A Lesson from Robert Frost

                                              A Lesson from Robert Frost

I expressed myself. I noticed that my poor dad was poor, not because of the amount of money he earned, which was significant, but because of his thoughts and actions. As a young boy having two

    fathers, I became acutely aware of being careful about which thoughts I chose to adopt as my own. Should I listen to my rich dad or to my poor dad?Although both men had tremendous respect for education and learning, they disagreed about what they thought was important to learn. One wanted me to study hard, earn a degree, and get a good job to earn money. He wanted me to study to become a professional, an attorney or an accountant, and to go to business school for my MBA. The other encouraged me to study to be rich, to understand how money works, and to learn how to have it work for me. “I don’t work for money!” were words he would repeat over and over. “Money works for me!”

At the age of nine, I decided to listen to and learn from my rich dad about money. In doing so, I chose not to listen to my poor dad, even though he was the one with all the college degrees.A Lesson from Robert FrostRobert Frost is my favorite poet. Although I love many of his poems, my favorite is “The Road Not Taken.” I use its lesson almost daily.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads onto way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence;

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

And that has made all the difference.

Over the years, I have often reflected upon Robert Frost’s poem.Choosing not to listen to my highly educated dad’s advice and attitude about money was a painful decision, but it was a decision that shaped the rest of my life.Once I made up my mind about whom to listen to, my education about money began. My rich dad taught me over a period of 30 years until I was 39 years old. He stopped once he realized that I knew and fully understood what he had been trying to drum into my often-thick skull.

Money is one form of power. But what is more powerful is financial education. Money comes and goes, but if you have the education about how money works, you gain power over it and can begin building wealth. The reason positive thinking alone does not work is because most people went to school and never learned how money works, so they spend their lives working for money.

Because I was only nine years old when I started, the lessons my rich dad taught me were simple. And when it was all said and done, there were only six main lessons, repeated over 30 years. This book is about those six lessons, put as simply as possible, just as simply as my rich dad put forth those lessons to me. The lessons are meant not to be answers, but guideposts that will assist you and your children to grow wealthier no matter what happens in a world of increasing change and uncertainty.