True Wealth
I’ve been thinking about wealth recently.
Not net worth.
Not income.
Not the number that appears when you open your brokerage account.
I’m starting to think we’ve been measuring the wrong thing.
I’ve met people worth tens of millions of dollars who seemed permanently exhausted.
Their work drained them.
Their relationships drained them.
Their health was deteriorating.
Their success had become something they were constantly trying to maintain rather than something they genuinely enjoyed.
By every conventional definition, they were wealthy.
It didn’t feel like wealth.
That made me wonder.
What does true wealth actually look like?
I’ve come to think wealth has surprisingly little to do with money.
Money is simply one form of stored energy.
True wealth is whether your life generates energy…or consumes it.
Take work.
Some people finish a day of work feeling depleted.
Others finish feeling excited to do it again tomorrow.
The difference isn’t always the hours.
It’s whether the work gives them energy or takes it away.
The same is true of relationships.
There are people who leave you lighter than when you arrived.
You laugh more.
You think more clearly.
You become more optimistic.
And there are people who leave you completely exhausted.
The relationship may look identical from the outside.
Your nervous system knows the difference.
The same applies to health.
Exercise looks like spending energy.
It isn’t.
You’re investing energy today so your body can generate more tomorrow.
The same is true of sleep.
Nutrition.
Time outdoors.
Almost everything that makes us physically healthier is really an investment in future energy.
Even investing has started to look different to me.
Most people invest in financial assets.
I increasingly find myself investing in the systems that power civilization itself.
Energy.
Commodities.
Semiconductors.
Infrastructure.
The things that enable every other industry to exist.
The economy ultimately runs on energy, whether it’s electricity powering an AI data centre or food powering the people who build it.
Perhaps wealth does too.
When I look back at the best periods of my life, they all had one thing in common.
I was surrounded by people who gave me energy.
I was doing work that gave me energy.
I was looking after a body that gave me energy.
And I was allocating capital toward things that created more energy.
Everything compounded from there.
Maybe that’s what wealth really is.
Not accumulating more.
But arranging your life so that every important part of it produces more energy than it consumes.
Happy.
Healthy.
Wealthy.
In that order.
Because happiness gives you the motivation to keep going.
Health gives you the capacity to keep going.
And wealth gives you the freedom to choose where to go next.