Welcome to a subscriber-only special edition.
If you are reading this, you are probably a young ambitious professional who is looking for ways to advance your career and wealth to the next level.
While I usually talk a lot about corporate success, in this special edition, I would like to spend time to talk about what you need to know to achieve wealth in order to reach financial freedom.
In the first 5-7 years of working, my younger self focused a lot on achieving 3 things:
- Master my learnings and skills to become an expert in a specific area
- Have a fast-track career to level up my title and annual income
- Have mobility to work and travel to different countries
If you work hard and smart, and having a system to support you, you will get to a point in your late 20s or early of the 30s to join the HENRYs, which is an acronym for High Earners, Not Rich Yet.
In the US, high earners, not rich yet (HENRYs) are people who have high annual incomes (US$250,000 and US$500,000) and the potential to be wealthy in the future. ~ Investopedia
In Vietnam, HENRYs are people who have annual incomes of US$75,000 and US$250,00, which accounted for ~10% of population in Vietnam in 2020. ~ RNBC
It's important to differentiate HENRYs from other high income groups is that:
HENRYs are labeled the "working rich" as their rich status is largely attributed to their working income, not their accumulated wealth.
When I moved back to Vietnam last year, I noticed a new wave of the working rich who are very successful in their career and can afford a comfortable, and even expensive life in Saigon. Their monthly income can start from US$6,000 for a senior to US$15,000 for an executive in a leading sector in Vietnam (before taxes).
Reading to this point, some people probably may say WTF, how to possibly get to that level of income in the next 5-7 years while the starting income for fresh grads in Vietnam can be as low as $350 - $1,000?
It is possible.
I did that and I know many people did that.
If you are having hard time living in the big cities with your current salary, you are not alone. In the summer of 2013, when I worked as an intern in HCMC, my monthly salary was $250. I didn't have enough money to rent a place so I lived in the center that I worked, sharing the room with a female co-worker. So don't feel discouraged but use it as motivation to strive harder.
I want to tell you one important thing that I learned in my career:
DO NOT EVER SETTLE FOR LESS IN GOAL SETTINGS.
In other words, do not set your goal too low just because it seems impossible to achieve one, and many people you know right now can't achieve it.
If you look around you, and find no one who ever achieved the goal that you dream of, then you are in the wrong group.
Remember that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. ~Jim Rohn
If I ever listened to the advice of my parents, I would have stayed in my hometown in Hanoi to settle for a stable and "high" income job of $2,000 in a local bank, and may have had pressure getting married by 27 then having kid by 30. People fantasied the banking job in Vietnam, you know.
If you want to want extraordinary things in life, learn from extraordinary people.
Invest in your learning, build the right network, ask questions and be bold in taking actions.
