Today, I am thrilled to have my friend and colleague, Sahil Bloom, joining me. Sahil is an inspirational writer and content creator who captivates millions with his insights and bi-weekly newsletter. He is also a successful entrepreneur and the author of The Five Types of Wealth.
In our conversation today, we explore the scientific research on the relationship between money and happiness, diving into time as our most valuable asset, how busyness can hinder progress, and why comfort does not lead to growth. We also discuss the impact of technology on our daily lives, the importance of stillness and solitude, the paradox of choice, the effects of loneliness, the power of curiosity, and much more.
This discussion with Sahil Bloom is invaluable, and I highly recommend reading his thought-provoking book, The Five Types of Wealth.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:
How money, beyond a certain income level, does not increase happiness
Why it’s hard to break the psychological patterns that link money with happiness
Why time is our most valuable asset
How busyness and technology can negatively impact our personal growth and relationships
The importance of being present and working through difficulties in relationships
How loneliness affects people’s physical health
How relationships tend to evolve and change over time
Why Sahil views curiosity as the fountain of youth
The dynamic nature of purpose
Sahil shares a strategy to foster curiosity
Bio: Sahil Bloom
Sahil Bloom is an inspirational writer and content creator, captivating millions of people every week through his insights and biweekly newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle. Bloom is a successful entrepreneur, owner of SRB Holdings, and the managing partner of SRB Ventures, an early-stage investment fund. Bloom graduated from Stanford University with an MA in public policy and a BA in economics and sociology. He was a four-year member of the Stanford baseball team.
“When you are alone, silent, and with your own thoughts, you can zoom out to see the bigger picture things that might create change in your life.”
-Dr. Sahil Bloom
Connect with Cynthia Thurlow
Follow on Twitter
Check out Cynthia’s website
Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com
Connect with Sahil Bloom
On his website
On all major platforms: @sahilbloom
Find out more about The 5 Types of Wealth
Buy a copy of The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life by Sahil Bloom
Transcript:
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:00:02] Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives.
[00:00:29] Today, I had the honor of connecting with friend and colleague Sahil Bloom. He's an inspirational writer and content creator, captivating millions every week through his insights and biweekly newsletter. He's also a successful entrepreneur and the author of the book, The 5 Types of Wealth.
[00:00:46] Today, we spoke at length about the scientific research around the connection between money and happiness, why time is our most precious asset, how busyness inhibits progress, why comfort is not growth, how technology has created friction reduction and why stillness and solitude are so important, the paradox of choice, the impact of loneliness, why curiosity is so important and so much more. This is an invaluable conversation. And Sahil's book is one of my favorite books I've read in the last several years. Really worth purchasing. It really is very thoughtfully worded and will get you thinking.
[00:01:27] Well, I really enjoyed reading your book. As I mentioned to you in your DMs, I told my core team members, I was like, “This is a book--” Because every time I would read a chapter, I'd look at my husband and I would reflect on whatever big takeaway was for me in that chapter. And I was like, “This is a really important, insightful book.” I told my team, I was like, “You all need to read this.” So, very excited to--
Sahil Bloom: [00:01:49] Oh, that makes me so happy. It really brightened my day. I feel like when [Cynthia laughs] you sent that, I forget what it was, Wednesday or Tuesday, but I was in the midst of one of those stressful, just feeling the real grind, and that message really did make my day. So, I appreciate it.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:02:03] No, you're very welcome. Well, like I said, genuinely, I read a lot of books, but I really enjoyed your book. It was, again, a book that made me reflect a lot on my life, and where I am in space and how I've structured my life very differently than the way I grew up. So, for me, it was like, “Okay. A lot of the things that validate decisions that my husband and I have made for the benefit of our family really, scientifically make a great deal of sense beyond just the--” Here and now, we have great kids that are super healthy and emotionally and otherwise. It's like, “Oh, all those decisions we made really were for the betterment of all of us.”
[00:02:41] So, as I was reading your book, there were definitely aspects that really stood out to me. One of those is, money isn't nothing, but it can't be the only thing. Well, my children grew up in a very affluent part of the United States. We very purposely moved during the pandemic. What does the scientific research say about the connection between money and happiness? Because I can tell you as an adult looking inward, the area of the country that we lived in, there were a lot of miserably, seemingly very wealthy individuals. And for me, there were many decisions that went into leaving where we lived. But one that weighed heavily on me was this concern about overt materialism and this thought process that money equates with happiness.
Sahil Bloom: [00:03:35] The research on money and happiness is interesting and actually quite clear, although I would argue that it has been largely misunderstood over the years. The most famous study is this Daniel Kahneman piece of work that talked about this number, $70,000, above which that income level, you are no longer getting any happier from making more money.
[00:03:54] That number has been hijacked over the years. People have argued it in various different forms. The most recent versions of it have said something more like $200,000 or $300,000. But the point, is that above a certain level, money no longer has that incremental happiness gain that it does in the lower levels. At the lower levels, money directly buys happiness. There is no mistake to be made. We know that, right?
[00:04:19] On the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, money does reduce fundamental burdens and stresses. It allows you to take care of your family. It allows you to create these basic pleasures and experiences, like vacations, different experiences together, that very directly creates happiness in people's lives. Above those levels, what the research shows, is that if you reach that level and you are unhappy, more money is not going to change that. And if you reach that level and you're happy, more money is not going to change that. It is these other areas of life that fundamentally create that incremental happiness gain above it.
[00:04:53] The numbers themselves are a little deceiving. The reason I think they're little silly is because they're averages across an entire population. I think it was Nassim Taleb that once said, “You should never cross a river if it's 4 feet deep on average.” Because at some point, it's going to be a whole lot deeper than that and you're going to drown. That applies to this research, which is to say, saying $200,000, if you live in New York City, the number is going to be very different than if you live in Omaha, Nebraska. The cost of living is very different.
[00:05:22] What's going to be required to have those baseline needs met and to feel those basic level of pleasures is going to be different. But the broader point is what really matters, which is you can't keep chasing money thinking that it is going to drive those incremental happiness gains that it did in those earlier years.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:05:38] Yeah, it makes so much sense. I trained in the inner city of Baltimore, and I would agree with you wholeheartedly, in speaking to patients and talking to patients about their own experiences living in the inner city, many of whom didn't have those basic. You mentioned Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They didn't have shelter, they didn't have security, they didn't have food is very, very different than someone living in the suburbs that maybe is bemoaning the fact they drive a particular type of car and they're like, “Oh, if I buy the BMW or if I buy the Toyota,” or whatever it is, like somehow that attainment is going to make me happier. What you're suggesting is that beyond a certain level, those material goods, that more money is not per se, equating with greater happiness.
[00:06:22] I think that one thing that I found living in another part of the country, was that it seemed like there were a lot of people who were just chasing this ideal perspective. Like, “Oh, when I have that size house, when I drive that certain car, when I send my kids to, whatever, expensive camp it is, then I'm going to be happy.” I think for a lot of people, hopefully, they learn that lesson sooner rather than later, that this kind of intrinsic desire to add materialistically to our lives or monetarily does not, per se, make you happy. I think for a lot of people, that's probably surprising. Or, maybe in many instances, they're just not even aware that that is what's fueling their desire to just equate with more financial gain.
Sahil Bloom: [00:07:08] I think that Dr. Arthur Brooks, who collaborated with me on a piece in the book and who is probably the world's leading expert on happiness science, has talked about this very well. He's articulated this well in the past, which is that we are like mice who get a bell rings and we get cheese. What happens in the early years of your life, is that the money bell rings and you get given the happiness cheese. And over and over again, that happens, because you're rising through that part where money does equal happiness. It creates this pattern in your mind which tells you that when the money bell rings, you get the happiness cheese. And that is a very hard patterning to break.
[00:07:45] So, even once you've gotten to the point where that is no longer true, you keep chasing, ringing that money bell, thinking that you're going to get the happiness cheese, even though it's no longer actually happening or manifesting in a real way in your life.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:07:58] Yeah, it's so interesting to me the psychology behind all of this. You do such a beautiful job interweaving research and real-world experiences throughout the book. Something that really prevailed or made me feel-- I guess the word that I would say is, as someone who is middle aged who just lost a parent last year, the statistics around times in your life where you're going to spend the most time with your children, or the most time with your siblings or the most time with your parents really hit me hard, because I know for you personally, you lived on an opposite coast from your parents, and you and your wife made a decision to return to the area in which you grew up, so that you could be closer to both your families.
[00:08:44] I think for a lot of people, we don't, per se, think, oh, my parents are in their 60s or in their 70s. And if I see them once a year, it equates to I'm going to see them 15, 16 more times before they pass. What is it about the book writing process for you that really-- in terms of what you were trying to share or trying to get people to reflect on with regard to spending time with those we love and we value in our lives?
Sahil Bloom: [00:09:12] Time is very much your most precious asset. It only takes little bits of math like that to really get punched in the gut by that fact. These kind of ideas that the amount of time you have left with the people that you care about most in the world is so finite and countable. You can put it onto a few hands. The number of times you are going to go on that trip with your old friends, the number of coffee dates you're going to have with one of your best friends, the number of walks you're going to take with your sibling, all of those things are much more finite than you're willing to admit. And in an empowering sense, you are actually in control of the number of times those things happen.
[00:09:56] And that is really what I wanted to get across. At the very beginning of the book. there’s this line that I open the entire book with was this conversation that I have with this old friend who reminded me, that if I didn't change the way I was living, I was going to have 15 more times that I would see my parents before they were gone. They were in their mid-60s. I was seeing them about once a year at that point, living 3,000 miles away. That is just simple math. They might live until they're about 80. I was seeing them once a year. We had 15 more times.
[00:10:24] But we took control over that. We used it as an empowering idea that we could actually take an action and create a desired outcome. And we moved. We made a change, a dramatic change, which you don't necessarily have to do, but we did. And that number went from 15 to in the 100s. I see my parents’ multiple times a month. They're a huge part of my son, their grandson's life. So, we did something that actually fundamentally created time in a very real intangible sense, we created time with the people we care about. And so, that's really what I want people to get out of this idea around time wealth is to say, “Here is the math or here is the concept that should be eye opening to you. Now, go do something about it.”
[00:11:05] If you know that you really only get these 18 years with your kid, you really only get that 95% of the time that we spend with our parents is in the first 18 years of our life. 95%. The rest of our 50 plus year, 60-year existence is that last 5%. So, when you're in that window, take advantage of it. When you're not in that window, take actions to expand what that number looks like. Because you can. You are in control of these things. But all of that to me comes down to that awareness. It comes down to an awareness that time is the most precious thing, that everything else pales in comparison, that time is going to be the only thing that you care about in the end. And as a result, it should be a primary focus all along that journey.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:11:51] Yeah, I think it's so important. I reflect on decisions that my husband and I made in our marriage with our kids, ensuring that we were very present. When I was still in a traditional, medical environment, I only worked part time. My husband bypassed a lot of big job opportunities, because he wanted to be present. I can tell you now without question that the decisions that we made for the benefit of our kids has allowed us to have incredible relationships with them. My oldest is now in his first year of college, and that was a massive shift change in our house. We now are down to one kiddo at home who's 17, who's going to be applying to colleges later this year.
[00:12:36] And I say all the time, I'm so grateful that we made the decisions that we made. When my kids were little, there was a lot financially we could not do, because we made the decision that I was going to work partnership time, that my husband wouldn't take the big job promotion. But we are such a tight knit family, and I know that we have provided our boys with a really strong foundation, not just for what their lives could look like in the future but also knowing that this is a very safe place they can come back to.
[00:13:08] You're right. I think even you sharing about your son who's very young and talking about like we spend all this time- We are our kids world before their tween years. We were probably fortunate that with the pandemic we had a whole year of togetherness more so than we would have otherwise had with a tween and a teenager. But having said that, I think back that, when you talk about this devastatingly short window, and as someone who's looking back at the choices that we made and the impact of quality of time that we have imprinted on our son and with our extended family, it is probably one of the things I'm most grateful for. It's something very different than how I grew up.
[00:13:54] I say all the time that I'm grateful for the parents that I had. I'm not passing judgment they had different circumstances. But knowing that the choices we made with in terms of time management and focus on our children has made all the difference in who they are as individuals. It really is exciting to see the difference, the net difference, because I have colleagues and friends who've admittedly said, “I worked 50, 60, 100-hour weeks for years and years and years. I missed those baseball games. I missed those school plays. I missed out on opportunities to connect with my kids.”
[00:14:30] Knowing that since time is this most precious asset, there are things that we can do right away to course correct. It's not etched in stone, that yes, maybe when your child was younger you weren't able to spend as much time as you would like to have. But investing in our loved ones is one of the most important things that we can do as individuals.
Sahil Bloom: [00:14:49] What a beautiful thing. I appreciate you sharing that. It warms me to the core to hear that story and to hear you talk about it, because when I think about this book and when I think about my dream for it, so much of it revolves around finding a way to change the stories that we celebrate and applaud in society. I had a realization several years ago that the people that I read books about are very rarely people I would ever want to trade lives with.
[00:15:23] We celebrate and admire and applaud these success stories based on financial success, and completely ignore what the real price of that success might have been. The relationships lost, the broken relationships with children or with wives or husbands along the way. All of these other areas of life that we just choose to ignore. We don't celebrate the people who chose to live differently, who chose to sacrifice a piece of their career progression or financial future in order to be present during those moments. But as you're reflecting on it now, what a beautiful thing to have no regrets about that, because you see the fruits of those decisions that you made. You see the impact that it had on their relationship.
[00:16:06] The thing I keep coming back to with all of this, is when you ask people when they're younger, your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, what does your ideal day look like at age 80? Really envision it. What does that day look like? What does your life look like? What do you feel? Who are you with? What are you thinking about? What are you doing?
[00:16:24] People paint this picture that basically, across the board, revolves around time, people, purpose and health. It's like, you want to feel free, you want to feel surrounded by people you love, that's your children, maybe grandchildren, friends. You want to have a purpose, you want to feel like you know where you fit in the world and you want to feel healthy. Then you ask them, what are you doing today? What are the actions you are taking today to reflect that future that you're trying to create?
[00:16:50] Normally, there's this enormous gap between the future that people say they're trying to create and the actions that they're taking in the present. The actions do not actually bear out that future that they claim they want. And that really is the goal in all of this. It's to say like, “I know and I have a clear vision for the true north where I'm trying to head.” Well, then I need to start walking in that direction right now. I need to take the actions associated with that I need to have that borne out in the things that I'm doing on a daily basis.
[00:17:16] That doesn't mean giving up all of your personal ambitions, giving up your professional ambitions. What it means is finding your way to navigate that tension that exists. You didn't give up all of your professional ambitions in order to do this. You found ways to make tweaks, to adjust to be present, but also continue to harness and engage your ambition and your growth. That is really what I think we're all trying to find, and that is the tension that I think is the fundamental tension that we all need to navigate in life now.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:17:48] I love that you touch on the fact that for a lot of-- whether it's a historian, whether it is a politician, whether it's someone we admire in Hollywood or someone that works in the financial services industry, we put people on a pedestal that fundamentally make a great deal of money. But what many people don't understand is the sacrifices those people make in order to let that be the primary focus of what they're doing.
[00:18:16] I speak from personal experience. I have a parent that was incredibly, financially successful. I recall growing up, we didn't get a lot of my mom's time because she was so focused on her job. When she retired, I remember my brother and I and our families were at her retirement party, and one of her colleagues walked up to me and said, “Oh, you're so fortunate that this was your mom. You must be so proud of her.” And I said, of course, I am. And she said, “You know, she's really married to her job.” And I said, yes. And she said, “Oh, she must have been a great mom.” And I said, you know, not wanting to engage in sharing private, intimate information, I thought to myself, when people attain a certain degree of success, it's oftentimes at the expense of their personal relationships, whether it's their marriage, their relationship with their loved ones. I don't think it's at all intentional, but that is oftentimes the byproduct of that.
[00:19:09] So, if people are able to envision what they would like their life to be like when they're in retirement age, and reengineer what the steps are that they need to take to ensure that falls into place, I think that that's very important. Because what I have seen with my parents, is that retirement for her has been very challenging, because for many, many years, the focus of her life was she was in a very high position. She had people that admired what she did. She was in a very intellectually challenging, occupation. But then, she retired and she didn't have that anymore. And so, she's had to work very hard to find ways to create happiness and joy in her life in the interim of no longer working full time.
[00:20:00] And so, I think for a lot of people, they get accustomed to just being busy. It's this culture of busyness. We condition ourselves to believe that being busy is very important. I would actually argue the opposite of that, that having the ability to reflect, consider where you are in time and place. And as you've mentioned, course correct. Like, you have done in your life, making concerted changes and decisions that were bettering your area of focus. You know, wanting to focus on family, wanting to be close to your parents, wanting to ensure your son grew up around your wife's family, your family. I think for a lot of people, they maybe perhaps struggle to be able to reflect on those kinds of things and how it can impact their long-term trajectory of their life.
Sahil Bloom: [00:20:47] Yeah. I think that that busyness as a flex, if you will, [chuckles] had a very negative impact on society. We all know. Like, you go to a cocktail party or dinner party, whatever, and everyone asks, “Oh, how are you doing?” And the standard response is, “I'm good. Busy.” Everyone says that, right? It's the way that you both signal you are valuable to society. And it has become this protection mechanism in a lot of corporate cultures, where if you're busy, no one wonders whether you're working hard or not. So, you say I'm busy, because it's a way of protecting yourself from scrutiny, from bosses or from colleagues.
[00:21:24] The unfortunate thing, is that as you said, busyness actually inhibits you from making progress. You have this whole entire workforce culture of rocking horses, where you're just going back and forth, moving all day, but you're never actually going anywhere. You're never actually making progress. It makes sense why that happens just logically. If you're never able to zoom out a little bit, create a little bit of space to see and pick, what are the things that actually matter that might move the needle, you just grab at whatever comes your way. When you grab at whatever comes your way and you're just processing things all day, you never actually have the time to think about what are the truly high leverage points that are going to jump me to the next level in whatever it is that I'm doing.
[00:22:12] I think it's Viktor Frankl who said, that our power exists in the space that we can create between stimulus and response. That's where we get to choose our response. The ability to create those little pockets of space in your busy day is really powerful in unlocking that new upside that you didn't know existed.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:22:31] Yeah, it's interesting to me. I think after interviewing lots of trauma experts, in many instances, these individuals that feel the need to constantly be busy, it's because they're unable to process, either uncomfortable feelings or traumas that they've experienced in their lives. I think that the psychology of it is so fascinating. Without being judgmental, just observing behaviors, which is a lot of what I do, especially now with the podcast, being able to interview experts and get a sense of what motivates behaviors and what motivates change.
[00:23:05] And for a lot of individuals, as you mentioned, that rocking horse, they're really not going anywhere. They're just going back and forth. I think for a lot of people, that's comfortable, and I would actually argue that comfort is not growth.
Sahil Bloom: [00:23:18] That's a very good way of articulating it. I've never really thought about it exactly that way, but it's very true. It is stillness and solitude are arguably some of the most uncomfortable experiences for people who are unused to them. Actually, there was science around this. You've probably come across this. There was a study that they did where they had people sit quietly in a room, and they could either sit quietly and do nothing or they could electric shock themselves. [Cynthia laughs] People electric shocked themselves instead of just sitting and doing nothing. The idea of just being purely bored was so intimidating that they actually chose to electrocute themselves [chuckles] instead of just sitting there and being bored. That is what technology has done to us in a lot of ways.
[00:24:03] We have completely lost the ability to be bored. You think about like not to be crass. But we go to the bathroom and we bring our phones with us. We cannot sit on a toilet [chuckles] without having our phones and scrolling on social media, or texting people or doing whatever email or whatever thing. I think it was Blaise Pascal that said all of man's problems stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone. I think that is very true. Because when you are alone, when you are silent, when you're with your own thoughts, that's when you're actually able to zoom out, see those bigger picture things that might actually create change in your life.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:24:38] Well, I'm laughing to myself, because there were a couple male cardiologist I worked with in the hospital and inevitably, they were constantly losing their cell phones. It became a running joke. The first thing I would say is, did you leave it in the bathroom?” They’re like, “Oh, yeah. I think I did.” And I was like, “I don't even want to know why you were on your phone [Sahil Bloom laughs] in a hospital toilet,” is beyond me. But I agree with you. I think it's this constant distraction from being one with yourself, being aware of what's going on.
[00:25:11] As an example, we have three dogs, which makes us sound a little bit crazy, but I promise we're not. We have two senior dogs and we have a puppy. One of the things that my husband and I do every morning was we walk the dogs. But my husband was traveling, so I was walking the three dogs, or more or less, they were walking me. I don't go out with earbuds in. I don't go out with my cell phone. I just walk with the dogs, because I'm in nature and I do a lot of thinking. It's like sometimes some of the best thinking I have in my day is when I'm outside in nature with these three dogs, because I'm trying to focus on them and one is still being trained.
[00:25:46] But I think for a lot of people there is this inability to not be doing something. Like, whether it's doom scrolling on social media, which is so easy to do if you let yourself. It's like you fall down a rabbit hole. Whether you're on Threads or X or whatever platform you're on, Instagram or even being at home, idly being at home. I was saying to my kids, I grew up before the internet. I said, there was a lot of boredom in my summers and things that I did. My parents were like, “I don't care if you're not doing something.” Like, boredom is part of life.
[00:26:19] And so, I'm very comfortable not necessarily engaging in something 24/7. But I do think we have a culture where people, whether it's porn, whether it is social media, whether it is the fact they can stream anything, any time of the day or night or this hedonistic existence that we live in where we can uber eats-- We don't have to leave our houses. We could literally not shower, never leave our house and have everything delivered to our homes. I think that for me, I find it fascinating that it is become less “normal” for people to be alone with themselves and their own thoughts without these distractions.
Sahil Bloom: [00:26:58] The obsessive reduction of friction from our lives has been very damaging. I think that's what we're both talking about here, is technology fundamentally, if you zoom out, has really been about friction reduction. It's been making your life easier in these different ways, which in some cases has been a positive. It's enabled us to connect in different ways. It's enabled us to do things much more easily and save people time, created things in our lives. Although, it's funny, when you actually zoom out, it's like we have tools and technology that should make us more efficient and have more time than ever before, but somehow, we actually have less time than we've ever had.
[00:27:33] But when you actually zoom out and think about friction reduction, there's actually a meta point there that I often think about, which is, maybe the friction was actually what created a lot of the growth and meaning in our lives. I think now, younger generations in particular, we live in this eject button culture. Meaning, it is so easy to press the eject button as soon as something gets difficult. I think about it in particular when it comes to romantic relationships with my friends who are still in the dating market. The first sign of the honeymoon phase being over or of the thing not being perfect, the falling in love phase is done, you hit the eject button because right in front of you, you have hundreds of different options at the touch of your fingertips, right like that, swiping left, swiping right. It's literally right there.
[00:28:22] So, as soon as it gets hard, you can press the eject button, because you know you have all of these choices right in front of you. The problem is that the best things in life are built on the other side of that struggle. Pressing the eject button halts the compounding process that actually created the good thing that you wanted on the other side. Great relationships are built through shared struggles. Shared struggle releases oxytocin, right, scientifically, chemically, which creates feelings of love and connection.
[00:28:50] So, if you hit the eject button as soon as that struggle starts, by definition, you are never going to build the strong relationship that you want, whether it's a romantic one or a friendship. That as a culture, the eject button culture, is something that I think about so often now, is how can you resist? How can you fight back in a world that wants you to press the eject button as soon as things get difficult?
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:29:14] Oh, I think you bring up so many good points. Here's a fun fact. I don't think I've ever shared this on the podcast. My husband and I met in 2002 on Match.com. Match.com which back then was in its infancy. It was really, really new. We met pretty quickly and that was done. And then, we got married in 2003, and obviously, we've now been married for almost 22 years. I think when I talk to colleagues of mine or friends that have been in a marriage or been in a committed relationship and then they're back in the dating pool, the things that they share with me is exactly what you're sharing, that it's really hard to get into a partnership, if you will, where people are willing to stick it out, to work through those hard times.
[00:30:01] Because every person I know that's in a long standing, healthy relationship has had hard times. Everyone has had them. If they're saying otherwise, they're lying. [chuckles] Maybe they're not able to discuss it. Maybe it's too painful. But I think in many, many ways, those meaningful partnerships, relationships, along with the loving relationships and partnerships we have with our children, with our parents, that committed partnership in many, many ways, as you put it, this friction reduction issue permeates everything.
[00:30:38] I'm curious to see, my oldest had his first high school girlfriend, is now dating someone in college, and just listening to the rhetoric that he and his friends will say. They're very respectful of young women. But they're like, “Well, mom, it doesn't matter if this doesn't work out with this person, because there's 50 other girls that, if I wanted to date someone” I just looked at him and I said, well, why don't seeing this relationship through or talking to your partner, if you're struggling with something like-- Those fundamental things are certainly important. He looked at me sideways. I was like, “You're also 19. You're very young.” But having said that, I think that for a lot of individuals, they've been conditioned that, as you mentioned, hit the eject button as opposed to working through challenges that they experience. And we're going to have them. It is not a question of if, but when.
Sahil Bloom: [00:31:27] Yeah, it's a real-life example of the paradox of choice. The science around this shows that if you have five different options and you go and pick one, you're actually happier about the option that you select than if you have a hundred options and you pick one. It's this weird human behavioral phenomenon. That is happening in the world of romantic relationships now because of what the apps have done. It's like, no matter what option you end up selecting, it could be fantastic. But you have this inherent level of dissatisfaction from the fact that there was hundreds rather than just the three people that you knew in your town in the past.
[00:32:02] I think about these things all the time with my wife, because we met when I was 15, she was 14. We've been dating ever since. High school sweethearts. You do not see that anymore. That almost never happens where if you go back 30, 40 years, it was a fairly common phenomenon that people would marry their high school sweethearts. Part of why I'm so grateful for our relationship-- Obviously, we are a weird scenario in many ways. We've done long distance for long periods of time. There were many things that conspired against us.
[00:32:31] The fact that we have been able to grow together across different seasons of our life, that we have been able to grow through these different struggles, ups and downs, changes, things that we've had to endure, has made us so much stronger for where we are today. And in all areas of life, that rule applies. It's like, the willingness to actually go and sit in the mud, whether it's with your relationships, with your health, with all of these different things. Actually, sitting through those periods of darkness is what enables you to thrive whenever the sun comes back out on the other side.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:33:01] Yeah, I couldn't agree more. To me, I think it's such a beautiful thing that you guys met at such a young age and evolved together. Oftentimes, what happens is that people don't grow together, they grow apart. But I think it's a beautiful indicator that you can meet that special person at a very young age. That is possible. It may not be as common, but I think it's certainly intriguing.
[00:33:25] Now, one thing that really stood out to me as I was going through your book was issues surrounding loneliness. I think that I'm certainly seeing glimpses of this in family members as they're getting older. Loneliness is not benign. Actually, the research suggests that loneliness is as bad, if not worse than tobacco use. Just to give people some perspective, it can be as pervasive, destructive, etc., And so, I find as we're dancing around these different topics, loneliness can occur in any time or age range. But I think that we are dealing with unprecedented levels of loneliness diffusely throughout the age groups. It is not unique to just retired elderly people. It is unique to every age group. I think is quite pervasive and concerning.
Sahil Bloom: [00:34:18] I completely agree. I have experienced this in a variety of ways in my own life, in close relatives, in people that I talk to on a daily basis, young people that I mentor and coach. The closest example to my heart was my grandmother. I write about this for the first time in the book that my grandmother is the most-- was the most, unfortunately, incredible, vivacious, witty, intelligent personality. Born and raised in India. She never swam a day in her life. A very fascinating, interesting life. She was born to a royal family, actually. Then the British colonists came. They ran them out of their land. She had this very crazy- Her stories from her life are incredible.
[00:34:58] She put on and tied a sari every single day that she lived. [chuckles] She was one of the most social creatures that I've ever been around. My grandfather passed away in 2005. And every single day, from the day that he passed away until COVID hit, my grandmother had some social interaction. People would come visit her. They would bring her lunch. She had Scrabble clubs. She had friends, she would get together with them. And India is very much a culture where people stick by you. In America, I think someone passes away, for about a month, people come and they support you and they bring things, and then eventually, they've gone back to their lives. In India, it's like they almost pull you into their family. And my grandmother had that.
[00:35:42] The way that it kept her young, having this social connection was amazing to see. She was getting old. She was in her 90s, and she still would beat me and my dad in Scrabble. My dad is a Harvard professor. [Cynthia laughs] Very good vocabulary. She would beat the hell out of us in Scrabble. COVID hit, and suddenly, she had zero social connection. And 18 months went by, and it was really locked down in India. We went and saw her finally. She was nearly catatonic. I mean, she aged in the span of those 18 months, 20 years.
[00:36:12] We got there the first night she literally couldn't get out of bed, couldn't speak to us. The next night, after 24 hours with us, she was up and about. She was playing Scrabble with us. She was moving around. It was literally as though the social connection that we brought the love was life giving to her, like almost literally in real time, like we had injected her with some level of social adrenaline that created this life in her.
[00:36:34] And so when I reflect on that, looking back and then you see the science, you realize it's real. It's not like I didn't make that up in my mind. Social connection is literally life giving. Harvard Study of Adult Development tracked the lives of 2,000 plus people over the course of 85 years, they found that the single greatest predictor of physical health at age 80 was relationship satisfaction at age 50. It wasn't smoking or drinking habits. It wasn't blood pressure or cholesterol. It was how you felt about your relationships that determined how well you aged.
[00:37:05] And yet, on a daily basis, most of us don't think about investing in our social relationships, as much as we do our job or our finances or any other area of our life, when in fact, it is arguably the most important investment that you can possibly make for how your life is going to end up.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:37:23] Well, I think that it really reaffirms for so many of us. My father passed last year. My father was very introverted. And unfortunately, with the pandemic, it made him more insular, he and my stepmother. My father, it was so clear to me during the pandemic how lonely he was. My stepmother had progressive Alzheimer's and he would articulate this. And so, there was this constant interchange of, “What can we do to keep you stimulated?” “Dad, I think it's really important that even if we're having virtual Zoom calls, it's important to do that.” versus my mom during the pandemic.
[00:37:58] My parents have been divorced for a long time. Super social. But she did as much as she could, as much engaging with her neighbors as much as she could do with social distancing. She navigated things very differently than my father did. I think in many ways, there are many people out there that COVID or the pandemic itself impacted them so profoundly, psychologically that they never recovered. I think it contributed to a lot of the issues that my dad had at the end of his life.
[00:38:29] But in many ways, the more I understand as a clinician the concept and the impact of loneliness. As you appropriately stated, at the age of 50, and this is something I was parroting to my husband last night, I was like, “Oh, hey, this is important. This is why you doing social stuff with your guy friends and me doing things with my girlfriends and doing things as couples, so important.” Even when we're at a stage of life where we’re not-- Our kids aren't playing flag football every weekend. They're not doing soccer.
[00:39:00] My older son plays lacrosse in college and played throughout high school. My younger son is at a high school where there aren't as many teams’ sports, and so he's struggled a little bit with that connection with his peers. But nonetheless, a lot of these things that require us to socialize with peers or outside of just our nuclear family. It's important throughout our lifetime to make sure that we're still engaging with others. I think it's very easy, especially for those of us introverts, to convince ourselves it's not important, but it is, in fact, vitally important.
Sahil Bloom: [00:39:31] Yeah. I think the point around introverts is an interesting one, because there's a tendency to say, “Well, I'm introverted. So, this is different for me.” The reality, is that loneliness is just different for different types of people, but it is just as pervasive. You can feel lonely in a crowded room surrounded by tons of people. You can feel lonely by yourself, sitting on the couch at home. It's just a matter of feeling like you have someone you can call in the middle of the night.
[00:39:59] I have always thought that-- I think it was Dr. Robert Waldinger, the Harvard Study of Adult Development director, who talks about that in his book, The Good Life, that “Real loneliness is feeling like you have no one you can call when things are tough, when you're down and out, people that don't understand you.” I have experienced that in my own life. When I was living my past life, like working in finance, chasing all of these things, convincing myself that they were going to one day make me happy, there were points in my time on that trajectory where I had a lot of friends, but I felt very lonely, because I was hiding so much of myself from the world. The reality of who I was and how I felt, I was not able to open up to enough people about the vulnerable side of that. And that is real loneliness.
[00:40:42] Feeling like you can't expose who you truly are to people, that you're playing a role rather than truly being authentic. And that's a really sad thing. Even now, when I think about—Yesterday, I was at Harvard Business School. I was doing an event with Arthur Brooks, who we talked about earlier. A young woman came up to me after the event. We were chatting. She was telling me how difficult she feels it is to create those deep, close relationships now. She's in her mid-20s. I said, why? And she said, “Well, everyone's already taken. Everyone already has their close friends and I just don't have mine.”
[00:41:16] And I told her, I said, I think there's a self-limiting belief there that is just fundamentally not true, because so many people are feeling that same level of loneliness that you are. Those people are out there, but you're convincing yourself that everyone else is already taken, they already have their close friends locked up, and so they're not looking for more. It couldn't be further from the truth. Everyone is experiencing this in some way, shape or form in this world where so much of our lives has been consumed by technology. We're all looking for that real human textured interaction that we feel like we're lacking.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:41:47] I do think those limiting beliefs about friendship. I've had women say to me, “Oh, it was so easy in high school. It was so easy in college.” And then, I graduate from college and it's so much harder to make friends. Or, the community that I used to live in, I would have women-- They would very kindly, they would share like, “I'm really struggling to make friends. I'm trying to make friends with the parents whose kids are doing the same sports, or they're in the same classroom.” I used to always tell them, “We have different types of friends throughout our lifetime.” There are those I can call you in the middle of the night friendships. I'm grateful that I have several women that I've had friendships throughout my lifetime that I could call in the middle of the night.
[00:42:30] And then, you just have those pleasant friendships. People you show up at a classroom event and you enjoy spending time together for those, hour or so, you don't necessarily need to do things beyond that circumspect. But I think for a lot of individuals, it's defining like, what is friendship represent? Because there are different types of friendships. There are temporary friendships. That's one thing I've had a lot of girlfriends at my stage of life that say, “I feel like I've outgrown some friendships or I feel like I had a friendship divorce. No one talks about how hard these are. When you've been friends for a long time and then seemingly nothing bad has happened, and someone no longer wants to be your friend.”
[00:43:07] And so, I think for so many of us, it's with the understanding that we can make and maintain friendships throughout our lifetime, but it's important that we're continuing to put ourselves out there, that we're not, per se, negating the possibility that at any one point in our lives that we can make new friends or foster friendship.
Sahil Bloom: [00:43:26] Yeah, your life has seasons. That concept of seasons is very much interwoven throughout the entire book. That applies to your relationships in a very real way. I mean, there will be a season of your life when a relationship that you never expected blooms into some incredible, deep, close relationship.
[00:43:42] I write about that in the book in the context of my sister and my relationship. My sister and I had a competitive resentful relationship almost for many years of our lives. By the time I was 30, we were almost not talking. Not out of outright, anger towards each other, but almost just ambivalence. I don't even know how to describe it. It was just not a relationship that was cultivated.
[00:44:04] We were always far enough apart. We were always competitive. We were never in the same stage of life. It was mostly created by my own insecurity that I wasn't living up to the things that I felt she was capable of in doing. It created this real tension. After my son was born, it was this one moment that changed all of it. I remember, all of our families came down for when we brought our son home from the hospital, and we took this picture where I'm holding my son newborn. My sister is holding her son, who is a year older. And the two of us are in this picture. I looked over at her, and it was like I saw her for the first time. It was truly like this magical, incredible moment.
[00:44:43] For the first time in my life, there was no longer this veil of competitiveness and all of these random emotions. I could just see my sister. It was like we were meeting for the first time. My sister and my relationship since that point has been this incredible blossoming thing. It was a reminder to me of that fact that sometimes you are going to have a relationship that just comes out of nowhere, and surprises you and is so beautiful and deep in a new season of life for no reason that you ever would have expected. But allowing yourself to be open to that, understanding that when that comes is the important point.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:45:19] What is the age difference between you and your sister?
Sahil Bloom: [00:45:21] Four years in school, three and half in age. That was important, because we were never in the same stage of life. I was in middle school when she was in high school. I was in high school when she was in college. I was in college when she was working. And so, there was never enough in common for us to really interact around that.
[00:45:39] I come from a really academic family. My dad's a professor at Harvard, my mom is Indian. Very academically [chuckles] oriented culture. My sister was very high achieving academically. From a young age, I started telling myself this story that I wasn't as smart as her. I wasn't smart. She was the smart one. It bred in me this feeling of resentment towards her that she was achieving the things that I couldn't.
[00:46:01] It was totally false. It was just not true. But I created this sentiment around that insecurity. And then, she resented me, because she thought that my parents took it too easy on me and didn't push me in the same way they pushed her. And so, we had this weird tension and relationship that has just been totally scrubbed away. It makes me so happy now thinking about it, because you're sibling, that's like your real day one, right? That person is the one person your whole life that you see from start to finish. And to have a close relationship with that person that you're truly going to be able to see all the ups and downs with is a really special thing.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:46:35] No, it reminds me of my own relationship with my brother. We are four and a half years apart. We were always at different stages. I've always had a good relationship with him, but my dad getting sick this past year brought us so close together, because there was so much that went on in terms of his injuries, and ultimately being in hospice and then taking care of my stepmother. I remember saying to someone, that 2024 was a particularly challenging year for a variety of reasons. And I said, but you know what? When I look back and reflect the gift that we received, the two of us, was that I have never felt closer to him than I do now.
[00:47:16] He was the one person I didn't have to explain how I felt. We understand the dynamics between our biological parents, our stepparents, and everything in between. But I think for so many of us, it's like with that understanding that perhaps the gift of 2024, given all the sad things that happened, was that I walked away saying to my brother, “I've never felt closer. I've never felt more supported. You're the one person who really understood all the dynamics.” And yet, we navigated it beautifully. Maybe that's the gift of that remaining open minded to the possibility that relationships can change in beautiful ways. Not just in negative ways.
Sahil Bloom: [00:47:56] Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. It's a good reminder that through those periods of darkness, the seeds of light are being sown. One of my favorite ideas is this quote from the ancient poet Rumi who said, “The wound is where the light enters you.” It relates to this ancient Indian concept of Kalachakra, which is that life and time follows this natural cycle of creation, destruction and then rebirth. During all of those periods of destruction, that is actually when the seeds of that rebirth are being sown, if you open yourself up to them.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:48:32] Yeah. It's one of those things that I say all the time. It's like these blessings, these underlying blessings and otherwise challenging times.
[00:48:40] I'd love to end the conversation today talking about this sense of purpose and why curiosity is so important. It really is a focus you have these five pillars. But to me, it's something that really stood out, talking about the value of curiosity, why our sense of purpose can be tied into that and why a sense of curiosity is something that should not be just innately part of childhood. It should be part of our entire trajectory of our lives.
Sahil Bloom: [00:49:10] I really think of curiosity as the fountain of youth. I think that you get old when you allow your curiosity to wither. It is very much part of your default setting as a human. We forget that, and we lose sight of the fact that it requires space. You actually need space in your life to engage with your curiosity. Curiosity is what allows you to uncover your purpose across these different phases of your life, across these different seasons. Because your purpose is fundamentally dynamic. You don't necessarily have a single purpose that runs the through line of your whole life. That's not reality. Your purpose changes. It's dynamic, just like your identity is.
[00:49:46] And allowing yourself the space to pursue curiosity for no end in mind, just to pursue things for the sake of pursuing them, is what allows you to uncover what that changing purpose is as your life changes. It is literally life giving to you along that journey. And so, creating that space in your life to pursue curiosity, to go down those rabbit holes, to be pulled into the things that are energizing for you, really will change your life.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:50:12] If there were one strategy or technique that you yourself embrace in terms of fostering curiosity, what would be one thing that you would like to leave with listeners?
Sahil Bloom: [00:50:23] Adopt a monthly think day process. I, on a monthly basis, try to capture an hour, two hours, if you can get it, four hours, where you're just going to zoom out from your normal day to day responsibilities. Go to a coffee shop, go outside, go somewhere out of the norm and just think on some of the bigger picture questions in your life. In the book, I have eight question prompts that a starting point for you. But really just zoom out and allow your mind to wander, allow yourself to think. That, as a spark, is a good way to structure this into your day, into your months. That can be a catalyst for a whole lot of growth on the other side.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:51:00] I certainly love that. Now, I know that we could have spoken for hours. Thank you again for your time today. Please let listeners know how to connect with you, how to purchase your book, how to learn more about your work. I highly encourage listeners to go follow Sahil. I've been following you for a long time. There's always sage, sound, reasonable advice and really thought provoking.
Sahil Bloom: [00:51:23] Well, you can find the book anywhere books are sold. So grateful for the support. I think you are going to love it. I think it's going to encourage you to ask certain questions that you've probably been avoiding in your life that are going to spark new growth on the other side. And you could find me, @sahilbloom on any major platform. And you can find more on the book at the5typesofwealth.com.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:51:41] Thank you again.
Sahil Bloom: [00:51:42] Thank you.
[music]
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:51:45] If you love this podcast episode, please leave a rating and review. Subscribe and tell a friend.
コメント