Lesson Three: Mind Your Own Business

- Most people work for everyone else but themselves. They work first for the owners of the company, then for the government through taxes, and finally for the bank that owns their mortgage.

- A problem with school is that you often become what you study. So if you study, say, cooking, you become a chef. If you study the law, you become an attorney, and a study of auto mechanics makes you a mechanic. The mistake in becoming what you study is that too many people forget to mind their own business. They spend their lives minding someone else's business and making that person rich.

- To become financially secure, a person needs to mind their own business. Your business revolves around your asset column, as opposed to your income column.

- In my world, real assets fall into several different categories:

1. Businesses that do not require my presence.
2. Stocks.
3. Bonds.
4. Mutual funds.
5. Income-generating real estate.
6. Notes (lOUs).
7. Royalties from intellectual property such as music, scripts, patents
8. And anything else that has value, produces income or appreciates and has a ready market.

- I would not encourage anyone to start a company unless they really want to. Knowing what I know about running a company, I would not wish that task on anyone. The odds are against
success: Nine out of 10 companies fail in five years. So only if you really have the desire to own your own company do I recommend it. Otherwise, keep your daytime job and mind your own business.

- An important distinction is that rich people buy luxuries last, while the poor and middle class tend to buy luxuries first. The poor and the middle class often buy luxury items such as big houses, diamonds, furs, jewelry or boats because they want to look rich.

- The old-money people, the long-term rich, built their asset column first. Then, the income generated from the asset column bought their luxuries.