Pouring a Foundation of Wealth

Returning to the dingy gray officers’ quarters on base that night was very
difficult. They had been fine when I left earlier that day, but after spending the
afternoon in Mike’s new home, the officers’ quarters seemed cheap, old, and tired.
As expected, my three roommates were drinking beer and watching a baseball
game on television. There were pizza boxes and beer cans everywhere. They did
not say much as I passed through the shared living area. They just stared at the TV
set. As I retired to my room and closed the door, I felt grateful that we all had
private rooms. I had much to think about.
At 25 years of age, I finally realized things that I could not understand as a kid
of 9, the age at which I first began working with rich dad. I realized that my rich
dad had been working hard for years pouring a solid foundation of wealth. They
had started on the poor side of town, living frugally, building businesses, buying
real estate, and working on their plan. I now understood that rich dad’s plan was to
become very wealthy. While Mike and I were in high school, rich dad had made
his move by expanding to different islands of the Hawaiian chain, buying
businesses and real estate. While Mike and I were in college, he made his big
move and became one of the major private investors in businesses in Honolulu and
parts of Waikiki. While I was flying for the Marine Corps in Vietnam, his
foundation of wealth was set in place. It was a strong and firm foundation. Now he
and his family were enjoying the fruits of their labor. Instead of living in the
poorest of neighborhoods on an outer island, they lived in one of the wealthiest
neighborhoods in Honolulu. They did not just look rich on the surface as many of
the people in that neighborhood did. I knew that Mike and his dad were rich
because they allowed me to review their audited financial statements. Not many
people were given that privilege.
My real dad, on the other hand, had just lost his job. He had been climbing the
ladder in the state government when he fell from grace from the political machine
that ran the State of Hawaii. My dad lost everything he had worked to achieve
when he ran against his boss for governor and lost. He had been blacklisted from
state government and was trying to start over. He had no foundation of wealth.
Although he was 52 and I was 25, we were in exactly the same financial position.
We had no money. We both had a college education and we could both get another
job, but when it came to real assets, we had nothing. That night, lying quietly on
my bunk, I knew I had a rare opportunity to choose a direction for my life. I say
rare because very few people have the luxury of comparing the life paths of two
fathers and then choosing the path that was right for them. It was a choice I did not
take lightly.