" "What do you mean it doesn't have to be a new invention or technology? What else could it be?" I said, doing my best to make my point, "Do you remem- ber the story in my book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, the story of the comic books?" "Yes," said one of the students. "The story of your rich dad taking away your 10 cents an hour and asking you to work for free after you asked for a raise? He took away the 10 cents be- The 90/10 Riddle 219 cause he did not want you to spend your life working for money." "Yes, that story." I replied. "That is a story about filling the asset column with an asset without buying the asset." The students stood quietly for awhile thinking about what I had just said. Finally one spoke up and said, "So you took old comic books and turned them into assets." I nodded my head. "But were the comic books the asset?" I asked "Not until you turned them into an asset," replied another student. "You took something that was being thrown out as trash and turned it into an asset." "Yes but were the comic books the asset or were the comic books merely the part of the asset you could see?" "Oh," another one of the students jumped in. "It was the invisible thought process that created the comic book into the asset that was the real asset." "That is how my rich dad saw it. He later told me that the power he had was his thinking process. It was a thinking process that he often jokingly called, 'Turning trash into cash.' He also said, 'Most people do exactly the opposite and turn cash into trash. That is why the 90/10 rule holds true.'" "He was like the ancient alchemists," said one of the stu- dents. "The alchemists who searched for the formula to turn lead into gold." "Exactly," I said. "The people who are in the 90/10 group- ing of money are modern day alchemists. The only difference is that they are able to turn nothing into assets. Their power is the ability to take ideas and turn them into assets." "But as you say, many people have great ideas. They are just not able to turn them into assets," said a student. I nodded my head. "And that was my rich dad's secret power I saw that day on the beach. It was that mental power or financial intelligence that allowed him to acquire such an 220 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing expensive piece of real estate, while the average investor would walk away from it, saying 'I can't afford it,' or 'It takes money to make money.'" "How often did he give you the 90/10 quiz?" asked a stu- dent. "Very often," I replied. "It was his way of exercising my brain. Rich dad often said that our brains are our most pow- erful asset and, if used improperly, they can be our most pow- erful liability." The students were silent, I assume contemplating and questioning their own thoughts. Finally the original student, the student who's plan it was to put the $20,000 dollars a year away, said, "So that is why in your book Rick Dad Poor Dad, one of rich dad's lessons was that the rich invent their own money.