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Today, we welcome Shuvam Bhaumik to the show, an expert in wealth 
strategy and management with a rich history of navigating the complexities of private wealth and family office dynamics. With professional roots in Brooklyn, New York, Shuvam carved his path in the finance world early on, rising from traditional private wealth roles in New York City to forming his own advisory firm focused on alternative investments.
In this insightful episode, Shuvam shares his journey from working with Brill Securities and Morgan Stanley to launching a multifamily office advisory firm, emphasizing his belief in the importance of surrounding oneself with like-minded individuals to propel future success. Shuvam’s experiences shed light on the nuanced differences between traditional wealth management and the more holistic approach required by family offices, where investment strategies extend beyond liquid markets to include real estate, private equity, and heritage planning.
As Shuvam discusses the value of asset allocation among high-net-worth families, he highlights the pivotal role of real estate in wealth preservation and generation due to its tangible nature and income potential. Moreover, he introduces the concept of a virtual family office, an innovative solution that offers bespoke wealth management services without necessitating an exorbitant net worth.
In This Episode
- Shuvam’s transition from traditional wealth management to family office advisory
- The significant role of real estate in high-net-worth portfolios
- The structure and benefits of a virtual family office
- The importance of creating an Investment Policy Statement as a financial blueprint
Surround yourself with like-minded people. Not to quote Denzel again, but Denzel’s other famous quote is: hang out around a barbershop long enough, you’re gonna eventually get a haircut. So who you hang out with is definitely a big prevalence of what your future’s gonna be.
Welcome to the Wealth Strategy Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy podcast, where we help entrepreneurs like you exponentially build wealth through passive income to live a life of freedom and prosperity. Are you tired of paying too much in taxes, gambling your future on the stock market, and want to learn about hidden strategies for making your money work for you?
And now your host, Dave Wolcott, serial entrepreneur and author of the best-selling book, The Holistic Wealth Strategy.
How’s it going, everyone? And welcome back to another episode on Wealth Strategy Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy. Today, we’re diving deep into the world of family offices, alternative investments, and next-level wealth strategies with someone who has spent decades advising high-net-worth families. Joining me today is Shuvam Baumek, our new Head of Family Office and Capital Markets at Pantheon.
Shivam is a seasoned private wealth expert who transitioned from the traditional Wall Street model to the world of family office advisory and alternative investments. With a background at firms like Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns, Shivan saw firsthand the limitations of the conventional financial system and set out to build a better, more holistic approach for ultra-wealthy families.
In today’s conversation, we’ll cover the biggest differences between traditional wealth management and a family office approach, how high-net-worth investors allocate their portfolios and why they invest far less in public equities than you might think, the power of real estate and private equity, and why cash flow and tax efficiency are key. We’ll also discuss the role of a virtual family office and why it’s a game-changer for those seeking control, simplicity, and true wealth optimization, how to structure your investment policy statement—the essential blueprint for preserving and growing generational wealth—and finally, why patience, discipline, and surrounding yourself with the right people are critical to long-term wealth success.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, investor, or someone looking to build multigenerational wealth, this episode is packed with insightful strategies and real-world lessons to help you accelerate your financial journey.
Without further ado, let’s welcome Shuvam Baumik to the show and the Pantheon community. Hey, Shuvam. Welcome to the show.
Awesome. I look forward to being here and look forward to our conversation.
Yeah, 100% grateful to have you on the show and really get a chance to understand your origin story, some of your background as it relates, and really talk about your wealth journey so far to really help the listeners. So for those who aren’t familiar with you, why don’t we just start there and talk a little bit about your origin story, where you’re from, and how you got into this whole field of wealth building.
Yeah. Sure. So, you know, a little bit about me. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Mom, dad, and brother are still there. I started my professional career in New York City. I worked for a group called Brill Securities, which was an offshoot of Bear Stearns.
I met my boss when I started working playing golf. I’m a big golfer, avid golfer, still play competitively, played in college. And that’s how I got started. And, you know, learned a lot, got my licenses in the traditional private wealth space. And then, I’m 42 now, about twenty years ago or so, moved to Boston and last worked at Morgan Stanley in the private wealth group there.
And then fourteen years ago or so, started a single family office advisory firm, which morphed into a multifamily office advisory firm focused on alternative investments.
Awesome. So, Shivan, tell us a little bit about kinda coming from that traditional wealth management space and then moving over to the family side. What are some of the biggest differences you’ve seen?
The biggest difference is coming from the traditional private wealth space where your traditional advisers focused on the liquid markets, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and financial planning.
Going over to the family office side, I realized there’s more complexities for a family other than just their investments. Family office counseling, heritage planning, you know, if they’re a business owner, what do they do after if there’s a liquidity event. It was more complex than just your traditional investments. They also wanted access to private markets, which they didn’t have before. Right?
Now it’s obviously a big investment thesis for families to focus on private equity and alternatives. That’s really the biggest difference that I’ve seen. And the number, as I mentioned, is, the complexities of their needs, I think, is also much different than the traditional private wealth space.
Yep. And so on that asset allocation side, I mean, what have you typically seen with families that you’ve worked with in terms of, you know, public equities, real estate, and also private equity? What kind of mix are you seeing?
Yeah. You know, in general, their exposure to the public equities market is a lot lower than people think. It’s maybe 15 to 20% of their overall allocation. Biggest is real estate, and then second is private equity.
And by private equity, I mean, it could be in their business. It also could be in the venture capital space. It could be in operating businesses. But I would say at least 25% to 35% of their portfolio is in the real estate space.
And why would you say that is?
I think the biggest thing from a mental perspective is they could touch it and feel it. And then number two is the income cash flow that they get from that, as well, coupled with the tax strategies around real estate, tax mitigation, and depreciation that they get, offsetting their income in other spaces. I think is a big reason why they have such a big allocation to real estate.
Yeah. But the traditional financial world, right, it seems like 98% of it or so is literally just focused on, you know, the equities, and they talk about that sixty forty split. So is there kind of a threshold where people should be thinking about some of, you know, alternative investments in real estate and really broadening their horizon?
Yeah. I don’t know if there’s a certain threshold from an investable assets perspective. What I tell my friends, family, colleagues is they should get started as soon as they can in creating their pie. The traditional equities market, like you said, Dave, is, you know, you have a certain asset mix and that’s it. And, you know, it’s almost like a set it and forget it.
And they go from there. I personally believe that if you have the investable assets, you should try to create more streams of income for yourself, regardless of when that is. I think you should get started as early as possible. And that’s why I think now it’s becoming more prevalent where people are looking at the private spaces, real estate, private equity, venture, and all that.
Yeah. I mean, in my experience, I’ve really just seen the equities markets just be really linear in nature, right, where you’re only hoping for, you know, equity values to go up over time when in reality, they can actually stay the same or they can go down. Right? Like, we just saw the other week with NVIDIA go down massively outside of your control, whereas you can drive more exponential growth with those three dimensions you talked about really from a growth standpoint, cash flow standpoint, and also tax efficiency in your portfolio.
Yeah. Agreed. I mean, there’s a reason why a bulk of the net worth in the world is in real estate. Right? I think there’s an emotional factor there compared to the stock market.
As you said, you can’t control the stock market. We could always go back in hindsight and say, bought this and bought that. But real estate, why I think people grow their net worth is because there’s no tangible value that’s attached to it on a day-to-day basis. Right? You don’t see the price of real estate fluctuate.
If you did, I guarantee you 80% of real estate holders would sell when it’s probably the inopportune time. So that’s why over time, real estate is just an appreciating asset.
Yeah. What have you seen as some of the biggest challenges in working with high-net-worth families in terms of really, you know, managing and optimizing their wealth?
You know, the main challenge I think is what do they do next? Right. So they’ve had, they come into all this money and people think for the most part that that’s great. Right? But as we know, Uncle Sam takes a good chunk of it away, right, whenever you have liquidity events.
So it’s really finding the right strategies for them to create tax efficiency, number one. Family planning, number two. Right? So the dollars actually stay within their family for the longevity. And then investment ideas.
Right? What’s next for them, right? They just don’t want that money sitting around doing nothing. Finding good investments, I think, is also key. You know, Dave, we hear the horror stories of people coming into a lot of money or winning a lot of money or having liquidity events.
And then within three, four years, right, they’re almost bankrupt because of bad investments and stuff like that. So the challenge always is, is finding good investments. I always say this. My job is not to make you rich twice. Right?
My job is to keep what you have and grow it incrementally over time where it’s gonna be around for the next fifty, sixty, seventy plus years.
Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Wealth preservation is really key as well as really expanding on that. You know, I think there’s also just so many ki
nd of shortcomings in the traditional model as well.
People just don’t really consider. One of those being is the wealth accumulation theory and the Monte Carlo simulation, right, where you’re building up for a large sum that you’re gonna hit maybe this retirement number and then start to live off of 4% a year. Mhmm. So how would you compare this to, you know, how family offices are really structuring their wealth?
I think it’s similar. It’s just, you know, the traditional Monte Carlo simulations and financial planning simulations are just taken off their, most people’s equity portfolios, right? Their 401(k)s, their retirement IRAs, and their traditional, you know, portfolios. Family offices do it in the same way. They just do it with their old private holdings. Right?
A typical family office that I’ve encountered has five to seven streams of income, and that’s the goal. Right? How do they keep generating more passive cash flow than they can, you know, as we’ve always talked about is, not trade time for money, but trade money for time. Right? So the simulations and all of that, the traditional planning is all the same. It’s just in different asset classes.
Yeah. And so at Pantheon, can you talk to us a little bit about, the, you know, the structure of the virtual family office and what you’re excited about? Because I think it’s really a new concept for a lot of people out there. They’re really not sure what is a family office. Do I need, you know, a hundred million to be able to, you know, leverage this strategy, or how does it really work?
Yeah. So from high level, a virtual family office or family office in general is creating an investment company for yourself. Right? That’s the very crux of it.
What we do at Pantheon is we essentially become your CIO, the family patriarch, matriarch, or whoever it may be is a CEO. And we work closely with them creating an investment policy statement, which essentially is the foundation of the family office that outlines the goals, investment structure, what they want with the money, any philanthropic endeavors that they may have, other charitable endeavors, what they wanna do with their in-laws or their current family members. It’s a pretty detailed document that outlines that. And then from there, we at Pantheon, we structure the proper team around them. Right?
Dave, I know over your lifetime, you curated an incredible team, an all-star team of folks to work on this stuff. So we formulate the structure around them. We get the right people in place, and then we structure that portfolio for them. And, you know, you don’t need to have a hundred million dollar net worth to have that structure. You could be, you know, $5.10, $15,000,000 net worth.
Right? The numbers are very arbitrary to whoever the family is. It’s just more so what your needs are. And the virtual family office is a very cost-effective way for a family to get these services that you don’t need to go to, you know, your large family office providers to get.
Yeah. And what do you think some of the ROI points are in operating inside of a VFO?
You know, I think the major return on investment is simplicity. I think that’s a word that is sometimes not used enough, why people do family offices, and what we’re doing at Pantheon. We’re trying to make the clients’ lives simpler. Right?
More money you have, the more complex your life becomes, funny enough. And our job is to make that simple for them. So that’s really the crux of it. The ROI can be measured in many different ways. I think it’s measured by the time that we alleviate for these families.
Like I said, you know, the investments obviously that we’re going to choose and pick are gonna align with their investment policy statement. But what we do is gonna alleviate time for the families.
Yeah. Can you unpack that IPS a little bit? Kind of, you know, what does that really look like? What could people expect in terms of setting one of these up?
Yeah. So it’s a as I was saying, it’s a very detailed document, right, that really outlines the family’s values, goals, obviously investment objectives. You know, certain families can create a board of directors, an investment committee. It’s a very detailed document.
Philanthropic endeavors that they may have, how they wanna leave money for their kids in the future. So we could go in many different directions with the IPS. Right? I equate it to a foundation of a house. Right?
If you don’t have a solid foundation of a house, eventually that house is gonna crumble. It’s no different than your financial house. You need this IPS in place. And it’s obviously a breathing document, right? Living document where it can be changed here and there.
But in general, the family needs to have an idea of what they wanna do with the wealth that they’ve accumulated. Funny enough, investments are the easy part for us at Pantheon. Right? The challenge is always understanding the value systems of the families of what they wanna do.
Yeah. It’s interesting that I think, think, you know, so much of that, you know, alignment with assets really does come down to some of those soft things. Right? And making sure spouses and families are aligned in terms of their goals, their objectives, really creating a wealth vision. It was so awesome to see last week, at our annual mastermind retreat. People just really get clarity, which generates confidence over their wealth vision and really understanding what that is.
We even had one member publicly state that he’s gonna become a billionaire, you know, in the event, which was, super inspiring, I think, for others. But once you have that vision, right, and then you can instantiate that in the IPS, right, to have that formal document so that all your advisers understand that, your family understands that, and everyone’s on board. And as you say, it’s like a great foundation or blueprint, really, you know, for your wealth that can live on.
Think about what you want your money to do for you—before you even start investing. Clarity creates confidence.
Yeah. Of course. I mean, you have to you have to put it down on paper. Right? That’s when it becomes real. I think that’s the biggest what I’ve biggest feedback I’ve gotten from that exercise is that, you know, once people write down their thoughts and their vision, it’s like, wow, okay. You know, this is real. I can actually achieve this if I do X, Y, and Z. Right. So it’s, it’s not just only an exercise to do if you want to create a family office. I think everybody should just do one period. If you’re an individual, if you’re a family, right, you have to have goals.
It’s like, again, to use an analogy, it’s like going to the gym. If you’re just going to the gym without a plan, then what are you really doing? Right? You know, everyone’s pretty much going to the gym. They know what they’re gonna work out and things like that. No different than what this investment policy statement is laying out for them.
Yeah. And would that be different than what a traditional adviser might be talking about?
Yeah. Traditional adviser, when they do a plan, a financial plan, they’re more so focused on. Right? So it’s just their equity portfolios. They may look at the private side of their of families. But for the most part, right, they’re not managing that. Right? They’re just really focused on their liquid portfolios. And there’s many reasons for that, but that’s really what they’re tied to. Right? Because the way, as we know, the comp model works for them is based on what the, assets under it, management, assets under advisement.
So it doesn’t really make sense for them to talk about other stuff. Where for us, at the virtual family office, we look at the whole thing. Right? We wanna know everything about that family, and we advise on all things, that’s that’s under that family’s umbrella.
Yeah. For me, that was one of the biggest pain points I had for just so many years is, you know, keep venturing into these alternative assets, getting into real estate, and whether it be your CPA, your estate planner, your asset protection attorney, you know, lawyers.
Right? And you start telling them that you have different assets, you have different businesses, you’re driving passive income, you have advanced tax strategies, and they would really just look at you like you had three eyes and just wouldn’t understand how any of that worked. So that was that was really frustrating for me. And I think, you know, we’ve spent a lot of time and meticulous efforts to really try to curate some of the best in the best. You know, I I literally think it’s less than 1% of any advisors out there who even understand how all these dynamics really work.
Yeah. I mean, you know, you talked about the mastermind event. I think I got a lot out of it because I learned a couple of unique strategies in that space, which, you know, I’m I’m eager to talk about with our family office clients, you know, infinite banking and all these other items that, a lot of people just don’t know about. Right?
Yeah, And if you think about it, right, I mean, it’s really this whole world is opaque on purpose. Right? The ultra wealthy aren’t just, you know, publicly saying, hey, what, you know, what they did. You might see Grant Cardone beating his chest to say, go invest in real estate.
Right? But outside of that, right, or Kiyosaki. Right? There’s a lot of these advanced strategies that you just don’t know about.
And when you ask your traditional advisors, you know, they don’t know, so they’re gonna tell you it’s risky or if it doesn’t align to their, you know, compensation model.
That’s correct. Yep. No. You’re hundred percent right on that.
Yeah. What are your thoughts, you know, from an asset allocation standpoint? We kinda talked about a couple of different, you know, asset classes and things like that. But, you know, oftentimes, we’ll get questions from people just trying to figure out, you know, how do you create, you know, that portfolio that does align for people’s goals, you know, how they’re trying to get to financial independence or maybe create legacy wealth. Like, how do you really look at, you know, different asset classes, how much to put in those, you know, how to manage your your taxes, cash flow streams, etcetera.
Yeah. So I think the portfolio allocation is gonna differ from family to family. That’s number one. Right? But I think to create the overall pie, you need a big exposure to cash flowing assets.
I think that goes without saying. Right? Now there could be families out there that are more risk averse that want to be very safe. And then vice versa, there could be families out there that want more risk and they’ll take on the markets or venture capital and things like that. But in general, right, you want your money working for you.
So how do you do that? And the foundation of the portfolio, I think, should be in cash flowing, capital preservation, risk mitigation assets. Okay. And then from there, you kind of build out the pie. Right?
Equity markets are small. Exposure to private equity, you have an exposure to. Some venture, you have an exposure to. You know, now there is a big concentration and talk about the digital asset space. Right?
We talk about, you know, the cryptos and things like that. You know, there is some exposure to that, commodities or certain exposure to that. Right? So, you know, that really is what comprise of the pie. Right?
You know, we talk about the Tiger 21 model. That’s exactly how they’re laid out. Right, is that they have bits and pieces of all these things in their portfolio where once you make it up to that %, now you have broad exposure through all different markets where if things were to go bad in one specific space, right, as we’re seeing what happens in the equity markets from day to day, right, it gives you some again, you could sleep at night knowing that you have other aspects of your portfolio that are still working well, right, in the overall mix of investments.
Yeah. No. And I always like to really encourage people to think through, you know, what is the purpose you want your money to do for you first before you kind of jump into the specific assets? Because like you said, you know, the investing part can be easy. Right? But it’s some of those harder things like, you know, are you really looking for cash flow?
Right? And then if financial independence is your goal, right, so you can stop working or maybe your spouse stops working, or you achieve that financial freedom number, have a map to that. You know? Are you gonna achieve that in the next seven years? Well, how much cash flow do you really need to get?
Or how much money do you need to feel comfortable at night? Right? And that’s when the life insurance using infinite banking and some other strategies are really key because it’s like a % rock solid type of investment vehicle. But what makes sense for you? Is that 20% of your portfolio?
Is that 40%, you know, based on your risk tolerance? Because as you pointed out, right, it’s like every one of these portfolios is different. Right? It’s bespoke for every person out there. But I think if you can just define what you’re really looking for and those goals first and then slot that in, it seems to make a lot of sense.
And the one thing I’ll also add to that, Dave, as you mentioned is also protection. Right? We don’t talk about insurance enough in family offices. It’s a conversation that I’ve been having over the last few years more and more is to protect what they have. Right?
And everyone’s always focused on growing and chasing a number. But there’s also, you know, to a point where you have to protect what you have now. Right? And then you could still grow it from there. Right?
But it’s also having the right procedures in place. God forbid if something were to happen to you or your wife, or you had a large, you know, medical expense or whatever it may be, life happens. That’s one thing that’s unpredictable is life. You want to make sure that you’re in a good place on that front. Right?
So, again, at the mastermind event, which was great, is hearing about some of those strategies of how do you protect what you have as well as use it as an asset itself. Right? Like we talked about the life insurance side. How do we use that as an asset? Because most of the time, it’s viewed as a protection item.
And then, you know, most people think if I invest into a life insurance or buy a life insurance policy, you know, the death benefit someone else is gonna get either my heir or my wife and things like that. So like, why should I do that? But what a lot of people don’t realize is that life insurance is also an asset for your overall portfolio, and you could utilize it to keep growing your net worth through infinite banking and other aspects. So that was a great eye-opener for, I think, a lot of people in that room at the mastermind.
Yeah. It’s really a multiplier. Right? Because you’ve got estate planning. You have tax efficiency. You can use it as collateral.
Right? But also some of these advanced things in terms of that estate planning piece, I mean, you’re gonna have future generations with, you know, massive tax hits. Right? And if you’re not planning for that, you know, that’s where we see those awful statistics, right, where 80% of them actually lose the capital. And by gen three, it’s 90%.
Right? So you’ve gotta be doing proactive planning, and insurance is a great method to do that. That whole, you know, creating family banking and the Rockefeller method is really a great tool to be able to do that. But these are sophisticated strategies, and I think at the heart of all of this is education. Right?
And this is why, you know, we’re real proponents of this podcast and all the things that we can do to help people really understand how do these things work. Are they right for me? Or maybe they are at a certain time. Right? So I can understand how to utilize them.
Because, you know, it’s not just like trying to take a new product and plug it into something. You need to know how to actually implement it and then build a team, a dream team around you that’s gonna support you through your entire wealth journey, not just plugging something in.
That’s right. And, you know, I think you said one word that’s very important. What we’re doing at Pantheon beyond the investments and structuring is that we’re educating these folks. I think that’s extremely important. Knowledge is definitely power in this space, the more that you know. And we wanna have these families also feel empowered as well. So knowledge is definitely key.
Yep. So as a member of Tiger 21, Shuvam, any other insights or big learnings you’ve had in that group?
You know, the one thing I’ve realized with the organization as a whole is that, one, it’s very collaborative, which is great. Number two, no matter where you are in a net worth perspective, everyone has similar challenges. Right? Everyone is not able to sleep at night for some of the same reasons.
The dollars are very arbitrary, obviously. Right? But they all have similar challenges. They all worry about family. They all worry about their kids. They all worry about their businesses. If they’re entrepreneurs, right, they all worry about the economy, you know, their own health. Right? A lot of the worries are all the same no matter where you are in a net worth perspective, which was eye opening to me. Right?
Because, you know, looking from the outside, the majority of people think that the wealthier you are, the happier you get, which is not the case. I think just more challenges come up for these folks as they’re growing their net worth. It’s good challenges. Right? And the one thing that I always try to tell these folks is to reframe.
Right? Instead of worry, you know, you get to do all these things, which is nice. You know, instead of I have to, I get to. Right? And, you know, speaking with one of our mastermind folks, the one thing I think that really stood out is when he started his business almost three decades ago, you know, with very little money, I said to him, I go, if you fast forward to today, would you have ever thought you were going to be in this position?
And he said, I would’ve killed to be in this position. And I said, well, there you go. Right? So it’s all relative on what’s people’s challenges are. It’s always about reframing.
So that’s one of the biggest things I’ve gotten out of the, you know, Tiger 21.
Yeah. I know. When we had Michael on the show, we kind of did a, you know, deep dive in terms of asset allocation and really that, you know, investor psychology piece and what wealth really means. And, I think it’s a fantastic and fascinating subject, right, that not enough people really talk about is that psychology of wealth. And we unpack that quite a bit at the mastermind retreat, which was amazing.
We had some amazing sessions and guest speakers, including a clinical psychologist, really talking about, you know, maybe money blocks we’ve had from our childhood and how we’re thinking about those things, and then how, you’re right, we can reframe them into a positive mindset. How can we do good with all the things that we’ve done? And, also, how can we teach future generations about all this? Right?
Because I think, you know, most of us and our generation, right, money was taboo. You know, we didn’t really talk about it. It wasn’t talked about at the table, so we didn’t really know how to make money. And, you know, making money is totally different than keeping money. Right?
So what, you know, what really are the strategies? And I think most of us, the only thing we heard about was really from, you know, just that traditional, conventional financial planning, you know, that perspective, which, to me is really one dimensional.
So yeah. And, you know, finances are emotional, right? You work hard for your money and, you know, you don’t wanna lose it. You wanna make sure it’s in the right place. It definitely is an emotional decision and that’s one of the main goals of the VFO. My focus is not that we take the emotions out of it, but, you know, we at Pantheon, we take over those emotions for the most part. Again, simplicity where the clients could sleep at night.
Yeah. Shuvam, if you could go back and give your younger self financial advice, what would it be?
Oh, man. So many. I think the main thing is money for me, and it’s still true today, money creates opportunities and freedom. I think if I had that mindset back then, I would have enjoyed my twenties a lot more than working all the time. But that’s one thing I’ve realized now as I get older, you know, and I say this a lot. I say this at the mastermind, you know, Denzel Washington’s famous quote, you don’t wanna be the wealthiest guy in the graveyard. Right? So, you know, money creates opportunities. You want to enjoy as much of it as you can responsibly, obviously, but you want to enjoy it.
So that’s the one thing I would actually tell myself is that obviously you want to work hard. You want to build wealth and all that, but it was an ego thing for me back then, right? You want to be wealthy. You want to show it off to your friends. And as you get older, you realize that, you know, your friends really don’t care. Your family really doesn’t care how much money you have, as long as you’re doing the right thing, being a good person and all that stuff. So I would just, again, reframe my mindset.
Yeah. No. That really goes back to those things you mentioned earlier, right, where everyone kind of has the same problems. Right? We want great relationships. We want health. Right? It’s so paramount. And that’s how we really put that together in a holistic wealth strategy to really be thinking about your wealth in a 360-degree view because money is really just energy. Right? And you’re using that energy to support these other things in your life.
Those other opportunities that can really, I think, create meaning and fulfillment, which is really what we’re all looking for, but being grounded. So how do you actually stay grounded?
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think you’re just talking about I know you’ve talked about it in your book and other podcasts. Wealth is just not zeros in a bank account, right? Wealth is spiritual, obviously health. The way I stay grounded, obviously family is paramount. I don’t think my wife will let me be grounded. Right. So that’s good.
Same thing with my parents. We grew up very middle class in Brooklyn, New York. Like we never had to worry about it. But as I got older, I saw the struggles my parents had to go through and understood it more. So that’s why I was very frugal with all my money and still am today in some aspects.
Wealth is not just about numbers in a bank account-it’s about time, freedom, and security for your family.
But just surround yourself with good people. I became more spiritual over the last, I would say three or four years, mainly due to, you know, my dad’s health, him getting, you know, sick and now struggling with dementia and stuff like that. It kinda wakes you up. And, you know, playing competitive golf, you know, I’ve had some pretty interesting opportunities and experiences. And the one thing I’ll never forget, playing with a professional from Maine, he said to me one time, he goes, isn’t it amazing that we give thanks when we lose things?
Right. And it opened my eyes to golf, and competitive golf in the sense that what am I waiting for? Right. So that’s one of the things that I would say in regards to family offices today is all the things that you’re planning for. Let’s put them down on paper and let’s actually put timelines on these things.
Right. Because what are you waiting for? So long-winded answer to your question, Dave, on how I stay grounded is that it’s a culmination of a lot of different things.
Yeah. No. That’s great. On the personal productivity side, what are some of the top hacks or habits or routines that you have?
The biggest one is fitness. I am not a great person to be around if I don’t work out or go to the gym or be active for at least forty-five to sixty minutes. I think that is key.
It just puts you in the right place every day when you do that. So that’s number one. I eat fairly healthy. You know, I try to sleep a lot. You know, sleep is the biggest hack in the world.
I think a lot of people underestimate that. The adage of before, oh, I could survive on four or five hours a day of sleep. My answer to that is you’re an idiot. You need seven to nine hours every single day. Right?
I think also, it could cure a lot of aches and pains and things that people are suffering with. Those are the three biggest things. Right? You know, there’s obviously vitamins and all that stuff. I don’t know much about that stuff yet to talk with knowledge, but, you know, working out, eating right, sleeping.
And then the fourth I would add is the spiritual side. I have started doing Bible study. I’m a Hindu, but I’ve started doing Bible study more from a philosophy standpoint. And the one thing I will say after the hour of Bible study per week is that I just become calmer naturally. Right?
So getting in touch with your spiritual side, you know, people will naturally just get calm and relax. So those are my four main hacks that I do.
Yeah. Love it. We’ll get you into the biohacking before long here.
Yeah. Exactly. What’s your handicap, Shuvam? I think today, I’m a plus point six. So about a scratch. I’m a scratch.
Wow. Nice. And, fun fact for the audience, tell us about your dog’s name.
So I have two little dogs. One is Tiger. Actually, he’s sleeping in the office right now. He’s a long-haired chihuahua, Papillon mix that we got six months before we got married. So he’s almost six years old. And we just rescued another little Yorkie last year, and we named her Nelly after Nelly Korda, who is the number one female ranked golfer.
Okay.
But Tiger is named after Tiger Woods. Yeah.
Yeah. That’s cool.
Which is my idol.
Yeah. Awesome. Shuvam, if you could give just one piece of advice to the audience about how they could accelerate their own wealth trajectory, what would it be?
Patience, I think, is key in wealth. That’s really the biggest piece of advice is patience. And the number, I guess, 1A will be to surround yourself with like-minded people. You know, again, not to quote Denzel again, but Denzel’s other famous quote is, hang out around a barbershop long enough, you’re gonna eventually get a haircut. So who you hang out with is definitely a big prevalence of what your future is gonna be.
Yeah. Love it. That’s the Jim Rohn quote. Right? You’re the product of the five people that you spend most of your time with. So spot on. Well, it’s been such a pleasure having you on the show to really get connected and have the audience have a chance to meet you and kinda get to know you. And if people wanna reach out, have a conversation with you, what is the best place?
Yeah. So, they could find me on the website at Pantheon, obviously. My email, I think, is on that site. But on social, I’m under my name, Shuvam Balmick. They wanna find me on Instagram, which is more personal stuff. It’s sbgolf00 on Instagram as well.
Awesome. And we’ll put your contact info. Maybe we’ll put in a Calendly link for you as well in the show notes if anyone wants to reach out to Shuvam. But thanks again for your time, and really excited about joining the team.
Thank you, Dave. Thanks for having me.
Awesome. Thanks. Alright. Take care.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Wealth Strategy Secrets. If you’d like to get a free copy of the book, go to holisticwealthstrategy.com. That’s holisticwealthstrategy.com.
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