226 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing Again, this is the 90/10 riddle: mm The riddle is, "How do you create an asset in the asset col- umn without spending money to acquire it?" Robert's Note: My first big business was the nylon and Velcro surfer wallet business in 1977. It was created as a very big asset in the asset column. The problem was, the size of the asset created was big, but my business skills were small. So while I was techni- cally a millionaire in my twenties, I also lost it all in my twen- ties. I repeated the same process three years later in the rock and roll business. When MTV hit, our little company was in the perfect position to capitalize on the craze. Again, the asset created was bigger than the people that created it. We went up like a rocket ship and came down like a rocket ship with- out gas. The rest of this book is dedicated to creating big as- sets, having the professional'talent to match the size of the asset, and how to keep the money made by investing in other, often more stable, assets. As my rich dad said, "What good is making a lot of money if you don't keep it?" Investing is the way smart people keep their money. Phase Two What Type of Investor Do You Want to Become? Chapter 20 Solving the 90/10 Riddle My rich dad said, "There are investors who buy assets and there are investors who create assets. If you want to solve the 90/10 riddle for yourself, you need to be both types of investors." In the introduction, I told the story of rich dad, Mike and me walking along a beach looking at a very expensive piece of beach front real estate he had just purchased. You may recall me asking rich dad how he could afford such an expensive piece of real estate when my poor dad could not. Rich dad's reply was, "I can't afford this land either, but my business can." All I could see was a piece of land with old abandoned cars, a building half falling down, lots of brush and debris, and a large "For Sale" sign sticking up from the middle of the property. At the age of 12,1 could not see any business on this land, but my rich dad could. The business was being created in his head and that ability to create businesses in his head was the reason he would go on to be one of the richest men in Hawaii. In other words, rich dad solved his 90/10 riddle by creating assets that in turn purchased other assets. That plan was not only rich dad's investment plan, it is the investment plan for most of the 10% who make 90% of the money, in the past, in the present, and into the future. 230 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing For those of you who read Rich Dad Poor Dad, you may recall the story of Ray Kroc saying to my friend's MBA class that McDonald's, the company he founded, was not in the business of hamburgers. Their business was the business of real estate. Again the formula is to create an asset that buys other assets and that formula is the reason why McDonald's owns the most expensive real estate in the world.