The Ten Roads to Riches

I have recently been reading Ken Fisher’s book  and enjoying and learning a thing or two from it. 

Ken should know a thing or two about riches: as founder and chairman of Fisher Investments, he manages around $45 Billion of other people’s assets – and gets to talk to a lot of rich people about how they got that way. Also, in the book Ken tells us that his personal assets (at the time of writing) were around $1.8B. Modest by his standards yes, but nonetheless giving him great credentials for writing this book!

For Ken, true “riches” start at around the $100M plus point. You have to have some standards! This book is about what kind of paths you can take to get there. 

Ken’s thesis is that, putting aside factors he considers beyond our control such as winning the lottery or benefitting from an inheritance, there are really only 10 ways that people get really wealthy: 10 roads to riches! These are illustrated in his diagram:

The 10 roads, in a nutshell, are:

1. Build your own business (“the richest road”) - and to build it either to sell or to last 
2. Become a CEO
3. Become a “ride along” – a trusted second in command the CEO needs and trusts who profits with the firm
4. Become excellent and successful at what you do (sport, writing, music) and famous – or better yet manage a portfolio of other people who are excellent and famous
5. Marry really really well
6. Steal it legally – become a Plaintiff Lawyer
7. Manage other people’s money well, and both win
8. Invent income – create an ongoing income stream you own, from an invention, a song, a merchandising line, movie rights to stories, and other means
9. Become a real estate Baron
10. Save and invest wisely, consistently and effectively (“the road most travelled”)

The roads can be combined: for example Ken founded his own company (road 1) which focused on managing other people’s money (road 7).

The first thing I did after buying and opening this book, of course, was to scan through and see which road or two I related most strongly to. 

But the most fascinating thing was how much I learned from and enjoyed each chapter, even those I did not expect to gain a lot from. For example, I have no intention of becoming rich by marrying really really well (if I marry really really well my first criteria for “really really well” is not how much money my potential partner has). But the chapter contains a story about a young woman who developed a strategy for meeting wealthy men and put this strategy in to action in a way that was fascinating. 

On another note, his strategies for gaining the CEOs job are terrific!

The best thing though was the pithy insight. Ken has clearly learnt a thing or two along the way after 24 years of running his company. 

I really like this book as it dovetails well with some of my own independent ideas (related to how to get started from where you are now towards getting to where you want to go to).

I’d recommend this book. Even if you do not particularly want to reach the mega wealthy status at the end of the road to riches, there is plenty of useful advice about success.