CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - The Family You Create with Sahil Bloom

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Whitney sits down with entrepreneur and author Sahil Bloom to discuss his book "The Five Types of Wealth" and the powerful story of his parents choosing love over family approval. They explore how family estrangement shaped Sahil's understanding of what "family" really means, the toxic masculinity plaguing young men today, and why being a present father is the most fulfilling work he's ever done. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Have a question for Whitney? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at [phone]⁠⁠ Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity⁠⁠ This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Listen closely. That's not just paint rolling on a wall. It's artistry. A master painter, carefully applying Benjamin Moore Regal Select eggshell with deftly executed strokes. The roller lightly cradled in his hands, applying just the right amount of paint.

It's like hearing poetry in motion. Benjamin Moore, see the love. Hello everyone and welcome back to the calling home podcast. I am your host, Whitney Goodman. Today we have an interview episode with Sahil Bloom. Sahel is a New York Times bestselling author and he wrote the book The Five Types of Wealth. He's redefining what it means to live a wealthy life. And Sahel has been all over the podcast circuit lately. But I think that if you've listened to any of his interviews, this interview that I did was, him today is a little bit different. Because we're talking more about his family's origin story and he opens up his book with this story. His father became estranged from his family when he married his wife, Sahil's mother, because his father's family did not accept who he was marrying. So this is an interview about living a different life. And it's also an interview about how

a love story and a different type of family and maybe even a stronger family can be born in the wake of family estrangement. I hope you enjoy the episode. I wanted to to start with that you open up your book with the story of your dad choosing to partner with your mom over his family. And it really is a story about estrangement that we talk about a lot on calling home. And I'm wondering how that changed your view of family relationships or if it impacted you at all? Enormously so. I would say it's hard to overstate the impact that my parents' relationship, their love had on our entire family, you know, the ripple effects that it created. I am, look, I mean, I am a huge believer that the role models that you have for what a loving

relationship and a supportive relationship look like are deeply impactful on how you think about those as you get older. And I cannot imagine being more blessed in terms of the role models that I had directly in front of me with my parents. The story that you reference is a pretty remarkable, almost movie like one. My mom was born and raised in Bangalore, India. She was the third daughter in her family and was sort of like the ne'er-do-well, like rebellious youngest. Two older sisters were both, like, top of their class in school, doing all of the things their parents wanted. My mom was always kind of, like, screwing around. She applied in secret to come to the United States for university against her parents' wishes

and was accepted to Mount Holyoke and all-girls school in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she got a scholarship, and so ended up going to attend. You know, my dad lived sort of a parallel existence, but in the Bronx, New York. He was born and raised in a Jewish household and was a little bit actually like the golden child. You know, my dad's father was very domineering, sort of had my dad's entire path set out for him. And my dad was very much following that path. He was going to like study hard, get good grades, go into academia, follow this track. The two of them crossed paths in this like crazy turn of fate over the course of a two-week window

when they were in the same location. My mom just starting to do a master's at Princeton University, and my dad was just finishing his Ph.D. there. He was studying in the library. She was working in the library to pay her way through school. My mom, being the rebellious, kind of bold one that she was, went up and asked him on a date. And he said, okay. And they went out for ice cream. And on the first date, my dad says to my mom, my father will never accept us. And my mom was so excited and blinded by his use of the word us. that she completely missed the message. And unfortunately, he was right. His father was not accepting of this idea of his son, his golden child, going off and dating or marrying, this brown girl, for lack of a better way to say it, and made him choose and told him that he had to choose between her and his family.

And my dad made the decision to walk out. He chose love. And he never saw his family again. To this day, I never met my dad's parents. he has three siblings I've never met. I have first cousins out there in the world that I've never met, all on this decision that he made to carve his own path, to reject this default that was handed to him by his father and to carve his own path into the earth. And I would just say that for my sister and I growing up in a household where that was the standard of what

love looked like to us. The idea that your love is yours, that no one can tell you what love should look like, what support should look like, and that it knows no bounds, that there's no, you know, path carved for what love should look like. That standard has just had ripple effects into the way that we have lived. And for my wife and I to grow up around that, you know, we met in high school and to see that, and now to see my parents in this new season of life, you know, they've been married 43 years, they are, you know, everything that I could hope to have in a relationship. It has really just been a remarkable journey. I appreciate you sharing that story with us. And I think it is a story about love and it's also a story about family having really

strict rules and regulations like for membership, right, which I think is something that we talk about a lot on this show is like, what do you do when your family doesn't allow you to be who you want to be to be with the person that you want to be with? And it sounds like your father was in that position where he had to make that choice. But something I've noticed about, you know, in your work is you do talk a lot about the importance of family and spending time with family. And I wonder how you developed that belief system despite having like these generations of connections. I think that's something a lot of people are fearful of is that they, if they're estranged, they won't be able to form this really cohesive. family unit. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. And what I would say is that family,

in the same way that I say that your love is yours, your family is yours, meaning no one can tell you who your family is and isn't. Your family are the people that make you feel like home. That doesn't matter whether that person is a blood relative of yours, quite frankly. The most traditional version is, yes, you have beautifully supportive parents and your in-laws are amazing. and all these people, but we all know. That's, that's not life, right? Like, real life is messy. Sometimes you are going to feel like your family is the best friend that has just been there for you in the darkest times of your life. That's your family just as much as a blood relative. And more so than a blood relative who has not been there for you during those dark times.

And so what I say constantly to people now is just this idea that the things that you choose to give your energy to in life will grow. Like, if you choose to, give your energy to these negative relationships, these people who are not there for you, the people who are telling you to be realistic, who are dragging you down, who are criticizing you, those things will grow. And then alternatively, if you choose to give your energy to the people who are lifting you up, who are there for you during those dark times, who are telling you that you are capable of more, who are pushing you to think bigger about your life and your dreams and ambitions, those things will grow. And ultimately, I think of family is the people that you are choosing to give that precious

social wealth, that social energy to in your life. And it's important to choose wisely, to be very deliberate about the people that you are allowing into that energy and into that space. And I think if you do that, you will wind up with the family that you really want. Yeah. I totally agree with you and I'm so glad that you said that, because I think sometimes when people read books or statements about the importance of family, they have this assumption that the person is speaking about the people that are related to you by blood. And that's what sort of like strikes me about the story about your family is it's very sad for your dad's family what they've missed out on because they could not be accepting. It's horrific. Yeah. I mean, you think of like the road not taken. It is a very, I mean, there's an enormous amount of grief here, right? Yeah, like I think there's the obvious grief of my father having to leave his family. And then I would say there's the non-obvious grief of my mother who feels on some level and at some deep level that she was the cause of this rift that was created.

And look, I think my dad, to some extent, comes from a different generation of men where talking about these things is, if not taboo, not manly. And, you know, I know that he has experienced a lot of trauma and grief through this rift and through the estrangement. And I know that a lot of that he has carried on his own and on his own back. And I know that my mom and he talk about it in private, but I wouldn't say it's ever been something that my family has like really wrapped our arms around and embraced. To some extent, I am perfectly okay with that because I am fully at peace with the whole thing as sort of a son of it because my parents I hold in the highest regard. like I anyone that had a problem with them is not okay with me at the end of the day like I'm a loyal guy in that way but at the same time I do think there could have been a lot of healing and there can be a lot of healing that would come from just really wrapping our arms around all of it to to sort of embrace it in that way but I think that what you're hitting on more broadly is is very important which is just to say that the idea of family the idea of home what home means to me it is a about the place where your nervous system is at rest, where your spirit is at rest, where you feel you can truly be yourself. And that doesn't matter whether that's a blood relative or whether

that's one person or frankly whether you feel most at rest and at ease when you are with yourself just in solitude. That's also perfectly okay. I think it will be different for every single person. Some people feel at rest and feel their nervous system is at rest when they're surrounded by 20 people. They need that feeling of fullness of richness in their life. Some don't. And the way that you sort of define what home looks like to you, what family looks like to you, really will dictate your ability to go and create that in the world. I totally agree with you. And it's interesting that you bring up your dad being a man of a certain generation and how he's handled this emotionally because I wanted to touch on that. I think your book is one of the first that I,

I've read where men are being talked about as like an integral part of the home. As someone that can be emotional, connected to their children, you don't hear this a lot in like particularly self-help or inspirational type of books that are written for men. They're usually solely about work. And I'm wondering what motivated you to include that component in this. I, um, there's sort of two pieces of this. to me. One piece is that I see a very troubling thing happening in particular in the world of young men, in the idols that they are sort of ascribing to and worshipping. And I don't mean

idols in the sense of gods, although it might as well be in this age of social media, these gods that we're worshipping. The version and the storyline, the arc of, of what masculinity means that young men are being sold in the world today is misogyny in sheep's clothing. I mean, it is a rather disgusting and I think woefully unfulfilling version of what it means to be a man, and that is basically chasing money, chasing women, status, fancy things, etc. My entire book, my entire ethos as a human being is rejecting that. default setting that you've been told to pursue and to acknowledge that a good life is actually

not that complicated, but it does require you to measure the right things and to go out and measure yourself in this more comprehensive and thoughtful way. It is very hard to make that message that I'm trying to share and spread a cool one, quote unquote, that will resonate in the same way as me taking a picture in front of a private jet with a bunch of half-naked girls. And that is a longer term pursuit and game that I want to be a part of because I think it's important. Because I think the world suffers when you have, you know, weak men masquerading as alphas. And I think we see what happens when when that type and that archetype of man is allowed to thrive or does thrive as a result of what the market forces dictate. And I just think there needs to be an alternative that is proposed.

it's not saying it's going to win or that it's going to make sense to everybody out there, but I'd love to see alternatives. And that is a big reason that I tried to share that message. And I get messages from men every single day, young men, middle age, older men, who talk to me about the fact that they had never really thought about fatherhood or this path of like monogamy and fatherhood being cool until they saw things that I was talking about or writing. And I can't imagine something that feels more fulfilling to me than to pass along that message. that like I have, I had the money. I did the fancy things. I like, I've done that stuff. I have

never experienced more happiness, fulfillment, contentment on a daily basis than being a dad. Then being like puke, crap on you, like going to, you know, the farm on the weekend to look at cows. Like, it's a totally different life. It is much more challenging in the days, but so much more meaningful in the years. And so sharing that message was really important to me. The second layer of that is something that I just hit on, which is it has been so transformative to my own life. And what I fundamentally believe about anything that we are sharing in the world, you recording a podcast, me writing a book, anyone that is creating things, is the best form of creation

is something that you would want to consume, something that feels truly authentic to your journey and something you're doing, not something you read about in a book, but something you are living. I am living this journey. I am living this idea of these five types of wealth and living in this comprehensive way, measuring my life in this more comprehensive way. And that felt like an important message for me to share authentically. Yeah. It's so important. And I remember, you know, I think we have kids kind of around the same age. I remember when my older son was born. My husband and I are both new parents, have never had children.

and he had this belief system that he would be like, well, you just know what to do because I'm a woman. And it was very frustrating to me because I also felt like, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. Like, this is new to me as well. It's my first time. And feeling like I was supposed to have this intuition that led us, which like, yeah, okay, to some degree, there were some things that I was maybe more intuitive about. But he felt so much like it wasn't a part of him. And I think that's something I grew up with is like fathers kind of had no use in the home other than being providers. And I think we've done such a disservice to men to sell them like that lie when really I think my husband and all fathers can be integral, like extremely important forces in the home that I love what you're doing to show that this is important and you can be really good at it. Like, there's more out than just what you can earn outside of the hall.

You know what's so funny about this? I completely agree with you. And as you're talking, what I'm realizing is some of the most damning lies we are told about life in our world come in the form of these common tropes, like these common sayings that just get repeated without ever questioning whether they're real or accurate. And I think so many of those happen when you're pregnant or when you're just having a kid. It's like the, oh, I hope you get your sleep now. I hope you get your fun. Help you have your fun now. You know, because it's all downhill from here.

You know, to dads, it's like you're not going to feel connected to the kid until they're, you know, two, three years old. So just like, don't worry about that. They're basically just a potato. You know, you're just there to support your wife. There's all of these things that just get like repeated. as these common tropes that get pre-wired into our DNA at these different stages, different seasons of our life, that very few of us, because they are so commonly said, take the time to question, right? It's actually, it's a psychological phenomenon. It's called the illusory

truth effect. It is a lie that gets repeated so many times that it takes hold as a truth in your mind. It just got repeated so many times that you start to believe it's true. It's the reason why telling yourself a self-limiting story is so damning for your life, because if you tell yourself a self-limiting story over and over and over again, you believe it's true about who you are as a person. But there are so many of these things that I think if people just took a moment to pause, take a step back when you hear it, and say, is that actually true? Like, what if that is completely false? What if that is just a thing that has been told to me? I think a lot of good would come from that. And it's the same about how you choose to raise your kid, by the way. Like,

for almost anything that matters when it comes to raising a child, whether it's how you think about, you know, sleeping, like co-sleeping versus being in their own room, sleep training from a young age, whether it's breastfeeding, like formula or breastfeeding naturally, or school, daycare, every single major decision. If you go on Instagram, you can find some PhD scientist who is on one end of it and says like that's the only way here's what all the science says and then you can find a PhD scientist who's on the other end of it who says the opposite thing and cherry pick science to say the opposite thing and so the reality that I always come out to on these things is like what works for you is what matters just figure out what works for you stop buying into whatever the narrative is

that everyone's trying to sell you by the way most of these people are selling some sort of course or they have something to sell you quite literally about it stop buying into that just figure out what works for you. Question every single thing that you are handed and come to the decision that makes sense to you for your life, for your values, your priorities, your family. And don't worry about what everyone is trying to push upon you. So much of life improves when you start to realize that you don't have to just buy in to these market narratives that are handed to you all around. It's so true. And I think especially when those narratives end up being the reason why you feel bad about yourself? Like I think especially in early parenthood, right? Like for me,

I had postpartum depression and I was struggling and I'm like, oh, but this is supposed to come naturally, right? And then you have a man thinking, you know, the other partner thinking something else and it just traps you. Then if you said, no, it's okay for me to need to find resources on this or whatever it is. It could be quite freeing. Grocery shopping, cha-ching. Ordering food, Cha-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Filling. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Using streaming services.

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It's so hard for moms. I could say that it's tough for that is tough for dads, but it is a tiny fraction of what moms go through after having a kid. I mean, I like the pressure at every single stage, like you have to go back to work as quickly as possible. No, you shouldn't go back to work. You have to sleep train at one month. No, you should be co-sleeping. You know, breastfeed versus four. Like every single one of these things, there's a whole bunch of people yelling at you that they know the only way to do it right.

And for some reason, for some reason, it has become totally socially acceptable to tell a woman to her face that they are doing it wrong and that here is what they need to be doing. Like, I would know, I mean, my wife, we live in the New York area. My wife chose after our son was born. She went back to work for a little while. And then she decided, like, I'm so much more fulfilled by being a mom in this season of my life than I am by this work. So I'm going to leave. I'm going to focus on being a mom. she made that decision we spent a lot of time thinking about it it was the decision she was excited

about the number of women who feel that it is okay to say to her why aren't you working oh or oh you're just a mom in quotes just a mom it is baffling to me like she would never go up to a mom who had decided to go back to work and say like oh you're leaving your child with a nanny like you would just never do that and so like it's just a disrespect it makes no sense. You would never judge a person in the other direction. So why people feel this, you know, this right to challenge other people and to say these things to other people. Like, it just, it is so baffling to me because it does really feel like it's this concentrated moment around having kids that all of a sudden everyone feels like they have a right to an opinion

about the way that you are doing things. When they're not, like, you're not my best friend in the world. You're like a random person that I see every now and that. Sorry for the rant. No, I agree with you 100%. And when you are in this stage of life, like I think especially when you have kids like under five, it is relentless, the amount of information you hear. And I think that's why I just so appreciated like reading a book written by a man about life and success and pursuing things that also included fatherhood. It's just very rare. I think when you hear about women with careers, a lot of it.

is also about being a mother, if they're a mother, but you rarely hear that from men. So I think that that's a really positive thing, and it's good that that is being integrated, for sure. Something else I wanted to ask you about was that you read a letter that you wrote to yourself, and I thought this was such a powerful exercise that I think other people could do. I'd love to hear why you did that, why you recommend doing that from time to time. So this was a practice of writing a letter to your future self that my grandparents, my mom's parents, had us start doing when we would go visit them in India over the holidays when I was

like, you know, I don't know, seven or eight years old. And it was because we would basically see them once a year at Christmas time in the holidays. And so we would write a letter and we would open it the next Christmas. It was kind of this like this ritual. And so it sparked in me from a young age, this idea of, like, lay out what your hopes are for the future and put them down on a piece of paper. And we never talked about manifesting. That wasn't really a thing at the time, I wouldn't say. But it was basically that idea. Like, sit down and really think about these things that you want and then go out and try to create them in the world. I had started doing it on longer time horizons when I got into high school. And then when I graduated college, I sat down and I wrote

this letter to myself 10 years in the future. So I wrote it in 2014. January and I was going to open it in 2024 completely forgot that it existed 10 years at that age I mean that was you know at that point like we're talking about a third of my life completely forgot it existed only found it when we had our son in 22 so about eight years after writing it when we were finishing our like will documents I was putting it into this little safe that I'd always had it was like the first time in forever that I'd open the safe and I found the letter sitting there marked to open in January 24 right before I was due to turn in the draft of this book. I opened the letter and I actually read it for the

first time live on a video and I was really just knocked off my feet because the things that I talked about as a dumb, young, arrogant kid were all of the things that I would say took me 10 years of suffering to actually learn and act upon in my own life. Like I had come full circle on understanding these things that I had laid out. And what it showed to me was this idea that you already have all of these answers within you. You already know what it is that you want out of your life, what things matter to you. You just haven't asked the right questions yet to uncover and then act upon them. And that process of 10 years of me struggling, of crawling through the mud, of the different failures, the successes, the bouncebacks, pain, that was all about me

asking the question so that I could then go and act upon these ideas, these things that I already knew. And I think it's such a powerful exercise for people to put into effect in their own life. It doesn't have to be 10 years. It could be one year. It could be two years. But really sitting down and thinking about what you want your life to look like, what are you going to be celebrating a year from today? I mean, that's the simplest version of this. It's to really just think about one year from listening to this today. What are you going to be celebrating? If you're out to dinner with the people you love and you're celebrating something. What is it? What have you gone out and created? What have you done? And then think about what do I need to do today to make that a

reality? I love that. I think it's a great way to stay like anchored in what is important to you to look back at how far you've come. I think for people who are particularly like in pain and going through a struggle, it's it's hard to imagine that or think about it. But it can be such a powerful exercise when you do. Speaking of anchors, I just use that word without meaning to, but I really wanted to talk about boat anchors that you talk about in your book. And I would love to hear about what you would do if those anchors are your family members. So this idea of boat anchors, you probably tell at this point in the conversation. I'm a big fan of visuals, metaphors, stories. This idea of boat anchors has always been one that's stuck out to me because it's the idea of,

like you are a boat, you are trying to drive forward at full power in your life. And if you have an anchor that's sitting behind you in the mud on the seafloor, you are not going to be able to drive forward at full power. You need to identify what those anchors are in your life. What habits, what mindsets, what stories, what people are holding you back or creating a drag on your progress. It can be simple things, things that you are doing or acting on on a daily basis, or it could be challenging things. And in many cases, probably the most common question I get is, what if this boat anchor is a family member? The thing that I always say is the social media guru advice when people have a tough family member is, oh, cut them off, you know, shut it down,

cut it off. And my response to that is always easier said than done, right? Like, so let's say my mom is a really tough force in my life. I can't just go to my mom and just be like, hey, mom, I'm not talking to you anymore, or that's a big, big decision. At some point, it might come to that, but that's a big thing to just, like, decide on a day. What I would say, I think, the most effective first and second step are, the first step is to truly articulate to the person the way that their actions or their words are making you feel, the outcomes that they are creating in your life. Oftentimes, I have found, whether in my own life or in the life of people that I mentor or coach, that the people in your family that are impacting you in that negative way

are actually doing the thing they're doing from a place of love. It is manifesting in a negative way in your life, the way that they are doing that. But it comes from a positive intent. It is actually not a negative intent. I'll give you an example. Like, when I wanted to go change my life and career and make this big jump, my mom was like very skeptical of the whole thing. Like, actually pretty negative on it in certain ways. At first, my inclination might be like, oh, well, I'm just not going to talk to my mom about this thing. But when I dug deeper, what it actually was was that your parents, and my mom in this case, they want you to be successful. They want you to be okay. They want you to be secure and to have a good life. That is like the most higher order

purpose as a parent is you want a kid to be okay. Your parents' map of reality for what it means to build a successful life might not have the thing you are trying to do as part of it. They might just not understand the world of social media, the world of newsletters, the world of all these new things that we're doing. Their version of a successful life is to get a safe, stable job, go work in it for 40 years and then retire, get your 401k retire. And so sometimes the thing that's coming from a place of love will manifest very negatively in your life.

So the first layer of that is to communicate it, to actually bridge that gap and understanding so that you can see whether that's the case. If it is not the case that it is coming from a positive place of love, the next layer of this to me, before you fully cut off, is to just say, I am not going to give energy to this person. There is a big difference between time and energy. I can be physically in someone's presence, but not open myself up to them, right? Like, I might have to do Thanksgiving dinner with this family member and still be there, but that doesn't mean I have to allow their negativity and the things they say to impact me.

I can just be closed off to them. I can put up a wall in a certain sense. That then doesn't require the same level of like cut the line. You are cutting the line more metaphorically than literally. The last layer of this is to cut the line. It is to say that like if neither of those things work, I need to just limit the amount of exposure that I have to this person and have either a direct conversation or indirect, just not be around this person. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that there are certainly, you know, people that are part of community and people I work with who have parents, unfortunately, who they do seem hell bent on their children failing or wanting to sabotage them. And that has been a longwithstanding pattern

throughout their lives. It's not something that just kind of popped up in adulthood and they have to be aware of that. And then we have this other group that I think is what you're speaking to where love manifests as like anxiety and worry and an attempt to protect you. And that can come out sometimes as like discouragement, not wanting you to achieve things because they want you to be safe. I think especially in certain cultures, I mean, I know how I grew up like anxiety and worry is love and someone constantly trying to protect you is a way of showing love. And you're right. I think especially for young adults, it can have this feeling like you're trying to control me. You don't want me to succeed and that doesn't feel good. And so then you pull away. The other thing I found that I don't

know if you if you see this as well is like our world has started to move so quickly that our parents sometimes just are not experts in a lot of these areas because they have no experience and I think a lot of parents want to be the end-all-b-l place for advice and sometimes they just don't know what's going on it's like they're not the right person to go to for that thing yeah I have certainly experienced that I mean I look I come from a background with my parents where like you know my mom is Indian so like very academically oriented culture very much the like name brand follow the safe track to success and then my dad is a professor at Harvard he was a you know

tenured professor so a very safe risk averse track do living a good life and so the idea of the path I was on which was like this nice good sounding high status job in finance made a lot of sense, right? Like it was, they knew what I was doing. It was very clear, my title, all these things. I was making money. Everything was safe. I stepped off that to go down this different path. And they were highly supportive, believe in me, but I think to some extent, very confused. And still to this day, like, outside of my book deal, I think they have no idea how I make money, how I afford anything. The book deal was actually a big moment for me personally as a son because I would say like there was a feeling of I want to do this the traditional way,

sign a traditional book deal in part so that I can give my parents and especially my mom something that she can just hold on to that is like, okay, my son is doing okay. And it's funny for me to even articulate that. I've never really said that publicly that like there are decisions that we continue to make in our own lives that are actually not maybe the most. rational decision for ourselves or for our families. But they're the ones that sort of a suage or like smooth things over with these like, you know, sort of legacy relationships that we have in our lives. A hundred percent. I mean, so much of what we're doing a lot of the

time is on autopilot, right? And is these old conditioning kind of scripts that we have from childhood. And I think there's always this little part of us that is walking up to our parents, you know, with the art project being like, tell me I did a good job, you know, in some way, no matter how old's we get, I fall into that still. You know, it's just, it's, it's part of life that I don't fault anyone for making decisions, like, in that pursuit. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. It is the art project is a good example. It is funny, like, from a young age, you see this in your kids, too, how, how much of human conditioning is for, like, affirmation or for approval, the, like, excitement that a kid gets when you clap for them when

they do something, that, like, they haven't learned to that yet through conditioning. It seems to just be, like, DNA hardwired to want to seek out the thing that is leading to the approval. Totally, especially from parents. And I think that's why, you know, when you, when you share your story, I can tell that even if it was, even if it was scary, if it was a different path, I think there's a lot of truth to that. You must have in some ways felt this, like, foundational love and connection with your parents that like, okay, even if they don't get it, it's different. Like, it's all going to work out. I have that level of trust with them, which is really powerful in a family. Yeah, what I would say is that I have come to believe that the two

pillars of strong relationships are high expectations and high support. And it's very important that the two are together, right? Like high expectations means I expect you to achieve excellence. that you are capable of these incredible things and I expect great things from you. But the second piece is so important, high support, to say, like, I am there to support you to go and meet those high expectations that I have for you because high expectations without high support manifests as resentment. If someone has high expectations for me, but then they disappear and they're nowhere to be found, I'm just going to feel this sense of resentment.

Why do they expect all these things of me? It's going to be frustrating. What I always felt from my parents was that pairing of the two. I actually have this picture of my dad sitting in the front row like someone else took it of my dad sitting in the front row at my book tour events

taking notes like while I was speaking. And I guess this super cute photo of this like, you know, he's almost 70. He's a Harvard professor, clearly very intelligent, sitting there and taking notes. And he's taking notes because after the events we'll have dinner together and he'll tell me like,

oh, I love the. way that you articulated this. It was so smooth. The audience resonated. I thought that you could have framed this slightly differently. Like, have you tested this? You know, he's done public speaking in his life. So he's there both as this unbelievable supporter sitting in the front row doing these things, but also as someone who believes that I'm capable of being one of the best in the world at the things that I'm doing. And truly, I think, believes that and is willing to support me to go and meet that. And I cannot think of a better pairing to have in a parent. And so while occasionally I would say I felt like, you know, during my life, my mom harassed me over things. And, you know, I always joke that like Indian, Indian mothers only have one mode, which is like harassment mode. And it's just a matter of like how high the dial is turned up at any given moment. Um, you know, look, I always felt supported. So like, yes, the expectations were high of me studying, doing things, doing the right things. But my mom was always there. My dad was always there to, uh, to help me meet those challenges. I love that. And I think that

brings us so full circle to how we started this interview that it just to me really shows that one decision that your dad made has really set off such a chain of events in your family that it's beautiful. And I think for anyone who has had to make a decision like that or who feels like their family is fractured or different in some way, I hope that they can hear this story and see that sometimes something really like beautiful and impactful in a new limb of your family tree can be built even in the wake of things like that. And it's a really wonderful story. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. I'd love if you could tell everyone where to find you and your book. You can find me at Sawhill Bloom on any of the

major platforms. And then my book is called The Five Types of Wealth. You can find it on Amazon at your local bookstore anywhere books are sold. Thank you so much. Thank you again for joining us. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Collingholm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's terms of service linked in the show notes below. Oh...