Chapter 5 Lesson 2: Why teach financial literacy

In 1990, my best friend Mike took over his dad's business empire and did better than his dad.We meet once or twice a year on the golf course.He and his wife had more money than you can imagine. Rich dad's kingdom was well run, and Mike was training his son to take his place, just as rich dad trained us. In 1994, I retired at the age of forty-seven, when my wife was thirty-seven.Retirement doesn't mean having nothing to do.For me and my wife, unless something unexpected happens, we can choose to work or not to work, and our wealth can avoid inflation and continue to increase.I think this is financial freedom.Assets are so rich that they can add value by themselves, just like planting a tree, you water it year after year, and finally one day it no longer needs your care and can grow by itself.Its roots are deep enough that you can now enjoy its shade.

Mike chose to run his business empire and I chose to retire. When I speak to groups of people, they always ask me what advice I have for them, or what they should do. How do I get started?Are there any good books you can recommend?What should be done to raise children?What is the secret to success? How can I make a million dollars?This always reminds me of that article I wrote, which reads as follows. richest businessman In 1923 some of the greatest leaders and wealthiest businessmen met at the Shore Hotel in Chicago.Among them is the leader of the largest independent steel company in the United States, Charles.Schwab; Chairman of the world's largest utility company Samuel.Insall; Howard, the leader of the largest gas company.Hopson; President of the International Match Company Eva.Kruger, the International Match Company was one of the largest companies in the world at the time; Leon, president of the Bank for International Settlements.Fraser; New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard.Whitney; the two largest stock speculators Arthur.Cotton and Jess.Livermore; Albert H., a member of Harding's cabinetFur.Twenty-five years later, nine of them died in this way: Schwab died penniless after spending five years in debt; Dayton also died of bankruptcy; Hopson went mad; Whitney and Albert.Full nearly went to prison; Fraser and Livermore went bankrupt and committed suicide.

I doubt anyone can tell what happened to these people.Looking at the time, 1923 was the eve of the 1929 market crash and the Great Depression, which had a severe impact on these people and their lives.The key point is this: the times we live in today are more turbulent than they have been in the past, and I imagine there will be more ups and downs in the next twenty-five years than those people have faced.I think too many people still focus too much on money instead of their greatest wealth, their education.If people are flexible, keep an open mind and keep learning, they will grow richer day by day through these changes.If money can solve all problems, I am afraid that these people will have a difficult life.Knowledge solves problems and creates wealth, and money that is not earned through financial knowledge will quickly disappear.

Most people don't realize that in life, it's not how much money you make but how much money you leave behind.We've all heard about the poor guy who wins the lottery, gets rich all of a sudden, then gets poor again, and they get a million dollars and they're right back where they started.Or the story of a professional athlete who made millions at twenty-four and was sleeping under a bridge at thirty-four.When I was writing this book this morning, there was such a news in the newspaper: a young basketball player, a year ago he had millions of dollars, but now, he said his friends, lawyers, accountants took For his money, he can only work a minimum wage job at a car wash.

He is only twenty-nine years old.He got fired from the car wash for refusing to take off his championship ring while the car was being cleaned, so he was in the papers.The basketball player is suing the car wash, complaining of a tough job and discrimination from people, and that the ring is the only thing he has left and that taking it away would break him. In 1997, I knew a lot of other would-be millionaires were going crazy.It's almost the end of the century, and I'm glad to see people getting richer, but I still want to remind you that in the long run, it's not how much money you make, it's how much money you keep that matters, and how long it lasted.

So when people ask me where do I start or tell me how to get rich quick, they are bound to be disappointed by my answer.I just told them what my rich dad told me when I was a kid: If you want to get rich, you need to learn financial literacy. This thought was on my mind throughout the days I spent with my rich dad.It can be said that my highly educated dad already recognized the importance of reading, while my rich dad emphasized the need to master financial knowledge. If you're going to build the Empire State Building, the first thing you need to do is dig a deep hole and lay a solid foundation.If you just want to build a small house in the suburbs, you only need to use six-inch thick cement slabs.Most people, when they try to get rich, try to build the Empire State Building on six-inch concrete slabs.

Our school system was built in the days of agricultural civilization, and in some ways it hasn't improved much, and kids leave school without a single iota of financial basics.One day, when people struggle to sleep on the brink of debt, they dream of the American Dream and decide that the solution to their financial problems is to get rich quick. And so began the work of building the skyscraper.We went fast, but instead of building the Empire State Building, we built a Leaning Tower.The sleepless night is here again. As adults, Mike and I have options because we had a solid foundation of financial literacy as children.

Accounting is probably the most tedious subject in the world right now, and probably the most confusing.But it is probably the most important discipline if you want to be rich in the long run.The question is, how do you take this tedious and obscure subject and teach it to your kids?The answer is: Simplify it and teach it first with graphs. Rich dad gave Mike and me a solid foundation of financial knowledge.Since we were just kids at the time, rich dad created an easy way to teach us.For several years he just drew pictures and used words.Mike and I figured out the simple diagrams, the terminology, and what they mean for money.Over the next few years, rich dad started adding numbers.Today, Mike has mastered more complex and difficult accounting analysis, because he has a multi-billion dollar company to run, he must master these methods.

I'm less complicated because my kingdom is smaller, but we all stem from the same simple foundation.In the next few pages, I'll give you some of the same simple diagrams as the ones Mike's dad invented for us.Simple as these diagrams were, the two children built a strong foundation for great wealth. Rule number one, you must understand the difference between an asset and a liability, and buy as many assets as possible.If you want to be rich, you must know this.This is Rule No. 1, and the only one, and it sounds too simple, but most people don't realize how deep this rule is, and most people suffer because they don't know the difference between an asset and a liability. Struggling with financial problems.

The rich get assets, and the poor and middle class get debt, but they think those are assets. When rich dad explained these concepts to Mike and me, we thought he was kidding us.That's the answer we two kids under ten were waiting to hear about the secret to getting rich.The answer is so simple that we have to think long and hard about it. What are assets?Mike asked. Forget about it now, said rich dad, and just remember what I said above.If you can understand those words, your life will become organized and not be troubled by financial problems.It is because of its simplicity that it is often overlooked.

You mean all we need to understand is what assets are and get them and then we can get rich, right?I asked. Rich dad nodded and said, It's that simple. Since it's so simple, why doesn't everyone get rich?I asked. Rich dad laughed, and he said: Because people don't actually understand the difference between assets and liabilities. I asked again: How can adults be so stupid? If this truth is so simple and so important, why don't people understand it? Rich dad then spent a few minutes explaining to us what assets and liabilities are. As an adult, I found it difficult to explain to other adults what was an asset and what was a liability.why? Because adults are smarter.Most of the time, this simple idea is not grasped by most adults because they have different educational backgrounds, they are taught by other highly educated professionals such as bankers, accountants, real estate agents, financial planners, etc. teach.The difficulty is that it is difficult to ask these adults to give up their existing concepts and become as simple as children.Highly educated adults often find it shameful to study such a simple concept. Rich dad believed in the KISS principle, or Keep It Simple Stupid.So he deliberately simplified the curriculum for the two children, and this made the foundation laid by the two children even stronger. What caused the confusion of ideas?Or why such a simple truth is so difficult to grasp?Why would anyone buy something that is actually a liability? The answer lies in what kind of basic education he received. We usually put a lot of weight on the word knowledge rather than financial knowledge.However, general knowledge cannot define what is an asset and what is a liability.In fact, if you really want to get carried away, just look up assets and liabilities in the dictionary.I know that the above definition is clear to a trained accountant, but it may not make sense to the average person.Yet we adults are often too vain to admit that we don't understand the implications. To the little kids, rich dad said: We should define assets not in words but in numbers.If you can't read numbers, you can't discover and identify assets.In accounting, he went on, the key is not the numbers, but what the numbers are telling you.Numbers are not words, but like words, it can tell you what it wants to tell you. Many people read, but don't quite understand what they read, hence the term reading comprehension.People have different needs and abilities in reading comprehension.For example, I recently bought a new VCR that came with a how-to guide for the VCR.Actually all I wanted to do was record my favorite TV show on Friday night, but I almost went crazy reading the manual, and I don't even think there is anything more complicated in my life than learning how to use a VCR. I can read each word, but when they are connected, I don't understand what they are saying.I got A's for words and F's for comprehension, the same way most people understand financial terms. If you want to be rich, you have to read and understand numbers.I've heard this a thousand times from my rich dad, and it's just as frequently said that the rich get assets and the poor and middle class get liabilities. Here's how to distinguish between assets and liabilities.Most accountants and financial professionals would disagree with this definition, but these simple drawings are the start of a solid financial foundation for two young children. In order to teach two children under the age of ten, rich dad simplified everything, using as many pictures as possible and as little words as possible, and did not include numbers for many years. The picture above is an income statement, often called an income statement.It is often used to measure income and expenses and money in and out.The diagram below is a balance sheet, which is used to illustrate assets and liabilities.Many beginners in economics are confused by the connection between the income statement and the balance sheet, which is crucial to understanding them.The root cause of many people's long-term financial difficulties is that they never understand the difference between assets and liabilities, and the cause of misunderstanding is the words used to define them.If you want to know what is meant by ambiguity, just look up the words asset and liability in the dictionary. Of course, the definitions in the dictionary are useful for trained accountants, but for ordinary people, this kind of definition is too professional and rigorous. When you read the words in those definitions, it is difficult to understand the meaning of them when they are strung together. true meaning. So as I said earlier, rich dad just told the two kids the following: An asset is something that puts money in your pocket.great!These words are simple and practical. Now using a diagram to define assets and liabilities, it may be easier to illustrate my definition in words: an asset is something that puts money in your pocket. A liability is something that takes money out of your pocket. That's all you need to know.If you want to be rich, just keep buying assets throughout your life; if you want to be poor or middle class, just keep buying liabilities.It is precisely because people do not know the difference between assets and liabilities that people often buy liabilities as assets, causing most people in the world to struggle with financial problems. The root cause of the problem is the inability to understand the financial language or the meaning of numbers.If a person is in financial trouble, it means that there is something, either numbers or words, that he cannot read, or that he has misunderstood something.The rich are rich because they are more knowledgeable about something than those who are struggling financially, so financial literacy is important, including an understanding of words and numbers, if you want to get rich and keep your wealth. The direction of the arrows in the diagram shows the flow of cash or cash flow.The numbers themselves have little meaning, just as the words themselves have little meaning, what is important is what the numbers or words express.In financial reporting, the reading of the numbers is to discover the situation, to understand the flow, where the money is going.In 80% of households, the financial statements present a picture of working ahead and hard, not because they are not earning money, but because they are buying liabilities rather than assets. The reason why I started with the situation of the rich in the United States is to debunk a misconception that money can solve all problems.Because so many people think so, I often get worried when I hear people ask me how to get rich quick and where to start.I also often hear people say: I am in debt, so I have to earn money. But more money often doesn't solve the problem, and it can actually make it worse.Money often reveals the weaknesses in our human nature, and money cannot cover up our ignorance.This is why some people often get a large windfall, such as an inheritance, salary increase or winning the lottery, but lose it very quickly, and some people are even worse financially than they were before they got the money.The money just makes the flow of your cash flow diagram more visible in your head, and if your cash flow diagram is to spend all your income, then the most likely outcome will be increased income as well as increased spending.As the saying goes: Money fools people. I have said many times that it is very important that we go to school to gain knowledge and professional skills, and we need to learn to use professional skills to earn a living.When I was in high school in the sixties, if someone did well in school, immediately someone thought that bright student was going to be a doctor, without asking the student if he wanted to be a doctor.It is said that the profession of doctor reflects the best professional treatment level at that time. Physicians today also face enormous financial challenges that none of us want to face: control of the industry by insurance companies, health care regulations, government interference, lawsuits of all kinds, and so on.So kids these days want to be basketball stars. Like Teague.Woods, a computer nerd, a movie star, a rock star, a beauty queen, or a Wall Street trader, rather than becoming a doctor or whatever, because these non-professional careers seem to be more important to parents. Famous, richer, more prominent.This is also why it is so hard to encourage today's kids to go to school, knowing that professional success is no longer fully correlated with academic performance, even though the two once were. At the same time, as students leave school without acquiring financial skills, thousands of educated people pursue professional success only to find that they are still struggling financially.They work hard but get nowhere, they are not educated how to make money but how to spend it, which creates a so-called financial attitude What do you do when you make money?How to prevent others from taking money from you?How long can you hold the money?How do you make money work for you?Most people don't understand why they are in financial trouble because they don't understand cash flow.A person can be highly educated and successful, but also be financially illiterate.Such people tend to work harder than they need to because they know how to work hard but don't know how to make money work for them. The Story of Getting Rich Dreams Turned into Nightmare A newly married, highly educated newlyweds live in a cramped rented apartment and soon realize they are saving money because two are spending about the same as one. The problem is, the apartment is overcrowded, so they decide to save money and buy their dream house so they can have kids.Now that they have two incomes and are starting to focus on their careers, their incomes are starting to increase, and as incomes increase, the first expense for most people is taxes.Many people think it's the income tax, but for most Americans, the highest tax is the Social Security tax.As an employee, social security taxes and medical taxes on the surface total about seven.Five percent, which is actually fifteen percent, because the employer has to pay fifteen percent of your Social Security contribution.The point is that the employer will not pay you with his own money. In fact, what he pays is what you deserve.In addition, you have to pay income tax on the Social Security tax deducted from your paycheck, which you never received because it went directly to Social Security through withholding. This is the best description for this young couple: With their income increasing, they decided to buy a home of their own.Once they have a house, they have to pay taxes and property taxes, and then they buy new cars, new furniture, etc. to match the new house. Finally, they suddenly find themselves in debt on their mortgages and credit card loans. They fell into the trap of the rat race.Soon after the baby was born, they had to work harder.The cycle continues, and the more money they earn, the more taxes they pay, and they have to max out their credit cards.Then a loan company called and said their biggest asset, their house, had been appraised, and because their credit history was so good, they could offer a bill consolidation loan, a long-term loan secured by using their house as collateral. The loan will help them pay off high-interest consumer loans on other credit cards, and even better, the interest on such home mortgages will be tax-free.They felt so lucky that they immediately agreed with the loan company and paid off the credit card with the loan.They feel relieved that, on the surface, their debt load has been reduced, but in reality they have simply shifted their consumer loans to mortgages.They spread the debt over thirty years to pay.That's a really smart thing to do. A few days later, the neighbors called to ask them to go shopping and said that the store was selling on Memorial Day, and they said to themselves: We are not buying anything, just going to see.But once they found what they wanted, they couldn't resist paying again with the same credit card they had just paid off. I've always met these young couples with different names but the same predicament.They come to me and ask: Can you tell us how to make more money?Their spending habits leave them seeking more money. They don't even know that their real problem lies in the way they choose to spend, which is the real reason they are struggling.And that ignorance lies in a lack of financial literacy and a failure to understand the difference between assets and liabilities. No amount of money will solve their problems, and nothing will save them other than changing their financial mindset and spending patterns.A friend of mine says this over and over to people who are in debt: If you find you're in a hole, stop digging. When I was a kid, my dad said that the Japanese focus on three powers: the sword, the gem, and the mirror. The sword symbolizes the power of the weapon.The Americans have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons and are the world's super military power. Gemstones symbolize the power of money.As the adage goes: Remember the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. The mirror symbolizes the power of self-knowledge.In the eyes of the Japanese, self-knowledge is the most precious of the three powers. The poor and middle class let the power of money control them more.They get up and work without asking themselves what it means to do it; they work for money every day without really understanding money.So most people let money control them and fight them. If they had a mirror, they might ask themselves in the mirror: does this make sense?But often, people don't trust their own inner wisdom and just go with the flow and follow what others say.They do things because other people do, and they obey without asking.They accepted and never questioned installment payments, your home is your asset, your home is your largest investment, debt is tax deductible, find a stable job, don't make mistakes, don't take risks. Many people think that speaking in public is worse than death.According to psychiatry, fear of speaking in public is due to fear of being excluded, fear of standing out, fear of being criticized, fear of making mistakes, fear of being ejected.In short, it is the fear of being different that prevents people from thinking of new ways to solve problems. This is why my educated dad said that the Japanese value the power of the mirror most, because only when they look in the mirror can they discover the truth that the reason most people talk about stability is out of fear.Other things can also be seen through the mirror, such as sports, social relationships, career and money. It is this fear, the fear of ostracism, that makes people obey and not question widely accepted beliefs or popular trends: your home is an asset, use one loan to close other liabilities, work hard, improve , I will be Vice President one day, saving money, I will buy a bigger house after a raise, mutual funds are the safest, etc. Most people's financial woes are caused by following the crowd, simply following other people.So we all need to look in the mirror from time to time and trust our inner wisdom and not just fear. When Mike and I were sixteen, we had trouble at school.We're not bad kids, we're just starting to stay away from the crowd.We worked for Mike's dad on weekends and after school, and when we were done we would spend hours sitting and listening to his dad's meetings with bank managers, lawyers, accountants, brokers, investors, managers, and employees.Mike's dad, who had left school at thirteen, now commanded and commanded a group of well-educated men.They obeyed him and were horrified when he expressed displeasure on an issue. Rich dad was not a follower, he was an independent thinker. He hates the idea that we have to do it because everyone else does, and he hates the word can't.If you want him to do something, an effective way is to say to him: I don't think you can do this. Mike and I learned a lot from the various meetings our rich dad held, even more in some ways than we could have learned in school, including college.Mike's dad didn't have a high school education, but he was financially literate and ultimately successful.He has said to us over and over again: A smart man always hires someone smarter than him. So, Mike and I often have the privilege of spending hours listening to and learning from smart people. So it was difficult for Mike and I to follow the traditional dogma taught by our teachers, and that was where the problem came in.Mike and I frowned when the teacher said that if you don't get good grades, you won't do well in society.We see how this kind of school procedure can stifle creativity when we are told to follow the established procedure and not to deviate from it.We begin to understand why rich dad said that schools are places that produce good employees but not good employers. Mike and I often ask our schoolteachers why what we're taught isn't practical, or why we don't learn about money and how it moves.To the latter question, we often get the answer that money is not important, if we excel in study, money will come naturally. The more we learn about the power of money, the more distance we become from our teachers and classmates. My highly educated dad never put pressure on my grades, which surprised me at times, but we argued over money.I think at the age of ten, I already had more financial basics than my parents.Because I read a lot and listened to auditors, corporate lawyers, bankers, real estate agents, and investors, while Dad only talked to teachers every day. A not so pleasant argument arose one day when Dad told me that our house was his largest investment.I told him at the time that I didn't think a house was a good investment. The picture below reflects the different views of my rich dad and poor dad on the house issue. One thinks his house is an asset, and the other thinks it is a liability. I also remember drawing the diagram below to show Dad where his cash flow was going, and I also pointed out to him the ancillary expenses that came with owning the house.The bigger the house, the bigger the expenses, and the cash will keep flowing out. Today, I am still challenging the notion that a house is an asset.I know that for many people, a house is their dream and greatest investment, and that owning a home is better than nothing, but I wanted to replace this dogma with another thought. My wife and I also like big, funky houses, but we know that's not an asset, it's a liability because it keeps money out of our pockets. Therefore I make this argument.I don't want everyone to agree with me, because houses are, after all, where people's feelings rest.In addition, the obsession with money can reduce financial sanity, and my personal experience tells me that money can make decision-making emotional. one.As for the house, I would point out that most people work their entire lives for a house that they don't really own.In other words, most people buy a new home every few years, using a new 30-year loan to pay off the previous loan each time. two.Even though people get tax-free benefits from the interest on their home mortgages, they still have to pay off the installments before they can pay for various expenses with their after-tax income. three.property tax.My wife's parents are paying up to $1,000 a month in property taxes on their house, a tax they will pay when they retire, and this tax makes life stressful for them, and they often feel compelled to moved away. Four.Home values ​​don't always go up.In 1997, a friend of mine had a million-dollar house. Today his house is only worth $700,000. five.The biggest loss is opportunity loss.If all your money is invested in the house, you have to work hard because your cash is constantly flowing out of the expense item rather than into the asset item, typical middle class cash flow pattern. What should be the correct approach?If a young couple puts a little more money into their asset portfolio early on, they'll have an easier life in the years to come, especially if they're sending their kids off to college.Because the investment in the asset item will make their assets continue to increase, automatically covering expenses.Investing first in a big house is nothing more than taking out a mortgage to pay for escalating expenses. In summary, the decision to own a very expensive home, rather than start investing in securities early on, will have an impact on one's financial life in three ways: one.The opportunity to add value with other assets is lost. two.Capital that would have been invested would be used to pay for various high, long-term expenses of the house. three.Lost educational opportunities.People often list their homes, savings, and retirement plans among their assets. Because they don't have the money to invest, they don't invest, which prevents them from gaining investment experience and never becoming the sophisticated investor recognized by the investment community.And the best investment opportunities are often given to those mature investors first, and then they pass on to those prudent people. Of course, they have already taken most of the benefits when they change hands. The financial situation of my educated dad is the best illustration of the financial situation of people who live the life of the rat race.They are always living within their means, and it is impossible to invest at all.As a result, their liabilities, such as mortgages, credit card loans, are always greater than their assets. Rich dad's financial statements also showed why the rich keep getting richer.The income generated by the asset project can more than cover the expenses, and the remaining income can be reinvested in the asset side.With the accumulation of investment, assets will increase, and income will increase accordingly, thus forming a virtuous circle. The result: the rich get richer! Why is the middle class always finding itself struggling financially?The main income of the middle class is wages, and when wages increase, taxes increase, and more importantly, their propensity to spend also increases with income. They repeatedly invest in the house as the main asset, rather than investing in real assets that generate income. This idea of ​​a house as an asset and the financial philosophy that more money means you can buy a bigger house or spend more are the foundations of today's debt-ridden society.Too much spending drags families into a vortex of debt and financial uncertainty, even when people are doing great jobs and growing incomes, and this risky life is due to a lack of financial literacy education caused by. The economic downturn in the 1990s and the mass unemployment showed how fragile the financial situation of the middle class was. The company pension plan was suddenly replaced by the 401K plan, the Social Security system was clearly in trouble and could no longer provide a source of livelihood for retirement, and there was panic among the middle class.Today, it is a good thing. Many people realize this problem and start buying mutual funds. The growth of investment has largely driven the gradual recovery of the stock market, and more and more mutual funds have been created to meet the needs of the middle class. Investment needs. Mutual funds are popular because they carry little risk.The average fund buyer is too busy paying taxes and loans, saving for kids' college, paying off credit cards, etc. to research how to invest, so they rely on mutual fund management experts to help them invest.And, because mutual funds invest in multiple investments, they feel that their risk is being diversified. This educated middle class subscribes to the diversification narrative put forth by fund managers who want to play it safe and avoid risk. But the real reason still lies in the lack of necessary financial literacy education in the early years, which is also the reason why the ordinary middle class is forced to avoid risks.They have to play it safe because their economic position is weak: their balance sheets have never been balanced, they carry a lot of debt and have no real assets that can generate income.Their source of income is only wages, and their lives are completely dependent on their employers. So when the opportunity of a lifetime in a veritable relationship comes up, these people can't take it and they have to play it safe because they're saddled with high taxes and debt. As I said at the beginning of this section, the most important rule is to understand the difference between assets and liabilities.一旦你明白了這種差別，你就會盡力去只買入能帶來收入的資產，這是你走上致富之路的最好辦法。不斷地這樣做，你的資產就會不斷增加。同時還要注意降低你的負債和支出，這會讓你有更多的錢投入資產項。很快，錢會多到可以讓你進行一些投機性的投資了，這些投資能產生從一百％到無限的回報，五千美元的投資很快就能翻到一百萬或更多。這種中產階級稱為太冒險的投資實際上並無風險，只是因為你缺乏某些很重要的財務知識而不知道究竟該怎樣去看待這些投資機會。只要你擁有足夠的財務知識，你就不必害怕去冒險。 作為一個自己有房子的雇員，你努力工作的結果如下： one.你為別人工作。如大多數人為工資而工作一樣，你的努力使雇主或股東致富，你的工作和成功將使雇主成功並且可以提早退休。 two.你為政府工作。政府在你還未看見工資時就已拿走了一部分，努力工作只是使政府的稅收增加。大多數人都在為政府工作。 three.你為銀行工作。繳稅後，你的下一筆最大支出該是償還抵押貸款和信用卡貸款了。 問題是如果你只懂得工作努力，上面三方從你那兒拿走的勞動成果也就會越多。你需要學會怎樣才能使你的努力更多地、更直接地為你和你的家人帶來益處。 一旦你決定把精力集中於創建自己的事業，你該怎樣確立目標呢？對大多數人而言，他們的目標是保住他們的職業並依賴工資取得他們想要的資產。 隨著資產的增加，他們應怎樣衡量自己的成功呢？何時他們才能意識到他們是富人且擁有財富？如同我有自己的資產和負債定義一樣，我也有自己對於財富的定義。實際上這是我從一個名叫巴克敏斯特．菲萊的人那兒借用的。有人把他叫作騙子，而另一些人則稱他為天才，幾年前圍繞他在建築業有不少的流言。他在一九六一年曾申請了一種圓頂結構專利，在申請中，菲萊講了一些關於財富的話。起初這個定義的確令人迷惑，但是讀過後，你就開始有感覺了。他是這樣定義的：財富就是支持一個人生存多長時間的能力，或者說如果我今天停止工作，我還能活多久？ 不像淨資產被定義為資產和負債間的差額那樣，儘管這種定義常常充斥於人們關於支出的廢話以及關於某物值多少錢的觀點中。財富的這一定義為發展一種新的真實準確的衡量方法創造了可能性，現在我能衡量並且的確知道我經濟獨立的目標已實現到哪一步了。 淨資產通常包括那些非現金資產，就像你買回後堆在車庫裡的材料。財富則衡量你的錢正在掙多少錢，以及你的財務生存能力。 財富是將資產項下產生的現金流與支出項下流出的現金流進行比較而定的。 讓我們來看個例子。比如說我的資產每月可產生一千美元，可我每月卻要支出二千美元，那我還有什麼財富可言呢？ 讓我們回到巴克敏斯特．菲萊的定義，用他的定義，我還能活幾天呢？假定一個月三十天，按這個定義，我只能活半個月。 當我每月從資產項可得二千美元時，那我就有財富了。 當然我並不富有，可我有財富了。現在每個月我從資產項得到的現金流與支出等量。 如果我想增加支出，我首先必須增加資產項產生的現金流來維持我的財富水平。注意，這時我不再依賴工資，如果我辭職了，我每月還能用資產項產生的現金流維持支出，也就是說我仍能夠生存。 我的下個目標是從資產中得到多餘現金再進行投資。流入資產項的錢越多，資產就增加得越快；資產增加得越快，現金流入得就越多。只要我把支出控制在資產所能夠產生的現金流之下，我就會變富，就會有越來越多除我自身勞動力收入之外的其他收入來源。 隨著這種再投資過程的不斷延續，我最終走上了致富之路。 請記住下面這些話：富人買入資產；窮人只有支出；中產階級買他們以為是資產的負債。 那麼我該怎樣開始我的事業呢？請聽麥當勞的創立者怎麼說。