Ankur Warikoo Defines True Wealth Beyond Financial Metrics

In a recent LinkedIn post, Ankur Warikoo delves into the true meaning of wealth, proposing that it extends far beyond monetary accumulation. Responding to a prompt about how to describe one’s richness without explicitly stating it, Warikoo offered a personal perspective that prioritizes freedom, choice, and life experiences over financial figures.

Redefining Wealth Through Lifestyle Choices

Warikoo begins by illustrating his definition of wealth through a series of lifestyle indicators. These include spending over 100 days a year traveling as a family, maintaining a youthful metabolic age, enabling his entire team to work from home, and cherishing time spent with loved ones and himself. This framing immediately sets the stage for a broader interpretation of richness.

“As a family, we travel for 100+ days a year.
At 45, my metabolic age is 36.
I work from home and so does my entire team.
Our kids love spending time with us.
I love spending time with myself — reading, writing, learning, and thinking.
I am my best friend.”

As Ankur Warikoo notes, these are not merely personal anecdotes but reflections of a life intentionally designed around values that financial success can enable, but does not solely define.

Money as a Means, Not an End

The entrepreneur further elaborates on his evolving perspective on money. He reveals that in his twenties, he pursued money as a primary objective, a pursuit that led to frustration when it was scarce. However, upon achieving financial abundance, Warikoo realized that money itself was never the ultimate goal.

“In my 20s, I chased money as a goal.
When I did not have any of it, no matter how hard I tried, I began to hate it.
Now when I have a lot of it, I realise that money was never the goal.
It was simply the means.
To the eventual goal.”

According to Warikoo, money’s true purpose is to serve as a tool—a means to achieve the ultimate goal of living life on one’s own terms. This perspective shifts the focus from acquisition to enablement.

The Ultimate Goal: Freedom and Choice

Warikoo argues that the eventual goal that money facilitates is the freedom to make choices. He highlights the autonomy that financial resources can provide, influencing decisions about career paths, family planning, and lifestyle. Whether one chooses to build a large company, bootstrap a smaller venture, or opt out of traditional work altogether, money can offer the flexibility to pursue these different paths.

Illustrating Choices Enabled by Wealth

To underscore this point, Warikoo lists specific choices that financial freedom can unlock:

• The choice between extensive travel or purchasing material assets like a car.
• The decision regarding the number of children to have.
• The liberty to choose one’s living environment, from a bustling city to a tranquil farm.

In Ankur Warikoo’s view, the fundamental role of money is not about acquiring possessions but about granting individuals the liberty to make the choices that align with their desired life.

“The role of money is not to buy you things.
The role of money is to give you freedom.
To make whichever choices you want to make in life.”

Warikoo concludes by reiterating that true wealth lies in the ability to design and live a life aligned with personal values, with money acting as a powerful enabler of that freedom and choice.