Over the decades of advising we have met some very successful and very unsuccessful individuals. The former are likely to still be clients, all these years later. The latter only if we have been able to help them to change their ways.
If we define the most successful clients as the ones who started with nothing and built up (rather than inherited, won or were gifted) significant wealth, then a trend is clear.
The most successful clients were the busiest ones in their day job.
That might seem odd, but there are several significant behaviors of a busy advised client. Firstly they are generally busy because they are paid well. Their busyness often also reduces their ability to spend this income. They delegate the management of money to a professional adviser and they keep out of their own financial affairs.
The actual secret to success is too boring for social media memes or video shorts. It is the routine compounding of surplus income over a lifetime. It does not make for a good headline because it is so slowly powerful.
So if you want to become financially successful (we understand that success is much broader a measure than the size of your portfolio), work with what you have. Whatever your income, spend less than this. Save the difference into global equities in a low cost portfolio. Minimise the tax on your portfolio. Sit back and enjoy the benefits of the eighth wonder of the world.
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it”. – Albert Einstein