The Life Razor: Cut Through What Doesn’t Matter

Wes Reed continues his series on The Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom, diving deep into Chapter 4: The Life Razor. Building on the five categories of wealth Time, Social, Mental, Physical, and Financial Wes explores how a single, carefully crafted sentence can become the most powerful decision-making tool in your life and practice. From the cockpit of Apollo 13 to Netflix’s boardrooms, to a late afternoon assembling a hydraulic bed with his son, this episode delivers a framework that is equal parts philosophical and practical.

What You’ll Learn

• Why your net worth number alone doesn’t define true wealth and what fills the gap
• The philosophical concept of a “razor” and how it applies to your personal life
• The 3 non-negotiable traits of a powerful life razor: controllable, ripple-creating, and identity-defining
• How Marc Randolph (co-founder & first CEO of Netflix) used a five-word rule to protect his marriage through startup chaos
• A step-by-step process to discover and draft your own life razor
• Wes’s personal life razor and the touching story behind it

Transcript:

Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Dental Boardroom Podcast. It's your host, Wes Reed, and I am carrying on today the series on the book called The Five Types of Wealth. This was a book that significantly moved me, and I'm happy to report that I Got back from my trip with my dad, which was a 10-day trip back east to Washington, DC, and a road trip up to Gettysburg, and then on to West, uh, Point, the Army military school, and then up to New York where we visi- visited some other historical sites and just had an unbelievable, deeply connecting experience with my dad.

And if you recall and listened to some of my earlier episodes on this book... Right now, today, we're gonna cover chapter four. My previous episodes, I covered chapter one and two. And the book started off by him, and this is just a reiteration if you haven't heard those episodes, where he meets with an old friend.

And the old friend, they start asking, "How are you doing?" And his old friend says, "I've changed my life to put the things that matter first." And then he proceeded to ask the author of this book, named Sahil Bloom, how he's doing, and he was gonna give the normal answer. "Oh, I'm busy. I'm building my career."

And that sense of being busy is sort of like a badge of honor. And after that conversation, he become deeply reflective about really what does he wanna claim as a badge of honor in how he's doing, his state of existence. And it put him into a deeply pensive, reflective experience from which he decided to revamp his life and identify what he was going after.

What would create happiness for him? And ultimately, what is the true definition of wealth? As you know, I'm a financial planner. I'm a CFP, uh, as well as a CPA. And here at Practice CFO, everything we're doing, everything we're driving, is to try to create a life where finances enable wealth and happiness, or financial independence.

Too often, however, we narrowly define the term wealth into being a single number. What is your net worth? And while true that your net worth is the primary indicator of readiness to be able to live without working, without showing up in the office and fixing teeth and managing your business, your net worth, which is the size of your assets less your liabilities, in other words, the things that you own less what you owe equals the difference, known as your net worth.

That is what provides income, known as passive income. Dividends, interest, capital gains, rental income, other forms of income that produce money even when you're sleeping. We all aspire to that point, not because we don't want to work. Work gives us a significant identity of who we are. It gives us a daily purpose.

It gives us an outlet to provide meaning in the world and solve solutions for people who come to us for those solutions. It is hugely important to the way that we perceive our own selves. However And this is something that the author emphasizes, and increasingly my team here at Practice CFO, my advisors and I are emphasizing to our clients that when you get to that magic number, that pile of cash or that pile of investments that allows you to step away from the operatory and still maintain your lifes- your lifestyle, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are suddenly going to be happy.

In my last episode, I talked about the arrival fallacy, which is the fallacy that once you arrive at a given place, then you're gonna be happy. We are all incredibly subject or prone to that fallacy. I look back on my history, and there's many corners that I turned, and I thought once I turned that corner, I would settle down here or work less there, only to find that I was ramping up even more.

Without intentionality, we will find ourselves in a constant vortex of trying to arrive. The arrival fallacy is real, and I love this book, The Five Types of Wealth from Sahil Bloom, because it dramatically is expanding my definition of what wealth is, almost creating a corollary between wealth and happiness.

Statis- stats show, research continually shows that while a certain amount of wealth, a certain amount of money will provide increasing levels of happiness, once you get to a certain point, the incremental increase in that happiness from an incremental increase in wealth doesn't necessarily correlate.

Meaning one more dollar of income or wealth doesn't necessarily produce o- one more equivalent unit of happiness. In fact, if we're not careful, increasing wealth after a certain point leads to not only a declining marginal increase in happiness, but actually could be A reduction in happiness. That's where money can get dangerous.

It is, it is a double-edged sword, and if we are not intentional about it, it can end up derailing the very thing that we're pursuing to make us happy. It can eclipse the goals, the deeper relationships, the meaning, the purpose, your faith, your religion, your spirituality, your r- your, your, your relationship with your spouse and your kids, those family trips, those hobbies y- you have, those things that just give you significant amounts of meaning and enjoyment, if we're not careful, our relentless pursuit of that one thing known as financial success can ultimately prevent us from achieving those more comprehensive, deeper things in our life that create happiness.

So in this episode, we're gonna talk about chapter four. Chapter three, I'm sort of skipping over chapter three for those of you that got the book. Chapter three is just an activity where it, it takes each of the five categories of wealth and gives you a half a dozen questions or so to help you measure how wealthy are you in each of these areas.

And just to reiterate, the five categories of wealth as the author defines them is time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, physical wealth, and financial wealth And as you know, that last one, financial wealth, is the one that gets measured, and things that get measured tend to get attention. They get managed, as we all know.

The other areas don't get measured in the same way. Now, physical wealth tends to be measured. We might have a, um, something on our wrist or an Oura Ring or something that feeds to our phone and just tracks steps. It tracks cardio. It tracks calories burned. It tracks sleeping. It tracks other things like that, or maybe a, a calorie counter.

That's great. That one, I would say, is the one that gets measured the second most after financial wealth. Maybe for some people, that's the one that gets me- m- measured the most. But mental wealth, social wealth, time wealth, how are we intentionally measure the-- measuring those elements of wealth? Well, chapter three has you complete maybe a 10 to 15-minute exercise answering questions, adding up a score, and then telling you where do you stand in each of those, and it gives you a good X-ray, a good starting point to realize where you are deficient in one and strong in the other.

Now, life has its seasons, and naturally, you're going to be stronger in some of these and weaker in others in a given season, which could flip later in a different season. But the goal here is to be able to move through your life and ultimately look back and say, "My we- wealth score was comprehensive, and that comprehensiveness about the way that I approached those things that I truly consider wealth, that make me happy, I was successful at."

So let's launch into chapter four. And chapter four tries to distill down so much of the commotion of life, so many of the data points, the variables, the, the activities, the calendaring, the relationships, the goals, so much of this thing in life that's coming at us every day. It tries to distill it down to something very simple, something very simple.

And the chapter is called The Life Razor. Now, many of you have probably never heard of the term razor other than something that you can shave with or cut something with. This is a different definition, razor. Razor is a philosophical term or a term that came out of the philosophers that is a one-sentence filter for hard decisions.

Now, before I kick off on this, I just wanna ... I, I, I wanna go over the, the analogy that it uses from a movie that almost every one of us is very familiar with, and that is Apollo 13. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see on my screen we've got Tom Hanks here, and Tom Hanks is representing, uh, Jim Lovell in the movie.

This is a famous movie, as we all know, from Ro- Ron Howard, 1995. This is the third, uh, mission from NASA to put humans on the moon again. It launches April 11th, 1970, John F. Kennedy Space Center in, um, in Florida, and it was meant to be that third landing, and it was going to be a, a, an experience, but it was derailed just three days into the mission.

And there was this, uh, short circuit, and it led to this oxygen tank explosion that critically impaired the ship's ability to complete that round trip back to Earth. And these three astronauts, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert, were forced to use a tiny lunar lander as a makeshift space boat, where they had to live in this darn thing, near freezing, for, uh, multiple days at a time as they tried to maneuver their way back to Earth.

And they were told by the mission operators back in Florida that achieving the appropriate angle ... Actually, I think it was Texas, the famous, "Houston, we have a problem." So it launched from Florida, but the o- mission operators were in Texas. And the mission operators said, um, they had to be really strategic here because they had very, very little energy yet, uh, left to control the direction of this very small element of the spacecraft that they were in.

And they s- they told Jim Lovell, they said, "If you come in too shallow-" that the ship may skip off like a space, uh, sk- skip off into space like a rocket off, like a rock off a pond. I'm gonna read here this section. Or if you come in too steep, and the ship will ignite like a piece of dry kindling in a fire.

So to avoid these fates, they have to burn the engines and execute a corrective measure to get themself onto the optimal course and ensure their survival. The problem is, given this impaired state of the ship, this correction couldn't be done with their computer equipment on board. It had to be done manual.

And so in a moment of chaos, Jim Lovell, he proposed a solution. He goes, "Hey, look, Houston, all we need to hold fast is we need an altitude in one fixed point in space. Is this not correct?" He asked them. And he receives a quick affirmative reply from the mission command center. "Yep, that is the case." So holding the controls and peering out a small triangular window to his left, Lovell slows move, slowly moves the spaceship and then a fam- and then a familiar blue planet comes into view.

And this is his famous line where he says, "Well, Houston, we've got one." And he's staring intently at the Earth in the center of the small triangle. And he says, "If we can keep the Earth in the window, fly manually the quack's crosshairs right on its terminator, all I have to know is how long do we need to burn the engine?"

The bold strategy works. The astronauts execute the daring burn, and they splash down in a safe landing. It was one of the historic final scenes of survival and triumph that wowed audiences around the world. The real insight in this, however, as it relates here to the book and to this story, is, has everything to do With the Earth and that tiny triangular window.

Now I wanna get back to this concept of a razor. So in the study of philosophy, the term razor denotes any principle that allows you to quickly remove unlikely explanations or avoid unnecessary steps. It allows you to metaphorically shave away unneeded explanations or actions. Today, it's sort of like a rule of thumb, but one we've heard often, and if you haven't, I think this is a term that you'll want to remember.

I think about this one a lot. I mean, it is literally probably twice a week that I think about this particular type of term, uh, razor called Occam's razor, as I think through decision-making, both in my personal life and my professional life. And Occam's razor is this. Again, many of you I know have heard this, but here's the formal explanation of it.

So it's named for the 14th century philosopher William of Ockham, and it states that when weighing explanations for something, the one with the fewest necessary assumptions is generally the correct one. The simplest explanation is the best one. Simple is beautiful. So we often hear it just stated, "The simplest answer is usually the best answer."

But I think the better way to think of that is the answer with the fewest assumptions embedded into arriving at that answer is typically going to be the right one. Think about your systems in your office. Think about workflow. Think about the steps of a given process. The fewer steps, the easier it is to implement and get adoption.

The more complicated it is, the more people get lost in the weeds of trying to accomplish that thing. However, if you get too few steps, then it can break down, and you never get to the other side. And so you wanna remove assumptions, remove as much detail or unnecessary complexity to the point where you still have accuracy without breaking the accuracy.

Because if you go past that distilled version even more, then you may start to lose accuracy and outcome. So finding that, that sweet spot, that equilibrium between detail and simplicity to have the most effective output is the concept of Occam's razor. There's others, Hanlon's razor, Hitchen's razors. I'm not gonna explain all of those, but all of them are driving to this concept that a razor is a one-sentence identity anchored rule that decides for you when life gets noisy.

So again, if you're looking at my YouTube screen, you can see it up there, and this is the way philosophers were constantly trying to distill a key concept about the way to think, the way to, to analytically use your brain in a complicated subject in a way that it's simple to understand, digest, and implement.

So again, it is a one-sentence identity-anchored rule that decides for you when life gets noisy. It's not a goal. It's not a value. It is a present tense identity statement that runs in the background of every hard call. Let me give you a few examples, and in a bit, I'm gonna share with you what I came up with when I read the book a few months back as my razor.

Now, I'm not gonna call it just a razor. I'm gonna call this a life razor, not Occam's razor, not Hanlon's razor, not Hitchens' razor. Those were all philosophers. This is, this is Wes's razor. This is, this is a life razor. Here's a few examples. I am a present father I am the calmest person in every room I enter.

I run a practice that serves my life, not the other way around. Those are three distinct razors. Now, you may hear me and say, "Well, Wes, this is overly simplistic. Wes, this isn't that helpful." I want you to just hear me out a little bit more in understanding how this one simple sentence actually has a significant more impact and purpose in why you would develop this in your life.

So let me, let me, uh, share with you a, a few more comments about this. The reason why a life razor becomes so valuable for us is that inevitably we're gonna encounter opportunities, chaos, challenge, and complexities that are going to test us. So a few examples. A shiny new job that tempts you or a new maybe offer for, for another dental practice down the street or going to that DSO level or buying that new equipment or hiring this or trying to invest in that.

A shiny new job, and this, this is from the book, so it's a little non-dental specific, but a shiny new job that tempts you to leave the company you love. Here, again, if I apply this to a dental office, it might be a shiny new office down the street so you can say that you've got two offices or three offices.

Another, the death of a family member or a dear friend. A job loss that takes your financial situation from good to bad. Think about when COVID hit and what that did to dental practices as well. What if a, a, a, a very successful DSO opens up down the street and knows how to market incredibly well? Maybe you lost an office manager that's been with you for twenty years.

There are so many things here that are these complexities that emerge in our life and test us. Another one, health problems that affect those closest to you, relationship struggles and someone who once felt like your rock. A critical decision that feels too heavy and difficult to make. What do we need to navigate those is we need sort of a North Star, a life razor.

So let me give you an example. In the book, this is on page thirty-seven. It's called Never Miss a Tuesday Dinner. And in January 2023, right now it is May 2026, a few years ago, um, there was a guy named Marc Randolph, and he was one of the co-founders and first CEOs of the streaming pioneer Netflix. And he posted, um, something online.

It was a handwritten note with the caption that said, quote, "My definition of success," quote. And in this post, Mark Randolph described a weekly non-negotiable ritual that he had maintained throughout his ultra-successful technology career. "For over 30 years," he says, "I have had a hard cutoff on Tuesdays.

Rain or shine, doesn't matter. I left at exactly 5:00 PM, and I spent the evening with my wife. We would go to a movie, have a dinner, or just go window shopping downtown together So the author of the book, Sahil Bloom, spoke with Randolph a few months later, and he asked about the origin of that Tuesday dinner rule, and it's important and why it's so important to his life.

And he said early in his career, he was just working 80 hours a week. It was a startup. It was insane. And he goes, when his relationship with his wife began to suffer, Randolph said, "I realized that I was the problem because I was expecting her to take the leftovers of what I was able to offer, and that felt wrong to me."

So rather than ignoring the problem or expecting it to solve itself, he took matters into his own hand. And everything c- um... He goes, "Everything comes from what you put first. Everything comes from what you put first. I needed to reprioritize my allocation of time." And that's when he established this rule with his wife that no matter what, doesn't matter what was happening Wednesday morning, on Tuesday at 5:00, he left the office, and he spent that time with his wife.

But the Tuesday dinner rule wasn't about the dinner. I mean, not really. It was about the symbolism, a ripple effect into every other area of his life, he says. And he goes, "The ritual illustrated to me and everyone around me, my family, my partners, my employees, my friends, this illustrated to all of them what my priorities were."

And he goes, "I resolved a long time ago not to be the o- not to be one of those entrepreneurs who constantly went through startups, relationships, wives, et cetera." He was going to prioritize his relationship first. That became his own life razor. I will never miss a Tuesday dinner. Think about how simple and short that phrase is, but think about the connotation surrounding it, the second-order effect, the third-order effects, about the identity of who he is and what he places at a, as a priority above other things.

And I believe that when you actually do that and your personal life is good, this more comprehensive identity of wealth in your life is intact, guess what? You're probably more productive at work because the train is on the rails outside of work. We all know that if the train gets off the rails outside of work, it becomes a massive distraction in our work, in your practice, because you gotta show up every day with a tank full of energy, optimism.

You gotta show up believin' that you can do it, that your team can do it, being bullish on what you're accomplishing as a practice And if your personal life is not in order, then that becomes unbelievably difficult to maintain. So there is a boomerang effect, this, this return by organizing your personal life and this broader definition of wealth in that different categories, these different categories of wealth affect each other.

They're interrelated. There's a ripple effect across them. So that's what I wanna emphasize now is what are the three key traits of a life raiser, of this sentence? And it's not just about the sentence that you come up with, it's actually far more about the process of thinking through your life and your identity, prioritizing what matters, and then arriving at that sentence that reflects all of that thinking into a single simple sentence.

So when you say that or you think of it, all those other thoughts, all that life planning, all that idea creating around who you are, all easily flows into your mind when you make that life raiser sentence out loud or in your mind So here's the first characteristic. Number one, it is controllable. It is controllable.

I-- And I'm gonna just read a couple sections from the book here. Uh, it is controllable in that I am in control... Well, let me first give you the example he, he says here. He goes, "To bring this to life, let's look an example from my own life." So this is the author, Sahil Bloom, and he made his life razor the following: "I will coach my son's sport team."

Think about that. That is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven words. "I will coach my son's sports team." And it has these three characteristics. Number one, it is controllable. Number two, it is ripple-creating. And number three, it is identity-defining. So how is it controllable? Well, he says, "I am in control of making the time to coach my son's sports team.

I can take the actions necessary to have freedom to participate in these activities and to be the type of father who he is excited to have around him as a coach." It's ripple-creating. He says, "By taking these actions and making this commitment, I will show my son the value I place on our relationship.

He will feel empowered by my support. My wife will see the dedication to our son and family and strengthen her dedication to us. My team and business partners will see my family priorities and feel encouraged to establish their own personal priorities, which will make them focused and loyal." Lastly, number three, it is identity-defining.

"I am the type of person who coaches my son's sports teams. This person is present, connected to his family and community, committed to his purpose as a father and husband. He takes care of himself and others and declines opportunities that may infringe upon freedom or jeopardize reputation." So now, when new challenges appear for the author, he uses that life razor to navigate that situation.

For example, he says an interesting professional opportunity arises. It means more money and prestige, but it requires more travel and time away for the next two years. I pause and ask myself, and this is where the one simple seven-word sentence takes on second, third and fourth order effects by thinking about the ripple element of it.

He says, "What would the type of person who coaches his son's sports teams do here?" The answer? He would be committed to prioritizing his most important relationships over additional money or prestige. This helps me think through the trade-offs on time and freedom, so I can either adjust the opportunity to fit my life or turn it down.

Here's another example. A challenging family situation arises. It would be easy to ignore or outsource the struggle. I ask myself, "How would the type of person who coaches his son's sports team step up here?" The answer, he would confront the struggle, face it head-on, and stand as a pillar of strength for his loved ones.

This helped me clarify my response and encourage resilience in our family unit. And lastly, I'll do one more. A potential life-changing financial opportunity arises, but it carries reputational risk. I might be tempted by the money, but I know that the type of person who coaches his son's sports team would never jeopardize his son's respect and admiration for money.

I pass up on the opportunity. The simple statement, "I will coach my son's sports team," becomes a dynamic defining rule for life, my life razor. And then he says, "It's time to define your life razor." What is it? Well, here's a few examples of various people just to create some context for you to think through.

A mid-40s investment professional has a life razor. I wake up early and do hard things. A mid-30s stay-at-home mother has her life razor. I always tr-- I always tuck my kids into bed. A mid-20s consultant has a life razor. I never let a friend cry alone. A mid-30s entrepreneur has a life razor. I never miss a recital Mid-60s retiree, has a life raiser.

I do one good deed each day. In each of these examples, the single statement life raiser becomes a broad identifying rule for life that covers the entire range of traits and actions, and it's easy to see the identity the rule shapes, how it can be used to clarify the approach, identity-aligned response in a wide variety of life situations.

All right. So again, the three traits of a good life raiser are, one, it's controllable, two, it's ripple-creating, three, it's identity-defining, and I sh- probably should mention a fourth, but it, it almost goes without saying, it's one sentence, and it's very simple. And test every life raiser that you're modeling in your mind against those characteristics.

All right. So as you go through this, look back. Look back on your life and reflect on what in your life was something that you felt gave you significant meaning and purpose. What event, what interaction with somebody important in your life, something that was maybe an inflection point in how you viewed yourself, or something that you knew impacted others and gave you a deep sense of purpose?

So look back. Maybe open your well score from chapter three if you have the book, and think through all those thoughts you had when you completed that, that test. Find the gap. What are you missing? Then look forward and imagine yourself five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now. Like I said in my prior episode, write your obituary.

Go down to, um, a cemetery. Think deeply about your life. What in life, if lost, regardless of the financial rewards and success you have, what other elements of success, if they were lost, would overshadow that financial success that you gained? So step one, look back. Step two, look forward. Then write it.

Draft as a present tense identifying statement. You could write 10 pages for all I care. Maybe that's a good idea. Brain dump. Get everything down, and then synthesize. Maybe throw it in AI just to write a summary. Then put the AI away. Think... And maybe I even take that back. Throw AI out of this thing. This should be a fully owned- thing, activity that your brain goes through that experience in arriving at this.

Don't let anything else dictate what this is for you. Draft that present tense identity statement, then test it. Run it against the three traits. Is it controllable? Is it ripple creating? In that if you do that one thing, it will actually impact the other categories of your wealth. Does it cover multiple areas of your wealth from time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, physical wealth, financial wealth?

And then iterate on that. Here's another one for a dentist. "I'm the dentist my patients trusts." I- sorry. "I am the dentist that my patients trust and the parent that my kids actually know." I think that's a fantastic one. Okay, let me go ahead and just end off by sharing with you mine. I wrote down a number of things that I wanna be accomplished with my, with my work.

I wanna feel a deep sense of purpose, that I'm making an impact in the life of my clients, in the life of my team, in the life of my family and friends I thought through who I want to develop, uh, in time as a person, the types of characteristics I want. And for me, looking back and looking forward in my life, I realized that the moments when I feel my identity was the most fulfilled, the most happy, the most connected, was always involving people that I cared about.

For example, when I was 14, my dad and my two older brothers, we took a, about an 80-mile hike through the, through the, the, the, the Sierra Nevadas, ultimately came up the backside of Mount Whitney and down the other side. And the memories I have of what was, at times, felt like a miserable experience doing that.

I had one of those external backpacks where everything hung off the side, and it was like I was like an orchestra walking on that trail with the pa- pots and pans and cups. But I look back on that with so much affection toward that experience, toward my, my dad and my two brothers, and that was so defining for me.

Well, the one that ultimately I came up with, this was about a year ago. My son was, uh, going to Santa Barbara, California, where he was starting school, um, at UCSB, and we got him, uh, some, some items for his bedroom, and one of them was a modestly inexpensive hydraulic bed. It was a very small room, very little area to store things.

He had surfboards. He had a number of things. And we decided that we wanted a hydraulic bed that could easily lift up and be used as a storage unit underneath the bed. So we bought the hydraulic bed. It came in a big box. We pull it out, it was 1,000 pieces, and it was missing one thing: the instructions. I don't know about you, but have you ever tried to put together an IKEA dresser set or a bed or even a simple nightstand without instructions?

Maybe if you're a handyman, that stuff comes to you naturally. I'm better with spreadsheets and numbers and software. Fix a door hinge, I'm gonna call TaskRabbit or Thumbtack. I may open up a YouTube video and try, but this is not my specialty whatsoever. We didn't have the right tools, however, we were determined to figure this out.

We had everything taken out of the box, and trust me, we went through everything, and those instructions were not there. So we looked at each other and we said, "We're gonna figure this out." And you know what? I thought it'd take an hour. Ended up taking somewhere around four hours to get this darn thing built.

We had to put things apart, and then we got later into the assembly, realized that the first thing we did was the wrong screw or the wrong connection points, and we had to, we had to undo everything and then start back over. And that iteration occurred probably four or five times during that four-hour period of putting that bed together.

And how many times were my son and I incredibly frustrated at the experience of trying to do that without instructions? However, alas, we got that bed in place. There might have been a few wrong screws in the wrong place, but ultimately it worked. The hydraulics lifted and put down easily, and he had that storage unit.

Gave each other a big hug, had a dinner afterward, and I look back on that moment with my son as just a cherished moment, to be honest. It wasn't about the bed or the storage unit. It was about him and me spending time together, getting upset at the bed, having fun, laughing about it, figuring it out, and looking back and saying, "Wasn't that an experience?"

Well, you know what? Out of that, I decided this is gonna be my life razor, and here it is And again, I want you to know how this expands beyond just that moment, and even just beyond the relationship with my son. It is, I'll always be there to assemble the hydraulic bed even when there's no instructions.

And for me, the reason why that captured a lot of this is, A, it's controllable. I can show up. Instructions or not, easy or not, convenient or not, I can show up. Uh, that's totally my decision. It's on me. B, does it create a rippling effect? Does that time when I show up when somebody needs help assembling something or somebody needs help overcoming a problem or moving or dealing with a challenging relationship or anything that they wanna tap into me as support, as a friend, as a family member, I think about it.

I think about that time I'm gonna ha- have with them, the memory built. I'm gonna think about feeling more closely with somebody and the improvement or the nice addition, that little drop of mental improvement. Uh, I'm gonna think about how, yeah, finances may need to take a second seat there. I'm sure if I use that two, three hours, whatever it is that's needed to go and do a sales call or to drum up another speaking opportunity or even to do another podcast episode, that all of those are second to showing up and being there with that key relationship in a moment of need.

It expands therefore into each of these wealth categories and does have that ripple-creating effect. And lastly, it's identify- it's identity defining. It sort of describes who I am, that even when it's inconvenient, I'm gonna show up, and that matters a lot to me. I wanna be able to look back in life and say, "I showed up.

I was present. Maybe I didn't build it exactly right, maybe it took me too long, maybe I was a bit clumsy, but I showed up, I put my heart into it, and I gave people of who I am." We can give of our money. That's great. We can give of our time. That's valuable. But w- when we give of ourselves, we're truly making the deepest impact in the lives of those around us and our own lives as well.

That is chapter four of the book, The Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom, encouraging all y'all to go get the book. Again, super cheap on Amazon or wherever you get your books. You could listen to it online. I do think this is the type of book, reading it, staring at the words on the page, doing the activities would be unbelievably valuable for you as you design and implement what is a great life well lived.

Until next time, everybody, in which we are gonna cover your true north, climbing the right mountain. Stay tuned. More great chapters in this book.