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βGetting a good education and making good grades no longer ensures success, and nobody seems to have noticed, except our children.β
ββToday, the most dangerous advice you can give a child is βGo to school, get good grades and look for a safe secure job,β β he likes to say. βThat is old advice, and itβs bad advice. If you could see what is happening in Asia, Europe, South America, you would be as concerned as I am.ββ
βItβs bad advice, he believes, βbecause if you want your child to have a financially secure future, they canβt play by the old set of rules. Itβs just too risky.ββ
βEducation is the foundation of success[...]β
βRemember that financial intelligence is the mental process via which we solve our financial problems.β
βAs a process, choosing for myself turned out to be much more valuable in the long run, rather than simply accepting or rejecting a single point of view.β
ββI canβt afford it.β The other dad forbade those words to be used. He insisted I say, βHow can I afford it?β One is a statement, and the other is a question.β
ββThere is a difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is temporary, and poor is eternal.ββ
βIf you canβt make up you mind decisively, then youβll never learn to make money anyway.β
ββBut that is not how life teaches you, and I would say that life is the best teacher of all. Most of the time, life does not talk to you. It just sort of pushes you around. Each push is life saying, βWake up. Thereβs something I want you to learn.β ββ
ββIf you learn lifeβs lessons, you will do well. If not, life will just continue to push you around. People do two things. Some just let life push them around. Others get angry and push back. But they push back against their boss, or their job, or their husband or wife. They do not know itβs life thatβs pushing.ββ
ββLife pushes all of us around. Some give up. Others fight. A few learn the lesson and move on. They welcome life pushing them around. To these few people, it means they need and want to learn something. They learn and move on. Most quit, and a few like you fight.ββ
βMost people want everyone else in the world to change but themselves.β
βLet me tell you, itβs easier to change yourself than everyone else.ββ
ββThe poor and the middle class work for money.β βThe rich have money work for them.ββ
βWhen it comes to money, most people want to play it safe and feel secure. So passion does not direct them. Fear does.ββ
ββSimply because itβs easier to learn to work for money, especially if fear is your primary emotion when the subject of money is discussed.ββ
ββMost people have a price. And they have a price because of human emotions named fear and greed.β
β[...]they feel the fear of not having money. Instead of confronting the fear, they react instead of think.β
βMoney is running their lives, and they refuse to tell the truth about that. Money is in control of their emotions and hence their souls.ββ
ββIβve met so many people who say, βOh, Iβm not interested in money.β Yet theyβll work at a job for eight hours a day. Thatβs a denial of truth. If they werenβt interested in money, then why are they working?β
ββWill a job be the best solution to this fear over the long run?β In my opinion, the answer is βno.ββ
βAn education and a job are important. But it wonβt handle the fear.β
ββThe main cause of poverty or financial struggle is fear and ignorance, not the economy or the government or the rich. Itβs self-inflicted fear and ignorance that keeps people trapped.β
β[...]a person stops searching for information and knowledge of oneβs self, ignorance sets in.β
βKeep working boys, but the sooner you forget about needing a paycheck, the easier your adult life will be.β
βKeep 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.β
βIntelligence solves problems and produces money. Money without financial intelligence is money soon gone.β
βIf you want to be rich, you need to be financially literate.β
βIf you are going to build the Empire State Building, the first thing you need to do is dig a deep hole and pour a strong foundation. If you are going to build a home in the suburbs, all you need to do is pour a 6-inch slab of concrete. Most people, in their drive to get rich, are trying to build an Empire State Building on a 6-inch slab.β
βIlliteracy, both in words and numbers, is the foundation of financial struggle.β
βThey know that professional success is no longer solely linked to academic success, as it once was.β
βA person can be highly educated, professionally successful and financially illiterate.β
βMore money seldom solves someoneβs money problems. Intelligence solves problems.β
βThe poor and middle class all too often allow the power of money to control them. By simply getting up and working harder, failing to ask themselves if what they do makes sense, they shoot themselves in the foot as they leave for work every morning. By not fully understanding money, the vast majority of people allow the awesome power of money to control them. The power of money is used against them.β
βThe fear of being different prevents most people from seeking new ways to solve their problems.β
βWhen we were told to follow set procedures and not deviate from the rules, we could see how this schooling process actually discouraged creativity.β
βAnd when it comes to money, high emotions tend to lower financial intelligence.β
βLife is sometimes tough when you do not fit the βstandardβ profile.β
βMy real estate strategy, on the other hand, is to start small and keep trading the properties up for bigger properties and, therefore, delaying paying taxes on the gain. This allows the value to increase dramatically. I generally hold real estate less than seven years.β
βThe poor and middle class buy luxuries with their own sweat, blood and childrenβs inheritance.β
βWhen someone sues a wealthy individual they are often met with layers of legal protection, and often find that the wealthy person actually owns nothing. They control everything, but own nothing.β
βWe all have tremendous potential, and we all are blessed with gifts. Yet, the one thing that holds all of us back is some degree of self-doubt. It is not so much the lack of technical information that holds us back, but more the lack of self-confidence. Some are more affected than others.β
βThe people who get out of the βRat Raceβ in the game the quickest are the people who understand numbers and have creative financial minds.β
βThat is financial intelligence. It is not so much what happens, but how many different financial solutions you can think of to turn a lemon into millions. It is how creative you are in solving financial problems.β
βThe idea in anything is to use your technical knowledge, wisdom and love of the game to cut the odds down, to lower the risk.β
βIn other words, a majority of people let their lack of money stop them from making a deal.β
βIn my attempt to be helpful, I found myself defending my suggestion.β
ββI am a terrible writer. You are a great writer. I went to sales school. You have a masterβs degree. Put them together and you get a best-selling authorβ and a βbest-writing author.β ββ
βThe world is filled with smart, talented, educated and gifted people. We meet them every day. They are all around us.β
β[...]financial intelligence is a synergy of accounting, investing, marketing and law.β
βWhen I ask the classes I teach, βHow many of you can cook a better hamburger than McDonaldβs?β almost all the students raise their hands. I then ask, βSo if most of you can cook a better hamburger, how come McDonaldβs makes more money than you?β The answer is obvious: McDonaldβs is excellent at business systems. The reason so many talented people are poor is because they focus on building a better hamburger and know little to nothing about business systems.β
βAll too often, theyβre poor or struggle financially or earn less than they are capable of, not because of what they know but because of what they do not know.β
βAnd in all my years, I have never met a rich person who has never lost money. But I have met a lot of poor people who have never lost a dimeβ¦investing, that is.β
βThe fear of losing money is real. Everyone has it. Even the rich. But itβs not fear that is the problem. Itβs how you handle fear. Itβs how you handle losing. Itβs how you handle failure that makes the difference in oneβs life. That goes for anything in life, not just money. The primary difference between a rich person and a poor person is how they handle that fear.β
ββItβs a Texanβs attitude toward risk, reward and failure Iβm talking about. Itβs how they handle life. They live it big.β
βTexans donβt bury their failures. They get inspired by them. They take their failures and turn them into rallying cries. Failure inspires Texans to become winners. But that formula is not just the formula for Texans. It is the formula for all winners.β
βI always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.β
βThere is a big difference between hating losing and being afraid to lose.β
βIf you have little money and you want to be rich, you must first be βfocused,β not βbalanced.ββ
βIf you look at anyone successful, at the start they were not balanced. Balanced people go nowhere. They stay in one spot. To make progress, you must first go unbalanced. Just look at how you make progress walking. Thomas Edison was not balanced. He was focused. Bill Gates was not balanced. He was focused. Donald Trump is focused. George Soros is focused. George Patton did not take his tanks wide. He focused them and blew through the weak spots in the German line. The French went wide with the Maginot Line, and you know what happened to them. If you have any desire of being rich, you must focus.β
βAs I said, getting out of the rat race is technically easy. It doesnβt take much education, but those doubts are cripplers for most people.β
βEleanor Roosevelt said it best: βDo what you feel in your heart to be rightβfor youβll be criticized anyway. Youβll be damned if you do, and damned if you donβt.ββ
βI have found that many people use arrogance to try to hide their own ignorance.β
βItβs just like riding a bike. After a little wobbling, itβs a piece of cake. But when it comes to money, itβs the determination to get through the wobbling thatβs a personal thing.β
βI do it for myself and the people I love. Itβs love that gets me over the hurdles and sacrifices.β
βThe net result: I still have the old way I used to think, and I have Peterβs[Lynch] way of looking at the same problem or situation.β
βA truly intelligent person welcomes new ideas, for new ideas can add to the synergy of other accumulated ideas.β
βI would say that one of the hardest things about wealth building is to be true to yourself and be willing to not go along with the crowd.β
βThe power of self-discipline. If you cannot get control of yourself, do not try to get rich.β
βI know that sounds tough, but as I said, if youβre not tough inside, the world will always push you around anyway.β
βTrue, I have lost money on many occasions. But I only play with money I can afford to lose.β
βFor while the process of developing cash flow from an asset column in theory is easy, it is the mental fortitude of directing money that is hard.β
βDue to external temptations, it is much easier in todayβs consumer world to simply blow it out the expense column.β
βToo often today, we focus to borrowing money to get the things we want instead of focusing on creating money.β
βTo be the master of money, you need to be smarter than it. Then money will do as it is told. It will obey you. Instead of being a slave to it, you will be the master of it. That is financial intelligence.β
βAll you need to be is generous with what you have, and the powers will be generous with you.β
βThe definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.β
βFinding a good deal, the right business, the right people, the right investors, or whatever is just like dating. You must go to the market and talk to a lot of people, make a lot of offers, counteroffers, negotiate, reject and accept.β
βSmall thinkers donβt get the big breaks. If you want to get richer, think bigger first.β
βToday, we need greater financial intelligence to simply survive.β
βEducation and wisdom about money are important. Start early. Buy a book. Go to a seminar. Practice. Start small.β
βItβs what is in your head that determines what is in your hands. Money is only an idea.β