I don’t think neither entrepreneurship nor working for others are the best options. Entrepreneurship typically takes a lot of skills, experience, effort and resources to succeed. From an average expected value standpoint, entrepreneurship is a losing game for the vast majority of people. Depending on your definition of a successful entrepreneur, I would argue there probably are more moderate to major jackpot prize winners in various contests in the US now than there are actually successful entrepreneurs. That’s probably not a coincidence. For every successful entrepreneur, there are probably thousands of less successful ones. Besides controllable factors, there are tons of uncontrollable market risks such as bad timing that can devastate a new entrepreneurial venture. The risk of failure are extremely high for a new venture. Working for others appears to provide a stable income, however, it usually comes with less flexibility, lower ceiling in potentials and doing something potentially one find meaningless. For these reasons, I like the Mezzanine approach. The difficult part about implementing the mezzanine career approach is the work-life balance part. How can one still remain desirable as an employee on the job market when one is looking for a job and keeping a desirable job after being hired for a position while at the same time also be successful in entrepreneurship activities. This may take a lot of navigating in many different aspects.
Most people don’t get rich from working for other people. Some people will point to the highest paying major professionals like doctors And to say medical doctors are rich. While doctors on average make a great salary on average at around $400K a year, most doctors also have to go through 10+ years of post high school education and become doctors if they qualify after meeting various rigorous criteria in their 30s. Most doctors also have 300K or more in debt before they even become doctors. If one were able to work the approximate ten years during or after college and save that money in a 401(k), just based on market appreciation, an annual total 20K contribution (including contribution from the employer) at average calculated market growth of around 10% growth in 15 years will be $600K+. It also comes with tax advantages which I will not discuss at this time. An HSA for those who qualify in addition to a 401(k) for those who qualify could potentially be even more tax advantaged. Anyway, by the time the doctor pays off his or her debt, the non-doctor already has likely $600K+ in retirement account savings than the doctor has. Because there is a limit in tax advantages 401(k) annual contributions by a person while working for an employer, the doctor can not simply catch-up in 401(k) savings the regular way (unless we are talking about catch-ups exceptions at certain age) by throwing money at it. What this means is even if the non-doctor does not contribute anymore to a 401(k) plan after they saved $600K+ in 401(k) their money will grow to at least a few millions after 30 years more than enough to live comfortably in retirement. Ultimately, neither of these above methods will help one get truly do whatever you want wealthy.
I live in America which means I have the rights to exercise reasonable free speech as permitted by the law. All posted content(s) on this website are my opinions only which means they should not be taken as advice of any kind. I am a non-celebrity, non-public figure posting anonymously for my own entertainment on a website that is not affiliated with any individual(s), organization(s) and/or any entity/entities.
How to be well-off without taking excess risks?
Doctors will probably cave in social pressures to live a relatively expensive doctor lifestyle which due to political correct taboos I will not detail what this may entail here. It will likely not be a cheap lifestyle and likely not all being enjoyed by the doctor but rather by those who I also will not talk about due to political correct taboo reasons. Most doctors are not business professionals and while they are busy treating passions like professional athletes trying to be the best in their sport, there may possibility be people who may or may not be taking advantage of them financially for which I will not state due to social contract reasons. Point being, being wealthy may allow one to have the discretion of stop working and doing whatever they like, when whenever they like and however they like within a legally compliant manner within certain acceptable boundaries. That is what have FU money is all about. Being wealthy also means having the influence to exact changes to one’s advantage frequently utilizing other people’s and/or entities’ resources legally. The biggest issue with employees is they are essentially paycheck to paycheck without reasonable certainty of their employment status from one day to another either due to controllable and/or uncontrollable factors. They are essentially exchanging one valuable resource which is their precious time for another valuable resource which is money.
Employees only make what they earn when they use their own valuable time to own them, therefore they can not employ capital inefficiently in this endeavor without, you guessed it, expending more time. The whole time value of money concept is really meant for money to work for you passively without you intently expending your time. Money when managed right is the best, drama-free, salary-free and low-maintenance employee ever. I am not advocating for entrepreneurship alone. The reality is having a stable paycheck is great. Many successful entrepreneurs worked for other people before they became successful themselves. It is also important to have startup capital and experience which could be obtained by working for successful companies for a number of years. The social element is also important too as having coworkers to communicate everyday helps keep one within mainstream society and (mostly) helps maintain a stable mental help and help stay away from depression due to loneliness. Many ideas are created by seeing things in action and realizing a problem and a solution through social interactions. Great ideas usually don’t get created in a vacuum.