LESSON 1: THE RICH DON'T WORK FOR MONEY

As we headed back to the store, rich dad explained that the rich

really did “make money.” They did not work for it. He went on to

explain that when Mike and I were casting five-cent pieces out of

lead, thinking we were making money, we were very close to thinking

the way the rich think. The problem was that creating money is legal

for the government and banks to do, but illegal for us to do. There are

legal ways to create money from nothing, he told us.

Rich dad went on to explain that the rich know that money is an

illusion, truly like the carrot for the donkey. It’s only out of fear and

greed that the illusion of money is held together by billions of people

who believe that money is real. It’s not. Money is really made up. It

is only because of the illusion of confidence and the ignorance of the

masses that this house of cards stands.

He talked about the gold standard that America was on, and that

each dollar bill was actually a silver certificate. What concerned him

was the rumor that we would someday go off the gold standard and

our dollars would no longer be backed by something tangible.

“If that happens, boys, all hell will break loose. The poor, the

middle class, and the ignorant will have their lives ruined simply

because they will continue to believe that money is real and that the

company they work for, or the government, will look after them.”

We really did not understand what he was saying that day, but

over the years, it made more and more sense.

Seeing What Others Miss

As he climbed into his pickup truck outside his convenience store,

rich dad said, “Keep working boys, but the sooner you forget about

needing a paycheck, the easier your adult life will be. Keep using your

brain, work for free, and soon your mind will show you ways of

making money far beyond what I could ever pay you. You will see

things that other people never see. Most people never see these o

pportunities because they’re looking for money and security, so that’s

all they get. The moment you see one opportunity, you’ll see them

for the rest of your life. The moment you do that, I’ll teach you

something else. Learn this, and you’ll avoid one of life’s biggest traps.

Mike and I picked up our things from the store and waved

goodbye to Mrs. Martin. We went back to the park, to the same

picnic bench, and spent several more hours thinking and talking.

We spent the next week at school thinking and talking, too. For

two more weeks, we kept thinking, talking, and working for free.

At the end of the second Saturday, I was again saying goodbye

to Mrs. Martin and looking at the comic-book stand with a longing

gaze. The hard thing about not even getting 30 cents every Saturday

was that I didn’t have any money to buy comic books. Suddenly, as

Mrs. Martin said goodbye to Mike and me, I saw her do something I’d

never seen her do before.

Mrs. Martin was cutting the front page of the comic book in half.

She kept the top half of the comic book cover and threw the rest of the

book into a large cardboard box. When I asked her what she did with

the comic books, she said, “I throw them away. I give the top half of

the cover back to the comic-book distributor for credit when he brings

in the new comics. He’s coming in an hour.”

Mike and I waited for an hour. Soon the distributor arrived, and

I asked him if we could have the comic books. To my delight, he said,

“You can have them if you work for this store and do not resell them.”

Remember our old business partnership? Well, Mike and I revived

it. Using a spare room in Mike’s basement, we began piling hundreds

of comic books in that room. Soon our comic-book library was open

to the public. We hired Mike’s younger sister, who loved to study, to be

head librarian. She charged each child 10 cents admission to the library,

which was open from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day after school.

The customers, the children of the neighborhood, could read as many

comics as they wanted in two hours. It was a bargain for them since a

comic cost 10 cents each, and they could read five or six in two hours.

Mike’s sister would check the kids as they left to make sure they

weren’t borrowing any comic books. She also kept the books, logging

in how many kids showed up each day, who they were, and any

comments they might have. Mike and I averaged $9.50 per week

over a three-month period. We paid his sister one dollar a week and

allowed her to read the comics for free, which she rarely did since she

was always studying.

Mike and I kept our agreement by working in the store every

Saturday and collecting all the comic books from the different stores.

We kept our agreement to the distributor by not selling any comic

books. We burned them once they got too tattered. We tried opening

a branch office, but we could never quite find someone as trustworthy

and dedicated as Mike’s sister. At an early age, we found out how hard

it was to find good staff.

Three months after the library first opened, a fight broke out in

the room. Some bullies from another neighborhood pushed their

way in, and Mike’s dad suggested we shut down the business. So

our comic-book business shut down, and we stopped working on

Saturdays at the convenience store. But rich dad was excited because

he had new things he wanted to teach us. He was happy because we

had learned our first lesson so well: We learned to make money work

for us. By not getting paid for our work at the store, we were forced

to use our imaginations to identify an opportunity to make money.

By starting our own business, the comic-book library, we were in

control of our own finances, not dependent on an employer. The best

part was that our business generated money for us, even when we

weren’t physically there. Our money worked for us.

Instead of paying us money, rich dad had given us so much more.