“The 5 Types Of Wealth”
Most people associate wealth with vast amounts of money. Certainly, acquiring financial security is important allowing you to enjoy comfortably “enough” of what life has to offer with both family and friends always remembering if you’re fortunate to have “enough” to please give the “excess” away. We addressed this earlier in my post, “The Letter ‘E’ and What it Should Mean” and now may be a good time to reread that particular post.
Being in the Winter of my life and spending the time, while I still have my “wits” about me, to reflect on attempting to define what equates in life things like success, regrets, friendship, legacy, love, family, happiness, challenges, and, yes, wealth. Focusing on just wealth, the Baby Boomer considers himself to be a wealthy man, but not necessarily by definition which states “having an abundance of valuable possessions or money–the state of being rich having material prosperity”. Knowing how fanatical I am about “enough”, this certainly isn’t how I would define wealth!
I happened to run across a book by Sahil Bloom entitled, “The 5 Types of Wealth”, which will teach you: 1) how to prioritize your energy by creating tasks to help you unlock more time in your day; 2) how to create bonds and build a powerful network; 3) how to realize your purpose to gain continuous growth; 4) how to maximize your health and vitality; and 5) how to achieve financial independence and define your version of “enough”. More simply defined, the types of wealth are time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, physical wealth, and, surprising to most, the least important, financial wealth. In the Spring and Summer of my life, when my priorities were completely out of whack, wealth was based on financial stability and the Baby Boomer’s desire to “keep up with the Joneses”. It wasn’t until later life, when I matured and quit sipping the “corporate lemonade”, that I realized my true wealth was defined by everything else.
Fortunately, La Bear took the lead on helping me understand the true meaning of wealth by simply stating all she wanted in life was for her family to be happy. She honestly thought we had more than enough “cookies in the cookie jar” and it was time to devote my time and energy to settling down a bit and learn how to enjoy family. To this day La Bear wishes I would empty more of the cookies from the cookie jar than I do, but those who know the Baby Boomer know that his friends say he is frugal while his enemies say he is cheap. Guess what? My enemies are right!!
By now, from previous posts, you know I must, even though I’m in complete retirement, have purpose and focus. I’ve always felt there was never enough time in the day to accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish. Clearly understanding how important time wealth is, I’ve been an excellent time manager by learning how to avoid interruptions and being able to properly delegate tasks to others. By controlling my time wealth, I’ve been able to spend more time concentrating on my social wealth, knowing the key to enjoying this and making the most of it, is by building sustained relationships through the use of my leadership skills. The Baby Boomer has built a large number of relationships over the years, but as far as true friends go, there are only a few. Truly, my very best friend and the one I have total trust in is La Bear!
My mental and physical wealth have always been challenging and continue to be so. Although few would say I have a lack of self-confidence–I do. As previously stated in another post (“Regrets, I’ve Had A Few”), I just could never live up to my father’s expectations due to our similar DNA, and being an only child, I’ve always and still do suffer from a lack of self-confidence. In my striving for success, it’s not because I enjoy being successful, it’s because I fear failure due to my challenges with having self-confidence. As a youngster, I also developed additional mental challenges being obsessive-compulsive, a bit manic-depressive, and suffering from a few types of anxiety. Thanks to La Bear, for the most part, I’ve got these under control. For some unknown reason, I’ve been so very fortunate to have had excellent physical wealth in spite of my total commitment to my profession and work ethic being a workaholic who never got enough rest, ate properly, or was dedicated to physical fitness. That is, until I turned 70, when everything finally caught up with me now feeling much better than I deserve–true wealth which I no longer take for granted.
All I’ll say about financial wealth is our family has “enough” and we’re very comfortable. As I’m a late bloomer who took too much time to mature, I now know that financial wealth is not nearly as important as I thought it would be realizing money is the “root of all evil”. Time wealth and social wealth are so much more important, especially, as I’ve entered the Winter of my life, where tomorrow is never promised. As discussed in my recent post, “What’s Missing in Your Life?”, for me I crave more time and hope I’m concentrating on making the most of the time I have left.
Hey, I was negligent in not attempting to stay in touch with so many people. I deflected and justified this by being “too busy” concentrating on my career, but never “too busy” in my career as stated in another of my posts, “Not A Fan of the Words ‘Can’t’ and ‘Too Busy'”. But, today, as I continue in my attempts to reach out to those I’ve neglected over the years in focusing on my social wealth, I’ve become a bit disappointed in a lack of response to those efforts.
As I’ve indicated before, if you don’t wish to reconnect, just say so, however, please do not deflect by saying you’re “too busy” being 72 years of age. Part of my current purpose and focus is devoted to this end as is our taking care of Master M and writing this blog do help maintain some personal sanity.
So, in conclusion, I hope you’ll take my lead as we’re now in the Winter of our life to concentrate on both your time and social wealth before it’s too late. I’m receiving far too many calls informing me of someone’s passing or someone who is terminally ill. Promise yourself when someone reaches out to you, please don’t say you’re “too busy” and sincerely make the effort to connect. I believe you’ll be glad you did.