Unlocking Wealth: Secrets to getting Rich at any age
By Rohit Sarin
Aleph Book Company, 224 pages, Rs 599

India is on the cusp of becoming the world’s third largest economy. If that happens, then every business in India, big and small, if managed well, could grow at least five times if not more over the next ten years. India has the third largest number of billionaires and millionaires in the world and its middle class is expected to grow to 41 per cent of the population by 2031. In more ways than one, there is no better time for individuals and families to create wealth for themselves through smart saving, sound investments, calculated risk-taking, and other strategies.

A book for budding investors as well as High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs), ‘Unlocking Wealth’ demystifies the process of wealth creation. It explains why it’s never too early or too late to begin building wealth and sets out clearly defined ways in which you can make yourself rich and how you can grow your corpus. However, even though it offers eye-opening ideas and tips on how to become wealthy, it is far from being just a self-help book. In addition to advice for the individual, it shows why wealth is imperative for the betterment of Indian society as a whole. It provides ideas on how wealth can be created at multiple levels so India can realistically achieve its stated goal of becoming a developed nation in the coming decades. In wealthy nations, every citizen benefits and this book sets out a vision of how as more wealth is generated in the country it can be used to develop the prospects of all Indians.

Practical, direct, and jargon-free, this book is ideal for those who would like to understand how money works and how to make it work for them. It will help you unlock the secrets to wealth creation no matter your age or current financial status.

Rohit Sarin is a banker turned entrepreneur with nearly three decades of experience in wealth management. Rohit co-founded Client Associates in 2002, India’s first multi-family office firm which has more than '50,000 crores (US$ 6 billion) of assets under management, owned by 1,100+ wealthy families. The company has won numerous awards and employs a team of over 250 people across nine offices in as many cities in India. In the course of twenty-five years of working closely with India’s leading wealth owners, wealth creators, and asset managers, Rohit has gathered invaluable insights into how wealth can be created, protected, and multiplied.

Rohit believes that entrepreneurship is the surest way of giving back to society and is driven by the larger purpose of ‘leaving the world richer than we inherited’. He lives in Gurgaon with his wife, daughters, and Milo.

Here is an excerpt from the opening chapter of the volume:

WHY IS WEALTH CREATION IMPORTANT FOR SOCIETY?

Affluent societies can take better care of their citizens and this makes the world a better place. Wealth is the engine of the world. Having wealth leads to a virtuous cycle of affluence for societies and nations since wealth creates more wealth. Absence of wealth condemns the society to a vicious cycle of impoverishment, weighing down the human potential.

Wealth is the resource that ensures the desired quality of life and plays a critical role in harnessing, at the macro level, a country’s true potential. Affluence helps societies provide those living in it access to the best education and healthcare. It enables faster mobility, whether physical or virtual. Affluence also leads to greater affordability, which creates demand for products and services, thereby creating entrepreneurial and business opportunities, which in turn creates jobs. Wealth is, therefore, the catalyst that creates livelihoods.

It will be fair to say, in light of the above, that wealth is the enabler for making the world a better place. It is also the life force behind national, social, and individual well-being. The history of the last half a century alone will show that nations and societies that do not create wealth or deliberately ignore or look down upon those who create it invariably atrophy, fall behind those that do and, in many cases, even splinter and break up. A glance at the recent histories of Eastern European Communist countries, Cuba, and others will prove this point. These countries shut themselves to the world and missed out on participating in the globalization of the world economy.

The equation is simple. If a pool of wealth is wisely and efficiently deployed, it will multiply and create more wealth. This will help spread the circle of prosperity by bringing more people within its ambit. And this, in turn, will result in a more educated workforce that has access to better healthcare and improve the quality of life of a greater number of people. This virtuous cycle will keep expanding, benefitting more and more people as long as society keeps generating wealth.

Wealth creation must, therefore, be a critically important goal for any society that wishes to improve the quality of life of its people as it fosters economic growth, which is the basic building block of any society. Governments that encourage economic growth succeed in creating jobs for their citizens, providing better governance, and creating improved physical and social infrastructure that support vibrant, productive populations that can focus on reaching their full potential in their chosen field of activity.

No society is hundred percent egalitarian and equal because no two human beings are the same. Even prosperous and harmonious societies, therefore, have some level of inequality and poverty. However, societies that create wealth are usually more successful in alleviating poverty than those that do not create wealth. Wealth creation, therefore, plays a critical part in combating poverty.

Most governments try to provide high quality education, world-class medical facilities, a pollution-free environment, and clean and safe neighbourhoods to their citizens. These cost a lot of money to set up and maintain. The fuel that keeps this social infrastructure running is wealth, and societies that create wealth are best equipped to carry on enjoying high quality lives.

Along with public services, governments are also mandated to provide good physical infrastructure such as roads, power, telecoms, transportation, etc., which are essential for growth. You will see that societies that are prosperous are also usually better endowed with such infrastructure. The reason is simple: the wealth that they create goes into building this infrastructure. Economic growth, the provision of public services like healthcare and education, the building of public infrastructure like roads, railways, and airports, and other such activities create opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment. This draws larger numbers of people into the expanding circle of prosperity, spurs consumer demand for a range of products and services, and lays the foundation for the next round of economic expansion and therefore job creation.

A society’s search for newer, more efficient, and cheaper products encourages innovation and this results in technological breakthroughs that lead to radical new capabilities being developed. These expand the horizons of science and result in an exponential improvement in human knowledge and productivity. The fuel that enables this evolution through innovation is wealth.

[The excerpt reproduced with the permission of the publishers.]