Yahoo Finance

With an estimated personal fortune of $400 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, Kevin O’Leary is clearly a rich man. However, in a recent video posted on YouTube, the entrepreneur insists that the pursuit of money is not what drives him.

“Yeah, I woke up rich one day but I didn’t care, and now I work harder than I ever did,” he said. “It’s about the personal freedom, not the money.”

Don't miss

• A near-record number of Americans are grappling with $1,000 car payments and many drivers can't keep up. Here are 3 ways to stay ahead

• 5 ways to boost your net worth now — easily up your money game without altering your day-to-day life

• Cost-of-living in America is still out of control — use these 3 'real assets' to protect your wealth today

Besides the pursuit of freedom, O’Leary says his career has been fueled by one element that he believes is the key to creating wealth: a passion for problem solving.

Passionately solving problems

Entrepreneurs pursue risky ventures because they’re focused on curing pain points for specific customers, O’Leary argues. He believes a similar mindset could help most people accumulate wealth faster.

“You’ll wake up one day and be a multi-millionaire if you solve big problems for people,” he said in the video.

Other successful entrepreneurs have also echoed this approach. Virgin CEO Richard Branson encourages people to “fight tooth and nail to solve problems,” while Shark Tank co-host Mark Cuban called problem-solving “the foundation of being an entrepreneur.”

Here’s how you can apply this mindset to your investments.

Read more: Rich, young Americans are ditching the stormy stock market — here are the alternative assets they're banking on instead

Problem-solver stocks

As O’Leary suggests, some companies were created to solve specific problems. If the problem is big enough, and the solution is potent, a business can be relatively lucrative.

Cybercrime, for instance, is a huge problem. In 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) saw a 10% surge in cybercrime complaints year-over-year. Americans collectively lost $12.5 billion to such crimes, up 22% from the previous year.

Companies like Palo Alto Networks Inc (NASDAQ:PANW) and Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) are problem solvers in this space. According to Palo Alto Networks, its enterprise firewalls have prevented over 13.46 billion attacks, while Crowdstrike has 17.7% market share in endpoint device security.

Another widesweeping problem is how painful, uncomfortable and risky medical surgeries can be. Surgeons across the world are increasingly adopting robotic assistants to make their procedures less invasive, more precise and more successful.