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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Sahil Bloom
Read between
February 7 - March 1, 2025
Being present and spending time with those you love is the most important thing in the end. Having the people you love see you work hard on things you care about is a principle they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.
The goal is to have the clarity to choose—to define your balance and live by design rather than by default.
An absence due to work becomes better understood and more appreciated with the benefit of context.
Always remember: The days are long, but the years are short.
Apple founder Steve Jobs put it well: “Almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.”
An old Buddhist parable echoes this sentiment. The Buddha asks his student, “If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?” The student nods yes. The Buddha asks, “If a person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?” The student again nods yes. The Buddha then explains, “In life, we cannot always control the first arrow—the bad thing that happens. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the bad thing, and that second arrow is optional.” The first arrow is the negative event that hits you—the chaos, pain, challenges, and complexity that threaten to derail you, to take
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Life is so very fragile, but no matter how fragile it is, each day we have a choice of how to live it. Each day is a fresh start, a fresh choice to make.
Your Social Wealth is built across three core pillars: Depth: Connection to a small circle of people with deep, meaningful bonds Breadth: Connection to a larger circle of people for support and belonging beyond the self, either through individual relationships or through community, religious, spiritual, or cultural infrastructure Earned status: The lasting respect, admiration, and trust of your peers that you receive on the basis of earned, not acquired, status symbols
Depth is built through three primary actions, behaviors, and attitudes: Honesty: Sharing your inner truth and weakness, listening to theirs Support: Sitting in the darkness during their struggle Shared experience: Encountering positive and negative experiences together
Breadth is built through behaviors that expose you to new people and environments: Join a local club or community around an area of interest. It could be a book club if you love reading, an art club if you love creating, or a gym if you love fitness. Be a child again, participating in new activities to meet friends. Attend a weekly spiritual gathering if you are a faith-driven individual. Participate in digital meetups for causes that you care about. Coordinate regular walks or hikes with others in your area. Go to the networking event you’ve been shying away from.
Breadth requires you to try new things, to open yourself up to the world around you.
As author Morgan Housel noted in his bestselling book The Psychology of Money, “When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, ‘Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.’ Instead, you think, ‘Wow, if I had that car people would think I’m cool.’ ”
Entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant once said, “A fit body, a calm mind, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought—they must be earned.”
Bought status is the improved social positioning garnered through acquired status symbols: The club membership that makes you a part of the scene The expensive car, watch, handbag, or jewelry acquired for the sole purpose of showing others your financial wealth The private-plane flight or boat trip taken more for the Instagram photo than for the utility
Earned status, however, is the real respect, admiration, and trust received through hard-won treasures: The freedom to choose how to spend your time (and whom to spend it with) The healthy, loving family relationships made possible by years of present energy The purpose-imbued work and mastery within a domain, built through years of effort The sought-after wisdom accumulated through decades of lived experience The adaptable mind capable of navigating stressful encounters shaped through a steady mindfulness practice and thoughtful introspection The strong, fit physique built through hours of
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Earned status is lasting. It will elicit the durable respect, admiration, and trust that you seek from the people who matter to you, those whose opinions you value and cherish. To live a life of abundant Social Wealth, focus on what must be earned, not what can be bought.
I have a core set of deep, loving, supportive relationships. I am consistently able to be the partner, parent, family member, and friend that I would want to have. I have a network of loose relationships I can learn from and build on. I have a deep feeling of connection to a community (local, regional, national, spiritual, and so on) or to something bigger than myself. I do not attempt to achieve status, respect, or admiration through material purchases. A few common Social Wealth anti-goals to avoid on your journey: Allowing my pursuit of financial success to hurt my deepest relationships
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Stop trying to be interesting and focus on being interested.
Being interested is how you become interesting.
Falling in love is easy. Growing in love is hard. Falling is what you see on social media. Growing is what you don’t see. Growing in love is about developing and deepening a bond through discomfort, painful periods, darkness, hard conversations, and challenges.
A few specifics for conducting your Life Dinner ritual: Set a recurring monthly date. Pick a favorite spot, explore a new place, or cook a meal at home. If you don’t have time for a full meal, do it over a coffee or a drink. The point is to make it a sacred monthly ritual. Three areas to cover in the discussion: Personal Professional Relationship
When someone you love comes to you with a problem, ask, “Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged?” Helped: Deconstruct the problem and identify potential solutions. The fix-it mentality can come out to play. Heard: Listen intently and allow the other person to express (and vent) as needed. Hugged: Provide comforting physical touch. Touch is a powerful love language for many (including my wife). Sometimes people just want to feel your presence with them.
The skilled conversationalist can take many different forms: Extrovert or introvert Theatrical storyteller or prudent fact deliverer Giver or taker
The stop-sign version likely leads to a conversational stop when the person responds with a location. The doorknob version likely leads to a story.
I like situational eye contact: Deep and connected while the other person speaks Organic while you speak. It’s okay to gaze off while you think, but use eye contact to emphasize key points and moments in a story.
You get somewhere by building genuine relationships: Giving with no intention of receiving in return Acting in the service of others Creating value for those around you
Your brain trust is a group of five to ten individuals. A few key features of the group: Unbiased (ideally not family) Diverse experiences, perspectives, lenses Willing to provide candid, raw feedback Vested interest in your success (that is, they want to see you win)
Build Lego blocks by practicing the key moments, such as the opening, transitions, and punch lines. Perfect these Lego blocks. Practice the speech in segments rather than sequentially. This may seem counterintuitive, but it will make you more dynamic if things don’t go perfectly according to plan.
If you feel your nerves rising before the event, try it: Inhale through your nose twice, once slowly, then once quickly. Long exhale through your mouth. Repeat two to three times. Immediate positive impact.
These nine strategies will work wonders for your public speaking: Study the Best: Use YouTube to study speakers you admire. Create Clear Structure: Be deliberate about the storytelling arc. Build Your Lego Blocks: Relentlessly practice the opening, transitions, and key lines, but avoid rote memorization. Address the Spotlight: Ask “So what?” about your worst fears and stop suffering in your imagination. Get into Character: Turn your ideal character on prior to the start. Eliminate Stress: Use the physiological sigh to eliminate stress. Cut the Tension: Find a way to cut the tension early with
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The Bought-Status Test Would I buy this thing if I could not show it to anyone or tell anyone about it?
The Earned-Status Test Could the richest person in the world acquire the thing I want by tomorrow?
Curiosity is the foundation of a life of Mental Wealth.
Curiosity is how you learn about the world and how you stay alive.
Only you can be the hero of your story—it’s time you start acting like it.
You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it.”
The fight against normalcy is the most important fight of your life. To maintain your uniqueness, to live on your terms in a world that pulls you to blend in, is the only way to realize your full potential and live a fulfilled, texture-rich existence. Ultimately, this is what it means to build a life of Mental Wealth: to live according to your own purpose, to believe in your own ability to grow, change, learn, and develop, and to find your definition of peace, calm, and solitude in a fast-moving world.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary…. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Purpose: The clarity of defining your unique vision and focus that creates meaning and aligns short- and long-term decision making; the unwillingness to live someone else’s life Growth: The hunger to progress and change, driven by an understanding of the dynamic potential of your intelligence, ability, and character Space: The creation of stillness and solitude to think, reset, wrestle with questions, and recharge; the ability and willingness to listen to your inner voice
Remember the lesson from the Bhagavad Gita: “One’s own dharma performed imperfectly is better than another’s dharma well performed.” Your purpose doesn’t have to be grand or important to anyone else—it must simply be yours.
Growth is how you stay ahead of the forces of nature that conspire against you. The pursuit of improvement is a courageous act in a world where most people avoid friction at all costs.
Why do any of that? Because you are capable of so much more than you realize—and chasing that full potential, while difficult, is a worthy lifelong pursuit that keeps you sharp and proves you can change, develop, and adapt.
The fixed mindset, which assumes ability, intelligence, and character are static The growth mindset, which assumes ability, intelligence, and character are dynamic
In a world of beautiful imperfection where perfect is reserved for fairy tales, those who believe in their ability to change, who focus on inputs, process, and daily improvement, will always find a way to thrive.
As Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Space exists between stimulus and response. Stimulus and response are loud—they involve inputs, action, and outputs. Space is quiet—it is devoid of external inputs and does not require any outputs. It is stillness, solitude. You can create space literally by going to a physical location to be alone and disconnected or metaphorically by going to that location in your mind. The important part is that you go (and regularly). Space is not lazy—on the contrary, space is rocket fuel for the mind.
Space is personal and can take many different forms: Fifteen-minute technology-free walk in the morning Daily prayer practice or reading from a favored religious text Free-flow journaling in the evening before bed Five-minute breaks between meetings to move around Daily cold plunge or sauna to focus on breathing and the internal voice Workouts, runs, or bike rides with light music Active or passive meditation rituals A spiritual gathering
I regularly embrace a childlike curiosity. I have a clear purpose that provides daily meaning and aligns short- and long-term decision making. I pursue growth and consistently chase my full potential. I have a fundamental belief that I am able to continuously change, develop, and adapt. I have regular rituals that allow me to create space to think, reset, wrestle with questions, and recharge.
