This post is inspired by Ray Dalio's book, Principles for Dealing with The Changing World Order.

In page 222 of his book, Ray shared the concept of financial wealth which is different from other types of wealth. To the un-initated, this is confusing, wealth is wealth right? What is non-financial wealth anyways? But there are differences. Importantly, Ray implored us to think about financial wealth, real wealth and in the digital world in the future, digital wealth.

Today, we are wealthy mostly just in terms of financial wealth, money in the bank, stocks, bonds, insurance, fixed deposits. This is actually different from real wealth - like owning a house, car, physical gold and silver, watches, jewellery etc. Financial wealth, including cash, are just "promises" created by human beings so that we can transact more efficiently. 

Financial wealth was created around 1350 in Italy (maybe earlier in China) and for most