Basics of Holistic Wealth
The past year has been a particularly trying time, but also an opportunity to reassess what truly matters. While the concept of holistic wealth always made sense to me, it feels like i’ve discovered its nature for the first time. Exploring this topic brought a few takeaways that I want to share with you – the basics of holistic wealth.
Gratitude
Source of wealth: Reallocation of value.
Living in an era where people are obsessed with consumption, we are conditioned to always want more. There is nothing wrong with wanting more, but where do you draw the line? Unchecked ambition can trap us in a vicious cycle where nothing is ever enough. You achieve your goal, or you make that big purchase but then you feel empty. To fill this gap, you set a new goal. The pursuit of more without the grounding effect of gratitude is exhausting. Practicing gratitude brings balance to our life by helping us recognize that we already have everything we truly need.
Practicing gratitude can be quite an awkward exercise if you are not used to internal monologue. The good news is that the exercise is simple; there is no right way of doing it and with enough practice you can find a style that works for you. Here is a series of steps that can help you get started.
1. Pick your medium. Do you prefer to write your thoughts, or think your thoughts?
2. Identify a few categories in your life that you feel thankful for
3. Identify things you are thankful for in each respective category
4. Give yourself the time and space to feel it
Intentional Downtime
Source of wealth: Owning your time
On average, you will spend a third of your life sleeping, another third working, and the final third doing everything else. In other words, you get to spend about a third of your life freely. This time is precious. Do you seize this time to feel alive, or does it slip away from you like sand through your fingers? Many of us wait for the weekend or a vacation, but intentional downtime can help us own our time today.
Practicing intentional down time means carving out commitment-free blocks in your schedule, and letting them get filled with the I-wish-I-had-time-for things in your life. It doesn’t matter how you choose to structure this time, and even less so what you end up doing with it, but there are a few things worth noting:
Schedule time blocks that are no less than two-hours long
Treat the blocks like rocks in your schedule – immovable
Make these time blocks consistent week-to-week to turn them into routine
Curiosity
Source of wealth: Mental engagement
Once you stop learning, you start dying - Albert Einstein
Our brain craves stimulation and nothing gets it going like learning something new. Think about how effortlessly happy most children are– they are always into something new, always learning, always asking questions. They truly have it figured out. As we grow older, we tend to gravitate towards distraction to pacify our minds. In this section, distraction refers to the mindless consumption of digital content.
The issue with distraction is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. While a controlled level of distraction can feel good, too much robs our minds of the opportunity to thrive. We don’t need to go to the movie theatre to see the new movies, because they are available on-demand. We don’t need to suffer through hours of commercials on cable TV, because we have access to streaming services. We don’t need to walk over to the store to get a newspaper, because we have it at our fingertips through an app. With barriers to distraction consistently decreasing, we need to be careful.
Unlike distraction, curiosity has substance because it cultivates learning by having your mind think for itself. By definition, curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn something new. Curiosity drives us to pick up new hobbies, ask questions, create, and explore. As such, the state of curiosity is a powerful source of holistic wealth. Here are a few thoughts to consider to bring more of it into your life:
Create more time for curiosity. You can use your newly acquired intentional downtime, or consider making one of your nights a “tinker night”.
Ask more questions, genuinely. Leave less on the surface level where it matters. If you don’t understand something (especially in a professional setting), dare to ask.
Take a project-based approach. Pick one part of your life that could really use an upgrade and start researching how you can achieve it. Follow this up with action, if you can.
Productive Discomfort
Source of wealth: Growth and humility.
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
Every person has a threshold that dictates when certain challenges, activities, or environments feel uncomfortable: the comfort zone.
Your comfort zone grows as you conquer obstacles and gain confidence in your ability to handle the unknown. It is well worth the journey because when your comfort zone grows, fewer things make you uncomfortable. Also, the practice helps you develop a level of comfort with being uncomfortable– making you more adaptable and strong. Finally, you are bound to fail along the way which helps keep your ego in check as you develop humility. Now, while all of that sounds great it doesn’t mean you have to lose your mind working yourself to death. It is healthier to opt in for productive discomfort.
Productive discomfort is a state when you’re pushing yourself enough to stimulate growth without burning out and losing momentum. While stress and its inherent discomfort is essential to growth, you need enough energy to be in control. As such, achieving this state relies on two levers; stress and rest.
Stress can be created in many different ways in several domains.
In some cases, stress is something we can create for ourselves. Professionally, you can take on more responsibility and participate in projects that extend beyond your field of ownership. Physically, you can exercise and take on martial arts. Intellectually, you can read more books or explore new philosophies. Emotionally, you can be more intentional about getting to know yourself and spend more time reflecting.
In other cases, we don’t have a say because life can create it for us. This is the type of stress that is more prone to cause anxiety, fear, and affect your emotional bandwidth. The only thing we can control is how we deal with it. You can read more about a few ideas on how to do this here.
Rest is the time you give yourself to fuel up and recharge– whatever that means for you. The formula is not perfect, but it’s simple: the more stress you experience, the more rest your body will crave. When it comes to rest, it is important to keep two things in mind:
Quality: there is a big difference between killing time and doing something that fills your tank. Aim to maximize the quality of your rest. If you’re not sure how to do this, simply try to do something productive that requires a bit of willpower after your rest. If the activity filled your tank, you should have the motivation to do it. If you’re dragging your feet, it was likely a low quality of rest.
Quantity: the amount of time you spend resting. Try to adjust the volume of rest to balance your stress– in times of stress, give yourself enough time to recharge. In the absence of stress, dial back on your rest to avoid losing momentum.
Play with the two levels to find a balance that works for you.
Positive Connections
Source of wealth: Positive connection
Every person has a presence that has a different effect on others. For the sake of this post, let’s refer to this effect as energy. If you were to categorize each individual you interact with on a semi-regular basis with respect to how being around them effects you, you would likely arrive at three distinct groups:
Neutrals: The larger proportion of individuals who don’t effect you negatively or positively
Drainers: Handful of individuals that cause you to feel tired/drained
Energizers: Handful of individuals that inspire and energize you
This is not a perfect science, but you can likely place at least one individual in each category if you take a minute to think about it. It may seem obvious that we should spend more time with energizers and less time with drainers, but it’s not always that simple. People who energize you are harder to come by, people who drain you tend to be really good at keeping you in their grasp, and in reality most people fall somewhere in between. With that said, being intentional about maximizing positive connections is well worth the effort so here is some food for thought:
Identify the people in your life that energize you. Be intentional about creating time in your life to stay in touch and build your relationship – even if it cuts into some of your personal time
Identify the people in your life that drain you. Be hard on yourself when it comes to giving them your time; remember that you only have a third of your life to spend freely. If giving them time is unavoidable, be clear with yourself on when you have energy to spare
Don’t be so hard on yourself in keeping up relationships that are unspectacular
Don’t get carried away with categorizing every relationship in your life
While this may feel like a lot to consider, the core of holistic wealth is simple; assign more value to what you already have, own your time, engage your mind, push yourself enough to grow, and spend more time with incredible people.