Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Robert Kiyosaki)

Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Korea, Tahiti, Samoa and the Philippines. I also was partying, but it was not in any frat house. I grew up rapidly.

Educated dad just could not understand why I decided to quit and join the Marine Corps. I told him I wanted to learn to fly, but really I wanted to learn to lead troops. Rich dad explained to me that the hardest part of running a company is managing people. He had spent three years in the Army; my educated dad was draft-exempt. Rich dad told me of the value of learning to lead men into dangerous situations. "Leadership is what you need to learn next," he said. "If you're not a good leader, you'll get shot in the back, just like they do in business."

Returning from Vietnam in 1973,1 resigned my commission, even though I loved flying. I found a job with Xerox Corp. I joined it for one reason, and it was not for the benefits. I was a shy person, and the thought of selling was the most frightening subject in the world. Xerox has one of the best sales-training programs in America.

Rich dad was proud of me. My educated dad was ashamed. Being an intellectual, he thought that salespeople were below him. I worked with Xerox for four years until I overcame my fear of knocking on doors and being rejected. Once I could consistently be in the top five in sales, I again resigned and moved on, leaving behind another great career with an excellent company.

In 1977,1 formed my first company. Rich dad had groomed Mike and me to take over companies. So I now had to learn to form them and put them together. My first product, the nylon and velcro wallet, was manufactured in the Far East and shipped to a warehouse in New York, near where I had gone to school. My formal education was complete, and it was time to test my wings.

If I failed, I went broke. Rich dad thought it best to go broke before 30. "You still have time to recover" was his advice. On the eve of my 30th birthday, my first shipment left ,, Korea for New York.

Today, I still do business internationally. And as my rich dad encouraged me to do, I keep seeking the emerging nations. Today my investment company invests in South America, Asia, Norway and Russia. There is an old cliche that goes, "Job is an acronym for 'Just Over Broke.'" And unfortunately, I would say that the saying applies to millions of people. Because school does not think financial intelligence is an intelligence, most workers "live within their means." They work and they pay the bills.

There is another horrible management theory that goes, "Workers work hard enough to not be fired, and owners pay just enough so that workers won't quit." And if you look at the pay scales of most companies, again I would say there is a degree of truth in that statement.

The net result is that most workers never get ahead. They do what they've been taught to do: "Get a secure job." Most workers focus on working for pay and benefits that reward them in the short term, but is often disastrous in the long. Instead I recommend to young people to seek work for what they will learn, more than what they will earn. Look down the road at what ; skills they want to acquire before choosing a specific profession and before getting trapped in the "Rat Race."

Once people are trapped in the lifelong process of bill paying, they 1 become like those little hamsters running around in those little metal wheels. Their little furry legs are spinning furiously, the wheel is turning furiously, but come tomorrow morning, they'll still be in the same cage: great job.

In the movie Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise, there are many great one liners. Probably the most memorable is "Show me the money." But there is one line I thought most truthful. It comes from the scene where Tom Cruise is leaving the firm. He has just been fired, and he is asking the entire company "Who wants to come with me?" And the whole place is silent and frozen. Only one woman speaks up and says, "I'd like to but I'm due for a promotion in three months."

That statement is probably the most truthful statement in the whole movie. It is the type of statement that people use to keep themselves busy working away to pay bills. I know my educated dad looked forward to his pay raise every year, and every year he was disappointed. So he would go back to school to earn more