My father passing away changed how I think about wealth and time

My father passing away changed how I think about wealth and time.

Not in a philosophical way. In a practical, sit-down-and-recalculate way.

Because when you lose someone close to you, you see very clearly what no spreadsheet shows you - that everything else on the asset register is secondary. The business, the property, the investment portfolio. All of it runs on one very important underlying asset that most of us quietly neglect while we're busy creating everything else.

So I started with the idea that I wanted to treat my health like I treat my investments.

Not obsessively. Not with a stack of supplements and a continuous glucose monitor and a cold plunge at 5am. That's just swapping one form of compulsion for another. I burned out running Gallantway by optimising the wrong things too hard. I'm trying not to make the same mistake with my body and im thinking about health as an asset class.

Consistent contributions beat intense ones

The gym program you do three times a week for ten years is worth more than the six-week transformation you do every January. It is for me at least. It's the same logic that makes index investing work applies to your body. Boring, consistent, long horizon.

I surf. I golf. I play tennis (badly). I try new things. Not because they're all the most efficient forms of exercise - they're not. But because they're skills I can spend a lifetime getting better at, they put me outside and in my body, and I'll still be doing them at 65. That time horizon matters. A habit you sustain for thirty years compounds in ways that a punishing program you abandon in six months never will.

What you measure, you manage

I get regular blood tests now. Skin checks too - living on the Gold Coast, that's non-negotiable. Not because I'm chasing optimal numbers or trying to biohack my way to longevity. Because I want to know what's actually happening, the same way I want to know what's in my investment portfolio, or how my business performed last week.

Most people have more visibility into their super balance than their own biology. That asymmetry is kind of strange when you really think about it. Your body and your mind is the engine everything else runs on.

The optimisation trap

Here's the thing the wellness industry won't tell you: obsessive health optimisation is just another form of the same anxious productivity that burns people out in their careers.

I'm really not interested in that version. I'm interested in the version that looks like eating well most of the time, moving in ways I enjoy, sleeping enough, getting checked regularly, creating meaningful relationships, and building a life that doesn't require chronic stress to sustain.

That's not a hack. It's just a long-term relationship with your own body and mind, thats treated with the same seriousness you'd give any other major asset.

The compounding you can't see

The returns on health investment are mostly invisible until they're not.

You don't notice the energy you have at 45 because you've been moving consistently since 35. You don't notice the clarity of thinking, the emotional steadiness, the capacity to be present with the people you love. You only notice when it starts to erode - and by then, some of that compounding works in reverse.

Losing my father was a reminder I didn't ask for. But it recalibrated something important.

Your health is not a separate category from your wealth. It's the foundation the whole thing sits on.

Invest in it accordingly.

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