In the last several posts, I have written about wellbeing. Here, I am switching gears from wellbeing to wealth. This is a short post that talks about the common ways in which people become wealthy. It sets the stage for my future posts on “The Journey of Wealth”.
The 10 Roads to Riches is a book written by Ken Fisher in 2008. In this book, the author, who is a well-known investment expert, describes common ways in which people become rich. The book is candid, in parts humorous, and covers most of the legal “roads to riches” that are available in a society with freedom of opportunity.
After reading the book, I reasoned that the roads to riches fall into 3 broad categories:
- Realized talent,
- Wealthy by association with the rich,
- Earners who save, and invest wisely.
In the first category are persons who are not only very talented, they also work hard to transform their talent into valuable skill, which then produces a body of work that is indisputably impressive. Examples include J. K. Rowling (author), Lionel Messi (sportsman), and Thomas Edison (inventor). The wealth of such maestros follows from their accomplishment. Only a very small fraction of people fall into this category.
In the second category are persons who somehow benefit from their association with the rich. People who inherit wealth, marry into money, serve the rich or sue them successfully are all in this category. Luck plays a role in placing people into this category, although it is not always the only factor. Many more people fall into category 2 than into category 1.
The third category is the broadest. Most human beings, including those with no special talent and no access to the uber rich, can become quite rich through earning, saving, and compounding. This path is available to many human beings. However, walking this path is a task I put in the ‘simple but not easy’ category.
I cannot guide my readers to become talented like the people in category 1. If you belong there, congratulations! And while there is certainly skill involved in finding a rich spouse or in suing someone for money, these are not skills I can teach. I do, however, understand the road that leads to riches in category 3, and I plan to write about this in future posts.