If you are an Indian there is a lot to read even if you stick to just philosophy as a subject. To say one religion is good or bad you need to read about Hinduism, Mahaveera, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Islam….before you can say it is good or bad.

Now it is possible to read some kind of synopsis of all this great stuff and reach some hasty conclusions. In almost all the books some where the Supreme of that religion says ‘I Alone am the Destination, and here is the Path’. This makes some very smart people like us to conclude ‘he means there is no other God, and there is no other path’. Of course this would be fallacious and almost stupid. Why do such ‘Gods’ make such statement.

My take (sorry even this is not very original) is much simpler. If you were standing at the bottom of the mountain with a GUIDE he tells you ‘Here is the path, follow me’. Does it mean there is no other path? Of course there are – however this GUIDE is familiar with the path where he is taking you and you are better off listening to him. Surely other GUIDES take other paths. All of them reach the summit.

HOWEVER if the GUIDE said there are several paths, Most of us would spend the next 4 hours discussing which is the best path. IN the meanwhile wasting time and energy. Most of us would try a few paths before coming back to the original suggestion of the GUIDE.

What does this have to do with Financial planning? A lot. As a CA and as a broker I have seen really wealthy people. No two people took the same path. One took a boat to Kuwait in 1963 and today he has a networth of atleast Rs. 1000 crores. One invested in the original issue of Infosys and is still holding on to the shares – and it is now worth in the late 3 digits in crores. One runs a chain of eateries in Mumbai. One is a share broker – with a networth far in excess of what he though was possible even in year 2000!

So trying all these paths will not be a great idea for creating wealth! You have to choose YOUR path and stick to it.

Wealth managers and financial planners who have targets to achieve by selling products may not be able to show you how to create wealth – planning and thinking about creating it are different skills.