Jamaican-Canadian billionaire, Michael Lee-Chin, was in ROB Magazine last week talking about how he grew up, how he got into the investment industry, and how he thinks about wealth creation.

I met Michael once back in 2009 thanks to an introduction by my father. And at that meeting I remember him explaining the five rules of wealth creation. It’s his formula and he’s been practicing it since 1978.

Everybody who creates wealth does five things: They own a few high-quality businesses. They make sure they really understand those businesses. They make sure those few businesses are in strong, long-term-growth industries. They use other people’s money to invest in them. And they vow to hold them as long as they remain great businesses.

That’s consistency. And he’s a pretty consistent guy. The other quote I would like to share from the article is this one here:

Outside wealth is created when there’s a difference between perception and reality, when there are inefficiencies, and when there’s a lack of equity capital flowing into the country, sector or company.

This is something that we have talked about before on the blog. The real value creation happens when you believe in and you’re right about something that most people think is wrong.

As Michael says in the article, you have to be willing to swim upstream, because floating downstream is far too easy and will only get you to the same place as everyone else.