I started reading some excerpts from that book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” It was mostly anecdotal, with a lot of cute stories about being nine and deciding that personal wealth means knowing some kind secret on how to live and think as a rich man does. Then I read some critiques of the same book, most saying that it was pretty farcical, some going so far as to say a lot of the advice was pretty bad.
But the concept is really appealing to me. One of my biggest regrets with my father dying when I was nineteen is that I never really got to chat to him about a lot of my goals as an adult. I think we got to cover a lot of, “What does it mean to be a good man,” how to be responsible, empathetic, and a good communicator, but we missed out on things like, how to buy a house, how to build a business, and anything to do with personal wealth. Mostly what I got, and it’s pretty good advice, was how to be frugal, increase your cash-flow through limiting your spending, and how to take care of the things you already own.
You can see why a book about life lessons from a “Rich Dad” are so appealing to me. I’ve always missed having that kind of mentor to show me the ropes. I once considered working for a real estate firm under this smart but highly stressed-out guy just to be closer to him and try to understand how buying and selling and maintaining things worked.
In the end, our professional relationship didn’t work out, mostly because I didn’t want his life, and mine didn’t serve his professional needs. He was too stressed out. So where will this information come from?
There’s a fairly simple idea behind slow growth and personal wealth that says don’t spend to much, and what you don’t spend, buy assets with. In other words, have your money work for you. That’s a fine ideal, but a calculator quickly shows that, even under ideal circumstances, I am fairly limited in how much I can actually make. Even putting away $300 a month in stocks, it would take years, just years, and years, before it would amount to much.
So then the next, almost obvious idea, is that if I invest really smartly, like figuring out the next walmart before it’s the next walmart, ride the success to wealth. But this leads to, well, a whole new life. I’d have to learn ALL about investing, in business, and watch all kinds of trends and stuff. I don’t want to sound lazy, but I’m not sure I want my life to be all about finance.
So what’s the smart move here? I’m willing to work, and willing to learn. I’m even okay with the idea that making money means hard work. But I don’t want my life to be all about money. I feel strongly in the idea that one can be really smart, and that a lot of the hard work will be substituted by smart decisions.
Which leads me back to looking for some kind of mentor. It’s at this point that my mind, and google, begin their wandering. I think about inventions, and look up how to get something patented. Then I stare, blankly for thirty minutes, trying to satisfy the old adage “necessity is the mother of all invention,” and trying to decide what it is that I need, and how to fix it in a way that will make me money. And then I try to think of businesses, and realize I have no capital, or ideas. Then it’s porn, but that’s just because I’m already distracted, and why not?
The world is over-saturated with claims and advice for wealth. Maybe the smarts is having the talent to sort through all of this. I haven’t made much money, and hardly saved any, so I wont be reporting, any time soon, about how you, too, can get rich like I did. But I’ll keep looking.
I did just call to cancel some silly subscription to something. That’s $15 a month. That’s increased cash-flow. Maybe I’m already on my way.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I can sympathize. It’s difficult to do anything more than just ‘be an employee somewhere’ unless you have business knowledge and/or capital. I guess we could have gone to school for business, but that just seemed so boring at the time, didn’t it?? Yuck. But now, it seems like really relevant information just to live. I remember in high school we had some stupid class where they taught you how to balance your checkbook and invest 5 bucks in a fake market, but who pays attention in high school? There were constant subtitles in my brain: This is all irrelevant…You will never need this… and most of it I didn’t – especially the balancing your checkbook lesson. I didn’t really pay attention until college. But even then, I wasn’t thinking of buying a house. If every uni made you take a business class – one that taught you the basics of home buying, managing personal assets, starting a business, or how to find a sugar daddy/mama – we would all be better off. Maybe the last one is what sororities are good for… I guess they assume that’s what parents are good for. But where does that leave people like you? And me for that matter? My parents are both alive, but I’d rather wing it than take their financial advice. I guess what non-finance people like us need to do is come up with an idea and realize what we are good at – eg: customer service, operations, sales, etc. Then find someone with the business skills and the capital to make it happen. Keep in mind a lot of regular people do have money they would love to invest in something, even something small -they just haven’t found the right idea. Keep thinking Sophist – you’ll strike gold soon.
Yeah, but I still think business school might just be a racket. I mean, who better to figure out the angle on making money on people than business professors? Irony!!!