I have good news and bad news. First, the good news – I’m totally serious when I say that there are no secrets to getting rich and building massive wealth.
No tricks.
No hidden manuscript somewhere that only rich people have access to.
There isn’t a handshake or secret passphrase, either.
This isn’t some super-exclusive cigar club. Thankfully, all this stuff is out there and ready to be consumed.
And, let’s face it: If there were some deep secret about getting rich, rich people wouldn’t tell you about it. They’d keep it all to themselves.
Okay, now the bad news. Our education system does a horrible job of teaching even the basics of personal finance and building wealth, such as the stock market, compound interest, budgeting, and investments.
My book, Millionaire Habits, does an outstanding job of teaching these things, however. It’s a perfect graduation gift, too. Just sayin’…
A great many of us have a ton of potential to build serious wealth, but we just aren’t exposed to how it all works.
It’s not a secret, but it’s not well-taught, either.
I learned the basics of investments from my dad at a very early age. In my teens, he bought me a book by The Motley Fool about how investments work.
You know, things like 401ks, Roth IRAs, money market accounts, brokerage accounts, and how money builds (read: compounds) over time into vast collections of Benjamins.
I may not have completely absorbed every word at the time, but the lessons were invaluable.
Sadly, I learned none of that in school. The advanced placement calculus classes some kids took were great (I guess), but they do little to prepare us for the world and how things actually work.
Getting rich only requires a basic understanding of money principles, such as:
- Compound interest is the single most important element to getting rich over time (hint: the stock market and real estate works)
- Never carry credit card debt month-to-month, ever
- Understand the difference between good debt and bad debt
- Money is accumulated slowly over time through smart decision-making, not get-rich-quick schemes/scams
- Financial independence is about being happy, not quitting your job
- Track your expenses; it’s impossible to improve without tracking
To track your money, check out Fina. It’s a web-based application that combines all of your online financial accounts into a single unified view with charts, graphs, and predictions based on market conditions.
Building wealth also requires an element of risk, calculated risks. We will discuss more about this component of creating wealth in the next email.
