The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom

The 5 Types of Wealth is another book I’ve recommended to multiple people — my dad now calls it one of his favorites. I read it right before The Art of Spending Money and The Quest for a Simple Life, and the timing felt perfect; together, they form an ideal trio for thinking about fulfillment and avoiding the default path.

Sahil Bloom graduated from Stanford and quickly built an impressive résumé, launching businesses, creating productivity content, and becoming a managing partner at an early-stage investment fund. Yet despite all that success, he found himself trapped in the same unsatisfying loop that ensnares so many people in America’s status-driven culture.

Bloom argues that modern society measures success using the wrong scoreboard, typically some combination of job title and income. He shows that optimizing for a single dimension of success often comes at the expense of other areas that matter just as much, creating a Pyrrhic victory: a win so costly it feels like a loss.

Instead of this narrow view, Bloom proposes an alternative scoreboard built around five forms of wealth. He explores each — Time, Social, Mental, Physical, and Financial — by outlining three core pillars, weaving together personal stories and research-backed insights, and concluding with practical tools. For example, here are some of the tools for cultivating Time Wealth (you’ll have to read the book for added description of each):

• Time Wealth Hard Reset
• Energy Calendar
• Two-List Exercise
• Eisenhower Matrix
• Index Card Method
• Parkinson’s Law
• Anti-Procrastination System
• Flow State Boot-Up Sequence
• Effective Delegation
• Art of No
• Energy Creators
• Time Blocking
• Creation
• Management
• Consumption
• Ideation

I think Bloom’s framework — a fundamental shift in how you think about what life is really about — is worth the price of the book on its own. Much of the book provides context for why the other areas matter, but at its core, it’s about adopting a new mindset: choosing a different “scoreboard” by which to measure your life.

I’m not a fan of overly detailed systems that work well for the author but rarely translate to most readers’ lives. Bloom does a great job offering tools without prescribing exactly how you should live — because it’s different for everyone! If you keep that central idea in mind, the book is valuable.

His writing is accessible and easy to follow. Each section is broken into short chapters, so you could read a chapter a night and finish the book in about a month. He keeps the advice actionable without being overwhelming, offering a variety of strategies you can try for yourself.

There’s also a companion Life Planner, a digital community, and a virtual workshop tied to The 5 Types of Wealth, all available on Bloom’s website.

Here’s my notes on the book.