Many physicians and other high earners assume, “If I save enough, I’ll hit millions,” or, “If I have a large income, I can easily save millions.” But in practice, building a multi-million dollar portfolio requires discipline, strategy, and avoiding common pitfalls. In this post, we’ll show you how to think of portfolio growth as a process (not magic!) and give you practical steps to get from zero or a modest nest egg to several million dollars over the course of your career.
We will cover portfolio construction, rate of saving, risk management, staying the course, and scaling beyond 1 million.
Prioritize Contributions — The Fuel for Growth
No matter how clever your investments are, you can't build a large portfolio without regular, sizable contributions. Arguably, the two most important factors in growing an investment portfolio are making regular contributions and starting early. One way to start early is to live like a resident for several years, even after you start making a physician's salary.
There aren't many shortcuts to getting rich. Just about anyone (especially a high earner like a physician) can be a millionaire by following a few simple steps. Start by paying yourself first and avoiding lifestyle creep. Save 20%-50% of your income if you can, especially in your early years before kids and other family expenses start occurring. Automate your investments, especially if finances are not your area of interest.
Choose a Sensible, Low-Cost Portfolio
Choosing how to invest your money will depend on a number of different factors, including your income, expenses, where you live, and how much you want to be involved in the creation of your portfolio. At WCI, we generally recommend setting up your portfolio with broadly diversified, low-cost, passive index-based investing.
Chasing hot funds, trying to time the market, or layering too many faddish strategies are unlikely to be as successful as keeping it simple. If you are interested in strategies like options investing, cryptocurrency, or picking your own stocks, we recommend doing it with a small percentage of your portfolio.
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The 15 Questions You Need to Answer to Build Your Investment Portfolio
Manage Risk
A good portfolio also accounts for managing risk over time. When you are young and starting out, your time horizon is relatively long. This means that you can be a bit more aggressive with your portfolio, since you have decades until you plan to use the money.
Over time and the closer you get to retirement, you want to make sure that you are appropriately diversifying and managing your risk. Large portfolios are subject to large drawdowns if you overleverage or overconcentrate in any one specific stock, asset class, or fund. Make sure that you have a margin of safety (like an emergency fund or cash buffer) so you don’t have to liquidate in downturns.
Stay the Course
The biggest enemy of portfolio growth is behavior: panic-selling, trying to time cycles, or letting emotions dominate. Growth to millions is likely to take decades, so consistency matters more than short-term outperformance. Markets do crash, but your response to volatility and negative performance is likely to have a bigger impact than predicting when these downturns happen.
One way to stay the course is to have a written plan for what you will do in case of extreme volatility or negative returns (the best answer is likely to be nothing). Whether you hire a financial advisor or are a do-it-yourself investor, make sure that you have a plan in place to emotionally handle market volatility.
Scale Beyond a Million
During a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in the mid-1990s, famed investor Charlie Munger said, “The first $100,000 is [hard], but you gotta do it. I don't care what you have to do—if it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn't purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit.”
Making your first $100,000 (or even getting back to a positive net worth) can be significantly more difficult than each succeeding $100,000. After all, going from $100,000 to $200,000 is doubling your net worth, while going from $900,000 to $1 million is only an increase of 11%.
Once you’re solidly into seven- or eight-figure territory, new questions start to arise: tax planning, alternative assets, charitable giving, estate planning. You'll want to adjust your allocation by focusing more on capital preservation, adding real estate, private deals (cautiously), or applying leverage judiciously.
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The Bottom Line
Growing your investment portfolio to millions doesn’t require luck or speculation—it requires time, consistency, and discipline. The four main levers you have to control your investment strategy are your savings rate, a sensible portfolio, risk management, and emotional control. Remember, becoming a millionaire investor isn’t about brilliance. It’s about patience, habits, and sticking to your plan.
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