There is a lesson it took me many years to learn. It took me longer still to prove it to myself.

I first heard of it from my mentor, Dr Robert Puff, and I still remind myself of it whenever I listen to his podcast. (If you want the longer version, go listen to him. This is mine.)

The lesson is simple. It will not hit you in the forehead as profound wisdom. Its value shows up when you see the people who never learned it, and in the misery they live in because they didn’t. You learn what this lesson is worth by looking at the hell that comes from not knowing it.

The lesson works like a guardrail on a mountain road. Nobody admires a guardrail. You only understand what it’s worth when you picture the road without one or worse yet, when your car spins out and hits one.

Here it is.

True wealth is being able to stop.

True knowledge is being able to stop.

True health is being able to stop.

Three things we chase

To prove these truisms true, consider three things people chase: money, truth, and health. In each case, getting what you chased does not save you.

Knowledge. Suppose you’re an intellectual (an academic, a teacher, a writer). Many of us pursue the academic dream until it consumes us. David Foster Wallace was one of the most gifted writers of his generation. He struggled with depression for years, and he took his own life. His gifts did not save him because he did not know how to stop

Likewise, consider a graduate student who can’t stop revising the dissertation. I had several friends in graduate school who never scheduled their dissertation defense (where you become “Dr. X” or not) because they could not finish the dissertation. Compare with the teacher — devoted, loving, attentive — who grades until midnight every night because there is always one more paper. A mind that cannot stop working eventually starts working against you.

Money. Suppose you’re chasing money. Warren Buffett got money (or at least value: equity in valuable companies). He is in his nineties now, and he has pledged to give nearly all of it away. A lifetime of piling it up, and none of it stays with him. The wealth that some of us pursue (for freedom) ends up becoming the next type of slavery.

Health. Many powerlifters, marathon runners, nutrition nuts have ruined their health through overdoing a good thing. Your knees can only take so many reps. An olympic athlete knows how to rest. Power lifting (which produces impressive muscles) is also hard on the joints and the longer you do it, the more likely you are to find that hard limit. Connor McGregor tried to re-enter the octogan and tore his ACL.

Success in general. Robin Williams found success, fame, money, as much as anyone alive. Yet his final years were marked by deep struggle, and his life ended, like Wallace, in self-harm. He got what he was chasing, and it did not save him.

The ones who walked away

What do all these examples illustrate? What does the other side look like? True wealth, health, and knowledge is being able to stop, being able to walk away.

Bill Watterson is wealthy. He created Calvin and Hobbes, and at the height of its fame he stopped. He walked away.

When I was growing up, Jay Leno hosted The Tonight Show, and the whole time he kept doing stand-up. He lived on his stand-up income and banked his Tonight Show salary. So when it came time to leave the show, he was free to stop. And he did. He walked away.

Neither man was owned by what he had built. That is the whole difference.

Enough

Knowing when enough is enough, being detached, and simply walking away: that is wealth.

Nassim Taleb says that you want to earn enough money to tell people no. It’s not the wealth that allows you to ‘do whatever you want’ but to stop doing what other people want. With this amount, if you can walk away from your boss, you have enough.

I’ll go a step further — if you can walk away from your million-dollar career, you are truly wealthy.

If you can’t, then a lot of money is just a burden. So is a lot of fame. So are a lot of businesses. So, for that matter, are a lot of thoughts (an active, restless intellect is a burden too, if you can’t set it down). Whatever you can’t put down, you are not carrying. It is carrying you.

Picture two people with the same salary, the same house, and the same two cars. On paper they are equally rich, and equally free. The difference is inside. One of them could sell the house, sell the car, and move down to much more modest means without grief. The other could not bear it. The first one is wealthy. True wealth is the fortitude to go without.

Skill and health work the same way

This is not only about money.

Suppose you’re a marathon runner at the peak of your form and the peak of your health. If you can walk away, you are truly wealthy. If you can’t, you’re just attached. You’re a slave to it.

Or think of the musician (the young Ynvgie Malmsteen perhaps) who practices eight hours a day and panics at the thought of a week off. That is not mastery. A master can put the instrument down.

Suppose you’re an Olympic athlete, and walking away from the sport would crush your soul. Then you are not wealthy, however many medals you hold.

Consider the figure skater Alysa Liu. At thirteen she became the youngest U.S. national champion ever. At fourteen she won it again. At sixteen she skated in the Beijing Olympics, finished around sixth, and took bronze at the World Championships a month later. Then, that April, at sixteen, she retired.

Look at the gap between sixteen and nineteen. She had the status of a national champion, and she set it down. She went to school and lived a normal life. In the fall of 2024 she came back. She didn’t come back because she was miserable without it. You can see in her face, her countenance, her demeanor when she skates that she is not under duress. She came back because she wanted to, on her own terms. At nineteen she won the World Championship, and this past February she won Olympic gold. Even now you can see that she could leave it all and become a very content (and very competent) housewife, or a content business owner, or perhaps take up skiing or table tennis. She is free.

She was not a child forced onto the ice who would grow up to resent it. She knew she could stop, so she was free to return, and she could stop again without grief, without loss, without tragedy. That is wealth.

(Simone Biles faced the same pressure from the other side. When she stepped away, it tore at her, and coming back was full of conflict. Two great athletes, and the same test: the inner freedom to stop. Alysa passed it more cleanly.)

The lesson

So, once more. True wealth is being able to stop. True knowledge is being able to stop. True health is being able to stop.

None of this is obvious, and none of it is dramatic. You will not feel it the day you learn it. You will feel it when you try to prove that you can do it all and the cold, hard, wall of reality hits you. Then you may remember that you tried to go all-in and couldn’t stop. Then you will try to practice putting it all down.