Sahil Bloom On Reclaiming The Word Wealth

I'd call myself a self-help sceptic. And yet, I keep returning to the genre—because clearly, a lot of people do, judging by its popularity. What is it about these books that transcends age, education, belief, geography—even culture—to strike a chord with so many?

That’s how I ended up reading The 5 Types of Wealth, the debut nonfiction title by Sahil Bloom—now a New York Times and Amazon India bestseller, and blurbed by Apple CEO Tim Cook. To my surprise, I landed on a line that uncannily mirrored a thought I’d been grappling with for days.

I don’t remember the last time I felt ahead—every morning, I wake up and feel like I’m somehow already behind and need to sprint to catch up.

The best self-help books don’t pretend to be therapy. What they do offer is clarity. They tap into quiet anxieties and unspoken questions, and present answers in a voice that feels like a friend who’s figured things out just a little ahead of you. In many ways, they’ve become the scriptures of the Internet age.

It helps that Bloom—half Indian, half Jewish—has all the markings of a life strategist people take seriously: chiselled jaw, Stanford alum, former Division 1 athlete turned investment banker. On paper, he has it all. But his newsletter subscribers—and now readers—know he hasn’t been untouched by struggle.

He’s talked about growing up in a high-achieving family—and how, despite his parents’ best intentions, it left him insecure. To cope, he chased prestige: the right school, the impressive job, the next big high—even as his personal life was unravelling.

When the book opens, we meet Bloom drinking too much, sleeping too little, and burning out. His pursuit of money is costing him his relationships. “You’re going to see your parents 15 more times before they die,” reads the book’s arresting first line—the moment that sparked his pivot.

Subtitled A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life, Bloom’s book offers a blueprint for a mindset shift—where wealth is no longer defined by finances, but by what we truly value: time, people, purpose, health. Its greatest strength? Its breadth. In a genre where most titles zero in on one slice of life, Bloom’s take is refreshingly big-picture.

“There are tons of books on relationships, on time, on all the different categories that exist in 5 Types, but no one’s really created a structure where you get all of that within one framing, one idea. That was the real power,” he explains during a video chat from his East Coast home with Esquire India.

Spanning time, social, mental, physical and financial wealth, 5 Types brings together personal stories, expert insights (Bloom teams up with Susan Cain and Arthur C. Brooks, among others) and buzzwords that stick. There’s a lot of genuinely usable advice—like keeping your to-do list to three items (which makes perfect sense), calendaring a Life Dinner (a version of date night, but with an agenda) and an emphasis on social wealth at a time when we’re struggling to make real connections—all calibrated to help you lead the life you truly desire.

Among the many standout catchphrases in the book, Bloom’s favourite is Life Razor—a single point of focus that simplifies decision-making. Inspired by a scene in the movie Apollo 13, where the astronauts kept Earth in view on their way home, his own Life Razor is anchored in his three-year old son Roman: I will coach my son’s sports team. “It’s been such an impactful idea in my life—helping me navigate opportunities and the chaos,” he says.

Having grown up feeling like he didn’t quite measure up, Bloom’s fixation with inversion—anti-goals (knowing where you don’t want to end up) and anti-networking (in favour of real relationships)—feels rooted in something deeper. “The idea of premeditatio malorum from the Stoic philosophers—of inverting these problems—is one that I’ve turned to at different times in my life,” he says. “When I was getting married [to his high school sweetheart, Elizabeth], I remember thinking, I don’t really know how you build a great marriage. But I can pretty clearly point out how you break one, so avoiding actions that would lead to that felt like an easier thing to figure out. And I like its application to different areas of your personal and professional life.”

The narration in the book—where you’re likely to encounter a Toy Story reference alongside an Isaac Newton one—is easy and engaging. Bloom credits his late maternal grandmother, who lived in Bengaluru, for his love of storytelling “I grew up listening to her tell us stories from her childhood and from her life experiences,” he says. The India connection remains strong, with visits twice a year since he was a baby. “My dad’s family disowned him when he wanted to marry my mom. And so, my only family was my Indian family. They really embraced us, so I grew up with this deep feeling of connection to India,” he shares.

In fact, the idea to use the word ‘wealth’ in the title came from his grandfather. “He always used to talk about this idea that wealth was about a whole lot more than just having money,” he says. “It took me until I was 30 to have this powerful realisation—that my entire definition of success and wealth was too narrow.”

Reframing wealth to mean more than just money—especially in an era where privilege is under the microscope and struggle is widespread—might seem risky. But for Bloom, dismantling the hierarchy that puts money on top was essential. “The important part of using the word wealth is that it lets you put these other things—your time, your relationships, your mental health—on the same playing field as money,” he explains. “When they’re all seen as equal, you start making decisions that reflect that.”

That same spirit of self-awareness extends to how he sees his own growth. When I ask Bloom what he’d like to change about himself, he says, “I think I could always work on having more empathy for people who aren’t wired the same way as I am—who don’t have that same drive to push hard and grow.”

Well, it’s good to know even the guy with a plan for everything is still figuring a few things out.

To read more stories from Esquire India's May-June 2025 issue, pick up a copy of the magazine from your nearest newspaper stand or bookstore. Or click here to subscribe to the magazine.