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How to Get Rich by Doing Nothing

Darius Foroux
3 min readJun 14, 2024

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I always say I’m the most impatient person in the world.

From the moment I get in my car until I arrive at my destination, I comment on all the annoying and slow drivers. It’s hard to execute delayed gratification.

“C’mon! Really! Can you drive any slower?”

It’s a way to entertain myself. My family and girlfriend are used to it and laugh. But I’m also serious.

When we plan to leave the house, I’m the type who says, “Let’s go” every second until we actually go.

My impatience has helped me in my career, though. When something needs to be done, I do it immediately. I can’t wait. My aim is to always do it today, not tomorrow.

But that approach is not helpful when it comes to finances. You need patience to build proper wealth.

Here’s how I learned the art of patience when it comes to building wealth.

1. Understanding how investing and compounding works

You can read about investing and compounding as much as you want. But unless you actually compound your own money, you can never understand the magic.

And it doesn’t matter how much money you invest. This is the power of delayed gratification.

You must put up some money and wait for at least a year. If you’re unlucky, you invested at the top of a bull market, and you’re in a bear market. But in most cases, you will be either up within a year or roughly around the same level.

But that’s okay. Because you will see that your money is doing its work. Especially in the stock market. The S&P 500 goes up and down. Up and down. But it doesn’t die. In the past 30 years, despite wars and pandemics, the S&P 500 still averages a 10.7% annual return.

As the market moves, your money does the work. You need to see this for yourself.

You will start to understand investing. With understanding comes more patience.

2. Adding to your investments regularly

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Darius Foroux
Darius Foroux

Written by Darius Foroux

I write about productivity, habits, decision making, and personal finance. Join my free newsletter here: dariusforoux.com

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