How long does it take to get wealthy?
I’m often asked this query by the media.
124 of the 177 self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study (70%) needed about 28 years to build up their wealth. That’s a protracted time.
But the actual answer to how long it takes will depend on your chosen path to wealth. In my study, I discovered that there are 4 paths to wealth and every path has a special time horizon for constructing wealth
The path from saver to investor
This path takes the longest. On average, it took 32 years for the self-made millionaires in my study to build up their wealth. The reason this path takes so long is since the saver-investors didn’t make much money. Most had middle-class incomes, saved 20% or more of their income, after which invested those savings correctly.
In most cases, savings have been invested within the stock market. However, a superb percentage have built the majority of their wealth through real estate investments – mainly single-family rental homes.
The via ferrata “Big Company”
Corporate Climbers are individuals who join one or two corporations over the course of their profession and climb the company ladder. Corporate Climbers have taken a mean of 20 years to build up their wealth.
Once they became a part of the corporate’s leadership, they became beneficiaries, and considered one of the rewards for moving as much as the highest level of management was stock compensation in the shape of incentive stock options, stock grants, stock appreciation rights, or non-qualified stock options. For those moving up in large corporations, 90% of their wealth was the direct results of stock compensation.
The Virtuoso Path
Virtuosos are individuals who’re amongst one of the best of their field. Virtuosos will be knowledge-based virtuosos or skill-based virtuosos. On average, it took virtuosos 21 years to build up their wealth.
The dreamer’s path to becoming an entrepreneur
The dreamer-entrepreneur path was the shortest path to wealth creation. On average, it took the dreamers-entrepreneurs 12 years to construct their wealth. And the dreamer-entrepreneur path was by far probably the most lucrative path to wealth. The dreamers amassed a fortune of roughly $7.4 million.
But the trail of the dreamer-entrepreneur can be probably the most difficult path to prosperity. In the primary years as a dreamer-entrepreneur, the dreamer must sacrifice time with family and friends for a few years and work 50 to 60 hours every week, often on weekends and holidays.
Not many are willing to try this.
Another difficulty that dreamers face is the relentless stress they need to endure: money flow problems that make it difficult for them to pay suppliers; struggling to pay salaries with low money flow; having to forgo wages with low money flow; unexpected problems; economic downturns that cause disruptions to business operations; losing major customers/clients, having to retain major customers/clients, having to unravel persistent problems, and plenty of other stresses burden every dreamer-entrepreneur.
Life as an entrepreneur will not be easy, especially within the early stages. But for my part, it’s price it.
