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'I was miserable': Indian-origin author Sahil Bloom on leaving a high-paying career to pursue a more meaningful life
Sahil Bloom says achieving financial success by 30 left him unfulfilled, prompting him to redefine wealth and change the course of his life.
Sahil Bloom, an Indian-origin author, investor and former collegiate athlete, had everything he wanted by 30, but realised money doesn’t buy happiness. “By the time I turned 30, I had achieved every marker of what I believed success looked like. I had the high-paying job, the title, the house, the car—it was all there,” he wrote in his book ‘The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life’, as per Fortune.
However, Bloom said that he quickly realised that money didn’t buy happiness. “Beneath the surface, I was miserable. I began to think something was wrong with me … All I could think was: Is this it?” Bloom wrote in his book, adding that he had erroneously “prioritised one thing at the expense of everything.”
What changed Bloom’s perception of true wealth?
According to a report by Fortune, Bloom said that his moment of reckoning came during a conversation with a friend, who helped him realise how little time he actually had left with his parents. The reality hit hard - if he continued living the way he was, he might only see them a handful more times in his life.
“In that moment, I had a realisation that my entire definition of success, of what it meant to build a wealthy life, was incomplete,” the author told Fortune magazine earlier this year. “That the pursuit of the one thing which we all use, which is money, status, [and] fancy things, was a part of building a wealthy life, but it was not the complete picture,” he said.
Building a wealthy life
Then, within weeks, he made a radical shift. He left his job, sold his house in California and moved across the country to be closer to his family. He said that this life-altering decision taught him that he had the power to change his outlook on leading a wealthy existence.
“That one action was really the spark behind everything, because in it was a realisation that you are actually more in control of your time than you think,” Bloom continued. “Building a wealthy life is about so much more than just accumulating money and things. It is about time. It is about these other aspects of our lives that we have historically just not had a way to measure,” he said.
Bloom’s framework has resonated widely, earning praise from Apple CEO Tim Cook, Mel Robbins and billionaire Bill Ackman. His book encourages readers to examine which type of wealth they should prioritise depending on their stage of life - a model Bloom hopes will reshape how success is defined in modern culture.
