A blueprint for success that doesn’t burn you out

Alice Faggi watched Andrew Flachner interview “New York Times” bestselling author Sahil Bloom live at ICNY. The conversation challenged everything she thought she knew about building a successful career.

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I wasn’t expecting to cry at a business conference. Twice in one session.

There I was at Inman Connect New York, watching Andrew Flachner, the CEO of the company I’ve worked at for the last two years, record a live episode of the Playmakers podcast with Sahil Bloom, when a statistic stopped me cold: 75 percent of the time you’ll spend with your children is over by the time they turn 12.

My oldest turns 12 next month. Cue the tears.

Bloom, The New York Times bestselling author of The Five Types of Wealth, wasn’t there to lecture us about work-life balance. His message was more nuanced and more powerful. He was challenging our scoreboard for success.

The conversation that changed his life

Flachner opened by asking Bloom about the genesis of his book. After years in private equity, Bloom was living 3,000 miles from his parents, seeing them maybe once a year. During a drink with an old friend, he mentioned it was getting difficult.

His friend asked how old his parents were. “Mid-sixties,” Bloom answered.

“How often do you see them?”

“About once a year.”

His friend paused. “OK, so you’re going to see your parents 15 more times before they die.”

Within 45 days, Bloom had sold his California house, quit his high-paying job and moved across the country. That number went from 15 to hundreds.

“You are in much more control of your time than you think,” Bloom told us. “There are two types of priorities in life. There are the priorities we say we have, and there are the priorities our actions show we have.”

Winning the battle but losing the war

Flachner, who recently stepped back in as CEO of RealScout while raising two kids under three, pressed Bloom on why so many successful people feel like they’re losing despite winning.

Bloom introduced the concept of the “Pyrrhic victory,” referring to an ancient battle in which King Pyrrhus defeated the Romans but lost all his generals and most of his army. “That is the idea of the battle won, but the war lost,” Bloom explained. “Winning in one very specific domain while losing across all the others.”

He described being 40 pounds overweight, drinking seven nights a week, watching his relationships crack, all while everyone thought he was crushing it. “If that was what winning felt like, I had to be playing the wrong game.”

The 5 types of wealth

Bloom’s framework breaks wealth into five categories:

Time wealth: “You are all time billionaires,” Bloom said. “A billion seconds is 30 years.” Yet we give our time freely to things that don’t move the needle.
Social wealth: The Harvard Study of Adult Development followed 2,000 people across 85 years and found that the single greatest predictor of physical health at age 80 was relationship satisfaction at age 50.
Physical wealth: Your health, which compounds over time. “Anything above zero compounds,” Bloom emphasized. Echoing advice in the popular book Atomic Habits, even a 5-minute walk is infinitely better than nothing at all.
Mental wealth: Clarity, purpose and peace of mind. It’s the ability to zoom out and ask bigger-picture questions rather than get stuck in cognitive overload.
Financial wealth: Yes, money matters and creates optionality. “But it is far from the only part,” Bloom said. It’s one-fifth of the equation, not the whole thing.

The Warren Buffett test

When Flachner asked about time wealth, Bloom posed a thought experiment: “Would you trade lives with Warren Buffett?” He’s worth $130 billion, but he’s 95 years old.

“There’s no way you would agree to trade the amount of time that you have left for all of that money,” Bloom said. “And he would give absolutely anything to be in your shoes.”

How to know when you have ‘enough’

Flachner asked how you know when you have enough money. Bloom referenced a Harvard study in which researchers asked high-net-worth individuals, worth $1 million to $100 million, how much more money they’d need to be happy. They all said the same thing: two to three times what they currently have.

The antidote? Get clear on what Bloom calls your “enough life.” Not what society tells you success looks like. What does your version actually look like?

The life razor that snaps you back

One of the most practical tools Bloom shared was the “life razor,” a single statement that helps you snap back to who you want to be.

His life razor? “I will coach my son’s sports teams.”

Recently, when his two-and-a-half-year-old barged into his office, causing chaos while he was working, he felt irritation rising. Then he looked at the picture on his desk. He and his wife had spent two years struggling with infertility.

“Sometimes in life,” he realized, “the things we pray for become the things we complain about.”

He went on to encourage everyone to remember that the good old days are literally happening right now.

Cue the tears. Again.

The dimmer switch mindset

Flachner asked how to manage all these different types of wealth without burning out.

“Your life has seasons,” Bloom said. “What you need to do is make sure that you don’t turn any area completely off.”

He calls it the “dimmer switch mindset.” Keep everything on low. Do some tiny thing. “Anything above zero compounds. A five-minute walk is infinitely better than doing nothing.”

Your 1-hour assignment

Bloom’s challenge to everyone at Inman, or to anyone listening to the podcast: Give yourself one hour in the next week to zoom out and think. Go to a coffee shop. Bring a notebook and a pen. No technology.

Ask yourself: “If you were the main character in a movie of your life, what would the audience be screaming at you to do right now?”

What changed for me

That 75 percent statistic won’t leave me alone. I’ve already spent three-quarters of the time I’ll have with my oldest daughter before she’s an adult. But I still have 25 percent left. Hundreds, maybe thousands of moments still ahead.

The question is: Will I be present for them? Or will I be checking my phone, responding to one more Slack message?

Bloom’s framework doesn’t require perfection. It just requires acknowledging that we’ve been measuring success the wrong way. We can build businesses and lives worth living.

My good old days are happening right now. Even when they feel chaotic and overwhelming.

So I’m taking Bloom’s challenge. I’m going to give myself that hour. And I’m going to remember that I still have at least 25 percent left with my daughter.

That’s not a failure. That’s an opportunity.

Alice Faggi is the Director of Marketing at RealScout. Connect with her on Instagram and LinkedIn. The full Playmakers podcast episode with Sahil Bloom is available on all podcast platforms.

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