Ramit Sethi: 4 Unexpected Skills You Must Have To Get Rich

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Ramit Sethi knows what it takes to get rich. He wrote a New York Times bestseller on the subject and runs a financial advice blog with a million readers every month. He also has a net worth of over $7 million, so it’s clear he’s doing something right.

For Sethi, the journey to wealth starts with building the right habits.

Start With the Right Mindset

Before sharing in his book the four skills it takes to get rich, Sethi starts by emphasizing the mindset you’ll need to build those skills. His core message is to allow yourself to be imperfect when you start.

The first time you got on a bike, you probably fell. But you didn’t give up. You kept getting back on the bike until you learned how to ride it by making gradual improvements over time.

That’s the mindset Sethi wants you to have while you work on developing his four key skills for a rich life.

Honesty

The first skill you need to build wealth is honesty — and that doesn’t just mean telling the truth to others. For Sethi, it’s more about telling yourself the truth about where you’re at today in your financial journey.

This means taking a hard look at your full financial picture, including debts, monthly income, expenses and savings. Once you know where you’re at, it gets easier to chart a path toward where you want to go.

Financial honesty is important for Sethi no matter where you’re at in your journey. It’s a core step toward developing good saving habits, planning your retirement or buying a home.

Courage

Sethi’s second core skill is courage. More specifically, he asks readers to have the courage to be uncomfortable while changing their financial habits.

Change can be tough. Many people either consciously or unconsciously try to avoid it entirely. But that’s not a recipe for improving your financial future, Sethi said.

He said getting rich will probably mean changing how you’re used to managing money. The key is to lean into those changes instead of avoiding them. Otherwise, it’s going to be difficult to make meaningful changes in your financial life.

Flexibility

Next up — flexibility. Sethi said you need to have it to regain control of your financial future. 

He gives the example of a woman named Nathalie, who appeared on his Netflix show, “How to Get Rich.” She spent a minimum of $500,000 a year on shopping and wasn’t entirely willing to change her ways, so Sethi dropped her as a client.

Nathalie wasn’t just spending an incredible amount on unnecessary purchases. She’d fired five financial advisors who’d likely told her to cut it out before speaking with Sethi. To him, this meant she’d still need to develop financial flexibility before he could help her.

You probably don’t spend half a million shopping annually, but you may show the same inflexibility Nathalie showed elsewhere in your financial life. You might spend too much on entertainment or go on more expensive vacations than you can comfortably afford. If you aren’t willing to change habits like these, then it could be just as difficult for you to get rich as it is for Nathalie.

Patience

Finally, Ramit Sethi said you need patience to get rich. Why? Because a lot of effective financial practices are pretty boring.

For example, generations of Americans have worked their way to retirement by making consistent contributions to their 401(k)s and IRAs. When invested in broad market indexes, these tax-advantaged accounts can grow significantly throughout your career. 

But it takes time to grow money in safe, risk-adjusted ways. That’s why many people turn to get-rich-quick schemes and highly volatile investments like crypto and options trading.

This is where the average person gets it wrong, according to Sethi. When you invest in volatile assets, you may get lucky and make a lot of money. But the downside is as severe as the upside is exciting and the reality is that more people lose money than gain it with these kinds of risky investments.

When you embrace a patient investment strategy instead, you know that your money will grow significantly by the time you want to retire. And you also know that your risk of losing everything is extremely low. This makes it much more likely you’ll get rich eventually.

From Philosophy to Practical Strategy

Sethi’s four unexpected skills of the wealthy make a great starting point for finding your financial philosophy. But they don’t provide a practical strategy for building wealth on their own. So how do you turn a philosophy into a plan you can follow?

The good news is these tips apply to whatever goal you want to pursue. Whether you’re trying to build an emergency fund, buy your first home or plan for retirement, you’ll need patience, flexibility, courage and honesty to turn your dream into a reality.

You can begin by performing a financial check-up. Be honest about where you’re at and where you hope to go. Then, create a budget that allows you to achieve your goals over a realistic time frame.

Your process may involve prioritizing different financial goals. If so, many experts recommend starting by saving an emergency fund for unexpected expenses. Then, pay off debt, fund your retirement account and save for other life goals like buying a home.

It may be helpful to speak with a financial advisor if you have a hard time coming up with a personalized strategy on your own.

Final Take

Sethi shares plenty of financial tips like the ones featured in this article in his book, on his blog and on his Netflix show. But he’s not the only financial expert you can learn from.

The internet is full of free resources you can use to take Sethi’s philosophy and turn it into a practical plan for getting rich. You can start by taking a closer look at the investing guides on GoBankingRates.

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