Sometimes the harshest critics are the people closest to you. For CNBC host Jim Cramer, that critic was his own father, who apparently never missed an opportunity to remind him he was destined for financial failure.
"My father always told me I was a loser," Cramer told CNBC Wealth Editor Robert Frank in an interview last month. "He was convinced that if I was a reporter, I was going to be broke. I was living in the back of my car, that was like, wow, a verification of my dad. I would not give it. I would not let him know and I would not give up."
Talk about motivation. There's nothing quite like proving your doubters wrong, especially when that doubter is a parent who's convinced you're headed for poverty.
The Grind That Built Success
Cramer's path to wealth wasn't exactly conventional. He told Frank that he started saving money aggressively, even when it meant temporarily going without home and auto insurance. That's a risky move most financial advisors would cringe at, but Cramer was determined to build something for himself.
"I always felt that I would be wealthier than my parents," Cramer explained. "That was because it was a different time and I want people to feel, see it's not a throwback jersey. I think people should feel that that's the way it's going to be."
Cramer acknowledged that his era offered different opportunities, but he's pushing back against the doom-and-gloom narrative that younger generations can't achieve financial success. He wants people to believe that upward mobility is still possible, even if the playbook has changed.
As for his own kids? They're taking a different approach. Cramer told CNBC that his children aren't as "motivated" as he was at their age, but they want to carve out success on their own terms and build lives independently of him.
"They want to be successful in their own way that makes them happy, and they're very grateful that I've done well enough that they don't have to be in the scrum at Goldman," he said.
Growth Stocks Over Index Funds
When it comes to building wealth today, Cramer has strong opinions. He believes people can still get rich by investing in quality growth stocks, and he's not buying into the conventional wisdom that everyone should just park their money in index funds and call it a day.
"If you recommend an index fund, if it goes down, you say, 'What can you do? It's the market,'" he told CNBC. "If it goes up, they're going to take credit for it anyway. I really reject that."
Cramer argues that Wall Street experts often push index funds because they're the safest recommendation from a liability standpoint. If the market tanks, nobody can blame the advisor. If it soars, they still look smart. But Cramer thinks that approach leaves money on the table for investors willing to do their homework.
His "core" audience, he says, consists of people who actively save to invest and are hunting for companies like Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) that have the potential to exponentially grow their wealth. These are the investors who aren't content with market-average returns and want to identify the next big winners.
That said, Cramer issued a warning: stay away from "speculative" funds and stocks that he believes are "just created to take your money." There's a difference between investing in solid growth companies with real business models and throwing money at hype-driven schemes that promise quick riches.
It's a classic Cramer message: be aggressive, but be smart about it. And maybe, just maybe, prove your doubters wrong along the way.