The Mirror That Shows What We’ve Lost
In “The 5 Types of Wealth,” Sahil Bloom asks a question that cuts to the core of Mental Wealth: “What would your ten-year-old self say to you today?” For most adults, the honest answer is uncomfortable. That ten-year-old version of you—full of wonder, curiosity, and unfiltered joy—would probably be disappointed by what you’ve become. Not because you haven’t achieved enough, but because you’ve lost something essential in the process of growing up.
You’ve lost the ability to be fully present. You’ve lost the courage to pursue what genuinely interests you. You’ve traded curiosity for cynicism, wonder for worry, and playfulness for productivity. Your ten-year-old self dreamed big and felt deeply; your adult self plans safe and feels numb. This isn’t maturity—it’s what Bloom identifies as mental poverty, and it’s the epidemic of our age.
Mental Wealth, the third pillar in Bloom’s framework, is about reclaiming what we’ve lost while gaining what we need for sustainable peace, clarity, and growth. It’s about building a mind that serves you rather than torments you, that opens possibilities rather than closes them, that finds joy in the journey rather than constantly deferring happiness to some future destination.
The Wandering Mind Problem
One of the most striking insights in “The 5 Types of Wealth” comes from Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, whose research revealed that the average person’s mind is wandering 47% of the time. Nearly half of your waking life, your mind is somewhere other than where you are. You’re physically at dinner but mentally at work. You’re supposedly enjoying a vacation but replaying a past argument or rehearsing a future conversation. You’re alive, but you’re not actually experiencing your life.
This isn’t just absent-mindedness—it’s mental poverty. And according to the research Bloom cites, mind-wandering is directly correlated with unhappiness. It’s not that unhappy people’s minds wander; it’s that mind-wandering makes people unhappy. The content of your thoughts matters less than the fact that you’re not present with reality.
Bloom explains that this wasn’t always the human condition. Our ancestors, living in less complex environments without constant digital stimulation, had minds that were more naturally settled. They experienced what we might call “default presence”—the baseline state was being where you were. Today, our baseline state is distraction, and presence requires deliberate effort.
The consequences are profound. A mind that’s constantly elsewhere accumulates what Bloom calls “mental debt”—unprocessed thoughts, unresolved tensions, incomplete processing. Like financial debt, mental debt compounds, charging interest in the form of anxiety, stress, and diminished cognitive capacity. You become less creative, less productive, less connected, and less happy.
The Three Pillars of Mental Wealth
In “The 5 Types of Wealth,” Bloom identifies three pillars that support Mental Wealth:
1. Stillness: The ability to quiet the mind and create space between stimulus and response. Bloom isn’t advocating for becoming a monk (though he doesn’t discourage it either)—he’s talking about the capacity to step back from the constant mental chatter and observe your thoughts rather than being consumed by them.
Stillness is not the absence of thought but the presence of awareness. It’s the difference between being swept away by a river of thoughts and standing on the bank watching them flow by. This pillar includes practices like meditation, mindfulness, and what Bloom calls “strategic solitude”—deliberately creating time for quiet reflection without agenda or distraction.
Research shows that even brief practices of stillness can have profound effects on mental health, emotional regulation, and cognitive performance. Yet in our modern world, stillness has become almost countercultural. We fill every moment with content consumption, constantly checking phones, always “doing.” As Bloom writes, we’ve become addicted to stimulation while starving for peace.
2. Growth: A mindset oriented toward continuous learning and development. Bloom draws on Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset versus fixed mindset, but takes it further, arguing that Mental Wealth requires what he calls “compounding curiosity”—a commitment to remaining a perpetual student of life.
This pillar recognizes that our brains are designed for learning and that when we stop growing, we start declining. The growth pillar isn’t about accumulating degrees or certifications—it’s about maintaining childlike curiosity about how things work, why people behave as they do, and what you don’t yet understand. It’s about asking questions, exploring new ideas, and remaining open to being wrong.
Bloom shares his own journey from thinking he had life figured out to recognizing that his certainty was actually limiting his growth. The most mentally wealthy people, he observes, are those who hold their beliefs lightly and their curiosity firmly.
3. Space: The mental bandwidth to think clearly, make good decisions, and engage deeply with what matters. This pillar addresses what psychologists call “cognitive load”—the burden of too many decisions, too much information, and too many demands on attention.
When your mental space is cluttered with trivial decisions (what to wear, what to eat, what to watch), urgent-but-not-important tasks, and constant information consumption, you have little capacity left for what actually matters. Bloom advocates for what he calls “decision deletion”—eliminating unnecessary choices to free up mental bandwidth for important thinking.
This is why Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day, why Obama had his suits pre-selected, and why many high-performers batch similar tasks together. They’re not being obsessive—they’re protecting their most valuable resource: mental space for creative thinking, strategic planning, and deep work.
The Mental Wealth Crisis in Modern Life
“The 5 Types of Wealth” doesn’t romanticize the past, but Bloom does identify several modern developments that have created unprecedented challenges for Mental Wealth:
Information Overload: We consume more information in a day than our ancestors consumed in a lifetime. Our brains, designed for a world of information scarcity, are overwhelmed by abundance. Every notification, every news alert, every social media scroll adds to our cognitive load without adding to our understanding. We mistake information consumption for learning, scrolling for studying, exposure for expertise.
The Attention Economy: Tech companies have weaponized psychological research to capture and commoditize our attention. As Bloom explains, every time you check your phone, you’re not just losing that moment—you’re fragmenting your attention, making it harder to focus, and training your brain to seek constant stimulation. The cost is our ability to think deeply, reflect meaningfully, and create originally.
Ambient Anxiety: We live in a state of low-grade, constant stress that our ancestors would have reserved for genuine threats. We’re worried about things we can’t control (global problems), things that haven’t happened (catastrophizing), and things that don’t matter (what strangers think). This ambient anxiety is mental poverty—it drains energy without protecting us, worries without solving, and stresses without strengthening.
Comparison Culture: Social media has created unprecedented opportunities for comparison, and as Theodore Roosevelt noted, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” We compare our behind-the-scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel, our starting point to someone else’s midpoint, our real life to their curated fiction. The result is what Bloom calls “comparative mental poverty”—feeling inadequate not because of actual lack but because of endless comparison.
Practical Systems for Building Mental Wealth
“The 5 Types of Wealth” is packed with actionable strategies for building Mental Wealth. Here are some of the most transformative:
The Think Day: Borrowed from Bill Gates, who famously takes “Think Weeks,” Bloom’s more accessible version involves blocking one day per quarter for nothing but thinking. No meetings, no tasks, no production—just reflection, planning, and deep thought. This practice protects what Bloom calls “strategic thinking time,” which gets crowded out by tactical doing.
Morning Pages: Bloom advocates for Julia Cameron’s practice of writing three pages by hand every morning, stream of consciousness, without editing or judging. This practice clears mental clutter, processes unresolved thoughts, and creates space for clarity. It’s like defragmenting a computer hard drive—organizing the chaos so the system runs better.
The 5-5-5 Breathing: When stress or anxiety arise, Bloom recommends a simple pattern: breathe in for 5 seconds, hold for 5 seconds, breathe out for 5 seconds. Repeat for a few cycles. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system, interrupting the stress response and creating space for more thoughtful responses rather than reactive ones.
Digital Sunsets: Establishing a firm time each evening when all screens go off and stay off until morning. This practice protects sleep quality, reduces information overload, and creates space for rest and reflection. Bloom shares that implementing digital sunsets was one of the highest-ROI changes he made.
The Curiosity List: Keep a running list of things you’re curious about—questions you want to explore, topics you want to understand, skills you want to develop. Then, schedule time to pursue these curiosities. This simple practice maintains the growth pillar and prevents the mental stagnation that comes from purely consuming rather than learning.
Walking Thinking: Bloom advocates for regular walks without phones or earbuds—just you, movement, and your thoughts. Research shows that walking boosts creative thinking, and the absence of stimulation allows for what psychologists call “diffuse thinking”—the kind of mental processing that generates insights and solutions.
The Learning Superpower
A significant section of “The 5 Types of Wealth” focuses on learning as a cornerstone of Mental Wealth. Bloom shares his own transformation from someone who associated learning with school (and therefore boredom) to someone who sees learning as the ultimate meta-skill—the skill that makes every other skill easier to acquire.
He introduces the concept of “spaced repetition”—the science-backed method of reviewing information at increasing intervals to move it from short-term to long-term memory. This isn’t about memorization for its own sake; it’s about building a knowledge base that compounds over time, making you more capable, more creative, and more valuable in whatever you pursue.
Bloom also explores different learning styles and the importance of finding methods that work for you rather than forcing yourself into conventional educational models. Some people learn by reading, others by doing, others by teaching. The key is to experiment and discover your optimal learning approach, then structure your ongoing education around it.
Perhaps most importantly, Bloom addresses the fixed mindset that tells us we’re “not a math person” or “not creative” or “not good with languages.” These are stories we’ve internalized, often from childhood experiences, that limit our growth. Mental Wealth requires rejecting these limiting narratives and embracing what Bloom calls “radical openness”—the belief that you can learn anything if you’re willing to invest the time and effort.
Meditation Without the Mysticism
One of the most accessible sections of “The 5 Types of Wealth” is Bloom’s demystification of meditation. He strips away the esoteric elements and presents meditation as a practical tool for building the stillness pillar of Mental Wealth. His approach is refreshingly pragmatic: you don’t need to sit in lotus position, chant mantras, or pursue enlightenment. You just need to practice paying attention.
Bloom recommends starting with just five minutes a day of focused breathing. When your mind wanders (and it will), you simply notice and gently return attention to breath. That’s it. The practice isn’t about achieving a blank mind—it’s about training the muscle of attention. Every time you notice distraction and return to focus, you’re strengthening your capacity for presence.
The benefits, according to research Bloom cites, are remarkable: reduced anxiety, improved focus, better emotional regulation, enhanced creativity, and even changes in brain structure that support these improvements. The caveat is consistency—sporadic meditation does little, but daily practice compounds into significant Mental Wealth.
The Space-Time Connection
An insight that spans multiple chapters in “The 5 Types of Wealth” is the profound connection between Mental Wealth and Time Wealth. When your mind is cluttered, distracted, and anxious, even abundant time feels scarce. You have hours but can’t focus. You have weekends but can’t relax. You have vacations but can’t stop thinking about work.
Conversely, when you build Mental Wealth through stillness, growth, and space, time seems to expand. You accomplish more in less time because you’re focused. You enjoy leisure more deeply because you’re present. You make better decisions because you have mental clarity.
Bloom describes this as the “amplification effect”—Mental Wealth amplifies all other forms of wealth. When your mind is clear, your relationships improve (Social Wealth). When you’re present, you make better health choices (Physical Wealth). When you’re thinking strategically rather than reactively, you build more effectively (Financial Wealth). Mental Wealth is the foundation that makes everything else possible.
Conclusion: The Wealth We Can’t See
Perhaps the greatest challenge of Mental Wealth, as Sahil Bloom acknowledges in “The 5 Types of Wealth,” is that it’s invisible. You can’t photograph it for social media, display it for others to admire, or measure it on a balance sheet. In a culture obsessed with external markers of success, the internal work of building Mental Wealth can feel unimportant or even indulgent.
But as Bloom powerfully demonstrates, Mental Wealth might be the most important form of wealth precisely because it’s invisible. It’s the foundation of your experience of life. A person with a clear, peaceful, growing mind living in a modest apartment experiences more true wealth than an anxious, scattered, stagnant mind living in a mansion. As the ancient Stoics understood and Bloom reminds us, “The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts.”
The question your ten-year-old self would ask isn’t about what you’ve achieved—it’s about whether you’re still alive in the ways that matter. Are you curious? Are you playful? Are you present? Are you growing? Or have you traded the vibrancy of that child for the achievement-focused but joy-depleted existence of so many modern adults?
Building Mental Wealth is the path back to that aliveness, while bringing forward the wisdom and capabilities you’ve developed. It’s not about regression—it’s about integration. It’s about reclaiming the wonder while maintaining the responsibility, recovering the presence while retaining the purpose, restoring the peace while building the prosperity.
As Bloom concludes in “The 5 Types of Wealth,” your ten-year-old self doesn’t care about your job title, your bank account, or your social media following. That younger version of you cares about one thing: Are you happy? And the only path to an honest “yes” runs straight through Mental Wealth.
About “The 5 Types of Wealth”: In this groundbreaking guide published by Ballantine Books in 2025, entrepreneur and thought leader Sahil Bloom presents a framework for holistic wealth that extends far beyond financial metrics. “The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life” explores Time, Social, Mental, Physical, and Financial Wealth, providing research-backed insights and practical systems for building a life of genuine richness.
