For most investors, a 7% return feels like the holy grail. Fixed deposits, mutual funds, and traditional portfolios are designed to chase this single-digit comfort zone. It feels safe, predictable, and achievable. But here’s the truth the wealthy already know — if you’re chasing 7%, you’re not building wealth; you’re preserving it.
Ultra-rich people do not play the same game. Instead of obsessing about market-related returns, the affluent are concerned with control of the assets, efficiency of compounding, and asymmetric opportunities, in which upside is much higher than risk.
Let's explore how their playbook differs -- and what that means for you.
1. They do not go after returns, they create ecosystems
The rich comprehend that returns are the by-product of strategy and not the
strategy itself.
Most investors allocate funds in mutual funds and wait till market cycles but the poor invest in a multifaceted array of interconnected assets such as private equity, Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs), co-investment opportunities, startups, and real estate syndicates.
They seek access and control, but not only returns. A share of a business or an early-stage company would enable them to attain growth before it reaches public markets, where the actual compounding unleashes.
2. They focus on the Asymmetry and not the Average
The 7 per cent return may appear to be stable, yet it is linear as well - it
grows slowly. The rich are the thinkers with a vision.
They will make investments when the risk-to-reward ratio is not symmetric. To use a case in point, an AIF co-investment or venture capital bet could be 1x risky, but could be 5x or 10x rewarding. Although a small number of such bets may go bad, the winners do it with great returns compared to conservative portfolios.
Concisely, they seek strategic volatility - strategic risks that move the wealth creation curve upwards.
3. They Utilize Structures, but not Products
The average investor purchases products. The rich cover up structures -
trusts, holding companies, and layers on top of layers that are tax efficient,
legacy transfer, and capital growth.
They may do this by investing in Real Estate AIFs or Co-Investment Vehicles (CIVs), whereby they can share the risk, have liquidity, and access institutional quality deals that typically would not be accessible to individuals.
The result? Their returns are not only higher, but smarter - leveraged, timed access.
4. They think about decades
The rich do not gauge success on the NAV and share movement of last
quarter. They reason on a 10-20 years basis.
They know that being rich is not about following fashion but having compounding wealth in the form of business, equity interests, intellectual property and other alternative investments that appreciate in value and generate steady cash flow.
It is the patience that turns volatility into an opportunity, something most retail investors never learn to do.
5. They are Capital Protection, and Thereafter Growth
Ironically, the rich put bigger risks in, but they also cushion against
downside than the rest. Non-correlated diversification in non-correlated
assets: Individual markets will not be wiped out because their assets are in
multiple places, including in private credit, art funds, and infrastructure
investment.
To ultra-rich people, the game is not about overcoming inflation, but creating freedom: financial, strategic, and generational.
The Bottom Line
When you are still pursuing 7 per cent, you are not maximising growth, but comfort. The rich know that true wealth is accumulated by being in the private markets, asymmetrical opportunities, and structured investments that multiply beyond the normal proportions.
At Punji Bazaar experts suppose it is high time to cease defensive playing with your money. The future generation of wealth creators is no longer pursuing average returns, but they are developing systems to multiply opportunities.
Don’t chase 7%. Learn the game the wealthy are playing — and start playing to win.