What is a better measurement of wealth?

A former colleague is launching a new company called Better Than Rich. It is an extremely thought provoking name which I'm sure is part of the intention.

Money and wealth has always been an incredibly fascinating subject for me. Throughout my personal growth journey, I've had some radical perspective shifts about finances. Thinking about his new brand made me curious to see what my current worldview would reveal.

A very, very brief political aside: Andrew Yang has a policy called Human-Centered Capitalism which is about changing the measurement of financial success of a country from the Gross Domestic Product figure we currently look at to something that measures the quality of life for all of the humans in a country. Change what you measure and you change the result.

And so it is for me with wealth. What is a better way to measure wealth and financial success? If we stop trying to hit a certain number in our bank account, what should we aim for?

I don't know the answer, but one line of thinking that I currently enjoy involves the measurement of time.

Perhaps a real measure of wealth is our ability to take our time.

Maybe we measure our financial success in terms of how long we could not work and still maintain our current or desired lifestyle without any further income. There's also fun little micro-measurements of how much we value our time like taking shared Lyfts vs direct, how far our commute is, how much time we allow for vacation and personal care, how much sleep we get.

I could go on and on about this topic, but I think it will be better articulated in future Thoughts. The idea of measuring wealth in time instead of dollars is a topic I'll be exploring more internally as I put together my personal plan for 2020 and beyond and look forward to sharing.

If we want to implement real change and have massive impact, often times we have to change the game that is being played. Change the game, change the rules and change the scorecard. I'm ready for a better financial scorecard, and can't wait to see where this takes me.