“A natural extrovert might need significant breadth and depth of connection to keep loneliness at bay, while a natural introvert may need only a few close relationships to do the same,” he writes. These principles “are universal in their foundation but not in their application.”
One way of thinking tells us to focus on the journey, not the destination.
“I disagree,” Sahil writes. “Focus on the people. When we surround ourselves with inspiring people, the journeys become more beautiful, and the destinations become more brilliant. . .
“Focus on the company—the people we want to travel with—and the journey will reveal itself in due time,” he notes. “Nothing bad has ever come from surrounding oneself with inspiring, genuine, kind, positive-sum individuals.”
More tomorrow!
Reflection: Am I prioritizing time with the people who matter most, or letting distractions keep me from the relationships that determine my happiness and health?
Action: Reach out this week to one “front row” person in my life—express appreciation, schedule meaningful time together, and strengthen my foundation of social wealth.
What did you think of this post?
