Imagine you have reached a point in life where you hear all these billionaires and unicorn stories and think, “I have not done enough. I missed the bus I should have listened to my true calling.”
“Things could have been different,” is a rather sad headline for your past. However, what is sadder is if you do not pursue your dreams right now.
Stan Lee of Marvel who created the household characters like SpiderMan, started drawing the legendary heroes at his mid 40s!
The answer to the question on whether you could start at 60 and become a billionaire depends on how fast you can make that first billion. Recently, Shanghai based Hurun Report, which releases the most comprehensive global rich list, released 40 and under self-made billionaires 2016. Although the list is about young self-made billionaires, you shouldn’t miss a key variable called “The Years to a billion” in the list.
On an average, it took only 8 years to make these individuals hit first billion. The fastest under 40 on the planet to gain billionaire status took only three years from the year of start-up: Snapchat co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, and Cheng Wei of China taxi-hailing app Didi. Mark Zuckerberg was a billionaire aged 23, four years after starting up.
As per the list, there are at least 1,200 billionaires who are above the age of 60 – indicating that life experience does play a huge role in successfully managing big business.
The global economy is going through a meltdown. During a meltdown, you will find a lot of asset classes and investments that are attractive. Some of the unconventional markets like Iran are opening up. The time is right for a smart and experienced individual to find an opportunity or an asset class that is below the intrinsic value. This is a good time to invest in good companies, business and opportunities.
To summarise, a good opportunity, with all the life time experience that you would have accumulated, combined with the frustration of ‘not doing enough’ channelised to focused energy would do wonders to your wealth creation efforts.
I would like to end the article with Harlan Sanders. The Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame was 66 when he began to promote his style of cooking and create an empire!
(Anas Rahman Junaid, Director with Moat Multi Family Office, is an Oxford graduate with expertise in tracking ultra high net worth valuations)
