Can You Become RICH and How– All Your Questions Answered

One question that remains in most people’s minds is can you become rich and if yes then what is the best method to become rich? Before looking at this question, first let us understand what rich means because if we don’t understand what the goal is then how will you figure out the path to reach your goal? What are the net worth or income criteria to be called rich? Every country has a different net worth criteria as there is a massive income and wealth disparity in the world today. Being amongst the top 1% in a poor country may not qualify you to be even amongst the top 50% of a rich country.

Please note that while richness can be quantified in net worth, some people also define rich as more of a state of mind where all your needs are being sufficiently met. There is also a philosophical dimension to being rich. I know of many rich people who are depressed as they may not have as much money as their neighbors or relatives.

Now that we roughly know what being rich means in terms of net worth let us look at how you can become rich. There are 4-5 traditional ways in how you become rich (Jobs, Business, Stocks, Fixed Income, and Real Estate)

1. Generate income either through doing a job or starting a business. This is the way that most people become rich in their lifetimes by investing in themselves in skills and creating networks, brands, and businesses. This compounds over time leading to high wealth and income generation. While people talk about buying multi-bagger stocks, the highest probability is that you can become a multi-bagger as your income compounds over your lifetime as you improve your skills/expertise over the years. Though income and wealth inequality have increased over the years, you can see a large number of examples of first-generation billionaires in the world today. People like Narayan Murthy, Elon Musk, and Nitin Kamath are all first-generation billionaires who have created immense wealth for themselves and their investors.
2. Stock investing is another way that you can become quite rich if you keep investing in a disciplined manner in high-quality stocks over your lifetimes. The record shows that stocks are the highest return-generating asset among all assets such as fixed income, gold, and real estate. However, high turnover, bad financial advice from brokers, and advisors, and the gambling mentality amongst investors mean most people fail to become rich. For most people investing in index funds from your savings can lead to high wealth generation as the eight wonders of the world compounding works for you. However, people have the mentality that stocks can make you very rich in 2-3 years which is where they go wrong. Investing in F&O, penny stocks, and listening to stock tips is where most investors go wrong and never become rich.
3. Real Estate has again created riches for most people with most of the middle class having a substantial portion of their net worth in their homes. While real estate does not give as high a return as stocks and is not liquid, it creates a lot of wealth as it creates a sort of forced discipline amongst investors as they can’t easily buy/sell RE. If you don’t pay your home loan EMIs then the bank may foreclose your home. This creates a forced savings habit. Also, you can get a lot of leverage as banks finance 70-80% of your home value. However, note that if you buy RE during the peaks you may face losses and it is not a sure-shot winner. However, real estate has a good chance of making you rich compared to crypto or trading in forex/commodities which will almost certainly make you poor.
4. Gold and Fixed Income preserve your money and generally don’t generate very high returns. However, that is not to say that saving and investing a substantial sum regularly in fixed-income instruments like bank deposits, bonds as well as gold can’t make you rich. Some people do become rich by doing exactly this. However, stocks or real estate have a higher chance of making you rich than gold or FI in my view.
5. Cryptocurrency has become another new gambling fad for people looking to become wealthy overnight. However, cryptocurrency is not a true asset class in itself, and being so new has yet to prove itself. There have been many scams and frauds related to crypt as cons and swindlers take advantage of the greed and gullibility of people. While Bitcoin is making new record highs nobody knows when it makes new record lows. As it is backed by nothing, nobody knows what the fundamental value of cryptocurrencies Also anybody can create a new crypto in their garage and sell it to you. While there have been some lucky people (mostly in the USA) who have made it rich, it is more by chance than anything else. You might as well try your luck in a casino
6. Trading in stocks, forex, or other things is another way people think that they can become rich. However, very few people possess the control and skills required to be consistently good at trading. Most studies have shown that over 90% of investors lose money in trading. While trading in stocks looks very easy it is extremely hard as you are competing with millions of people to win in a zero-sum game. There are institutional investors with massive resources and extremely smart people you are competing against. Forex trading is even harder to be good at than stock trading as there are so many variables. Only forex brokers make money by forex trading. By giving high leverage, they only make you think that you can make lots of money, they are fooling you almost all the time with these stupid advertisements like making 1 lakh rupee a month by forex trading. This is a legal scam.
7. People also think that YouTube or the creator economy can make you rich. But that again is a fallacy. Like most arts or sports areas, there is a very small percentage that makes it to the super-rich while the other 99% struggle to make ends meet. It is the nature of the beast. Most YouTubers don’t even make USD 1000 a month a figure that will not make you rich in your lifetime. Let me give you a sobering statistic, there are only 10% of YT channels that are monetized which means 90% make no money at all.

Money is very important in our modern capitalistic society as almost our entire well being whether it is financial, emotional, physical, etc. is largely dependent on money. Becoming rich or being financially independent is something that almost everyone aspires to. However, most people don’t have the discipline or knowledge on how to become rich. The mainstream financial industry is full of snake oil salesmen and charlatans who want to defraud you out of your money. Besides the obvious scams, legal scams are running round the clock. Brokers cajoling you to invest your hard-earned money in exotic schemes like F&O or investing in unlisted shares or structured complex schemes is something you will see and hear daily. Even smart people get scammed by these schemes of high returns as financial literacy remains low in the general population.

The simplest and easiest way to become rich is to invest most of your time and money into improving your skills and jobs and rising in your jobs/business. Also, invest as much as possible of your savings into a balanced asset portfolio of equity and fixed income with some real estate and gold. You don’t need exotic schemes or stocks, just invest in the index funds of broad markets like the Nifty 500. This will be more than enough to make you rich in your lifetimes.