When it comes to saving, investing, and building a corpus, almost everyone has a number in their head. It might be a crore in the bank, a house with no loan, or enough savings to stop worrying about the price tag on a restaurant menu.We turn them into goals, and the problem is that deadlines don’t care about maths. When the number is big, and the timeline is short, patience starts to feel like a luxury.Ankur Warikoo, one of India’s most recognisable creator-entrepreneurs, shared an email he received on his LinkedIn post. He explained that the sender earns well, has a stable job, has been investing for over five years, and has a good corpus, but her goal was to reach ₹1 crore in the next three to four years.Warikoo called that goal very common and very naive. In his view, it comes down to the urge to get rich quick.Let us unwind what advice he has to give.
“I want to make Rs. 1 Cr. in the next 3-4 years”: Ankur Warikoo points to a common mistake that we make while investing
Ankur Warikoo recently posted on social media about an email from a woman who wanted her money to grow fast over the next few years. “I want to reach 1 crore in the next 3 to 4 years,” she wrote, explaining her financial goal. By Warikoo’s account, she has a good income and a stable job, and has been investing for over five years. Her savings had already reached Rs 25 lakh, which he called “genuinely impressive”.Even so, he felt her goal was surrounded by a common money mistake: ‘wanting to get rich quickly’. Warikoo called the target “very common” and “very naive”, and used the example to show how even people who have started investing well can grow impatient with how slowly wealth builds.Read post here.
Knowing compounding versus feeling it
Warikoo’s main point is that most investors already understand compounding. What they lack is experience of it. He wrote, “In personal finance, compounding is everything. You probably already know this. But this email isn’t about compounding.It’s about something else. You understand compounding. You just haven’t experienced it yet. And that’s not your fault. Because you haven’t had the one ingredient compounding needs most. Time.. Someone in their 20s or 30s hasn’t watched 15 to 20 years of it play out, so it feels slow”, he also made clear this is not anyone’s fault.
Too early at the time, when people do not see compounding work, then they begin to doubt it
Warikoo warned that doubt pushes them towards risky shortcuts and scams that promise instant returns. “And that’s what breeds the urge to get rich fast. Here’s the truth. The only quick route to wealth is a lottery ticket. Almost everything else takes time, and rests on compounding. But when you haven’t seen it work, you doubt it. And you reach for risky shortcuts and scams promising instant returns. So build the patience to let compounding do its job. Choosing not to trust the process, he argued, doesn’t make you richer faster. It is just gambling by another name,” he said.
Social media reactions
The post has since gone viral and gained several reactions online. One user wrote, “People underestimate how dangerous impatience is in investing. The goal isn’t just to grow money faster; it’s to avoid making one bad decision that sets you back years.” Another said, “Would be great if people found more ways to compound their peace of mind as well instead of just the material things.” A third shared, “I’ve learned that sustainable growth, whether in business or wealth, rarely follows the timeline we want. Patience is part of the strategy.”
