The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life

Bloom makes a powerful argument that too many people live with skewed priorities that ultimately leave them unsatisfied. In his discussion about his five kinds of “wealth,” Bloom argues for the benefits of living a more balanced life by asserting that people tend to overvalue financial wealth  while undervaluing the other four types of wealth. These arguments are designed to advocate for discovering one’s own personal wealth levels and taking action to rebalance essential priorities. 

To this end, Bloom stresses that the value of financial wealth is overstated, and he uses his own youthful decisions as an example of the consequences of pursuing wealth at the expense of everything else. As he admits, “I was chasing that castle in the air, blind to the reality that I was allowing my real house to fall down… My exclusive pursuit of money was slowly, methodically robbing me of a fulfilling life” (7). By painting material wealth in this light, Bloom portrays it as an addictive yet unsatisfying pursuit. He then contrasts this vision with the choice to pay more attention to time, social, mental and physical wealth. To persuade people to rebalance their lives, Bloom discusses the importance of each of these kinds of wealth, and he particularly lauds time wealth as “the freedom to choose how to spend your time, whom to spend it with, where to spend it, and when to trade it for something else” (25).