Any shortcuts to getting rich?

Day 218 / 366

The Japanese stock market crashed today. And followed by that a few hours ago the US markets started crashing as well, and there is the fear of another global recession incoming. It’s days like this that I am glad I choose to stay out of investing my money in the stock market.

Whether its the random uncle from your building, or retired cricketers on TV ads, everyone wants you to put your money in the stock market. You would be crazy if you didn’t do it. None of it makes any sense to me, so I stay out of it, and try and make my money the conventional way — By working hard and getting better at what I do.

I don’t believe in shortcuts. Of course, you will hear stories of people getting rich quick with stocks, or crypto, or real estate. But is it all calculated? or is it just pure luck?

When bitcoin had just started out, there was a pizza guy who accepted 10,000 bitcoins as payments instead of cash from some nerd in the US. Today, 1 bitcoin is worth Rs 45 Lakhs. Similar to this, when Facebook was a new startup, they hired an artist a graffiti artist to paint the walls of their office. Instead of money, Mark offered him stock in the company instead, and he accepted. That guy is now worth over 200 million dollars, and he will never had to work again for the rest of his life.

But would that always work? For every Facebook, there are 1000s of startups whos shares will never amount to anything. For every bitcoin, there are countless other get-rich-quick schemes that will surely make all of your money disappear. There is no shortcut that always works.