Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Phase One
ARE YOU MENTALLY PREPARED TO
BE AN INVESTOR?

Chapter One
INVESTOR LESSON #1
WHAT SHOULD I INVEST IN?
In 1973, I returned home from my tour of Vietnam. I felt fortunate to have
been assigned to a base in Hawaii near home rather than to a base on the East
Coast. After settling in at the Marine Corps Air Station, I called my friend
Mike and we set up a time to have lunch together with his dad, the man I call
my rich dad. Mike was anxious to show me his new baby and his new home,
so we agreed to have lunch at his house the following Saturday. When Mike’s
limousine came to pick me up at the drab gray base BOQ (Bachelor Officers’
Quarters), I began to realize how much had changed since we had graduated
together from high school in 1965.
“Welcome home,” Mike said as I walked into the foyer of his beautiful
home with marble floors. Mike was beaming from ear to ear as he held his
seven-month-old son. “Glad you made it back in one piece.”
“So am I,” I replied as I looked past Mike at the shimmering blue Pacific
Ocean, which touched the white sand in front of his home. The home was
spectacular. It was a tropical one-level mansion with all the grace and charm
of old and new Hawaiian living. There were beautiful Persian carpets, tall
green potted plants, and a large pool that was surrounded on three sides by his
home, with the ocean on the fourth side. It was very open, breezy, and the
model of gracious island living, with the finest of detail. The home fit my
fantasies of living the luxurious life in Hawaii.
“Meet my son James,” said Mike.
“Oh,” I said in a startled voice. I had slipped into a trance taking in the
stunning beauty of this home. My jaw must have been hanging open. “What a
cute kid,” I replied, as any person should reply when looking at a new baby.
But as I stood there making faces at a baby blankly staring back at me, my
mind was still in shock at how much had changed in eight years. I was living
on a military base in old barracks, sharing a room with three other messy
beer-drinking young pilots, while Mike was living in a multimillion-dollar
estate with his gorgeous wife and newborn baby.
“Come on in,” Mike continued. “Dad and Connie are waiting for us on the
patio.”

Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki