Build your core 

When asked what they attribute their success to Warren Buffett and Bill Gates had the same answer: focus.

Buffett and Gates’ focus lead to immense financial wealth, but as Sahil Bloom lays out beautifully in his book The 5 types of Wealth, wealth isn’t just financial. Sahil adds time, social, mental, and physical wealth in addition to financial wealth to paint a full picture and this feels directionally right to me. 

Recently I’ve felt scattered due to a new family, a new job, a new city. My struggling helped me realize to truly invest in all five of these types of wealth only requires two things 

1. Focus 
2. Time 

While there’s countless things I can do in the world, I need to ignore 99.999% of them and instead build habits and perform them everyday. 

While it’s not an exhaustive list, my core is:

1. Time with family and friends
   • 1 “wine night” a week with my wife at minimum
   • Play with my son 30+ min every day
2. Weekly mass 
3. Meditation 
4. A gratefulness list every 3 days
5. Exercising ~5 times a week 
6. Reading ~2 books a month 
7. Automated investing every week 
8. A “failure journal” at least every 2 weeks (Arthur Brooks idea) 
9. Journaling (and ideally writing an article) to elucidate my thoughts every month 

While there’s so much to do in the world, I only want to explore it after my strong core is in place. This is what allows me to compound in all types of wealth.