Wealth, Love, and the Trouble with Yes

I recently read 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom. The book breaks wealth into five categories: financial, social, time, physical, and knowledge. It argues that most people chase financial wealth at the expense of the other four.

What caught me wasn’t the framework. It was what it revealed about my own patterns. Specifically, my relationship with time wealth. And the word yes.

I say yes to too many things. I say yes because I’m excited. I say yes because I want to help. I say yes because the opportunity feels aligned. But underneath a lot of those yeses is something else. Fear of missing out. Fear of disappointing someone. Fear that if I don’t say yes now, the door will close.

That pattern has real costs. When I say yes to everything, I spread myself thin. The quality of my presence drops. The people closest to me, Becca especially, get what’s left over instead of what’s best.

Bloom’s book helped me see that saying no isn’t about being selfish. It’s about being honest about what I can actually give. A fear-based yes often turns into a resentful commitment. A love-based no protects the energy I need to show up fully for the things that matter most.

This is one of the harder edges of the Heart-Strong Adventure. It’s not just about the big philosophical questions. It’s about the daily choices. The small moments where love and fear compete for the steering wheel. Saying no from a place of love is a practice I’m still learning.

Read the full piece on Substack

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org