How to Master Your Mental, Physical, and Financial Wealth

Hi there,

What’s the Story?

Last week, we kicked off The Five Types of Wealth series, covering time and relationships. This week, we’re finishing strong with the other three: mental wealth, physical wealth, and financial wealth. These three form the foundation that supports everything else.

Sahil Bloom’s book is a super way to start the year, and I’m excited to walk you through the rest of his framework.

To learn more, check out this week’s Changing Minds Podcast episode – you can watch it here.

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How to Build Real Wealth in Your Life

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes 46 seconds

Last week, we explored time wealth and social wealth. How you manage your hours and who you spend them with.

Today we’re tackling the other three types: mental, physical, and financial.

These three get talked about constantly. Everyone has an opinion on mindset, fitness, and money. But Sahil Bloom brings a fresh perspective that cuts through the noise.

He gives you frameworks for understanding how these three types of wealth interact and support each other.

By the end of this article, you’ll understand exactly what you need to focus on to build genuine wealth in all three areas.

Let’s start with the one that determines everything else.

Mental Wealth: The Foundation of Everything

Sahil opens this section with a question that stops you in your tracks:

What would your 10-year-old self say to you today?

Take a minute with that one. Seriously.

This question forces you to reckon with something deeper than accomplishments. Are you happy? Are you doing what matters to you? Are you living with purpose?

Mental wealth is about clarity, growth, and knowing why you’re here.

The Three Pillars of Mental Wealth

Sahil breaks mental wealth down into three elements: purpose, growth, and clarity.

Purpose means understanding what gives your life meaning. Why do you do what you do? What makes you feel alive?

Three questions matter here:

1. What do you love doing?

2. What are you naturally good at?

3. What does the world need from you?

Where those three overlap, that’s your purpose.

Your purpose just needs to be meaningful to you.

Growth is about developing yourself continuously. This is the growth mindset made famous by Carol Dweck. You’re not stuck with the abilities you have today. You can develop new skills. You can deepen your knowledge. You can become more capable.

Growth requires effort. It requires taking feedback. It requires challenging yourself and pushing through discomfort.

Clarity means knowing exactly what you’re working toward and why it matters.

Get clear on your priorities. Write them down. Define what success actually looks like for you.

Clarity comes from asking yourself the right questions. The better your questions, the clearer your path becomes.

The 1-1-1 Journaling Method

Here’s a simple technique recommended for building mental wealth daily.

Every day, journal about three things:

One Win: Something you accomplished or succeeded at today, no matter how small.

One Stress: A source of tension or pressure you need to pay attention to.

One Gratitude: Something specific you’re grateful for today.

This takes five minutes. But over time, it trains your brain to notice progress, manage challenges, and appreciate what you have.

The Feynman Technique

Richard Feynman won a Nobel Prize in physics. He was also one of the best teachers who ever lived. His learning technique is brilliant in its simplicity:

1. Choose a concept you want to understand

2. Explain it in simple terms, as if teaching someone who’s never heard of it

3. Notice where you get stuck or resort to jargon

4. Go back and refine your explanation until it’s crystal clear

When you can explain something simply, you actually understand it. When you can’t, you’ve just memorized words.

This technique forces deep understanding. Use it whenever you’re learning something important.

The Pursuit Map

Everyone tells you to follow your passion. Sahil says that’s backwards.

Instead, follow your energy.

Map your skills and activities on two axes: what you’re good at and what gives you energy.

Zone of Genius: Tasks you’re good at, that energize you. Spend as much time here as possible.

Zone of Danger: Tasks you’re good at, that drain you. These are traps. Just because you can do something well doesn’t mean you should.

Learning Zone: Tasks you’re not great at yet but that energize you. Invest in developing these.

Burnout Zone: Tasks you’re bad at that drain you. Delegate, outsource, or eliminate these.

Most people get stuck doing things they’re good at that drain them. They think, “Well, I’m good at this, so I should keep doing it.”

Wrong. Find what energizes you and build your life around that.

Physical Wealth: The Engine That Powers Everything

Sahil asks another provocative question here:

Will you be dancing at your 80th birthday party?

I’m not sure I’d dance at any birthday party. Nobody wants to see that. But the point stands.

If you have the energy, fitness, and vitality to dance when you’re 80, you’re doing something right.

Physical wealth is the foundation for everything else. You can have all the money in the world, but if you’re too sick to enjoy it, what’s the point?

The good news is that building physical wealth doesn’t require anything radical. Just consistency with the fundamentals.

The Three Pillars of Physical Wealth

Nutrition: Eat unprocessed whole foods 80-90% of the time. Prioritize protein at every meal. Aim for 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. Eat until you’re 80% full, not stuffed.

None of this is groundbreaking. But it’s not common practice either.

Movement: Here’s Sahil’s simple daily routine that anyone can do:

5 push-ups
5 squats
5 lunges
30-second plank
30-minute walk outside in daylight

That’s it. Do this every day, and you’re ahead of 90% of people.

The key is moving regularly. Not occasionally. Not when you feel like it. Every single day.

Recovery: This is the one most people ignore.

He gives some rules for better sleep:

Keep a consistent sleep schedule, even on weekends
Get morning sunlight (nod to Andrew Huberman)
Sleep in a dark, cool room
Avoid heavy meals or lots of liquids before bed
Cut caffeine at least 8 hours before sleep
Limit alcohol
Create a wind-down routine
Minimize screens and blue light at night

Nothing here is complicated. But most people violate at least half these rules every night.

Fix your sleep, and everything else gets easier.

Why Physical Wealth Matters Most

Physical wealth fuels all the other types of wealth.

You can’t focus on your work when you’re exhausted. You can’t be present with your family when you’re drained. You can’t think clearly when your body is running on fumes.

Your physical state determines your mental state. Your mental state determines your decisions. Your decisions determine your life.

Take care of your body. Everything else flows from there.

Financial Wealth: The Tool That Enables Everything Else

Let me start with the question Sahil uses to frame this section:

What is your definition of enough?

There’s a great story he shares about Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22. He’s at a party with Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt tells him the guy hosting the party makes more money in a day than Joseph has made from his book since he wrote it.

Joseph replies: “I have something he’ll never have.”

“What’s that?” Kurt asks.

“The knowledge that I have enough.”

This is the trap most people fall into. They chase money without ever defining what enough actually means.

Research shows that even millionaires think they need two or three times more money to be truly wealthy. The goalpost keeps moving.

You need to decide what enough means for you. Otherwise, you’ll chase financial wealth forever and never arrive.

The Three Pillars of Financial Wealth

Income Generation: Develop skills that allow you to add value to the marketplace.

The creator economy has opened doors that didn’t exist ten years ago. You can build multiple income streams if you’re willing to learn and adapt.

Jim Rohn used to say,

“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”

That’s the key. When you become more valuable, you naturally earn more.

Financial success is a byproduct of the value you create.

Expense Management: Keep your lifestyle from inflating faster than your income.

This is obvious but not easy. As you earn more, the temptation to spend more becomes stronger. Bigger house. Nicer car. More expensive habits.

Live within your means. Better yet, live below them.

Long-Term Investment: Move beyond trading time for money.

Find ways to make your money work for you. Build assets that compound over time. Invest in things that generate passive income.

We live in an age where AI and technology make investing more accessible than ever. Take advantage of it.

The 5 Levels of Financial Wealth

Sahil maps out a roadmap for financial progress:

Level 1: Survival. All your baseline needs are met. You can eat and live.

Level 2: Modest Pleasures. You can afford occasional vacations and restaurants.

Level 3: Accumulation. You’re saving and investing. Building assets for the future.

Level 4: Freedom. Your assets generate passive income. You have financial independence.

Level 5: Abundance. Assets reach escape velocity. You could stop working and maintain your ideal lifestyle.

Most people should aim for Level 4. That’s where financial wealth stops being about money and starts being about freedom.

The best approach is to reverse engineer your ideal lifestyle. Figure out exactly what you want. Calculate what it costs annually. Then work backwards to figure out what you need to invest to generate that passive income.

This gives you a clear target instead of just chasing “more.”

Tools That Tie Everything Together

Sahil shares several frameworks throughout the book that apply across all types of wealth. Here are my favorites:

The Wealth Scorecard: Rate yourself in all five areas: time, social, mental, physical, and financial. Look at how they interact and support each other.

Think of it like the Wheel of Life. Balance matters more than excellence in any single area.

The Life Razor: Create a one-sentence decision-making rule for this season of your life. Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph never misses Tuesday dinner. Sahil always coaches his son’s sports teams. These simple rules define who they are and what they value.

Your life razor should be:

Something you can fully control
Something that defines your identity
Something that creates a positive impact

Examples: “I wake up early and do hard things.” “I never miss my kid’s recitals.” “I never let a friend cry alone.”

What’s your one non-negotiable?

The Anti-Goal: Charlie Munger famously said, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I never go there.”

This is inversion. Define what you’re NOT willing to do in pursuit of your goals.

Example: “I want to make a million dollars this year without working seven days a week or missing my kids’ childhood.”

The anti-goal clarifies your boundaries. It prevents you from sacrificing what matters while chasing what doesn’t.

The Misogi Challenge: From Japanese tradition. Do one hard thing each year that impacts the rest of the year.

It should be something you can’t do next week, even if you wanted to. Something that requires training and preparation. Something with maybe a 50/50 chance of completion.

For me, it was running the New York Marathon a couple of years back. This year, it’s getting a New York Times bestselling book. The odds are a lot less than 50/50, but sure look… I’m going for it anyway.

What’s your misogi challenge?

Bringing It All Together

Financial wealth matters. Mental wealth matters. Physical wealth matters.

They support and reinforce each other.

When you’re physically healthy, you think more clearly. When you think clearly, you make better financial decisions. When you have financial freedom, you can invest more in your physical and mental health.

The goal isn’t to max out any single type of wealth. The goal is to build enough in each area to live the life you actually want.

Define what enough means to you in each domain. Then build toward that with intention.

Sahil’s book The Five Types of Wealth is an excellent roadmap for this journey. I highly recommend picking it up.

For a deeper conversation on all five types of wealth, check out both podcast episodes. We covered time and social wealth last week, and mental, physical, and financial wealth this week.

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