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All they think about is cutting costs and raising prices, which cause more problems. Bean-counting is important. I wish more people knew it, but it, too, is not the whole picture,” added rich dad angrily. “So is there an answer?” asked Mike. “Yes,” said rich dad. “Learn to use your emotions to think, not think with your emotions. When you boys mastered your emotions by agreeing to work for free, I knew there was hope. When you again resisted your emotions when I tempted you with more money, you were again learning to think in spite of being emotionally charged. That’s the first step.” “Why is that step so important?” I asked. Rich Dad Poor Dad 37 “Well, that’s up to you to find out. If you want to learn, I’ll take you boys into the briar patch, a place almost everyone else avoids. If you go with me, you’ll let go of the idea of working for money and instead learn to have money work for you.” “And what will we get if we go with you. What if we agree to learn from you? What will we get?” I asked. “The same thing Brer Rabbit got,” said rich dad, referring to the classic children’s story. “Is there a briar patch?” I asked. “Yes,” said rich dad. “The briar patch is our fear and greed. Confronting fear, weaknesses, and neediness by choosing our own thoughts is the way out.” “Choosing our thoughts?” Mike asked, puzzled. “Yes. Choosing what we think rather than reacting to our emotions. Instead of just getting up and going to work because not having the money to pay your bills is scaring you, ask yourself, ‘Is working harder at this the best solution to this problem?’ Most people are too afraid to rationally think things through and instead run out the door to a job they hate. The Tar Baby is in control. That’s what I mean by choosing your thoughts.” “And how do we do that?” Mike asked. “That’s what I will teach you. I’ll teach you to have a choice of thoughts rather than a knee-jerk reaction, like gulping down your morning coffee and running out the door. “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. Chapter One: Lesson 1 38 “Oh, yes. I hear it all the time,” said rich dad. “I hear things like, ‘Well, everyone has to work.’ Or ‘The rich are crooks.’ Or ‘I’ll get another job. I deserve this raise. You can’t push me around.’ Or ‘I like this job because it’s secure.’ No one asks, ‘Is there something I’m missing here?’ which would break through the emotional thought and give you time to think clearly.” As we headed back to the store, rich dad explained that the rich really did “make money.” They did not work for it. He went on to explain that when Mike and I were casting five-cent pieces out of lead, thinking we were making money, we were very close to thinking the way the rich think. The problem was that creating money is legal for the government and banks to do, but illegal for us to do. There are legal ways to create money from nothing, he told us. Rich dad went on to explain that the rich know that money is an illusion, truly like the carrot for the donkey. It’s only out of fear and greed that the illusion of money is held together by billions of people who believe that money is real. It’s not. Money is really made up. It is only because of the illusion of confidence and the ignorance of the masses that this house of cards stands. He talked about the gold standard that America was on, and that each dollar bill was actually a silver certificate. What concerned him was the rumor that we would someday go off the gold standard and our dollars would no longer be backed by something tangible. “If that happens, boys, all hell will break loose. The poor, the middle class, and the ignorant will have their lives ruined simply because they will continue to believe that money is real and that the company they work for, or the government, will look after them.” We really did not understand what he was saying that day, but over the years, it made more and more sense. Seeing What Others Miss As he climbed into his pickup truck outside his convenience store, rich dad said, “Keep working boys, but the sooner you forget about needing a paycheck, the easier your adult life will be. Keep using your Rich Dad Poor Dad 39 brain, work for free, and soon your mind will show you ways of making money far beyond what I could ever pay you. You will see things that other people never see. Most people never see these opportunities because they’re looking for money and security, so that’s all they get. The moment you see one opportunity, you’ll see them for the rest of your life. The moment you do that, I’ll teach you something else. Learn this, and you’ll avoid one of life’s biggest traps. Mike and I picked up our things from the store and waved goodbye to Mrs. Martin. We went back to the park, to the same picnic bench, and spent several more hours thinking and talking. We spent the next week at school thinking and talking, too. For two more weeks, we kept thinking, talking, and working for free. At the end of the second Saturday, I was again saying goodbye to Mrs. Martin and looking at the comic-book stand with a longing gaze. The hard thing about not even getting 30 cents every Saturday was that I didn’t have any money to buy comic books. Suddenly, as Mrs. Martin said goodbye to Mike and me, I saw her do something I’d never seen her do before. Mrs. Martin was cutting the front page of the comic book in half. She kept the top half of the comic book cover and threw the rest of the book into a large cardboard box. When I asked her what she did with the comic books, she said, “I throw them away. I give the top half of the cover back to the comic-book distributor for credit when he brings in the new comics. He’s coming in an hour.” Mike and I waited for an hour. Soon the distributor arrived, and I asked him if we could have the comic books. To my delight, he said, “You can have them if you work for this store and do not resell them.” Remember our old business partnership? Well, Mike and I revived it. Using a spare room in Mike’s basement, we began piling hundreds of comic books in that room. Soon our comic-book library was open to the public. We hired Mike’s younger sister, who loved to study, to be head librarian. She charged each child 10 cents admission to the library, which was open from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day after school. The customers, the children of the neighborhood, could read as many