“Remember what I said before: A job is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Most people have only one problem in mind, and it’s short-term. It’s the bills at the end of the month, the Tar Baby. Money controls their lives, or should I say the fear and ignorance about money controls it. So they do as their parents did. They get up every day and go work for money, not taking the time to ask the question, ‘Is there another way?’ Their emotions now control their thinking, not their heads.”
“Can you tell the difference between emotions thinking and the head thinking?” Mike asked.
Rich Dad Poor Dad
The absolute TRUTH! I’ve never heard it put so eloquently. A job is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Genetics maybe? Mother did the same thing — work hard for a dead end check and pay all the bills.
Why Teach Financial Literacy
Whenever I speak to groups of people, they often ask what I would recommend that they do. “How do I get started?” “Is there a book
you would recommend?” “What should I do to prepare my children?” “What is your secret to success?” “How do I make millions?”
Whenever I hear one of these questions, I’m reminded of the following story:
The Richest Businessmen
In 1923 a group of our greatest leaders and richest businessmen held a meeting at the Edgewater Beach hotel in Chicago. Among them were Charles Schwab, head of the largest independent steel company; Samuel Insull, president of the world’s largest utility; Howard Hopson, head of the largest gas company; Ivar Kreuger, president of International Match Co., one of the world’s largest companies at that time; Leon Frazier, president of the Bank of International Settlements; Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange; Arthur Cotton and Jesse Livermore, two of the biggest stock speculators; and Albert Fall, a member of President Harding’s cabinet. Twenty-five years later, nine of these titans ended their lives as follows: Schwab died penniless after living for five years on borrowed money. Insull died broke in a foreign land, and Kreuger and Cotton also died broke. Hopson went insane. Whitney and Albert Fall were released from prison, and Fraser and Livermore committed suicide.
I doubt if anyone can say what really happened to these men. If you look at the date, 1923, it was just before the 1929 market crash and the Great Depression, which I suspect had a great impact on these men and their lives. The point is this: Today we live in times of greater and faster change than these men did. I suspect there will be many booms and busts in the coming years that will parallel the ups and downs these men faced. I am concerned that too many people are too focused on money and not on their greatest wealth, their education. If people are prepared to be flexible, keep an open mind and learn, they will grow richer and richer despite tough changes. If they think money will solve problems, they will have a rough ride. Intelligence solves problems and produces money. Money without financial intelligence is money soon gone.
So when people ask, “Where do I get started?” or “Tell me how to
get rich quick,” they often are greatly disappointed with my answer.
I simply say to them what my rich dad said to me when I was a little
kid. “If you want to be rich, you need to be financially literate.”
That idea was drummed into my head every time we were together. As I said, my educated dad stressed the importance of reading books, while my rich dad stressed the need to master financial literacy.
Arsenio's ESL Podcast 
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