Columnist Barefoot Investor

Earlier this year I attended my 10-year high school reunion. Though Hollywood would have us all believe this is a magical night when you rekindle the love you once shared with your high school sweetheart, and the former school geek turns out to be super smooth and successful, let's stick with reality.

By attending my 10-year reunion I must be getting older. That's the problem with a milestone event like this - it has a way of making you question what you've been doing since you last sung the school song.

Ten years ago my schoolmates and I were set to take on the world. But a study in 2003 by the APN Training Institute showed that many school leavers were naively optimistic about the world of work.

The study found that many graduates underestimated the hours they would need to work and overestimated what they would be paid.

I'm not sure if this is groundbreaking research. At the start of their working lives most people have a youthful exuberance, and an optimism that has yet to be tainted by the reality of real world worries.

My generation, however, may still be trapped in the bubble of economic excess, having yet to encounter an economic downturn, let alone experience a recession we had to have.

So, in light of the boom times we have experienced over the past decade, many schoolmates from my alma mater may be swimming in the sea of success.

As I reflected on this I realised that unlike many of my classmates I haven't yet achieved the three-for-one special of marriage, mortgage and midgets.

Some of my former school colleagues will be well on their way up the corporate ladder but I'm yet to become the vice-president of anything.

Perhaps the most telling fact of all is that I needed a lift back to the country to attend the function, and nothing says "I've made it" like having to hitch a ride to your reunion. Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. The interesting thing about success is that it's subjective.

In today's consumer consumption society, achievement is in no small part dictated by the status symbols you own and the brand labels you wear.

I did meet many former classmates who to the untrained eye are living the dream. Yet since leaving school and working in the finance field, I have come to understand that in most cases the person with the flash car and fancy clothes will often be the poorest person in the room.

A good explanation of this is found in the American book, The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. The authors set out on a marketing study to find out how to market to the very wealthy.

Initially the pair interviewed people in wealthy suburbs who they perceived to be rich - those with big homes, expensive cars and designer goods. Yet their findings showed that although this group met the expectations of what we believe wealth to be, many of them were income rich and asset poor.

Worse, they were drowning in debt.

This is a classic trap that some people get themselves into - spending money they don't have, on stuff they don't need, to impress people they don't like. So the authors began to search for people who were independently wealthy and made them the basis of their book.

Their study uncovered a number of patterns common to the financially well off - most of which ran contrary to what we imagine a successful millionaire looks and acts like.

The picture that the research painted of these wealthy people was of fortunes built over a lifetime by following the time-tested tenets of wealth. They were careful with their credit, saving up for items rather than splashing out on the fantastic plastic.

Many didn't have a boat, a lap pool, nor, I suspect would they spend a week's wages on a pair of designer jeans. The average millionaires in the book drove second-hand family cars, our equivalent to a Falcon or Commodore.

Their modest houses were located in middle-class suburbs - hence the title of the book. Above all, the people surveyed who achieved great wealth had a long-term investment program. A whopping 95 per cent owned stocks, and few traded them (blasting away the image of the successful millionaire day trader).

Ten years ago the hot topic of conversation with my classmates centred on the courses we would study and the universities we would be applying to. The underlying theme was those who studied the glamour degrees were on a one-way ticket to the good life.

Now I realise that the occupation you have and the income it derives plays but a small part in wealth. Of much more importance is what you do with your money.

In the book Getting Rich Your Own Way, author Srully Blotnick studied the factors that led to wealth over a lifetime.

According to Blotnick, "the overwhelming majority of people who have become wealthy have become so thanks to work they found profoundly absorbing. The long-term study of people who eventually become wealthy clearly reveals that their luck arose from the accidental dedication they had to an area they enjoyed".

Since leaving school I have been fortunate to meet interesting people who have helped to shape my life.

One person, a highly successful businessman, had a significant impact on me. Even though he's a multi-millionaire, he still spends the bulk of his time reading books.

It was around the same time I heard the maxim "rich people have big libraries - poor people have big TVs".

As my former classmates will attest, during my school days I was probably the least likely to pick up a book, much less learn anything. Surprisingly however, when I moved house last month it dawned on me that the weightiest items I would be moving would be the library of books that I have bought, read and learnt from in the past 10 years.

Though I realise I am getting older, I am nonetheless looking forward to meeting up with old school mates.

My wealthy friend once remarked that "in 10 years time you'll be the same person you are now, except for the people you meet and the books you read".

Tread your own path!