The Upsides of Building Wealth Slowly

Certainly when we’re much younger – in our teens and twenties – the idea of quick riches is very alluring. The constant barrage of people on TikTok and Instagram who have “made it” at a very young age can drive heightened levels of envy. If they can do it, why can’t I?

But as we get older, we start to understand that for every successful and overpaid sports star and celebrity, thousands have been unsuccessful in their pursuit of riches by this route. That’s not to say that talented people shouldn’t have dreams and go for it, and ultimately be well rewarded. Because good luck to them! But it’s a very tough road on which many people flounder.

And then we see lots of incredibly wealthy people who made their riches by building up and eventually selling some or all of their businesses. Again, these people should only be applauded, as they may well have taken an idea, not listened to the naysayers and then put their heart and soul into building their successful enterprise. Well done to them, they deserve everything that they have achieved.

And then there are the others, who hit lucky. They got in (and out) of some risky asset class at just the right times and made their fortune that way. Of course, in their eyes, there was no luck involved – it was all down to their savvy investment decisions. We know that for every one person who timed markets perfectly, there are so many more who got it very badly wrong.

But the likelihood is, all of these people paid a price in some way along the road to success. The price may have been the significant time spent in a laser like fashion in their pursuit of success. Or indeed the significant risks they took along the way by being exposed to a single asset.

There is another way.

The alternative is – to build your wealth up slowly. While you may not get the opportunity to tell the world about your exceptional talent or investment wisdom, there are many upsides to it.

People who build their riches through sporting achievements or indeed building businesses use enormous amounts of one of life’s most precious resources in doing so – their time. Building your wealth slowly through structured financial planning and wise investment decisions does not use lots of time, leaving it available for you to use as you want. You may be replacing the road to quick riches with time spent with your family, being home in the evenings to eat dinner with the kids and getting to support them at those precious football matches.

We’ll also never leave you sitting there, sweating about the prospects of some investment bet that you took. Because we’ll never suggest you take the roulette approach and invest all your money on a single share or some volatile asset class. You might not get rich overnight, that will take more time. But your family will always be secure, irrespective of how markets perform. We think you should celebrate these facts, spending time living your life to the full and never putting it all at risk.

Hats off to the successful people. But hats off too to those people who took the alternative path of living life to the full. There’s a lot to be said for being driven by the life you want and not the public acclaim of riches.