This is a slightly catchy headline. I have no clue whether the following traits will make you successful. However, these are the qualities / characteristics that I have seen in successful people:

1. To earn the basic money to invest, you need to work real hard, AND real smart: There is no escape from this. You also need to be a little lucky in the breaks that you get. You just got a nice degree and got a good break – you got a job paying you Rs. 2 million. Your classmate got a job paying Rs. 1.2 million. Your parents paid for your studies, but your friends are paying an EMI of Rs. 34,000 per month for 7 years. Yes a little bit of luck is needed, you have it, and you are up and running.

2. Knowing your priorities: Earning Rs. 2 million, having a nice life, and putting money away as saving for future investments is a MUST.

Having said this, let me now look at the traits:

1. Being Goal Oriented in what you do: When you are young and you do not see any great need to save or invest, you need to WRITE down your goals and save/ invest towards that. Later on it becomes a habit.

2. Learning and Risk taking: What looks like Risk taking is not so risky for the person who knows what he is doing. Imagine a tribal seeing you walk on the road with traffic! He must be thinking of you as a very brave man, would he not? It is just that YOU know that the cars will not come on to the footpath. Similarly when you see a person living within the forest – you will be amazed at the knowledge they have of which water to drink, which fruit to eat, and which animal to be scared of. Most of the risk can be well conquered by LEARNING.

3. Keep learning about new things: a fantastic characteristic that I have seen in many successful people. Equities, mutual funds, etf, FnO, the list goes on.

4. Be willing to experiment in a small way: A small experiment in investing, business, etc. can sometimes lead to a big windfall. So if you can invest, say Rs. 20L in a new business (assuming net worth Rs. 5 crores), it is surely worth the effort. Learning would be useful.

5. Save and Invest like a religion.

6. Satisfaction: I do lectures saying ‘Santhushthi hi Sampathi hai’ – satisfaction is the ONLY wealth.

7. Gratitude towards the world in general, and God in particular. Count your blessings.

8. Remember we get what we deserve, only problem is we think we deserve more.

9. Patience: remember ‘n’ is in the NUMERATOR in the compounding formula, ‘r’ is only in the body. Great wealth like Buffets have been built over 75 years. True for most wealth in the world. Overnight you can get RICH, but wealth creation is far, far more difficult.

  1. Thanks for writing this great article. I am following this blog closely from last 1.5 years but I think this is my first comment…

    I really like your blog as you update it quite frequently and that too with motivated stuff that keep people like me going in finance space…

  2. Sreekanth Yelicherla

    Rachit, He doesn’t give the readers the fish but helps them in making them learn how to catch one! 🙂

  3. Hi,

    My Mantra for success is as follows..can any subra readers comment on this..

    1. 25% of investments – SIP in PPF
    2. 25% of investments – SIP in Liquid funds
    3. 25% of investments – SIP in Good Blue chip fund
    4. 25% of investments – SIP in NIFTYBEES.

    5. Last but not least…Do not touch all the above for 15 Years..

    Regards,
    T.S.Ashok.

  4. @ashok…I may be a bit high on the current market rally, but here’s my split:

    1. 33% Gold (bars/coins, jewellery not counted)
    2. 33% Liquid funds (growth)
    3. 33% High ROCE, moderate to high P/E (avoid low PE), zero-debt, healthy cash-flow mid-caps

    Cheers,
    Lucky

  5. And also…to add, the above split is only of NEW investible amounts…money that you have earned and are willing to invest. Once invested, they remain in that bucket only and it goes without a saying that typically the 1/3 money invested in equity will outperform the gold/liquid investments.
    Rebalancing the outperformance in equities into underperforming liquid funds makes no sense…
    Also, hold the investment over 15-20 years to see real benefits.
    Happy investing!

  6. fyi – In the past 35 years I have been about 80% in equities, 10% in debt, and 10% in RE – assets which have been rented out. This calculation does not include one place of residence. No regrets at all.

  7. save to invest not to save. your all point is the key to financial success Great article (Y) 🙂

  8. @EV
    i think , in Subra’s matters, gold is for consumption, i.e. usable jewelery, not investment. i unconsciously like the allocation.

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